Does RWC require an update?

[ArielB]

Last time updating both was recommended ... Just did automatically  

I redownloaded from my x-aviation account... and bammm no RWC 

hope you can fix soon

thanx for quick response

cheers

[kentwerickson]

I am ecstatic about the recent update -- thanks very much! But (FYI) I am now experiencing fairly dramatic FPS stutters/freezes with RWC enabled -- about every 30-60 seconds (which I assume corresponds with XPGFS weather updates). This occurs even when sitting stationary on the ground; i.e., not caused by flying into new weather patterns.

I've verified this, first by disabling all other third party addons, and then running both with and without RWC enabled. SMP + XPGFS consistently runs like butter on my system, but the stutters return with RWC enabled. I also don't recall this ever occurring prior to the recent RWC/Gizmo outage.

Edited May 22, 2019 by kentwerickson

[Jakob Ludwig]

3 hours ago, kentwerickson said:

I am ecstatic about the recent update -- thanks very much! But (FYI) I am now experiencing fairly dramatic FPS stutters/freezes with RWC enabled -- about every 30-60 seconds (which I assume corresponds with XPGFS weather updates). This occurs even when sitting stationary on the ground; i.e., not caused by flying into new weather patterns.

I've verified this, first by disabling all other third party addons, and then running both with and without RWC enabled. SMP + XPGFS consistently runs like butter on my system, but the stutters return with RWC enabled. I also don't recall this ever occurring prior to the recent RWC/Gizmo outage.

It might be that you're maxing out your GPU VRAM. Try to reduce the cloud draw distance and/or change overcast cloud textures and monitor the loading stutters. Could be that the new textures need a bit more memory in certain wx conditions.

[sundog]

SMP 4.8 just contains a backup means to download weather data if Gizmo fails to download it for us, when you have RWC in "always" mode. It does create a stutter I'm afraid, since we aren't using an external plugin (Gizmo) to download it in the background.

We do still need HTTPS support in Gizmo to get "always" mode working the way it used to. But that's in X-Aviation's hands.

If you are using RWC in any mode other than "Always" however, things should be working as they always have.

Edited May 22, 2019 by sundog

[kentwerickson]

3 hours ago, sundog said:

SMP 4.8 just contains a backup means to download weather data if Gizmo fails to download it for us, when you have RWC in "always" mode. It does create a stutter I'm afraid, since we aren't using an external plugin (Gizmo) to download it in the background.

We do still need HTTPS support in Gizmo to get "always" mode working the way it used to. But that's in X-Aviation's hands.

If you are using RWC in any mode other than "Always" however, things should be working as they always have.

Thanks Frank. I neglected to mention that I run RWC in "Never" mode, which as I understand is the appropriate mode for XPGFS, yet am still experiencing stutters. Or, is it the case that I still need to await a Gizmo update to fix this particular problem?

Edited May 22, 2019 by kentwerickson

[kentwerickson]

9 hours ago, Jakob Ludwig said:

It might be that you're maxing out your GPU VRAM. Try to reduce the cloud draw distance and/or change overcast cloud textures and monitor the loading stutters. Could be that the new textures need a bit more memory in certain wx conditions.

Thanks for the suggestion Jakob. I have tried lowering the settings. But as mentioned, SMP with my current settings runs fine by itself and reports that I have plenty of RAM and VRAM.

[diamonddriller]

@kentwericksonHmm.  RWC in "Never" mode for XPGFS.  I still don't get this (although XPGFS will certainly work properly without RWC, as it was designed to do so! ).  However, I would have thought that the "external injector" might work, as one of  the points of RWC was (I thought) to smooth out transitions from one area to another, and I presume XPGFS is an external injector.

The other thing is (useful only for XP10 real weather downloads, that had been stopped.  XP11 works properly) that Cameron initially had pointed out that Gizmo would be altered to get HTTPS access to weather.  This being so, one could (if preferred) dispense with XPGFS.

In posts above, Cameron seems to now infer that the code is now in SMP 4.8, but Sundog does not agree - see his last post.  Maybe the latest Gizmo (which one would automatically get in the 4.8 distribution) has the HTTPS thing fixed, although I doubt it, because the file creation dates seem to be in 2018.

It's all a bit confusing, but I'm keeping XPGFS for XP10 at the moment, and I quite like it in XP11 too.  How accurate all the depictions are is another matter, but I'm not going to let it ruin my day

[kentwerickson]

13 hours ago, diamonddriller said:

@kentwericksonHmm.  RWC in "Never" mode for XPGFS.  I still don't get this (although XPGFS will certainly work properly without RWC, as it was designed to do so! ).  However, I would have thought that the "external injector" might work, as one of  the points of RWC was (I thought) to smooth out transitions from one area to another, and I presume XPGFS is an external injector.

Yes, I understand that XPGFS will work without RWC -- this is what I've been stuck with for the past several months. But as I understand, RWC draws clouds with greater precision and fidelity along with certain other features that justify its additional cost (including more recently smoother transitions). But I agree that the relationships between all of these weather-related plugins is pretty confusing, and I am not certain that I have it right.

CORRECTION: It appears that I misremembered -- according to the RWC manual I should be using "Always" with XPGFS, which again causes stutters. I assume that I must await an update to Gizmo to fix this problem (or anyhow hopefully).

In the meantime, and in high praise to the good folks at Sundog, I am very happy to report that this (see images below) looks more like a thunderstorm in my neck of the woods:

Edited May 23, 2019 by kentwerickson

[sundog]

Just to clarify - in our forthcoming 4.8.1 release I'm issuing a fix so that new weather is only downloaded once per hour when "always" mode is on, and Gizmo is not getting it for us successfully.

This should at least reduce the stutters to once per hour while we wait for that fix, if you must run with "always" enabled.

[diamonddriller]

So, Frank, to clear my old brain (!!!!), does the "external injector" work properly with XPGFS?  I would not have considered using "always" mode for that.  I can see why one might, but is it more logical than "external injector"?

Also, it does indeed seem that we await a change in Gizmo as another source of downloaded weather for XP10 (as the native method stopped working), and, when that happens, which setting in RWC would be appropriate?  I would expect it to be "external injector" again, but you are the one who knows!

Also, correct me if I'm wrong: in XP11, one continues to use RWC as we originally did in XP10 - i.e. Automatic setting  (if we don't have XPGFS as well), because XP11 is downloading the weather.  If we use XPGFS, though, the same question arises as above - what's the best setting?

Thanks.

[kentwerickson]

12 minutes ago, sundog said:

Just to clarify - in our forthcoming 4.8.1 release I'm issuing a fix so that new weather is only downloaded once per hour when "always" mode is on, and Gizmo is not getting it for us successfully.

This should at least reduce the stutters to once per hour while we wait for that fix, if you must run with "always" enabled.

That's great. I could even live with a momentary delay as often as once every 5-10 minutes. Seems unlikely that real weather would change dramatically between this interval, but once per hour might be pushing it. Of course others might have a different take on this. But generally speaking, what I find most important is that my injected/simulated weather match the real weather (or near enough), particularly in regard to wind conditions, during takeoff and landing; e.g., so that active runway selection is more or less accurate.

[sundog]

1 hour ago, diamonddriller said:

So, Frank, to clear my old brain (!!!!), does the "external injector" work properly with XPGFS?  I would not have considered using "always" mode for that.  I can see why one might, but is it more logical than "external injector"?

Also, it does indeed seem that we await a change in Gizmo as another source of downloaded weather for XP10 (as the native method stopped working), and, when that happens, which setting in RWC would be appropriate?  I would expect it to be "external injector" again, but you are the one who knows!

Also, correct me if I'm wrong: in XP11, one continues to use RWC as we originally did in XP10 - i.e. Automatic setting  (if we don't have XPGFS as well), because XP11 is downloading the weather.  If we use XPGFS, though, the same question arises as above - what's the best setting?

Thanks.

I'm afraid I don't really know how XPGFS in particular works. "Always" mode is intended for weather add-ons that update weather via X-Plane datarefs, which are limited to 3 layers of uniform weather surrounding the plane. "Automatic" mode in this case would work, but in order to get localized, complex, many-layered weather with RWC and SMP, you'd want to use "Always" mode to tell us to always download our own, detailed real-world data instead of depending on the add-on or X-Plane's default weather to do so.

If you are using XP11 and its built-in real world weather system, yes "automatic" would be the right setting.

If the Gizmo issue is fixed, you won't need to change any settings once you've found the one appropriate for your setup. What we're doing is checking to see if Gizmo failed, and if so, we do it ourselves instead. From your standpoint you shouldn't care which plugin ended up doing it.

[Cameron]

1 hour ago, kentwerickson said:

That's great. I could even live with a momentary delay as often as once every 5-10 minutes. Seems unlikely that real weather would change dramatically between this interval, but once per hour might be pushing it. Of course others might have a different take on this. But generally speaking, what I find most important is that my injected/simulated weather match the real weather (or near enough), particularly in regard to wind conditions, during takeoff and landing; e.g., so that active runway selection is more or less accurate.

Weather data services used for sims (NOAA in this case) do not update weather frequently anyhow. Once per hour is the norm for that.

[diamonddriller]

So, Frank, your two statements below, from your last post, seem to indicate that SMP now downloads its own weather!  Does it?

"Always" mode to tell us to always download our own, detailed real-world data instead of depending on the add-on or X-Plane's default weather to do so.

What we're doing is checking to see if Gizmo failed, and if so, we do it ourselves instead.

Now, I'm really stumped. If SMP downloads the weather, why would Gizmo need to be altered?  Also, if SMP is getting the multi-layered weather, we could dispense with XPGFS and set RWC to "automatic" and off we go (this is for XP10).   If we wanted that SMP weather in XP11, instead of the default, how does one set that up?  Disable XP11's weather, then set RWC to "automatic"?

Also, of course, Cameron is entirely correct.  RW Weather gets updated hourly, with exceptions when something out of the ordinary happens.

[sundog]

22 minutes ago, diamonddriller said:

So, Frank, your two statements below, from your last post, seem to indicate that SMP now downloads its own weather!  Does it?

"Always" mode to tell us to always download our own, detailed real-world data instead of depending on the add-on or X-Plane's default weather to do so.

What we're doing is checking to see if Gizmo failed, and if so, we do it ourselves instead.

Now, I'm really stumped. If SMP downloads the weather, why would Gizmo need to be altered?  Also, if SMP is getting the multi-layered weather, we could dispense with XPGFS and set RWC to "automatic" and off we go (this is for XP10).   If we wanted that SMP weather in XP11, instead of the default, how does one set that up?  Disable XP11's weather, then set RWC to "automatic"?

Also, of course, Cameron is entirely correct.  RW Weather gets updated hourly, with exceptions when something out of the ordinary happens.

Argh, sorry to confuse everyone on this.

The downloading I'm referring to is for the raw METAR data from NOAA. Normally, X-Plane 11's real world weather system downloads this on its own, and some weather add-ons inject their own METAR data files in place of X-Plane's.

But, there are edge cases, for example XP10 or people who want to use weather add-ons that don't use METAR-based weather data and disable X-Plane 11's real world weather system. For these special situations, Real Weather Connector offers an option to download its own METAR data from NOAA and read from it, in exactly the same way we'd read the METAR data normally downloaded by XP11.

In that edge case, which is what "always" mode in RWC does, what's supposed to happen is we send a request to Gizmo to download that data in the background, and notify us when it's ready so we can read it. This way, the weather download happens without causing a big pause in framerate.

The problem is that NOAA changed their weather download server to use HTTPS instead of HTTP, which means Gizmo cannot download that data until it is updated to handle the HTTPS protocol. Since I don't know when that will happen, we implemented a "plan B" in SMP 4.8 that will go get that data itself if Gizmo fails to get it - but this comes at the cost of a performance stutter.

This all ONLY happens in RWC's "always" mode. There's no point in using this instead of XP11's weather data though, because it's the same exact weather data. It's just there to deal with these somewhat unusual configurations some customers have. And we still want Gizmo to be altered, because it offers a way to download this data without causing a performance stutter in the process.

[kentwerickson]

3 hours ago, sundog said:

Since I don't know when that will happen, we implemented a "plan B" in SMP 4.8 that will go get that data itself if Gizmo fails to get it - but this comes at the cost of a performance stutter.

While perhaps not an ideal solution, I for one am grateful that you gave us the next best option. Better yet if RWC could just download in the background and then inject/update at regular intervals. In other words, since RWC is reportedly capable of downloading the data itself, is it not possible to just bypass Gizmo altogether?

[diamonddriller]

Thanks Frank.  That has clarified things.   I was well aware of the https problem, virtually as soon as it happened!   I had some correspondence with LR, and thought that they were looking at this, but nothing has happened for XP10.  I suppose, as XP11 has this fixed, they are no longer bothering with XP10.  As they have already written the code for this in XP11, I am surprised that they couldn't port this to XP10.

kentwerickson has a point about bypassing Gizmo, but Cameron has said that Gizmo was being altered, and that it was not a simple fix.

[kentwerickson]

7 minutes ago, diamonddriller said:

Thanks Frank.  That has clarified things.   I was well aware of the https problem, virtually as soon as it happened!   I had some correspondence with LR, and thought that they were looking at this, but nothing has happened for XP10.  I suppose, as XP11 has this fixed, they are no longer bothering with XP10.  As they have already written the code for this in XP11, I am surprised that they couldn't port this to XP10.

kentwerickson has a point about bypassing Gizmo, but Cameron has said that Gizmo was being altered, and that it was not a simple fix.

I can confirm that LR will not be retrograding XP10, which while disappointing is somewhat understandable. Yet by the same token, since LR is still selling XP10, which is advertised as supporting real-world weather, you'd think they might have just bitten the bullet on this one; if even as an unsupported patch. Alas, not to be.

[sundog]

It would be ideal if we could download weather asynchronously ourselves instead of relying on Gizmo. The issues are technical; SkyMaxx Pro and Real Weather Connector are both written entirely in C++, and making them multi-threaded in a cross-platform way is a pretty risky and difficult thing to do. If we hear that updating Gizmo for this issue just isn't going to happen, then I guess we'll have to bite the bullet - but that's not what we've been told thusfar.

For now however we have a stopgap solution in place, and although it results in a performance stutter, it's only once per hour (once 4.8.1 goes out - it's been handed off to X-Aviation already.) And for anyone reading this out of context, bear in mind this whole issue only applies to the small subset of users who must run Real Weather Connector in "Always" mode.

[diamonddriller]

Believe me, Frank, if SWP loading weather was the only stutter I ever got (and once an hour, at that), I would be bl--dy grateful

Have a great weekend!