Cameron

@rawdmon We've discussed the mountain issue more and may have a potential path forward. I can't make full promises yet, but it's on our minds on how to tackle it. We are going to await feedback on performance of the 5.0.1 build before experimenting with the route I'm speaking of.

Please be sure to download the just released 5.0.1 patch and let us know how you go.

We have released v5.0.1 to address this issue. More information can be found here: I am going to close this topic now.

Hello All, This will serve as a formal forum announcement that we have released the version 5.0.1 update for SkyMaxx Pro. All customers who have purchased SkyMaxx Pro v5 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 v5 from today forward, your purchased download will already be updated to version 5.0.1 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-aviation.com/catalog/account_history.php 2. Find your original SkyMaxx Pro v5 download and re-download the file. It will download as the latest version! IMPORTANT: Today we received numerous reports of terrible performance when it came to frame rates, and even crashes. Upon further investigation, we came to the realization there was a situation where XPRealistic and SkyMaxx Pro v5 would cause major issues in the depth buffer and create a big memory leak. After discussing the matter with the developer of XPRealistic, we have an understanding of why this is happening, but we don't know when he will have time to make any changes on his end. We understand there is a lot of excitement around release time, and there's nothing more disappointing than having clashes like this. Because of that, we are releasing an emergency patch to hopefully rectify this situation, at least temporarily. We are doing this at the risk of there being a bug or two, but we feel it's important to have you up and running for the weekend. It is also possible that any aircraft or plugins which made changes to datarefs used for head tracking, ground, and head shake simulations were also playing into this. As a side note, always remember to monitor your GPU and CPU times when tuning your X-Plane rendering settings. Evaluate your needs of antialias settings. We find a good setting if your GPU is running slower than the CPU is to set your X-Plane antialiasing to 2X SSAA+FXAA. There is not a whole lot lost in doing this. Here's what's changed in version 5.0.1: What's New / Changed: Core code changes to prevent depth buffer clashes with XPRealistic. As always, thanks for purchasing from X-Aviation! We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you more in the future!

Yes, this is expected behavior. As you are moving the time, you are causing the light to re-render what's happening with the clouds.

What happens if you go down one of the Antialiasing?

Wow, your GPU is really choking there. Can you show me your X-Plane rendering settings?

XPRealistic is the likely cause.

Go into the SkyMaxx Pro plugin menu items, then select the Cumulus and Overcast texture selection options. There you can turn on volumetric.

Assuming you can disable/remove XPRealistic you can enjoy v5 now.

Do you have some kind of firewall or something blocking this connection? Between the lack of server connection and that XPUIPC alert, something makes me things you have a firewall or antivirus block going on.

Sorry, but this post as a whole is pretty ridiculous. We are not responsible for things out of our control. We absolutely will own and find ways about things we CAN control (and this thread is evidence of that). You having unrealistic expectations, however, is not fair on any developer. I don't care if they're associated to me, or a can of worms. It's just about being real.

That made me laugh. LOL!

That's definitely been a long running bummer!

One things for certain...we've never been known to let SkyMaxx just sit stagnant.

Not all things are equal, @rawdmon. This isn't our first rodeo. Enhanced Cloudscapes uses a different method with more impact of drawing. It has it's moments, but even its developer acknowledges our approach is more sound in performance. @sundog has been at this for many years now, and we have a pretty tight relationship with Laminar. When it comes to things like these, there's reasons and trade-offs for why they exist. We will continue to poke at it though!

It's possible that if you have another plugin which does some kind of head shaking or ground shaking, it's causing this. If you don't have XPRealistic, please follow these guidelines to find the issue: 1. Rename your plugins folder to plugins_bak, then create a new folder called 'plugins'. 2. Move SilverLining and Gizmo64.plugin from plugins_bak to plugins. 3. Now start X-Plane. Has the problem resolved itself? If yes... Now you need to add back each plugin located in plugins_bak to plugins one at a time until you find the problem.

An update on the situation... We have made contact with the developer of XPRealistic, and we feel we have a handle on why this is occurring. XPRealistic is writing to some required view monitoring datarefs every frame which SkyMaxx Pro also monitors. This is causing numerous allocations of depth buffers until things eventually explode. We are discussing how to deal with this. There are talks of us creating a workaround, and XPRealistic coming out with an update. As we get more information we will let you know.

Hi there, It's an unavoidable issue with "volumetric" clouds that there is no depth to the clouds themselves, only to the volume they are drawn within. That's why you're seeing terrain artifacts like that. It is another thing that is less of an issue with RWC because the volumes are smaller. Thus far we have not found a way around this. Luckily it is not "always" happening.

Glad you're enjoying it @pdg17!

Sounds about right!

@Noksi was responding to this post: Not sure on yours @simnut. We'll keep digging, but right now you're still alone in the trenches so to speak.

ADMIN NOTE: SkyMaxx Pro v5.0.1 has been released and supersedes this post for the time being: ------------------------------------------------------- We have received numerous reports of insanely high RAM usage up to the point X-Plane eventually crashes and/or FPS are simply unsustainable. In every one of these instances, XPRealistic has been in use and the culprit of the issue. Our best guess at the moment would be that they are somehow changing the format of the depth buffer, which would mess up our attempts to copy it for our shadow and soft particle effects, and ultimately causing terrible memory leaks. The fix on this is potentially going to need to come from their side. As of this writing I have reached out to the main developer to offer him a copy of SMP v5 so we can work together. In the meantime, you have a couple of options: 1. Remove XPRealistic entirely. or try... 2. Unticking "Natural movements" and "Ground Shakings" in XP realistic v2. We have received a report that #2 does work, but in all cases option #1 does for sure resolve the insane memory leak. I will do my best to keep everyone updated here on how the XPRealistic developer works with us.