MercuryMat

You can't...easily..

Use SASPlanet...and bing maps (more updated). Short learning curve and great results. I'm repeating myself...

You know what? I was unable to replicate the shadows...the first time I loaded x-plane with SMP i had A LOT of clouds shadows, but next time (and still) no more!!!

Ok I read the avsim post. Sincerely i did not try to remove all plugins (but i did for some). At the moment I was able to fly at 20/25 fps with setting all low except clouds size (at circa 25/30 %) but i'm still experiencing heavy fps drops almost randomly during flight, and i also lowered some x-plane settings a step down. The fact is that with HDR off or on the situation is almost the same, apart from the small fps reduction when hdr is active. Today i tried to load my LIMC scenery (that it's quite heavy, but it's near my real home and the weather was absolutely clear today), with real weather the sky was all clear also in the sim, but suddenly the fps dropped dramatically to 5/7 without any action in the sim...only loading plane...and the sky was completely clear!!! no clouds, no cirrus, no contrails. At that moment I started to think there was something really wrong with SMP, and not related with 3D rendering...but probably some incompatibility. I also noticed that CPU usage was really increased after SMP installation... I'm not trolling, but i'm a bit frustrated I cannot manage to use this plugin in the right way, when in he past i solved many problems with x-plane, sometimes speaking with plugins' and sceneries' authors, sometimes alone. For now I'll try the following procedure to reset SMP: 1) uninstall SMP 2) remove all plugins 3) clean up windows 8 a bit more (some registry and cache cleaning...) 4) fire-up x-plane and close 5) install SMP 6) fire up x-plane, activate SMP and close 7) remove GIZMO (If I understand well this is used only for activation...and it leaves a sort of taskbar at the right of the screen...that is quite annoying) 8) start x-plane and make a flight 9) start adding plugins... I think this is the last solution I can try to make this plugin working well... I'll report results here...

So in the end...what we have to do to fly in an overcast cover??? I put all to low cause I have heavy performance issues with HDR (that I do not want to disable expecially at night)...and my PC it's not a low end one...

OK, I'll try again more and more settings. The lag is in any case worse from the default x-plane weather one. I think that you have to work a lot more on this aspect and on HDR implementation as well. Hope all this problems, including orbit textures problem, will be solved soon and fast. At the moment I'm not really satisfied of this new plugin... Thanks anyway.

Yes it is something like that. So depends on real weather, ok. THIS problem solved. Any suggestion for NOAA weather? I fly all the time with real weather and I switch between METAR and NOAA at 9500ft. Do you think it's ok? And what about fog?

My problem is that i cannot see any high level cloud layer, like cirrus or skytrails...why? I use noaa weather (as usual) with transition at 9500ft. Suggestion? At the moment I'm very upset with this plugin (SkuMaxx Pro...) and I'm almost thinking to go back to default, both for performances both for no variations in clouds...I always obtain blue sky with some cumulus...

100 is FL100 so (almost) 10000ft. 95 is FL95 so (almost) 9500ft. I use this and the plugin goes quite well... if you put 5 you are assuming you switch weather at 500ft. 50 to 5000ft and so on.

One of the 3 is the same, you can see shadows on ground

Yes, me. I experienced some lags during approache phase...not really nice. For the NOAA plugin: 1) install python 2.7x 64 bit 2) install pithonInterface plugin in x-plane resources folder 3) install noaa weather python script in the pythonscripts folder (in x-plane resources folder) 4) start xplane 64 and under plugin menu find noaa plugin. 5) check all options except VATSIM Compatible (i suggest switch to METAR at fl 95) 6) when on ground set x-plane weather to real weather (download from the internet) Enjoy

Ok, I did some tests with HDR ON and reducing AntiAliasing to 2x makes a big difference. I found a good balance with this settings: Cloud detali: 75% Drawing Distance: 100% Cloud Size (min/max): both 50% Puff rotation: DISABLED Crepuscular rays: DISABLED Texture Resolution/Quality: 2 I really hope the dev team will soon make an update for a better HDR support (I know they are working on it so I do not want to put "pepper on your back"!!!) and some others tweaks to make a bit less fps impacting. In the meantime my last evaluation is positive even if not extremely-positive. The X-Plane weather seems much better with this plugin in any case.

My Spec? i7 3770k @4.6 GTX680 4GB 24 Gb Ram SSD Turbocache. If I enable HDR now over the sea i have a 25/30 FPS drop...

But the big problem is HDR... Disabling it I go from 25 fps to....80!!!

The cloud shadows on ground are visible if you enable global shadows in X-Plane settings...

Ok thanks

Got this, but no cockpit view... Ok, this one seems ok, I missed it... Even if not perfect it's really better than X-Plane engine.

And then...sorry if I ask here: one of the reasons i was waiting for this plugin is the bad render transition between clear sky and clouds mostly when seen from the cockpit. X-plane goes from blue to gray without smooth transition, so every cloud, even of small and not "dense" seems to put the pilot in a complete blindness. From the video you posted i don't remember to have seen nothing from the cockpit in this situation, that it's not rare... It's possible to see something like that BEFORE giving you 40$??? Thanks a lot

I agree. IVAO must speed up the transition to 64 bit. It's way too strange that this is the ONLY plugin that did not receive any update to 64 bit this year. Well, i know they are working on (and I had the occasion to test a semi-functional 64 bit version), but their organization is really complicated... In my opinion the developers must give up the support and the efforts in 32 bit and concentrate only on the updated 64 bit technology. It's been a loooooong time this tech was available...

And what about poor european people? Here is evening!

We all hope so!

It will be really released this weekend or this is an announcement without a real follow up action?