Real World Weather Engines

[Cazzie]

Okay REX has the most beautiful clouds and environment, but is pitiful slow in loading WX textures and weather. Active Sky 6.5 has a good interface and loads WX weather fast. But Jepperson is built-in and IMHO,, make that without doubt, is the most accurate for real-world weather.

I just did a test when it was snowing liker bejesus here with all three weather engines; REX, AS 6.5, and Jepperson. REX gives me partly cloudy skies and no snow on the ground, ditto AS 6.5. But Jepperson hit the nail on the head, even having the "almost" proper snow boundaries.

So for me. it is Jepperson for real-world weather, fast and uncomplicated in loading and right most of the time. REX and AS 6.5, your textures are wonderful, but there is a big need for improvement in presenting actual WX conditions.

Caz

[OBIO]

I use FSMetars for real time weather. It's fast, checks the net for updated metars every minute, updates the sim every 15 seconds, and has no impact on frame rates. I have compared FSMetars's accuracy against Jeppsen's accuracy for local weather...and FSMetars wins hands down.

OBIO

[Cazzie]

I use FSMetars for real time weather. It's fast, checks the net for updated metars every minute, updates the sim every 15 seconds, and has no impact on frame rates. I have compared FSMetars's accuracy against Jeppsen's accuracy for local weather...and FSMetars wins hands down.

OBIO

Will check that out, I know of the three I have, Jepperson is the most accurate.

Caz

Edit: I have the latest copy of FSUIPC and it is not registered. FSMetar says that transition is not smooth unless I have a registered copy of the latest FSUIPC. Money's tight, I'll stay with Jepperson.

Caz

[MaddogK]

I'm partial to ActiveSky as I can pull up a report without using any external utility, but AS can be brutal in it's depiction sometimes.

[srgalahad]

Interesting observations Cazzie.
Over in the Multiplayer Forum we've been discussing the same thing - partly because differences in the displayed weather for various pilots can strongly affect conditions you encounter ( esp. in something like the RTWR).
Non-scientific testing shows some of those same differences between add-ons, as well as the fact that, in spite of all "downloading Real World Wx" the add-ons can them be told (somewhat) how to modify what they display and what sources they use to collect the data.

While, as you say, the visuals are delicious the accuracy seems to be "flexible". All this seems to be made more complicated or questionable depending on where you are in the world as the add-ons seem to have their own minds about how to translate conditions into those same visuals depending on region.

I'd love to hear from anyone with empirical data about how the various engines work and how they interpret/display weather conditions (particularly in a comparison).

Rob

[OBIO]

I use the 3.9 version of FSUIPC...unregistered. There are times I get some pretty sudden weather transitions when flying from one reporting zone to another....if airport A is reporting rain and airport B is reporting sunny skies...as I cross the border from Zone A to Zone B, the weather will make a sudden and drastic change. A bit unrealistic...but given the fact that the entire set up cost me nothing more than a few seconds of download time, I'm not going to complain one bit.

OBIO

[Wing_Z]

For the reasons mentioned above, I've never had any other weather generator than the stock Jeppesen.
I mean, I could not care less if the met data is a little coarse, if it overall reflects what goes on in the real world.
I love looking out the window when the weather is "interesting" and dialing up a local flight which reflects those conditions.
Jeppesen rarely misses.

Something I've taken to doing lately, is to start GE Pro first, get the METARS, load the appropriate textures, and then go fly RW weather.
Quite immersive.

[fliger747]

How do all of these handle the wind gradations in the jetstream. Stock weather has sometimes displayed instant 180 deg 100 knot plus windshifts which has palyed havoc with long range flights across the Pacific, resulting in extreme overspeed and aircraft destruction.

T.

[Wing_Z]

Haven't seen that - here's what I use, updates and gradual dynamic change.

[srgalahad]

From what I can determine, the engine will make transitions at set distances from reporting stations. When no new station exists it seems to hold the last-known with no smoothing or variance until it finally gets in range of a new station ( hence the jumps over barren airspace) and then says "OOPS! Look at THIS!!"
It would be nice to see documentation from the add-on builder that explains how they handle transitions and interpolations ( if any of them do) which may effect what we see enroute - esp. winds and baro. pressure.

To me, what's more annoying is that two pilots (multiplayer or not) going into the same airport at the same time may see vast differences in the conditions with different Wx programs. If that is something that can be user-modified I'd like to know. Esp. in something like the RTWR it can, obviously, produce unequal and possibly unfair conditions.

Rob

[Tako_Kichi]

To me, what's more annoying is that two pilots (multiplayer or not) going into the same airport at the same time may see vast differences in the conditions with different Wx programs. If that is something that can be user-modified I'd like to know. Esp. in something like the RTWR it can, obviously, produce unequal and possibly unfair conditions.

I understand what you are saying Rob but the flip side of the coin is when both parties are using the same weather engine. I have been amazed a few times when my buddy and I have been flying online together and both using REX2. One of us will say something like 'Can you see that cloud hugging the mountain?' or 'Can you see that cloud filled valley at 2 o'clock?' and the other party can see exactly the same thing on his computer. Admittedly we are both running the EXACT same settings and texture options in REX2 but it's still uncanny when both systems are showing the same weather/clouds.

[JSkorna]

Hi All,

ASA does use interpolation between stations and there is smoothing between stations for weather conditions.

Thanks,

[Naismith]

I have found the FSMEtar freeby give the most accurate Wx when downloading from VAtsim. I have the HiFi one for FS9 and Rex in FSX and neither of them produce anywhere near accurate local real time Wx whereas I have always found the freeby does. Uncanny.

[aeromed202]

I just wanted to jump in here and ask for some help installing FSMetars. OBIO recommended it on another post a long time ago but I could not divine how to get it to work. Is there a trick? The stock Jepp seems to work OK but I am all about realistic detail where my rig can stomach it.

[OBIO]

aeromed

Installing FSMetars is as easy as falling out of a rolling laundry basket..which I have actually done! Download, unzip the folder someplace (I have a folder set up to stick all of my Sim Utilities into), then make a desktop shortcut to the FSMetar.exe. Make sure you have FSUIPC installed in the MODULES folder of your sim. Fire up FSMetars, fire up your sim. Select your airport, plane, yada yada. FSMetars will read the position of your aircraft in the sim, download the weather metar from the closest reporting airport, and the sim will depict the weather. FSMetars will follow your aircraft's postion as you fly along and will pull Metars from the closest airport with weather reporting. I have my FSMetars set up to refresh the metars once a minute and to update the sim every 15 seconds. I use VAtsim metars...though I have no idea what the difference is between the types/sites.

I have FSMetar 1.54 and FSUIPC 3.90 (unregistered). Works fine for FS2004 and CFS2 (though I use an older version of FSUIPC for CFS2).

OBIO

[MaddogK]

AS will also pull VATsim metars (or so says the config menu)

[bull494]

I installed FSMetars on my sim just 3 weeks ago and must say that I really like it. One of the things I really find handy about it is that I can enter an airport code while enroute to my destination and get the latest weather report.

James

[aeromed202]

Thanks Obio I'll try it tomorrow. Not the rolling thing..

[WND]

Hello Everyone:

For all the years I've flown FS, I've always used the default weather engine and for the most part it hasn't been too bad. There are a few things that I don't like because it wouldn't accurately depict it but for the most part it was ok.

I fly a lot with a friend of mine who use's AS and we find quite a bit of the time the weather depictions to be different and on occasion he'll swap over to FSX weather and we'll end up being relatively close..

Based on all the comments in this thread, I downloaded FSMetars this past weekend and I must say I was impressed!!! Test flew with it in known bad weather conditions (snow storms in the Northeast) and it was pretty much on the money!!!

One thing that really impressed me versus the default was when I climbed out and got "on top", I actually could not see the ground at that point which is something that has always irritated me with the default system..

I also like the fact that as your flying along from one point to the next, if you pass over a reporting station, if gives you the current weather!!!

To all those who haven't tried FSMetars yet - especially since it's freeware - give it a try - if you don't like the results you can always delete it!! As for me, I like what I see so far!!!

Bill

[TomSteber]

To all those who haven't tried FSMetars yet - especially since it's freeware - give it a try - if you don't like the results you can always delete it!! As for me, I like what I see so far!!!

Bill

Where might one find it? I did a quick search at Flightsim and Avsim and got nothing.

[srgalahad]

Where might one find it? I did a quick search at Flightsim and Avsim and got nothing.

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/fsmetar/

Having said that, it's not going well for me. Not the program's fault that Vista doesn't have the required files :isadizzy:
Maybe after the holiday insanity works it's way out of my life I'll get back at it.

Rob

[Dangerousdave26]

http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/fsmetar/

Having said that, it's not going well for me. Not the program's fault that Vista doesn't have the required files :isadizzy:
Maybe after the holiday insanity works it's way out of my life I'll get back at it.

Rob

Must be a Vista thing

It works fine in Win7

The only problem is the only down load site I can get to work is VATSim.

The IVAO and the NAOO sites all fail.

The NAOO looks like it should work it down loads two files the :pop4: error.