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SkyMaxx Pro v3.1 Has Been Released!

Cameron

By Cameron
in SkyMaxx Pro v4

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Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

Hello, all,

This will serve as a formal forum announcement that we have released the version 3.1 update for SkyMaxx Pro. All customers who have purchased SkyMaxx Pro v3 up till now have been sent an e-mail by X-Aviation with complete instructions on how to obtain your update. We have made this a very simple process! For those that purchase SkyMaxx Pro v3 from today forward, your purchased download will already be updated to version 3.1 for you.

What if I didn't get the update e-mail?

If you did not receive your update e-mail don't fret! X-Aviation has updated our system to allow all customers to update with ease, regardless of whether you received an e-mail for the update! Here's what to do:

1. Login to your X-Aviation account here: https://www.x-aviati...talog/login.php

2. View your past order history invoice that contains SkyMaxx Pro purchase on it.

3. At the bottom of the invoice you will find a blue highlighted link to your update that says: "SkyMaxx Pro v3".


There are some important fixes and requests implemented in this update.

The following is a list of additions/fixes included:
 
What's New / Changed:

  • Landing lights now illuminate clouds as you fly through them!
  • Performance enhancements to reduce "stutters" when new cloud conditions are loaded
  • Many overall performance enhancements
  • More variation in cloud shapes
  • More accurate cloud altitudes
  • Visual improvements to solid and broken stratiform clouds
  • Numerical setting values now displayed in the config screen
  • New ability to save and load named configuration sets
  • More tuning of cloud lighting, visibility, and shadow effects
  • Ready for the upcoming Real Weather Connector product
  • "Hi res clouds" option changed to selections for "Fast", "Soft", and "Crisp". "Fast" is the old low-res SMP 1.0 clouds; "Crisp" are the "hi res" clouds of SMP 2+. The new "soft" option is somewhere in between; higher resolution, but more blurry and indistinct.

 

A few new screenshots to showcase v3.1:

3.1_1.jpg

3.1_2.jpg

3.1_3.jpg

3.1_4.jpg

 

As always, thanks for being a customer with X-Aviation. We appreciate your feedback and support!


Enjoy these latest updates, and stay tuned to the forum as we continually announce the latest happenings.

  • Upvote 7
Celis Newbie

Celis

Posted
Posted

Great update, test it a bit with great results, real smooth. cloud reflections looks real good. now waiting for RWC.

Thanks for the update...

Downloaded once but my downloads went from 3 to 0... :o

 

alexcolka Rookie

alexcolka

Posted
Posted

Thank you very much for the release of the v3.1 I don't know how you do it guys but the increase in performance is great. Nice new options, now waiting for the weather connector.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

  • Upvote 1
Cameron Mentor

Cameron

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  • Author
Posted
21 minutes ago, Celis said:

Downloaded once but my downloads went from 3 to 0... :o

No worries! I reset it for you. :)

21 minutes ago, alexcolka said:

Thank you very much for the release of the v3.1 I don't know how you do it guys but the increase in performance is great. Nice new options, now waiting for the weather connector.

Thanks for the compliments!

  • Upvote 1
Wycliffe Newbie

Wycliffe

Posted
Posted

What a great surprise to wake up on a Dreary spring day here in the UK and find 3.1 waiting. I know this will be brilliant. I have to wait an hour before I can test it as I have to do some stuff fro my wife. They just dont understand the importance of these things.

 

All the best 

 

Wycliffe Barrett Xplane Dedicated.

  • Upvote 1
Skiman Newbie

Skiman

Posted
Posted (edited)

Awesome stuff, thanks for the update - am giving it a good run tonight. Sadly, the cloud shadow still kills my frame rate by 20 fps. 

Xplane45 i7-2600K @4Ghz GTX970 16G RAM Vanilla scenery

Edited by Skiman
K4bel123 Newbie

K4bel123

Posted
Posted

No it doesn´t need to be on.

Great update with very nice visual effects and a (for me) slightly improved performance. Sadly X-Plane crashed two times when I changed Sky Maxx Pro settings (error name: "large number of errors") It didn´t do that before the update. Is there anybody else experiencing this?

  • Upvote 1
lizz Newbie

lizz

Posted
Posted

very nice update indeed, thanks for the hard work. Skymaxx is getting better at each release. Just did some testing and it's performance is great, especially the landing lights illuminating the clouds is a fantastic feature increasing the ambiance when penetrating clouds.
Can't wait for the Real Wheather Connector..........:)

 

sundog Newbie

sundog

Posted
Posted (edited)

A quick note on performance - I've been monitoring the forums and social media, and it seems like most people are seeing the same or better framerates with Skymaxx Pro 3.1 compared to 3.0. And people are noticing that "stutters" when new weather conditions are loaded are reduced, which is what we were hoping for!

However, that reduction of stutters is done by pre-loading the clouds you might need when SkyMaxx Pro starts up. This means that if your system was already on the edge of running out of memory (video or system RAM,) SkyMaxx Pro 3.1 could push your system over the edge, leading to decreased framerates or even crashes depending on your driver. If this is happening to you, try reducing the "cloud draw area" setting in SkyMaxx Pro - that's the easiest way to lighten up its memory requirements without giving up your custom scenery, and whatever else is eating up your memory. Turning off cloud reflections is also a good way to reclaim some performance if needed.

It's surprisingly easy to run out of memory in X-Plane if you're using custom scenery, high rendering option settings, high monitor resolutions, custom aircraft, and/or high settings in SkyMaxx Pro. "I have a good computer" doesn't mean you have enough memory for everything you're asking X-Plane to do, unless you stick to a default setup.  And who does that?

Hope this helps!

 

Edited by sundog
  • Upvote 2
Tom Stian Contributor

Tom Stian

Posted
Posted

I like 3.1 much better then 3.0 . I did disable 3.0 because of the stuttering. but looks much better now. 

But the my clouds are very dark/black.  Are the supposed to be that?

 

 

X-System 09.04.2016 21.29.39.png

Morrigan Newbie

Morrigan

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, sundog said:

And people are noticing that "stutters" when new weather conditions are loaded are reduced, which is what we were hoping for!

 

Haha, I actually asked if you guys did something with how clouds are rebaked when transition occurs, becuase I used to get those annoying 1/2 second freezes with 3.0.

Now they are completely gone... now clouds just fade away and everything feels and looks very fluid. That's the greatest change I could have hoped for from this update, and you guys more than delivered. Kudos to the entire team!

Edited by Morrigan
  • Upvote 3
PeterR Newbie

PeterR

Posted
Posted

I like this update, visual representation of clouds is impressive and configuration dialog improvements are good. However, I do observe performance degradation in longer flights. I think this may be problem for VRAM constrained people.

I have Nvidia GTX960 with 2GB of VRAM and 32 GB RAM. RAM is not an issue, but VRAM may be. I was today flying from London to Barcelona and although quite cloudy in London, performance was pretty good. Over the English Channel, same amount of clouds below me and performance still good. However, about 1 hour in flight and frames dropped about 50% or more despite the similar cloud coverage. I tried to move some sliders down left but not much help. GPU monitor was showing only about 50% GPU usage, but VRAM was around 90%. CPU 30% or less, so no issue there. There was nice weather in Barcelona, but performance never recovered.

I repeated the same flight with clear weather just to ensure it is not related to amount of scenery or HD meshes and no significant performance drops along the way.

@sundog you mentioned clouds are being pre-loaded for future use. This supports my theory VRAM can be depleted in-flight even in low cloud coverage. May it be that this cache overloads VRAM when lot of weather stations are crossed? Is this cache ever optimized and cleaned up during the flight? Is there any way to remove pre-loaded clouds from VRAM? As RWC will know exactly which clouds will be needed, may it in theory improve performance of SkyMaxx Pro by optimizing the cache?

I am very much looking forward to RWC as it may make everything even better. However, I may also need to get new graphic card with more VRAM, too.

Thank you for your support and keep up the great work.

Peter

  • Downvote 1
sundog Newbie

sundog

Posted
Posted

Peter - the cache doesn't leak or grow unbounded or anything (I spent a LOT of time testing that), but if VRAM is tight the driver can start to struggle with memory management over time. I think that's probably what you're seeing. More VRAM (or fewer clouds) would help, but as a temporary solution, try opening up the SMP configuration when this happens and slightly change a setting like the draw area. That will cause the clouds to get regenerated, which somehow seems to help NVidia's drivers clean up its memory fragmentation in my experience.

  • Upvote 1
poodster Newbie

poodster

Posted
Posted (edited)

Like the update. Will RWC fix the issue of scattered clouds not being shown all the way to the horizon? Currently it's a square around me that i can see. (Especially at 34k ft)

Edited by poodster
Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Like the update. Will RWC fix the issue of scattered clouds not being shown all the way to the horizon? Currently it's a square around me that i can see. (Especially at 34k ft)

That's a factor of draw distance and NOT an "issue".

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