Overcast to the horizon?

[thefrog]

Wondering what X-plane 11 was like, I downloaded the demo and flew the Cessna 172 out of KSEA having configured my joystick, pedals, Trackir and dialled-in some bad weather using the very user-friendly configuration screens. What first struck me when I took-off was the weather depiction: I had overcast extending right to the horizon, with realistic haze, something I've never been able to do in FSX or P3D even with AS16! I always get a large circle of clouds around my aircraft with clear sky on the horizon. So my question coming from all this is: is it at all possible to get overcast cover like this in FSX/P3D?

[scotth6]

Hi,

I use REX for sky and cloud textures, and Opus FSX for weather. I find the best, most realistic weather is produced by using real world weather or some custom themes. The weather always seems to look better and more varied using these options rather than the FSX themes such as "Fair Weather", "Cold Fronts" etc.

Even though I use these programs though, it seems the FSX/P3D settings such as "Cloud Draw distance" and "Cloud Coverage Density" still have an effect.

I would suggest increasing these two settings to see denser clouds which are also drawn further away. It's also worth remembering that even IRL once you are at altitude it wouldn't be unusual to see the edge of a storm or group of clouds. Storms are not infinitely large.

With Opus FSX though I often get a blanket of cloud cover which looks brilliant. In really heavy weather you won't be able to see far in front of your aircraft anyway.

Cheers,

[spatialpro]

Increase your Cloud Draw Distance as far as performance will allow.

I also swear by OpusFSI. I can highly recommend it.

[Daube]

The cloud draw distance, in the FSX settings, is indeed the most important criteria here, as stated above.
If you see a circle of clouds around your aircraft, then it means you set the cloud draw distance to a low value, probably to save FPS.
That drawing distance has quite a huge impact on the FPS, especially if you use high resolution cloud textures.

From my side, I use only 512x512 cumulus cloud textures (from HDEv2), coupled with ASN. This looks good enough and the impact on the FPS and memory consumption are reduced. My cloud draw distance is set to more than the middle setting, if I remember correctly. The clouds are drawn quite far away, no circle effect.

[thefrog]

Thanks all for your replies - I'll experiment with these settings

[BendyFlyer]

FWIW even REX make it clear that if you want full cloud clover (horizon to horizon) then you have to change the cloud draw distance and cloud density but the hit on frames is significant and every tweak advice and that includes REX is to dial it down because it can bring your system to a halt. I have to say I have an intermediate cloud draw distance of only 60 nm (on the basis in real life nobody can see further than that) but I do have dense cloud textures, it seems ok until the big until you hit a scenery area with dense autogen etc when the whole graphics load issue with FSX always presents itself. When you understand the load graphic texture changes have on the PC and Video card (thousands of texture files changing instantly or being called and redrawn) there is no way this can be fixed in my humble opinion while it remains basically a 32 bit system.

[thefrog]

FWIW even REX make it clear that if you want full cloud clover (horizon to horizon) then you have to change the cloud draw distance and cloud density but the hit on frames is significant and every tweak advice and that includes REX is to dial it down because it can bring your system to a halt. I have to say I have an intermediate cloud draw distance of only 60 nm (on the basis in real life nobody can see further than that) but I do have dense cloud textures, it seems ok until the big until you hit a scenery area with dense autogen etc when the whole graphics load issue with FSX always presents itself. When you understand the load graphic texture changes have on the PC and Video card (thousands of texture files changing instantly or being called and redrawn) there is no way this can be fixed in my humble opinion while it remains basically a 32 bit system.

Maybe FSX/P3D being 32 bit has something to do with why it's so hard to achieve what 64 bit X-plane (and maybe the new Dovetail Flight Sim World?) can do in terms of graphics.

[Daube]

Another important fact, about the FPS impact: the type of antialiasing you selected in the NVidia Control Panel is critical.
FSX users running in DX10 mode may have selected the Sparse Grid Super Sampling, which is a kind of transparency antialiasing, and the only mode that actually gives a decent antialiasing in DX10 mode.
Unfortunately, the transparency AA will kill your FPS when clouds and smoke are on the screen. Even in clear weather, just the smoke effect from the starting engine can drop your FPS down to single digits at times, depending on what video card you use.

Users who enabled this kind of antialiasing should be very careful with the cloud draw distance. The FPS impact will be higher for them than for the users who disabled the transparency AA.
In my P3D, with 512x512 cumulus textures and disabled transparency AA, I can fly with overcast sky with smooth FPS. However, my AA quality is not that great. But it's an acceptable balance for me.

[Bjoern]

Another important fact, about the FPS impact: the type of antialiasing you selected in the NVidia Control Panel is critical.
FSX users running in DX10 mode may have selected the Sparse Grid Super Sampling, which is a kind of transparency antialiasing, and the only mode that actually gives a decent antialiasing in DX10 mode.
Unfortunately, the transparency AA will kill your FPS when clouds and smoke are on the screen. Even in clear weather, just the smoke effect from the starting engine can drop your FPS down to single digits at times, depending on what video card you use.

Out of the box DX10 does have massive problems with clouds, that's why Steve implemented an optional shader tweak that will esentially cut clouds out of the anti-aliasing loop and hide those that are not visible. With those settings engaged, the FPS drops are virtually gone or at least much less pronounced.
("Clouds" menu in the Fixer Control Panel.)