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It might be good to note that almost 2/3rds of the survey respondents are Navigraph subscribers. I'm guessing that this is an unrepresentative group of flight simmers in general. Also virtually none run flight sim on a Xbox. So these results are interesting, but might very well not represent the views of a "typical" flight sim participant. With regard to the previous post concerning IFR chart format preference, the respondents are largely Navigraph customers already.

And there's the question. To what extent does the weather depiction have to be baked into this enormously complex Earth simulator in order to achieve the spectacular atmospheric "scenery" that we all want. Given the apparent challenges that Asobo has faced in bringing to the community its METAR-based weather, do we want them to give us TWO methods that might or might not work on a given day? BTW, one thing that also needs to be noted is that weather depiction is not just a matter of 3D physics, but rather 4D time-dependent processes. Even the best global weather models are run at lengthy intervals, and only a few times per day. So now one has the problem of somehow interpolating between the model predictions going forward and the present weather as represented in the METARs. Good luck with all that.

Check https://windy.app/blog/what-is-a-weather-forecast-model-guide-on-forecast-models-all-around-the-world.html for a nice review. This is exactly what MSFS did when it first came out, but the flight sim community objected vehemently to the use of models to portray weather, with the result being that a METAR-based system was deployed. Currently Asobo is wrestling with the complications that this entails.

Creating a global 3D physics model of the atmosphere with sufficient resolution to account for thunderheads, etc., is a worthy goal, but I'm going to venture the guess that all of the supercomputers on earth working this problem wouldn't be adequate to the task. I would be happy to learn of such global models, however, but for now wouldn't recommend holding our collective breath. Best wishes for a safe and successful 2022/

That would be interesting, but how would the sim know where to actually display those clouds or manifest those winds? Do we know of any weather product that displays real-time cloud types and vertical winds speeds? Asobo created a problem with random lightning, so I'm assuming that we don't want to go back in that direction. Actually I believe that there may be real world lightning "maps", so maybe that's relatively easy to do......

I'm a bit confused by this discussion. Does Prosim have an MSFS product that I haven't heard about? Is the Prosim AP response tuned to the MSFS flight model? If not, is this an MSFS problem or one that's due to Prosim? Has the OP tried flying a CJ4 across a similar route under similar weather conditions, for example? Also, I recall being told that in the event of significant turbulence IRL, it would be best not to try to maintain a constant altitude and course, but rather to maintain wings level and a constant pitch angle. This might well not be the case for a commercial airliner, however, but in smaller aircraft, it does obviate the need for constant trim adjustments, etc.

I tried pricing out an incremental upgrade to an 11th gen CPU, with an mITX MB, 32 GB of memory, and m.2 NVMe without the GPU for the present. I was already over $1K for those items alone. Yoicks!

Totally agree, Rob, and so would my wife. The performance of MSFS on relatively modest equipment is simply amazing compared to previous sims. My current system is totally adequate for the aircraft that are presently available, at least so far as an HD 24 inch monitor is concerned. I was thinking of eventually stepping up to something larger at 2K or even 4K, and that was what I was planning for.

That's what I spent five years ago building a system based on a 7th generation Intel CPU, but without a graphics card (I brought a GTX 970 over from a previous system). I just priced out what it would cost to purchase a new system based on an 11th gen CPU and the GTX 3070. It was about twice the number stated above. That XBOX would look awfully good to me if I were just starting out in the hobby. Bravo to Microsoft for figuring out a way to encourage new people to join the flight sim community. Speaking of spending a lot of money, best wishes to everyone for the best of holidays and a safe and successful 2022.

Not unless MSFS releases a B738 model like Laminar Research did in XP. Similarly, the MSFS A320 led to FBW's effort. Starting from scratch would be truly daunting, not as if the Zibo and FBW programs aren't impressive enough.

How are you defining "community developers" here? My understanding (perhaps erroneous) is that WT has signed on basically as a subcontractor like Blackshark.ai. Once people start making changes to the sim core (loosely defined to include default airports), I'm guessing that the usual freeware arrangements wouldn't suffice. Deadlines need to be met, policies defined and followed, etc. BTW, I think the default assets/airports in MSFS are fine for their purpose. It's not such a big deal for me that they don't look customized, but I'm much more interested in accurate taxiway depictions, lighting installations, etc. Others no doubt feel differently. I agree that initially I thought that the gateway concept wouldn't work in XP, but I was wrong. It does.

Just to refer once again to the X-Plane experience with its scenery gateway, curation is done by individuals who are employed by LR, not by users. The latter are invited to request airport updates, point out errors, etc., and the volunteer scenery artists can then respond. As far as I know, all gateway airports must be produced with the XP WorldEditor software, and must use the default scenery assets. While this is limiting in some regards, it does make tractable the job of curation and validation. As noted previously, freeware and payware airports are still supported, and those scenery developers can use whatever tools and assets they want/need.

Brilliant!

For those interested in how this works, the following link might help https://gateway.x-plane.com/ As of this moment. over 3,000 artists have submitted almost 40,000 airport revisions to the gateway. IMO, this has worked much better than I had ever imagined it might. The revisions are all curated for validity by Laminar Research and included in the next sim update automatically once approved. Users can also use the gateway to log errors in existing airports. In my experience, minor errors can be corrected in a matter of weeks and then downloaded/deployed much as MSFS does in its Community folder until the next simulator update. Overall, it has been an amazingly successful experiment. And yes, independent scenery artists still create freeware and payware airports using custom assets. Yeah, it's kind of surprising, but there we are.

You are surely correct; there is a way on the real GTN750. Have a look at the Garmin manual https://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/190-01007-03_0B_web.pdf and search for vectors-to-final. As suggested above, there should be such a selection associated with each approach that then displays an extension of the final approach course. Once vectors to final is activated on the procedures menu, you can fly toward that course, and the AP should capture that course. Apparently this is not yet implemented in the MSFS add-on. If you want to see how it works, I believe it does so in the latest G1000 Nxi. Cheers.

Just to be clear about the Mt. Washington weather station, it's at the top of the mountain, over 6,200 MSL. It's reachable by the Mt. Washington Auto Road or by a cog railway. It's the highest point in the northeastern United States. KHIE is in Whitefield, NH, around 1,100 MSL, even though it's close by. The Wikipedia entry for the mountain includes the phrase: Indeed. I heard once that one reason for the wild winds during the winter is the proximity of the polar jet stream, which occasionally develops a vertical "kink" that dips low enough to impact the top of the mountain. That might explain those 200+ mph peak wind speeds which have been recorded up there. Unfortunately, the MSFS mesh isn't particularly good in the Presidential Range or Mount Washington Valley to its south, so many interesting topographical features look like mild hills. Maybe one day these will be spruced up a bit, and we'll be able to see the ledges that rise vertically from the valley's floor. The flight sim representation is much improved in X Plane by the use of the HD mesh that is available for the eastern US, so it can be done.

I'm fairly sure that this is on the "Fixed" list for the hotfix that is currently in open beta.

I sometimes wonder if the majority of stuttering problems is due to endless tweaking of the sim, NCP, RivaTuner, various config files, etc. I have a 2018 i7-7700K build, GTX 1080, operate a small HD display, and use the internal vsync at 30 fps. Every once in a while, usually on final approach, but sometimes just when taxiing, I'll see a stutter, but usually not. I just set the graphics on HIGH, and touch nothing else. Everyone's mileage seems to vary, however, so I doubt there's a recipe for success hidden from our eyes. MSFS is an exceptionally complex software system that seems to depend heavily on a good internet connection to the regional server. If people are having trouble, it might be a good idea to start from scratch with a non-"optimized" system and see how it goes. From what I read on this forum, I have to admit that as tempted as I am to upgrade my graphics to a beautiful 4K display, I'm surely not going to try it anytime soon. Happily the outrageous price of advanced GPU cards fully supports my instinct here. Happy holidays everyone.

These differences may be the result of where these aircraft families lie within the larger context of multiple platforms, etc. Fenix is designing specifically for MSFS, while PMDG probably wants to maintain as much code as possible in common with its P3D add-ons. To do otherwise would create all sorts of problems down the road. Those developers who are "all-in" on MSFS have an advantage here. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma for further explanation of the challenge faced by established firms competing with upstarts.

But hasn't this always been true for desktop flight simulation? We have airline pilots preparing for simulator check rides and we have nine-year-olds who are as crazy about flying as so many of us were uncountable decades ago. MSFS has created a broad-based platform that doesn't throw up a barrier to entry in the form of thousands of dollars (2021 value) in build-it-yourself hardware, endless configuration files, add-ons galore, etc. Kudos to all concerned. Endless speculation about the configuration of the SDK and the implementation of the weather engine seems fruitless, since none of us has a clue as to the internals of this incredibly complex product. And I wouldn't be surprised that those few who actually do have access to this kind of detailed information are laughing themselves silly reading so much of what's posted.

I tried this yesterday and saw the same thing .So I flew the approach as a "dive and drive" to the MDA of the LNAV approach and by then the diamond showed up again. Something not quite right here. BTW, I did not use VNAV for the descent to the FAF, but rather flew the approach using FLC from the IAF. I activated the approach using APP a mile or two before the FAF. There may still be something strange going on, at least for some approaches.

This^ And if an add-on does require manual editing of config files, it might be.a good idea to give it a pass until the developer can figure out how to do its installation safely.

And if not, they will be replaced by different 3PDs who are just a little bit smarter. Darwin rules! I can't believe this topic is still being discussed. How many new 3PDs have popped up in the last 12 months announcing that they are dropping everything and creating new add-ons for P3D or XP, and how does that compare to new and existing 3PDs who announced products for MSFS? Happy holidays everyone.

You might want to go into the content manager and check to see if you have the latest version of the G1000NXi. The previous version had precisely the malfunction that you described in the original post. You should be in version 0.9.2 Hope this helps.

BTW, it's easy to get FlightAware to find all of the current A320 flights in the world and sort them in order of flight time: https://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype/A320?;offset=0;order=filed_ete;sort=ASC At least 20 of them have estimated flight times of under 40 minutes and arguably any of these could be flown at a cruise altitude of FL250 or less. In some places, even longer flights are altitude limited in order to avoid conflicts with crossing flights at higher altitudes. See, for example https://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/nfdc_preferred_routes_database.jsp and type JFK and BOS into the relevant fields. These short flights are very demanding of good technique because so much is going on in a short time. Anyway, good news that things are back on track.