Weather change rate

[nigelb]

Nigel,

It just controls the "Dynamic" weather change rate in FS...If you have it OFF then there will be no dynamic change rate and it will only change on receipt of new data. I have mine set at mild which means there will be slight changes between the 15 minute interval online updates. FS9 was the first version to have dynamically changing weather built into it...In theory the programming will look at the temperature and humidity etc. and change the weather accordingly :think: I think a Chinese lady who has since moved away from Microsoft was responsible for a large part of that weather programming...It is probably broken in FSX along with many other things

Thanks Peter and everyone else! That confirms what I suspected. I set my slider to mild also and did not notice any more clouds popping up. However since that particular "feature" does not happen all the time I can't conclude that my setting change was the cure. I know there are parameters for cloud draw distance but I don't think that was the cause - my popups appeared very close and I did'nt notice the same thing in the distance.

Not a big deal since I find using what I call "imaginitive license" helps me ignore some of the strange things that occasionaly happen in FS and those are certainly not enough to spoil the overall enjoyment of flying.
:flying:

[DispatchDragon]

Nigel
To reinforce what Dave said - AS is very good at "balancing weather" - for instance there is an AWOS at PHHN on the east end of Maui and a FSS at
Kahalui PHOG - its only a matter of 40 miles or so - but in FS9 if you use the FS weather you get as Garry and everyone else has said a big gap of blue
when you leave the viciinty of Kahalui until you get to Hana NOT very realistic, However with AS6 it sits there and produces weather not just along the
route of flight but the whole Eastern end of Maui, which is very nice as I have a fictional strip on the south side of the island and AS generates very
realistic weather for it For anyone who hasnt - I would seriously suggest buying As6 (or whatever they call it for FSX) besides everything else
it vastly improves the weather graphics - as to clouds "popping up" I have found that is normally having the cloud generation distance less than
the setting for line of sight - put it out to 60miles and forget it if you computer will handle it

Leif

[nigelb]

Wow, talk about coincidence. I flew from PHDH to PHOG last night - and I did notice the rather large blue area after crossing the coastline. I haven't flown in that area in ages and wanted a change from flying around the UK or around here in Virginia with our hot and humid weather. I think it was around 83F with fairly low humidity in Hawaii - nice!

I have a very modest computer( P4 1.8 ghz. 1gb Ram) so I am a little concerned that adding another addon such as AS6 might bog things down. How resource hungry is it?

Since setting my change slider to "mild" I have not noticed any further cloud pop ups but it will take many more flights before I can say for certain that the slider change did the trick. I suppose I am a bit skeptical that something so simple could be the answer. ;-)

[DaveB]

Nigel..

I reckon that ASv6/6.5 is rather more resource hungry than it's forebares. I used to use ASv4 then 4.5 on my XP1600 and XP2400 and it ran fine on these. ASv5 (ASV) was a complete dog.. the FS2000 of the ActiveSky series and I think many (me included) moved back to FSMeteo which.. incidentally, is still available (payware) and a good piece of kit.. until AS6 was released You're gonna see frame hits using any weather engine on a pc of that spec mate but the addons are generally better than the native in this respect ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[nigelb]

Dave,

Thanks for the info. I think I will probably wait until I get a new computer and at the moment my thinking is to wait for the next operating system after Vista to do that. Hey, I am not one to jump on the latest technology at every opportunity.

OFFTOPIC
I still have an old clockwork gramophone and a number of 78's that we dragged from the UK to the US so many years ago! Hey, I used to amuse my daughter's friends with it - some of them had never even seen vinyl let alone 78rpm's! I also have an Apple IIe that still works and runs SubLogic's Flight Simulator II. No one worried about FPS back then.

OK, I am geezing a bit here - I did finally buy a CD player but was not an early adopter of the format. Actually, I am just a cheap b*st*rd. ;-)

Anyway, I think in the meantime I will use some more of my "imaginitive license" which allows me to imagine anything I like as either being there or not being there while flying in FS9.
:flying: