shaved_ape

Greetings folks, I didn't see anything here yet about initial reactions to the recent 11.50 Beta, but I can say with honesty and proven experience so far, that the switchover to Vulcan has a lot of potential, during it's beta phase. I took some screen shots of a very short (and unorthodox) flight I took from KSEA to KEAT. I chose KSEA, due to it being a very heavy urban area, which makes for great test flights. KEAT was chosen out of pure "spin of the wheel". The unorthodox nature was that the flight was done purely with keyboard and mouse. I don't normally do that, but since I wanted to fire up the latest release of SMP 4, RWC and FSGRW. On the whole, the experience was positive, with a few expectations met along the way, due to previous experiences of flying in bad weather over heavy urban areas. Weather is still a frame killer, BUT being outside of urban areas, FPS will increase. My flight was conducted in the LR C172/G-1000 (default aircraft), at 8000', with pretty bad weather. FPS started at mid 30s to low 40s, but after getting to cruise, the FPS increased up to the upper 80s to low 90s, but that was after emerging from the bad weather. It should also be taken into account that I stuck with the default cloud draw distance for most of the flight and then backed it off a bit, which also helped bring up the frames. My render settings were in the high range, with a 4xSSAA, but I later dropped it to 2x, which also helped the frames too. Attached are a couple of screenshots, showing off the nice improvements to the clouds and fog, courtesy of SMP, as well as my FPS, and CPU and GPU timings. It looks like Vulcan is finally giving my RTX-2080 a bit of a workout. Cheers!

Oddly enough, I haven't visited these forums in quite a while, but while I was in the process of getting ready to post some 11.50 Beta results, I saw this post. All I can say, with a modicum of respect to all parties, is that I JUST experienced a similar encounter with the same moderator. Not to throw too much shade at that site, but I will say that having to get the head admin involved was both good and bad. Initially he sided with the decision made in my case, but after virtually pleading that the issue wasn't my fault, I then received two PMs from both the head admin and the above referenced mod, saying that they reversed their decision. Needless, to say THESE forums are probably the most I will stay involved with for any sim-related forums. The staff here are professional, friendly and helpful and that goes a long way in my book.

If these renderings are any indication of quality of the aircraft, as a whole, there's no doubt this will be a great seller and pure enjoyment!

I concur that wind turbulence, as well as crosswinds and general wind groundspeed is not as prevalent with FSGRW than ASXP, but that can either be a good or bad thing, depending on the challenge level you are shooting for. For me, being an intermediate pilot, I appreciate the winds being a bit toned down with FSGRW, and I don't know if this is by design or if it needs improvement, but nothing can be more annoying than taking off or on approach and having the winds buffet you from side to side, as it is in ASXP. Sure, it's more realistic (though I cannot compare it to RW flying, since I'm not a RW pilot) and I know you can change that setting in ASXP, so with that said, maybe there will be an update on the horizon? I can only assume that since FSGRW is designed for both Prepar3D and X-Plane, that they came to a middle ground for compatibility, which may or may not affect any future update.

My X5600 Rhino doesn't have any physical detent on the throttle quadrant, but I can set the response curve for one of the throttle levers (the X5600 has dual throttle levers) in XP, and get the Beta to work, so in essence, I can bring the throttle back to a point, then the aircraft will respond go to idle, with the throttle movement going further back, and Beta engages. A full throttle back will engage reverse. In the response curve dialog, via the controller settings, there is a checkbox that enables you to use Beta/Reverse...pretty simple. After a test flight with these settings, I can land now, and quickly engage reverse and slow the aircraft down much easier.

Sounds like you are on the right track about response curves. Check out this video from the God of X-Plane himself. Go to 2:22 where he describes how turboprops work and also instructs you on how to edit response curves. I'm about to give this a try myself, as I just bought the TBM-900 (awesome plane btw) and I need to get all my controls set properly for her.

I'd like to add, as an FYI, if anyone is using ASXP and FSGRW, remove the folder (DON'T delete) for "ASXP Connect", as this may interfere with downloading and loading of METARs for FSGRW. May sound paranoid, but to help ensure that users get the METAR injected properly, would be advisable to remove that folder. Remember to put it back if using ASXP though. I brought this up during a test I conducted a few days ago and noticed that after shutdown and viewing the log.txt file, there was an error that occured, pertaining to ASXP Connect.

Click on the checkbox for "FSGRW or external injector". This option works for both FSGRW and ASXP, as I have both and get the metar injection very easily.

Brightness can be adjusted with the help of MaxxFx, or it's older counterpart, which I still use. Granted, brightness adjustments through those methods are general, so everything will get brighter or darker.

Not here to give a definite answer, but more so to pose a question directly related to the OP's problem. Isn't it entirely possible that the OP can just fire up the system with the software and license on it, and uninstall, thus releasing the license to be active on the other system? In the past, when i have had to migrate software from one machine to the next, I typically did proper uninstalls (or if the software had a method to deactivate the license, I would do that first), then after that was done, turn around and reinstall to the new system, re-activate a license, which went as kosher as Christmas. This may be worth investigating for the OP, by locating the proper uninstall and try that first, with a subsequent reinstall on the system he intends to have active and see if that works. If anything, you've guaranteed that no other conflicting systems have an active license but the one that needs it.

Not sure if you made any headway with this issue but I took a look at the last log.txt file you posted in this thread and looked through it. It is quite possible that at the time of the crash, it may not be SMP that causes it directly, but rather indirectly. Since you have many other plug-ins running, they are all competing for processing during your flight, including SMP. The possibility that another plugin is processing at the time that SMP is wanting to refresh, that this could be causing your crash, which is evident with the last line of the log (the XPLM plugin, which I believe is the X-Plane Plugin Manager). With regards to plugins, no matter whether or not they are commonly used, the fact remains that not everyone will have the same results using them. Past historical discussions about users' systems vs. performance & stability benchmarks, indicate that since every user's system is different, coupled with the fact that we all have varying system configs for the OS and any other programs that may be running in the background, can have a deciding factor on crashes. One question that I didn't see asked was whether or not your system is overclocked, and if so, to what degree of overclock is in place as well as how stable the overclock is. I've been around the bend many times over the subject of overclocking cpus and gpus and I can tell you that not enough proper testing of overclocks can exhibit strange results. One easy way to check the stability of X-Plane, is to run a scenario and then hit CTRL+SHIFT+F on your keyboard, to get your cpu and gpu timings. Obviously the lower the number the better, but more importantly, compare the two and see which one is higher. Depending on which is higher, is dependent on your rendering settings. There are plenty of helpful tutorials out there to help decide which settings to adjust, but as a base. If I were in your shoes, I would visit the render settings, bring down some a notch and see if that might help.

Prior to purchasing and installing FSGRW (out of shear curiosity but I'm glad I did now), I used ASXP and haven't had any issue with weather depiction, with the only grievance being the winds. ASXP is still being tweaked by HiFi Simulations, and though it is a good metar injector, I find now that FSGRW does a much better job. i know this doesn't help the OP in his issue, but as the others have stated, setting RWC to External Injector was what I always ran at, and had no problems, aside from the finer points to ASXP not giving me the whole picture in terms of cloud layers and proper winds.

From the long history of XP11, those "bands" that are prevalent in the last shots (enhanced to really see them during a full night sky) have always been an issue. Try a dusk or dawn flight and you really see them, without any need to use an extra camera either. I believe Cameron is on the right track here. @Jakob Ludwig also makes a good point that to troubleshoot this, disable any and all plugins that deal with post-processing or modifying sky colors, to see if this issue is still prevalent (on top of the already known issue with sky colors from the base sim by LR). One tip, and one I am not sure how to fix without the aid of the plugin, is to adjust the raleigh scaling. I have an old plugin that was once offered for free from Github, that allows the user to adjust that, which can make a difference in how the base colors are rendered. I sometimes bump that setting up or down to see if I can dial in a more realistic sky. Also, try bumping the setting you have at HDR+SSAO back down to just HDR and see if that helps too.

Oh I know. It just got a little confusing after I downloaded the file and started to run it, I had to go back to XA's website and make sure I hadn't inadvertently missed clicking something to make sure I was getting the XP version (even though I already knew XA doesn't sell P3D add-ons). lol No worries, everything is cool and groovy, so now it'll be interesting to see how v4.8 of SMP changes the filed. Already, I see a dramatic difference from what I was running before, without FSGRW and now. It may sound silly, but the fade in effect of the weather being injected makes a huge difference, as opposed to how default XP with ASXP acted. I know that the "pop-in" effect in flight sims has been a bone of contention with a lot of users over the years, so this functionality is something more of those users should see for themselves. I knew at some point, some developer would come around and figure that out!

Nope, I have v4 installed. In fact, I bought v4 of SMP w/RWC back in February. What I meant about upgrading, is the latest release, which I believe is 4.8? As for FSGRW, one thing I noticed that might be worth mentioning, is that when FSGRW is purchased through X-Aviation, it does say that it works with X-Plane, but for some odd reason, Pilots' download file has P3Dv4 in its name and through the installer, if one isn't careful, might try to install FSUIPC, which is for P3D only. Fortunately, I skipped that part of the installer, and finally did find the section about setting up the path for XP. Once all that was done, it worked great, better than an old previous version I used to use back in the day, with P3D.

I recently just joined the X-Pilot Forums, so my apologies if my reply is late, so if you still check the forums here, allow me to add that recently, I upgraded my system to something much more current. My current system contains an Intel i9-9900k w/nvidia GTX-2080 (not a Ti), but I can concur that the framerates are through the roof! Since getting all of my X-Plane content moved over to a new drive and then the arduous task of ensuring the everything works right, I performed a couple of tests: The first test conducted, positioned the default C172 at my home airport, which is a municipal airport (default X-Plane), with custom ortho (can't fly without it nowadays) and the combo of SMP/RWC/ASXP. My framerates are stable on an average of 100fps. I really never thought that possible. The second test, was under the same conditions, with the exception of using a payware aircraft, the AFL C172, and the framerates were stable at an average 55fps The third test was similar, only this time, positioning the aircraft at KSFO, utilizing MisterX6's freeware bundle, that included the airport and SF city, with ortho. Running the same weather, with the AFL C172, my frames were stable at an average of 45fps The long and the short of it, as a user introduces more complex items, like scenery and aircraft, the frames will come down, BUT with a higher-end system, the sim is still manageable with acceptable frames. As for the sim settings, my sim is set up like this (which really hasn't changed at all, since XP11's infancy): Visual effects at High (HDR with no SSAO, since that jump really doesn't make a difference on the visual side of things until LR refines it, but it will eat more frames) Texture Quality is set to Maximum (but not to "no compression", as that too takes away performance without any real significant visual difference) AA is set to 4XSSAA (never found the need to go higher, especially under GA conditions, as this performs similarly to the above two settings) World Objects are set to high (setting to max will give a whole lot more 3D scenery objects, but will eat frames. High seems to be the best compromise vs. performance) Reflection I still keep at minimum. I don't stream and not often ogle over the exterior of an aircraft, so this is personal preference in that regard. I'm sure this setting will get an overhaul at some point by Laminar, and if anything, allow most everyone to bump it up without taking a huge hit on frames. My monitor resolution is based on a 1440 panel, so when I'm panning my camera around, it looks and feels like real life. My previous system had a 4K panel and while that too looked great, my frames averaged at around half of normal (i.e. 50fps for a 1920x1080, 25fps for 4K, which had a 1080 powering it). As for the rest of the system, it is housed with all SSD drives, with X-Plane being resident on an PCIe NVME M.2 drive and ortho being housed on an external 4tb HDD. I think it is safe to assume that currently, with each new stable release of -Plane, we'll all benefit from performance boost, some larger than others, but as I have read that Ben and Austin do want to see stable 60's for fps all around, it may be an attainable goal, but also understand that is with a sim set to all default. Every user is different in what they expect the sim to do, but they also have to understand that with their current systems, there also comes compromise. It's like owning a Ford Fiesta and expecting to drive over 100mph all the time...it just isn't going to happen, and if it does, will significantly reduce the lifespan of the engine, and in our case, the cpu and gpu. Now, the tradeoff with the 2080Ti, is of course, more vram (perhaps a slightly higher boost clock), which can come in handy for us. Those with a lot of add-on scenery can benefit from that, but for those with 8gb and lower, it all comes down to compromise, and only loading what you need. Replicating real-life isn't quite there yet, but we're getting close. I will say that with the 20 series of nvidia cards, there is a significant performance shift from the 10 series cards, with respect to X-Plane only. Gaming and high-end production applications are another matter.

I think I can vouch for that. I purchased FSGRW earlier this evening and after a bit of confusion over what version I received, I believe I got it work and may I say i am rather impressed how the weather (as it was being injected), faded in, instead of popping in, as I was used to before. I don't say this often, but I am very impressed so far with the performance. unfortunately, my evening is coming to a close and I still need to grab the update to SMP, but with running the previous version, the performance and visuals are awesome. :)

If I may direct your attention to this post, as I had asked a similar question this morning, and Cameron was gracious enough to highlight the features and how it all comes together: After reading his reply, I might siwtch over to FSGRW and use that with the other two, to see if I see a difference. If anything, we'll know that they all play well together.

I would have to concur that after a couple of months using SMP w/RWC, I see a noticeable difference in my visuals. I admit that I currently use ASXP with it, but I might just go ahead and purchase FSGRW as an alternative, since Cameron shed some light on how well SMP/RWC/FSGRW work together. I have yet to upgrade to the latest build of SMP, but I suspect it'll be the perfect polishing to a great weather add-on. A thank you goes out to the team at Sundog for continuing with great success. Thanks.

Most definitely shed a LOT more light on the subject and I thank you for that easy to understand example. As far performance goes, I'm getting decent frame rates (~50fps) using ASXP, SMP w/RWC in the AFL C172 over custom ortho. If I switched to FSGRW that allows for more cloud types, will that impact the frames any more than what I get? What about "pop-in" weather, as far as the change from one metar to the next, does this "killer combo" reduce that effect or is it about the same? For the record, I'm out to find the best combination that can accurately depict the weather, so I am open to options. Thanks again Cameron!

Hello, I am a new member to the X-Pilot Forums, and I joined, due to owning both SkyMaxxPro and Real Weather Connector. In recent months, I also bought the new ActiveSkyXP add-on, since I've used it before in other simulators. Since I have all three add-ons installed, and they seem to all work together, I am curious as to what RWC actually does, that ASXP doesn't and why the dependency between SMP and RWC? My workflow in XP is to first start up ASXP, then start up X-Plane. At the startup screen, I make sure that the weather is set to real world weather, and then make sure the rest of the flight parameters are set, then I start the flight. After the cockpit shows up, I have to wait a little while for my scenery to fully load (pulling it from an external HDD), then the weather updates to whatever it is currently. It is then that I wonder what RWC and doing and how they work together, or is it a case of redundancy? This was an aspect of weather generation I never really thought about until now, with the exception that in general, a metar is pulled for the airport I am at and then the metar is decoded and transposed into a visual environment, which then updates at regular intervals set within a particular program. Logic would dictate that XP is already pulling metar data, and so is ASXP, so is this also something that RWC does? I guess what I am really trying to ask is whether or not I made a mistake in using ASXP if RWC does the same thing? I did notice in the settings that you can either choose FSGRW (FS Global Real Weather) as a "metar source" or another add-on (like ASXP), so maybe I've answered my own question. If anyone would be kind enough to clarify, it would be appreciated. Thanks.