It seems to me that Asobo tried to simulate the atmosphere as good as they could do it. We have thermals, ridge lifts and downdrafts near clouds or in the mountains. But this "living" atmosphere is not connected to the visuals that we see, at least not in live weather. 

Why? If the atmosphere was connected to the visuals, it would mean that clouds (even in live weather) are simulated on each user's PC. But that's impossible, besides the tremendous computer ressources that are required to simulate the atmosphere in its entirety. Furthermore, everybody wanted to have realistic METAR depictions. That means that there is always a gap between simulated atmosphere and "painted atmosphere".

If you fly with live weather in Multiplayer, every user needs to see the same weather depiction. Imagine flying in a glider competition where every pilot needs to see the very same cumulus cloud with the specific form and size on exactly the same location and height. This can only be done when clouds are generated on the servers and sent to the players in realtime.

Or imagine one player is using live weather with a time shift... 

That's a complex thing. However, it needs to be improved. Even with those limitations, clouds could produce hail or turbulences. We could have proper icing and stuff like that.

Regarding X-Plane: Yes, weather and lighting seems to look better. But it depends - there are also situations where clouds look Minecraft-clouds. Overall, MSFS weather is not bad, but it still has room for optimization.

37 minutes ago, tttocs said:

First, is the contention that smaller/GA aircraft implies a more casual simmer and that's just not the case.  There are many predominantly GA folks here who are anything but casual about their simming - myself included - and many who fly tubes who do it in a very casual manner.  The serious = airliners, casual = GA binary simply doesn't exist.

And second, the contention that smaller/GA aircraft are experiencing bad weather realistically.  Oh, how I wish it were so!  Appropriate consequences in bad weather like realistic outcomes when flying in icing conditions and/or thunderstorm penetration don't exist for any of us.

You misunderstood me in the first point... my point there was that I find it unreasonable/silly that Asobo would intentionally go out of their way to tone down dangerous weather in order to cater to the "casual player" (as some seem to always suggest), regardless of GA or airliners.

And secondary to that, some of us *are* seeing storm clouds having impact on smaller/GA aircraft, more so than on larger aircraft (i.e. airliners). So given this, the theory that Asobo is intentionally toning down bad weather does not make sense.
 

Edited April 6Apr 6 by lwt1971

I think at one point the turbulence got toned down once again due to simmer complaints.

dd

2 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

And secondary to that, some of us *are* seeing storm clouds having impact on smaller/GA aircraft, more so than on larger aircraft (i.e. airliners). So given this, the theory that Asobo is intentionally toning down bad weather does not make sense.

I believe there is a difference if you are flying in live weather or if you are using a preset. In live weather (and I mean the default Asobo live weather and not Active Sky which seems to create presets based on METARs and other sources), storm clouds have no impact on your aircraft.

14 hours ago, jspilot said:

Live weather makes the sim come alive but trying to simulate and replicate every possible cloud formation is next to impossible from a visual standpoint.  The part of the weather system that still feels off is the wind.  At times a small amount of wind particularly from the side on landing can push the plane so much.  While I’ve never flown a 320 in real life, I’ve flown a 172 for over 600 real world hours.  Crosswinds are rough in a 172 but, to me, cross winds in a 320 feel like they have the same impact while landing as they do in the 172 and that just does not seem correct.  Maybe it is- but I do think the sim can improve on wind effect.

Lol “impossible” — they haven’t even tried compared to some other sim’s weather engines. 

1 hour ago, Holger0815 said:

In live weather, storm clouds have no impact on your aircraft.

Not in my experience. There is impact with live weather storms, but as I mentioned before, only when using smaller aircraft.

Edited April 7Apr 7 by Tuskin38

Had an issue for a 2nd time again with temperature being higher than it should be on the ground at least 10 degrees difference.

9 hours ago, Holger0815 said:

Furthermore, everybody wanted to have realistic METAR depictions

Sorry no not "everybody", as said before the VATSim crowd were harvesting votes to bunk up the requirement for it's inclusion but not everybody wanted this feature. But what happened was a very "beta" feature that was added directly to the Sim without any public beta testing - as also said before - which resulted in a very poor feature from the moment it was released to today where again - as stated before - we still have bugs from it. 

For the most part I agree with your posts, just not that bit 🙂

7 hours ago, Holger0815 said:

I believe there is a difference if you are flying in live weather or if you are using a preset. In live weather (and I mean the default Asobo live weather and not Active Sky which seems to create presets based on METARs and other sources), storm clouds have no impact on your aircraft.

Yes some people still struggle to understand the difference between a preset and live weather, I fly in a preset and the thunderstorms affect the aircraft much more so than in live weather. It's always been this way and it's always been an area that's required improvement, I literally only ever fly live weather (aside the very few times just to check out presets for fun) and it's very very clear that thunderstorms are still largely lacking.....I still see lightning in clear skies for example...!

Yes, that may happen sometimes. I recently saw a lightning coming out of a very flat stratus cloud. 

Besides that - the debate about a proper simulation of the atmosphere is a tough one. Because everybody has his/her own opinion about how weather should to feel "realistic". It is even more complex than the question "does the flight model of any aircraft match the real world counterpart?". That's because everybody has different anticipations about how the atmosphere should feel right.

I have flown for many years IRL. Even today I am surprised about weather (or let's say the dynamic atmosphere). There are days where you have clear skies and calm winds and it is still early in the morning. And yet there are turbulences just 300ft aloft - because there is a windshift of maybe 90° causing vorticity. In real life you would say "oh, I did not expect that", continue your flight and see that it gets calm again a few moments later.

In a simulator, people start a thread in a public forum stating that turbulences are completely unrealistic, because "you can't have turbulence on a calm morning". And this thread is read by thousands of people and many of them would agree with the topic starter. So, as a company in a competitve market, you would tune your weather simulation to a point that pleases the customers - but this may have nothing to do with reality.   

11 hours ago, Holger0815 said:

I believe there is a difference if you are flying in live weather or if you are using a preset. In live weather (and I mean the default Asobo live weather and not Active Sky which seems to create presets based on METARs and other sources), storm clouds have no impact on your aircraft.

Yes there are differences between live weather and manual/preset obviously, everyone knows that... what some of us are saying is that when using default live weather (and for me with no other weather/atmospheric related add-ons), some aircraft (i.e. lighter/smaller ones) do get impacted when flying thru storm clouds and dangerous weather. Not sure if this is a base sim bug or forced behaviour in that why then not larger aircraft also get impacted?, or if it comes down to aircraft model/FM/sim config, etc.

What is your global MSFS turbulence level set to? FWIW I have mine set at "medium" and sometimes use "realistic", I know Fenix recommends "low" for their aircraft (and also iniBuilds I believe for their aircraft as they feel that's best for FMs using CFD), so might need to set to different levels depending on aircraft. @Tuskin38 what about you?

Also FWIW, came across this https://flightsimulator.blog/microsoft-flight-simulator-live-weather/ which I haven't seen before explaining more about Meteoblue and METAR in MSFS, not sure if it's an old article updated to mention MSFS 2024 or if it's the latest info from a knowledgeable source.
 

Edited April 7Apr 7 by lwt1971

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

What is your global MSFS turbulence level set to?

I have set mine to "realistic" and I have never experienced problems with Fenix, iniBuilds and any other aircraft addons.

Regarding the impact of live weather on small aircraft: I will give it a try. And thank you for the link to the MS Blog. It's a good read and describes very well how METARs are embedded in the synoptic modell. Maybe there are differences in live weather behaviour between areas with a great METAR coverage and those without. I have no idea how big the "METAR calculated window" actually is. Since METAR does not provide an information about vertical winds, aka turbulences, this might be an explaination why some people have different experiences. 

I mostly fly in Central Europe. We have airports (and METARs) every here and there. Sames goes to the US, of course...

20 hours ago, Baber20 said:

minecraft looking clouds.

Eh?  Minecraft clouds were sorted ages ago.

I set turbulence to realistic for a 38 knot crosswind into KJAC and it was a handful in the HJET but I hit the numbers.  Will go forward with medium turbulence.

dd

Edited April 7Apr 7 by Sky_Pilot071