fkane

If you set RWC to "Always", it will ignore what FSGRW is telling it about the clouds and instead use METAR data downloaded directly from NOAA. As for why you're getting disconnects from FSGRW - that I don't know. RWC only interacts with FSGRW through the METAR.rwx files it writes. Make sure you're using the latest versions of FSGRW and SMP as a starting point (SMP is at 3.2)

It should be in automatic with FSGRW - that is the one exception.

If you're using an external weather injector, make sure RWC is set to "always" to ensure it's active. You'll also want to make sure the checkbox to never change the weather around you is on. If RWC is installed and working properly, and you're using real-world weather, you should never see popping or re-drawing unless you manually change settings. My guess based on your description is that you are in an area of reduced atmospheric visibility, and so you can't see the more distant clouds. Try flying higher and they may appear. We'd be happy to help you in more depth over on the SMP support forum. We'll need some details like your log.txt, metar.rwx, and where you were flying.

My initial reaction to strapping an Oculus Rift DK2 to my face was "Really? This is what everyone's all hyped up about?" The resolution today is distractingly bad, the UI challenges are still being solved, sim-sickness is still a problem, and the hardware is clunky and uncomfortable. We've had as-good or better VR technology for decades; the only breakthrough here is the cost as we now have cheap phone displays that can be used. There are ridiculous amounts of money being spent on solving all of those problems though, so in the long term, things may change. But we're not there yet.

Glad you're having fun with it! Great to see.

Under the hood, RWC + SMP can represent up to 6 layers per "column", and each "column" covers 20km x 20km. So let's say you have your cloud draw area set to 10000 square km; that works out to - let's see - up to 150 individual cloud layers in the scene.

In X-Plane 10.50, default weather will have worldwide winds aloft (and RWC won't interfere with it). See http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/03/x-plane-10-50/#comment-12686

RWC works by extracting detailed weather information from X-Plane's metar.rwx file. So X-Plane's built-in real weather, or FSGRW (which uses the metar.rwx file to communicate weather conditions to X-Plane) work well with it. All other weather injectors I know of currently send weather information to X-Plane using datarefs, which limits them to just 3 cloud layers that cover the entire world at any given time. They don't send the detailed weather data we need. As a workaround, you can configure RWC to always use the most recently downloaded metar.rwx from X-Plane's built-in real world weather, and use that for positioning clouds. That way, you get the detail of METAR data for the clouds in your scene, but can still use these external injectors for things like winds, precipitation, turbulence, etc. Short story: RWC works out of the box with built-in real world weather, FSGRW, or any future weather add-ons that interface with X-Plane using METAR data. And you can get it to play nice with other add-ons that take over X-Plane's weather with a couple of extra steps.

Glad you're enjoying SkyMaxx Pro 3.1! I should point out that you won't want to use the NOAA plugin in its current form with Real Weather Connector (RWC) once it's out. NOAA works by distilling the surrounding weather into three cloud layers that surround the plane, using X-Plane's datarefs. Real Weather Connector however uses X-Plane's METAR.rwx file to position different cloud fronts and systems where they should be, meaning you can have different weather visible in different places around the plane. So NOAA really negates the benefit of RWC by how it handles the clouds; it removes the information RWC needs. Furthermore, RWC requires "real world weather" to be active in X-Plane, and NOAA disables that option from what I've seen. So - with RWC, you'll probably be better off without the NOAA plugin - at least until the author can adapt it to work better with RWC. I think the same is true for EFASS's weather injection. If you're really fond of the NOAA plugin, so as much as I hate to say it - RWC might not be a good purchase for you. With RWC, you'll get the best results just using X-Plane's built-in real world weather feature. It also works with weather add-ons that communicate with X-Plane using the METAR.rwx file, such FS Global Real Weather (FSGRW).

Speaking toward the limitations of METAR in Europe - keep in mind METAR is just an interface X-Plane uses for weather information. Weather engines like FSGRW write their own METAR strings that are fed to X-Plane, which presumably use a wider array of weather data sources in their construction. In that case, Real Weather Connector will happily use these enhanced METAR files and not just the ones that come directly from individual reports. So, we're not really tying ourselves to actual METAR data; METAR is just the format we read.

I do want to make it clear that Laminar most certainly does work with plugin developers and they are really helpful. Their API for plugins is actually much more powerful than what the other big flight sims offer in many respects; building SkyMaxx Pro (a complete cloud engine replacement) for FSX would be just plain impossible. If there are more "cool plugins" available on the other sims, it's more about those markets being larger and able to support larger development teams for add-ons. It's a business limitation, not a technical one. But times are changin' as more people discover X-Plane.

SkyMaxx Pro gets information about local weather conditions through the datarefs that X-Plane exposes to plugins. That information only includes the conditions at the current location. We do the best we can with the data given to us; the METAR data is not exposed to us. So, all we can do is fade in new cloud conditions around the plane once you've flown into them. We might find some creative work-around for this limitation in future releases of SMP, but for now that's just how things work in X-Plane I'm afraid.

I would need to see the rest of your log in order to understand what is happening there. The first thing I'd look for is an out-of-date SASL plugin being loaded, or an out-of-date XFMC plugin. Either is known to potentially corrupt memory in ways that can lead to SkyMaxx Pro crashing. In short, if this just started happening after you started using a different aircraft, that aircraft would be my prime suspect.

Did your log say the crash was due to SilverLining (SkyMaxx Pro's plugin name)? If not, or you don't know, I suspect what really happened is that you turned up the cloud draw distance and/or detail settings, which demanded extra memory from your system. Then you probably flew into some custom scenery that caused X-Plane to run out of resources and crash. At least, that's the case with almost every customer who claims Skymaxx Pro crashes or leaks memory once we dig into it. We've tested it extensively and it's been used extensively by thousands of happy customers, so I'm confident in saying it's one of the most stable pieces of software you'll encounter. We've seen precisely one case where X-Plane attributed a crash to SilverLining, and that turned out to be due to an old SASL version that was corrupting memory - not a bug in Skymaxx Pro. If you do have a log attributing a crash to SilverLining, we definitely want to see it so we can investigate what happened. Sorry to be a stickler here, but unfounded claims that SkyMaxx Pro is somehow unstable can hurt sales, and it's how I earn a living!

SkyMaxx Pro just logs memory usage periodically. The fact those messages are in the log does not mean it had anything to do with the crash. If Skymaxx Pro did cause a crash, the log would say something about the crash happening in the plugin "SilverLining". Yours doesn't, however - it seems the crash was within X-Plane itself. It is saying that you're running low on video memory. I'd guess you flew into some custom scenery or something that ate up all of your video card's resources.

From what I've gathered, there are two possible causes of "stutter". One is a network-related issues that FSGRW is said to be releasing a fix for soon. The other is if you're using SkyMaxx Pro and have turned up the cloud draw distance or detail settings; this will force SMP to create more cloud puffs when weather conditions change, and if the number of puffs gets too high, it can result in a noticeable stutter when new conditions come in. The solution is to just turn these settings down until you reach a good compromise for your system.

When water reflections are on, X-Plane needs to draw the scene a second time in order to create those reflections! The render settings offer several reflection quality settings so you can choose just how detailed that reflection is, but yeah, it's an expensive effect no matter how you slice it. Shadows are a similar story. Again X-Plane at least gives you a lot of control so you can choose wisely the objects you care about WRT shadows.

Well, I disagree. If I have cumulus clouds in the scene and turn up the cloud draw distance all the way up, and hit apply, I can clearly see VRAM getting consumed. Our clouds exist outside of X-Plane's internal caches, and if there isn't enough free VRAM on the card, that will pose a performance problem. I do agree that how video cards manage memory is very complicated though, and there's more to the story than a single number. But I would still maintain that if the number we're showing gets too close to zero, you have a real problem.

Maybe we're talking about different caches. What I'm saying is that there are plenty of things outside of X-Plane's internal cache for scenery that also need memory resources. But whatever. I doubt people want to read us bickering over technical minutia.

Only if you assume that this cache is the only thing demanding memory at runtime, which it isn't. If caches are consuming all available memory, then any new memory allocation request that comes in still has to swap something out to disk (or slower memory).

On a 2GB video card? Well, there's your problem. Heck, even 16GB of system RAM is barely enough with all of that hi-res scenery. It's not a memory leak (I spent the whole morning confirming Skymaxx Pro does not leak memory). I promise you it's the scenery that's consuming the vast majority of your memory, not SkyMaxx Pro. You're going to have to make some compromises on what you have installed - even a 64-bit flight sim with 16GB of system memory has its limits.

Ses, your cloud draw distance AND cloud detail are cranked all the way up. The more cumulus clouds you ask SMP to create, the longer it takes to create them when conditions change. And the higher the detail, the longer a given cloud takes to build. Making matters worse, your config screen is showing that you have almost no video memory left to work with, which will slow things down even further. You're going to have to turn down the distance and/or detail if you want to have shorter delays when the clouds need to be regenerated.

Heh! We would if we could. X-Plane's SDK is more open than the other big flight sims, but it's not quite open enough for us to pull that off. Our water would only be in X-Plane if Laminar were to license the tech and integrate it themselves.

Try the "broken stratiform" setting - I think that will give you what you want.

Have to say I'm confused. You're comparing cumulus clouds viewed from low altitude in version 2 to cumulus clouds viewed from high altitude in version 3. In version 2, you wouldn't see clouds rendered out that far to begin with at higher altitudes - but if that bothers you for some reason (or if it affects performance), you can still turn down the cloud draw distance, and at least keep the other benefits of the new version. Nothing changed between version 2 and 3 regarding the shapes or "formations" of cumulus clouds; we just introduced the ability to draw more of them farther out and they're lit a bit better. The big new feature in SMP 3 is the new stratus and overcast clouds, but I don't think you even gave those a look. Still, if you're happy with version 2, you're certainly free to stick with it.