My recent experience searching for the Holy Cloud Grail

[leinsters]

I know you guys do your best and put a lot of effort into the art and code of this and I respect that, but man this is the second time I've regretted buying SkyMaxx Pro. I've tinkered with the settings, watched all the YouTube videos, searched high and low on the internet, and after getting sub 20 FPS at cruising altitude, when I had 40 - 50 FPS on the ground at Short Final's incredibly detailed EDDM with online VATSIM traffic, I'm just floored at this product. How is it possible to get the worst frame-rates of the entire flying experience at FL 260? (and get booted off VATSIM as a result). Yes, I've tinkered with the sliders, the SD, the speed clouds, etc. 

There are far better frame friendly clouds available for free that almost look as good. You guys should really take a look at what the freeware community is doing because the product needs a lot of work.

And fyi - my machine handles everything else just fine incl. MSFS volumetric clouds. The only reason I don't fly MSFS is X-Plane is light years ahead when it comes to the flight model.  

Edited December 5, 2020 by leinsters
Title was too harsh

[jweber]

It is also my experience. I bought it the second time as you had, because this are the best clouds you can get for XPlane 11 Vulkan at the moment. The performance is massive better compared with the fist releases of SMP but is still an issue. Interesting - the performance is changing between good an poor during a flight at cruise level with an airliner and this not always belonging how many clouds are drawed. When this happen CPU is at an average of 40% while GPU sometimes is at the limit but not always. I had also the issue in low FPS (16) with a GPU load of 70% only. CPU seems not be the issue.

As good as the visuals (and FPS) are on lower levels, at cruise level with an airliner, the visuals are sometime great but the limitation of the drawing aerea due to poor performance makes it worse.

Sad, but I understand the difficulties in developing weather enhancements, especially in this flight sim, while LR did not care for it. By the way - I also tried noise rendered clouds from the competitor which does not work in Vulkan, but that needs way more performance and visuals are poor because I can not rise the settings. For me a no go, I deinstalled it. For others it works great, HW is a big issue, because there are some complains also with good and powerful GPU´s.

So, still hoping in further development in SMP or LR will do something in further releases.

Edited December 4, 2020 by jweber

[JohnMAXX]

I appreciate the feedback from both of you, I will say the title is a bit off putting....

The hobby we all enjoy that is flight simming is a very complex ecosystem with a ton of variables at play.

Instead of trying to address your specific concerns and offer specific help without any information in regards to your specific “ecosystems” I’m going advise you take a look and manage expectations.

We have a huge amount of active and happy users who have properly managed their expectations.

In conclusion I do appreciate your support and as you know we’ve continued to grow and advance with the platform over the years. My hope is you take another deep look and find a balance and find enjoyment with our offering.

 

[Cameron]

At the end of the day everything is constrained by resources. Some have better computers than others. It's clear @leinstersis hitting a limit. This is just reality. We're all just in X-Plane's sandbox. It's possible to overload it in many ways. It's also possible to use SkyMaxx Pro flawlessly without overloading things. This goes right in line with John's point on managing expectations. The more you ask your sim to do, the more it's going to do for you at a cost.

[JohnMAXX]

@Cameron kissy kissy 

[Cameron]

[leinsters]

@JohnMAXX thanks for the response man, it proves you're invested and that in itself is something. I want to but I can't apologize for the title of my message, because if you had been in the same room as me you would have literally asked me: what's so funny?... It's really not a big deal, I got SMP on sale and knew I was taking a bit of a gamble, but I spent the weekend testing out clouds, taking short little hops and all the things we do as FS hobbyists when we get new toys. So, there I was... thrilled to bits with the FPS at EDDM in the Fly-J Sim 732 (normally fly IXEG 733) sometimes reaching 50fps at an extremely detailed airport with your clouds. The clouds and atmosphere on the ground were stunning. But as as soon I climbed out of the murk, the higher I got, the frames just kept decreasing. In the meantime I'm fiddling with CIVA INS, on VATSIM, while hand flying, only for my frames to completely disintegrate around the FL200s and lose connection to VATSIM and well, you get the picture - that's when I literally laughed out loud and sent the message. I honestly think this is a great product, but for VFR GA. You should market it that way. But anyway best of luck with the new version. It's going to have to be something pretty special and revolutionary because I just don't want to spend the money. MSFS 2020 and Asobo have cracked it. The problem is, that sim is currently more of a Bing maps and amazing clouds generator than a flight simulator. 

Edit: changed the title to not be that guy

@Cameron thanks for the response too. I love the stuff here on X-Aviation but at the end of the day I am a customer and this is important feedback. I'm a very longtime flight simmer and have been managing expectations for over 20 years. I know what you are trying to say, but I wasn't asking a lot to have a limited cloud layer not bring my sim to its knees. I'm just saying, SMP is awesome for VFR and low level flight. Not so much for the tubeliners. Perhaps this is something to consider.  

Edited December 5, 2020 by leinsters

[Cameron]

@leinsters I have to admit, I don't think I've ever seen this situation of high altitude flights losing FPS. I've now seen three reports of that this week, which is making me think something, somewhere has a memory leak. I'm on a Mac, but have used Windows prior to this as well, and almost all of the flying I'll do is IFR with the IXEG 737.

 

I do wonder if X-Plane 11.5 has something up. Maybe even just Vulkan? I'm assuming you are using the Gizmo beta as your selection in the installer?

I'd be interested to know how your experience goes in OpenGL mode as well.

 

Most of what John and I speak of are more or less in relation to settings as a whole. But, departing somewhere and climbing out should be relatively uniform in FPS assuming your weather depicted is roughly the same.