X-Plane Australia

Just thought I'd chime in and say that I recently had the same issue after a 9 hour flight from YMML to ZGGG with RWC and SMP. Definitely not a show stopper as redrawing clouds also fixed the issue for me. In my case I just went to the settings menu and hit apply changes. Still far from ideal nonetheless. I'm running a 4GB GTX770

Just wanted to say thanks for the update. Don't know what you've done but I've seen a massive performance increase. I can now run SMP and RWC at a 20,000 Sq Km! Thanks

So all those clouds are sitting there, consuming ram or vram? I ask as I have an abundance of ram but my 4GB of vram is restricting... (I imagine this is the situation most people are more likely to be in) And they'll obviously be killing FPS for those who are at their ram or vram limit, but if not at this point, they're not being drawn into the scene and should have no net effect on FPS!

Thanks for the responses all! Good to see lots of positivity and yes, there very well could be a technical limitation as I imagine we have all experienced the 2-3 second wait after applying a change of settings. This is where it might be useful for John or Sundog to chime in as I imagine they understand the underlying intracies to a much higher standard than the rest of us haha! Great point from Havner which aligns with my basic understanding of programming and suggests that it's much safer for SMP to redraw the whole scene even if it's not paticulary required! As we fly along SMP is drawing clouds in the distance and dropping clouds behind us (obviously assuming they aren't being driven by some 300kt tailwind...) without any noticeable frame dip, and although this is on a smaller scale, it does suggest that it could be very well possible. In practice there should be absolutely no problem techincally in descent? In my mind as the set 'transition altitude' is crossed the clouds that are presently around you and within your lower level cloud range would be left as is and the clouds outside of this range would be removed from the scene. SMP would just cease to draw them! (and hopefully due to the nature of your lower altitude this drop in cloud range basically can't be seen) The technical issues with a simple redraw obviously arise on ascent... While I don't believe a full redraw is necessary and it should be possible to achieve the transition to extended range without a noticeable slowdown, some thought has to be placed into this aspect as it's inevitably going to be more taxing on the system to draw more clouds in the scene. A possible solution would be to have the SMP recognise when the 'transition altitude' is crossed while ascending and leave the clouds in the small range/radius as is, then over 10-20 second period it would slowly begin to draw clouds into the scene that are further and further out, just as if they were being drawn in as a result of the planes movement. I mean I currently run SMP with NOAA resulting in abrupt changes in weather, I only experience a 2-3 second slowdown when SMP removes all 3 cloud layers and replaces them with 3 new ones. It could be very possible to avoid this when only drawing in the next 50km or so of clouds, leaving the ones in your immediate vicinity as is and doing this slowly over even a 30 second period. (I have no idea of the validity, but I do appreciate this would be no small feat haha, would be intrested to hear from someone in the dev team? Finally, sorry if you were somewhat offended by my comments Cameron. As a fellow X-Plane user who wants to see progress in the sim, it's in my interests to have products like these thrive, be purchased and drive future development. After a while away from the sim I came back to the forums after receiving an email regarding this product. I saw the overly negative vibe on the forums and was concerned for the product. As I now know, the views of the forums definitely do not reflect a majority of the user base and this makes sense, why go looking for the support forum when you're in the sim enjoying the product and having fun?! I admit there have been many times when the tables have been turned and I see users trying to blame their poor and usually unrelated performance issues on a product which I am using without problem, yet I never feel the need to comment, defend the developer and represent the 'majority' of the user base. However, as with the last time I brought something up, I do feel as though there is definite room for improvement here! Either way, congrats on your biggest release! Exciting times ahead! Andy Please excuse any typos, this was typed while on a train on my phone haha...

Yeah look I'll be honest regarding the current situation... - The 3.1 update defiantly made me rethink purchasing RWC (as I imagine it did for a lot of other people). Although the performance problem was quickly resolved it resulted in a loss of confidence, I probably would have bought RWC blindly otherwise. :') - These recent events have highlighted the issue that the performance hit for maximum cloud range is unacceptable! I have a GTX770 and I can also run with max cloud range as Sundog suggests in another thread at an acceptable frame rate. However, the compromises I have to make with the rest of my rendering settings in order to achieve this makes it unreasonable and undesirable. This is not a solution! In my mind the solution is to have two separate adjustable cloud draw distance ranges. One for low level flight, (approx below 15,000) and one for high level flight (approx above 15,000 feet) There are several reasons for this: - My current (and seemingly very small) draw distance range of 2,000-4,000 square km looks brilliant on the ground and for GA flying up to about 10,000 feet. When sitting at an airport due to the nature of your elevation it's basically as far as the eye can see. The clouds fade away smoothly into the distance. There's no need to have maximum cloud draw distance at theses low altitudes as it just makes the sim unresponsive and you can't tell the difference. However this value is useless when I am flying an airliner at 30,000 and makes RWC completely pointless. (hence why no purchase as of yet) - Once I am up off the ground and transitioning to high level flight (lets say around 15,000 feet) I am no longer drawing all the stuff on the ground, have lots of system resources available and to put things simply, am running at 60 to 80 fps. Only now do I have the resources to draw clouds at the maximum range of SkyMaxx allowing me to enjoy all the possible benefits of RWC (a product I was very much looking forward to). This is where I would have my high level slider maxed out, reducing my framerate but back to an acceptable level as I am of course at altitude. - As a side note, I believe this should be combined with better implementation of the 'imposter' clouds. To be honest I'd like to see a gradual reduction in LOD as distance increases. In my humble opinion the 100% detail clouds extend out to far (hurting performance) and the imposters are to easy to spot and too much of step down. There must be a solution in between! Put simply... I have my system set up (as I imagine many others do) so I sit on the ground at the most resource hungry airport + city combination, with the same payware aircraft (Jar's A320neo), the same weather conditions (clear skies, 25NM visability), and the same camera orientation (so I am pointing at the centre of the city) and sit at a solid 35 FPS. This worse case scenario allows me to account for all conditions and 5-10 FPS for the variable that is weather. While a cloud draw distance of 2,500 square km looks brilliant on the ground and results in a loss of about about 5 FPS (as is fair and to be expected) this negates the purpose of RWC! At the same time, drawing clouds to the maximum range on the ground looks basically no different and drops the performance to below 19FPS. I am not prepared (as I imagine many others) to reduce eye candy in the rendering settings just to inefficiently draw an abundance of clouds while I'm flying circuits at 1000ft AGL... Two sliders I believe would provide the best of both worlds! Thanks, Andy I'd like to think this isn't just seen as whiny rant but is fairly solution driven I've been a long time advocator of SMP and I'm confident in what John and Sundog are capable of. Check my original rant :') that led to SMP v2. And not only that but the positive end to that thread and the evident improvement!

The 12Nm DME Arc departure out of TNCM SkyMAXX v3

Looking forward to this one! Sounds great!

^Followed by a quick scenic flight despite the winter weather. Central Park