mjrhealth Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Thanks for this, looking forward, Ive being using this with the freeware volumetric clouds but there is a FPS hit when you have clouds as far as teh eye can see, but it does look good, and thats on a RTX 2070 and 10700K not overclocked better than 30 fps but thats with a plane already giving me a 10 fps hit. Be interesting to compare results. Hope there will be a reminder email go around. Cheers
leinsters Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 is there any way to test this out because I got seriously burned with my V4 purchase over the holidays, you might remember @Cameron ? Thanks.
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 9 minutes ago, leinsters said: is there any way to test this out because I got seriously burned with my V4 purchase over the holidays, you might remember @Cameron ? Thanks. Hi there, No, there is no demo available. I'm sorry you felt burned on your last purchase.
311-HAN Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 skymaxx pro v4 is a fps monster. I have a 3080 graphics card. I have an i9 processor. I'm getting 20-25 fps. It's okay if you don't want to see a cloud on the horizon. You will get 40-45 fps. I have a good system and I don't want to downgrade skymaxx pro settings. sky maxx pro v5 won't be much different. there is something fundamentally wrong. Instead of paying $ 20 for the V5, I'm buying active sky. 1
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 10 minutes ago, 311-HAN said: sky maxx pro v5 won't be much different. there is something fundamentally wrong. Did you somehow miss the part that v5 performs faster than v4? Or the specs of my average Mac in OpenGL at full cloud draw distance running this pleasantly over ORBX NORCAL HD? It's fine if you want to be cynical. I can only tell you you're wrong with regards to v5 and let you go about enjoying your sim however you desire. Active Sky is a great product. We like it too. Enjoy it!
VirtualCPT Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Hi Cameron, Those Screenshots look amazing and I was also very happy to read, that it works well with a GTX 1070. I'm a user of ActiveSky XP and haven't really looked at SkyMaxx Pro before, to be honest. Do I need any of those add-ons like the real weather connector to get ASXP working with SkyMaxx? Thanks, Marco
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 Hi @marco.auer, Thanks for the kind words. ASXP has integration with SkyMaxx Pro, but Real Weather Connector is required to get that working. Once Real Weather Connector is installed you will find a new menu option in SkyMaxx Pro for Real Weather, and then a checkbox to select ASXP. Hope this helps! 2
Glah Salamanthe Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Bonjour … Est-ce que par hasard cette nouvelle mouture de SkyMaxPro est enfin compatible Mac sous Metal ou vous nous condamnez toujours à voler en "Open GL" pour pouvoir utiliser SkyMaxPro( ce qui serait une hérésie vues es différences de performances entre Métal et Open GL) ? Merci de votre réponse ! Hello ... Is it by chance that this new version of SkyMaxPro is finally Mac compatible under Metal or do you still condemn us to fly in "Open GL" to be able to use SkyMaxPro (which would be a heresy given the differences in performance between Metal and Open GL)? Thank you for your answer !
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 5 minutes ago, Glah Salamanthe said: Hello ... Is it by chance that this new version of SkyMaxPro is finally Mac compatible under Metal or do you still condemn us to fly in "Open GL" to be able to use SkyMaxPro (which would be a heresy given the differences in performance between Metal and Open GL)? Thank you for your answer ! Hi @Glah Salamanthe, This question is answered at the bottom of the first post in my announcement. It is not possible to make plugin cloud add-ons for X-Plane in Metal at this time. Apple does not provide the necessary path to do this, and Laminar is not yet comfortable making a Metal SDK (if at all). Therefore, as much as we really wish we could, Metal will not be coming for the foreseeable future. All screenshots you have seen were taken on a Mac in OpenGL. I agree that Metal is amazing with X-Plane. I wish the answer were different, but unfortunately there's nothing we can do.
mjrhealth Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 1 hour ago, 311-HAN said: skymaxx pro v4 is a fps monster. I have a 3080 graphics card. I have an i9 processor. I'm getting 20-25 fps. It's okay if you don't want to see a cloud on the horizon. You will get 40-45 fps. I have a good system and I don't want to downgrade skymaxx pro settings. sky maxx pro v5 won't be much different. there is something fundamentally wrong. Instead of paying $ 20 for the V5, I'm buying active sky. This is SkyMaxx v4 with 10700K RTX 2070, plane MCDU gives me only a 7 FPS hit and I have horizon to horizon freeware volumetric clouds. 38FPS 1
lynara Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Hey, thanks for the update, looks very promising. Just a few questions of you don't mind. With this addon do you still have these complete weather reloads like in XP default where all clouds vanish and rebuild? Would it be possible to get screenshots of foggy night approaches? Will the landing lights illuminate the fog? How about rain effects, is this something you touch or will we still see the default millennium falcon rain? Thank you very much!
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 2 minutes ago, lynara said: With this addon do you still have these complete weather reloads like in XP default where all clouds vanish and rebuild? You can alleviate abrupt weather changes with Real Weather Connector in use. 3 minutes ago, lynara said: Would it be possible to get screenshots of foggy night approaches? I'm going to be out of office through the weekend, so will have to wait. 3 minutes ago, lynara said: Will the landing lights illuminate the fog? I'm going to leave this one for @sundog. The answer is yes in OpenGL. I don't remember if this carried through to Vulkan (I'm on Mac, so no Vulkan here). 4 minutes ago, lynara said: How about rain effects, is this something you touch or will we still see the default millennium falcon rain? 3D rain has been a thing since SkyMaxx Pro v4. However, it is only available in OpenGL. Vulkan does not allow for this kind of thing to be done at this time until Laminar creates an SDK for it. Thanks for your interest and the questions! 1
lynara Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 (edited) Thank you for your quick and detailed replies! 8 minutes ago, Cameron said: I'm going to be out of office through the weekend, so will have to wait. No problem, take your time and have a nice weekend! Looking forward to it. Edited January 14, 2021 by lynara
MercuryMat Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 I got version 1 to 4. All of them promised something (a lot) that was simply not feasable and very, very, very heavy on system resources. I'm not expecting this version to be different and not meet the expectations, again. With SMP i always spent so much time trying to optimize it, because there is always something wrong, that in the end I just remove it forever...
Digimagician Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 This looks and sounds terrific Cameron, SkyMaxx Pro, RWC and ASXP have become absolutely essential to all of my flights, to the point that there is a little pang of disappointment whenever I load a flight and discover that the weather is clear blue skies! (Might be linked to growing up in 'not-so-sunny' South Wales as a kid) Very excited to experience the volumetric clouds sans billboard rotations, I will be able to get out of the habit of glancing away to busy myself checking flight plans and making coffee while flying into those lovely fluffy big white clouds, thank you Cameron, Sundog and the the team of SkyMaxx pixel wizards! 1
mjrhealth Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 If its more efficient than what I use at present it will be good, it very GPU intensive, not RAM but performance wise.
diamonddriller Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 (edited) Hi Cameron, Now runing X-P only in Metal. Have the 16GB 5700XT in my iMac, and everything runs at around 60 fps most of the time (many others think it seems, somwehow, to be "capped" at that!). I also disable Turbo Boost, and that keeps the GPU and CPU at sensible temperatures, with no noticable frame hit. So my fan is not roaring away, and I can run it at a steady 1500 rpm if I want, but the default Mac fan control rarely rises above the usual 1200 - sometimes it goes to 1300, or so. I'd rather keep everything much cooler, as it will prolong the life of the machine. So, if you can get 45 fps with the ORBX HD (!!) in OpenGL, what are your CPU and GPU temperatures, and how fast is that fan running? I have always updated SMP, but have sadly abandoned it because of the Metal problem, which has been well explained. I noted some of your graphics settings, so it may be worth a go. I may decide, if you reassure me, to upgrade to v5, and run in OpenGL from time to time, just to enjoy better weather :-) I did find the Cirruses ran badly (for me) in OpenGL, but they are great in Metal. Simpler planes are not affected so much, as one would expect. Regards. Edited January 14, 2021 by diamonddriller
FlyAgi Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Voxel based clouds but faster than ever - here we can see real professionals at work. Awesome news. :-) 1
pdg17 Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 What about performance in 4k, assuming all FPS quotes are for 1080?
sundog Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 10 hours ago, Fab10 said: Will different cloud types be included in the initial release, for instance cirrus, tcb’s (anvil types), and stratiform types?Is there As Cameron said we're not taking anything away. As always, SkyMaxx Pro will represent cirrus, cumulonimbus, towering cumulus, stratiform, and cumulus clouds. Users of FSGRW may also see the occasional cirrocumulus as well. The new "volumetric" clouds are only an option for cumulus and overcast cloud types, but we have tuned them to look consistent with the other particle-based clouds when they appear together. 1
sundog Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 4 hours ago, lynara said: Will the landing lights illuminate the fog? Not when using the new volumetric option for overcast clouds. You can always switch this back to one of the other options if that feature is important to you. The reason is kind of technical, but it boils down to there not being a good way to do this without really affecting performance - it's a tradeoff that's not worth it in our opinion. 2
sundog Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 14 minutes ago, pdg17 said: What about performance in 4k, assuming all FPS quotes are for 1080? It would depend a lot on how efficient your GPU is at parallelizing fragment shader operations across the pixels on your screen. I would expect resolution to have an impact on performance, but I can't say how much as there are many other factors at play. I don't personally have a 4K monitor so it's not something I've been able to benchmark yet.
Honey56 Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 I think it's a shame that you have to pay again for an update from 4 to 5, the discount is limited to 60 days. if you see the prices in relation to X-plane it is overpriced anyway. So we are really ripped off again. Eat or die
AtariX Posted January 14, 2021 Report Posted January 14, 2021 Yellowish clouds again? When will they be white, as in nature?
Cameron Posted January 14, 2021 Author Report Posted January 14, 2021 1 hour ago, pdg17 said: What about performance in 4k, assuming all FPS quotes are for 1080? Adding to what @sundog said above, my settings are actually 1440p ultra wide. 3440x1440p to be exact, so quite a bit more than standard 1080p.
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