FlyAgi2

Thank you... and the talking of some not yet xp-ready competitor is what me made think about this stuff. I have some thoughts about that talking and the expectations they create in the community just because of their general company reputation. I think those competitors until now did some very different stuff (injecting weather, injecting textures, minor visual tweaking of the default weather rendering) and this approach, as long as they are going to use the default weather rendering, won't bring the same results in XP as they do in ESP based sims (in my opinion, of course). Exactly, I think just positioning clouds and changing textures is something we can have in X-Plane already, and further most of the stuff is freeware. And, even if they could create good visuals, they will very likely run into performance troubles as the defaul weather is performing poorly as soon as there are many clouds on the screen and the airplane gets close to them. I had the RWC cloud layer stuff somewhere in my mind, but I had to ask for a clear answer to really know what I am talking about in discussions.

I read somewhere that Real Wether Connector is not limited by the three or in v11 six cloud layers X-Plane provides - is that right? The results I get seem as if RWC could workaround that limitation and gives a very different cloud positioning. Don't get me wrong, I don't have troubles with RWC, I am just interested in this point as this limitation ist something other people (and developers) are reffering to as a downside of XP. And, I don't like technical myths and like more knowing how things really are.

Yes, I can confirm that.. at higher altitudes the haze gets lighter and the lighting situation also changes. Before my last flights I did not know the haze is handled this way in XP11. As the screenshots above show exactly the same weather settings it seems that SMP places clouds more sparse than the XP weather rendering. This is also the case in XP10 but the cloud shadows seem to be closer to the default ones there and also the clouds themselves are somehow sharper (contrast wise) and darker. Maybe I justhave to get used to the new situation somehow. I noticed another, very positive thing: Performance is much better with SMP than withbthe default XP11 clouds. This was not that obvious at first as starting on an airport the situation is very similar and the default clouds perform well, but as soon as I come closer to the clouds or even get above a broken cloud layer they kill my fps (from 60 down to 30 or less)consuming my cpu and gpu resources (so breaking vsync down to 30fps). With SMP I am expierencing just slight frame drops under heavy weather conditions (from 60 to about 50) instead and the gpu is not used in that strange way it is with the default clouds. So, great job here...

Oh... okay... this is why I posted the screenshots. I thought we have a misunderstanding as the sky colors don't affect the light that passes through the clouds. I think SMP does a great job in XP11... everything looks very natural and realistic, clouds blend smooth into the haze and horizon, performance is very good. But I think it's too bright in many conditions and I think a slider to adjust cloud transparency regarding sunlight or something like that would help out here.

I tried that but the problem is still there. I have some screenshots for showing the difference regarding the cloud shadows. In XP10, those were very similar to the default cloud shadows, in XP11 they are barely noticable and create a very bright impression. The cloud shadows are set to 0.50 in this example, setting them to 1.0 makes them slightly darker for me and gives some weird results from inside the aircraft. And, cloud shadows don't solve the very bright impression of the clouds in most cases, I think they are too bright in XP11 and so they also lose contrast and visual details. Skymaxx Pro Default clouds And for those screenshots I have chosen a significantly darker sky color set - with the default sky colors it looks like this: Skymaxx Pro Defaul clouds

After some longer flights in XP11 I noticed that it is always very bright, no matter if I am under cloud coverage or not. Also, the cloud shadows are almost not present, even if I set them to darkest setting. Of course I tried the default XP11 clouds to see if this is related to the new lighting or else but with the default clouds the brightness is okay and more like in XP10. Also, SMPs brightness is normal in XP10 but in XP11 it is extremely bright.

I don't expect this much... I just did never try those insane setting up to 100.000 so this is my first try and I wanted to know if this result is normal. So thank you,Denco, I think you gave my the answer and I'm fine with it. I usually use default (4900 sqkm) setting but I will try higher visibility range once XP11 has been futher optimized by Laminar.

For me it's a bit different. I get a slight fps increase when in the cpu limit with SMP at default settings against the xp11 clouds. My fps are usually better with smp unless, as you told, I increase cloud distance. I can notice a significantly impact at more than 15sqkm and above 25 or 30 it really begins to kill frames. For the mentioned 60 fps I had to tweak some stuff in settings text and I am on medium objects. My machine (i7 2600k 4200MHz, 16 GB 2133 MHz RAM, GTX 1060) is fast but nothing special these days.

I have done some tests with maximum cloud rendering distance in XP11 and found that this really hurts fps and has a big impact on CPU times and a slight impacton GPU times. My 60 fps setup goes down to about 20 fps with maxed out cloud distance. So it seems as if lowering the disctance is the action of choice if fps get really low depending on CPU frame time. Using fast clouds in this case does not help out as they seem to optimise GPU performance and have no or just a slight effect on CPU performance. My question is now: Is this normal behaviour? Does this work as intended? And this is no rant, I usually don't need maxed out cloud distance. But I have some guys in a german forum who want 'clouds drawn to the horizon'. It seemed to me as they liked the visuals on my screenshots but the performance is now a problem for them, so I can't tell them any more than 'on my machine it is like that'.

I can change sky colors including the hosek wilkie model in the smp gui and the changes are applied directly since 4.5. Before the update I had to manually reload sky colors using the XP sky colors menu.

I am glad to hear that... My thought was this feature could be considered obsolete one day because of the new sky concept.

I have never seen a weather addon that did not repeat clouds...

Okay... it seems to look more realistic than the default colors indeed but I have a (personal) problem with that slightly bluish look. It just gives me weird feelings similar to the effects of motion sickness as I am sensitive regarding certain blue color tones. I am still using the default sky colors because they feel good for me - other themes and the new sky model may look better but I can't use them because of my sensitivity. So... I request not to drop the sky color selection feature in future updates as I am heavily depending on it.

Seems to be working fine. And the license updating at sim start is now off by default so I had to opt in. Is that as intended?

So... you want to say Cameron has to be nice and polite and you have the right to be that impertinent and you, only you, are allowed to say wahtever you want, even if that is nonsense? He actually did that. He gave a simple explanation why the popup behaves like it does and he stated clearly that this is a design decision. You did not like this decision and you immediately said that you won't buy X-Aviation products anymore, you want to replace SMP and you were very disappointed. And then you freaked out step by step... And all that because of a single mouse click. I really don't want to offend you... but this is a bit like a child start crying because it does not get what it wants and that does not stop until it gets it. Btw... did you notice Ben's post where he says he will implement an option to solve your problem? So, be happy, you will get what you fought for.

X-Plane 11 is heavily utilizing your CPU and your GPU and assuming the cooling block and fans are combined as it is in notebooks they should rev up under high load. And, of course, SMP is also pushing the graphics card harder than the default clouds but your GPU should be able to handle that almost as good as my GTX 1060 and my older GTX 970 do, but with 4 GB of memory you can run into troubles with XP11 and certain addons. So, if your imac is not faulty and there is a softwre/performance related problem, I suggest to lower vram usage like described in my previous post or set the clouds in SMP to fast to check if that runs better. Fast clouds should also use less vram than soft or crisp. With 'small' I don't adress the complete imac but the type the computing hardware is build into it. It is designed for using less space than a standard pc with its own case and this way the cooling is less powerfull and gets dusted much easier. On notebooks I usually recommend basic cleaning (just blowing inside the cooling outlets heavily is enough in most cases if one does that regularly) at least after every six months for not letting the cooling components get too dusty and avoid the need for a more professional cleaning approach as long as possible.

I did a test flight in XP11 and it looked like what your screenshots show. In XP11 the results are amazing.

Thank you... And I think it is intended that the Hosek Wilkie Model is somewaht brighter than the default colors?

What does that Hosek-Wilkie sky model actually do? Is this just sky color set or is there a more complex system behind it?

This imac... what graphics card does it use and how much VRAM comes with it? The screenshot I could read properly states about 300MB VRAM unused but this could also mean that there is more VRAM used but a part of it is transferred to the system ram so it is not counted as used vram. If this is the case your gpu and cpu times should go up also and this could make the fans spin faster. So I suggest to try reducing texture quality and antialias to lowest setting temporarily and see if the artifacts are still there. If they are gone you are most likely out of vram. Edit: I had another thought... You said the problem suddenly occured and the fans are spinning faster than before so it could be a problem with hardware tempertures, especially memory temperatures. I have experienced faulty video memory before and graphical artifacts like those on the screenshots can be an indicator for broken memory or memory that is running beyond it's specs. Because of this I suggest cleaning the macs cooling components and fans to bring temps down and avoiding a sudden hardware fail if this did not happen already. If there is a way to measure the cpu and gpu temeratures on a mac (I just did this on windows and linux) you can possibly get more information about this. Given the fact the mac is about two years old and it is build to be small and compact, it is about time to at least care about cleaning the coolers in my opinion. I also know from experience that notebooks start making troubles after about two years because the cooling needs cleaning. The imac is not a notebook of course but it is build in a similar way, small, compact, integrated with less space for cooling than a 'normal' computer.

The system would not work without validation. It needs validation to make sure a revoked license really gets diabled, in this case after a maximum of two weeks. If this is not made sure the whole copy protection is completely useless. This is not implemented for telling you that you are valid. So I suggest setting it up so it pops up every two weeks for only bothering you when it really needs a new activation. The validation after each sim start is ment to reset the days counter as often as possible so you can use the product as long as possible when you are having connection problems or similar stuff happens that could prevent you from reactivating. In such a case it is better having two weeks until next check than having maybe only three days. And this is how the system serves you and not Cameron or X-Aviation.

Some others had this problem too... I can see the smp cirrus layer so it is actually working, but without showing clouds. So I suggest to temporarily disable other plugins and maybe performance tweaks installed into flywithlua and then try again.

@Agrajag I don't get the point here... what is the problem with the new activation process? In my eye it is really straight forward, no more serial numbers, no more requesting new activations, unlimited downloads in the store that don't expire... From MY customer point of view this is a great step forward and I really appreciate this development. And, honestly, clicking one popup every start ist just another click when setting up my aicraft from cold and dark... and you are able to limit this click to happen once in two weeks. Further, copy protection is a common thing in software, gaming and even flight simulation for years now. I really don't understand what this is all about.

Oh... okay... I think I got it now... The three settings are all of different resolutions and so they are of different crispyness? In this case my idea seems to be nonsense indeed... :-)

So, the fast clouds are still volumetric? I don't know where exactly, but somewhere was stated that the fast clouds were somewhat more simple. So, if this is just a different cloud texture, is it possible to have the crisp textures downsized for a second fast clouds option?