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Muskoka

Big improvement with replacement clouds

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I will definitely give these replacement clouds a shot as I had to dial my cloud puff setting to zero with the latest beta.GTX 550 Ti Direct Cu card.


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Ha, yes! But it's relatively cheap. We just had a guy in to quote on a louvre roof for our outdoor area, TWENTY FIVE GRAND!! You gotta be joking. So we'll go our cheaper option and spend the $22k saving on an SLI :-)
Apologies if this has been asked elsewhere, but as you mention SLI... Can XP10 use it?

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SimmoW"I'm finding that you have to revisit your settings after every update,"very true, I now reduced my cloud settings to 15% and that did the trick, back in the 18ish fps.,but left HDR ON,thanks to SimmoW and Muskoka, I can keep my NVidia G470 until Kepler and Ivy :Kiss:after all, it runs the Unigine and Endless city demos just fine. upgrading to GTX580 won't increase fps 50% in XPX.

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Cool! I'm yet to try below 21%, will do too!Sorry, it's not SLI . But I have a good feeling that the bus limitations have a lot to do with the plateau, so we'll all be Ivy Keplering..I have Take on Helicopters, with my puny 560 it runs like a dream with HDR and almost max settings. But a simpler 'sim'.

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Glen," . . . After looking at the texture files it appears they have just been reduced in size, cloud_puff0, 1, and 2 have been reduced from 1024 down to 512. Could probably just do that with the defaults. . . "I think the author of these adjusted cloud texture deserves a bit more credit! Here's an extract of his ReadMe file included with the new textures:" . . . Here is my second release, and I gotta tell you the tweaks will make clouds in X-Plane a possibility. I have been able to increase frame rates beyond what I thought was possible. Additionally these textures add some drama in the skies with colors and wispy/turblance......I hope you enjoy and feedback is welcome!. Tweaked textures for better frame rates.. Fixed issues with the clouds looking cut off.. Added new textures with hints of color to add depth.***Some textures repeat and I will fix this in the future*** . . . "JJ

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Hi JJ,

I think the author of these adjusted cloud texture deserves a bit more credit! Here's an extract of his ReadMe file included with the new textures:
As stated in one of my posts...... :(
Normal mode for me, HDR is just too much of a performance hit. I have to turn too many things way down to use HDR. If my video card even sees a cloud it turns and runs. These replacements do help. You could just reduce the default cloud textures and get the same results. The author has tweaked these a bit I think, other than just a reduction in size.
GlenEdit: I'm actually curious if anyone else has tried them, and what impact they had on their system, specifically the guys / gals that own Nvidia cards. They are probably not as "crisp/sharp" looking as the originals, but that's something I'm more than willing to overlook if I can fly in and around clouds with real weather, until Laminar sort this problem out. Edited by Muskoka

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Installing X plane right now, my graphics card is Radeon 6990 and processor i7 2600k 3.4 ghz. Will report soon how it runs with truly highest end graphics card at least.

Edited by FScamp

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Hi Glen,I've downloaded the CloudMaxx and the SkyMaxx also, and they are an improvement, at least in the morning light. I haven't scrolled thru time yet.My video card is a nVidia GTX 560 2Gb card, does pretty well. I wanted a 580, but one wasn't available locally and this 560 was, so call me impatient, got it anyway and the wife was happy it was cheaper :smile:With HDR on and the original cloud textures, I get around 20 to 25 fps. With HDR off and the original textures I get about 35 to 40 sometimes a bit higher or lower. This is where I fly in Oklahoma City not Seattle, In Seattle I typically get just under the 20s, but its still smooth and flyable.With the Maxx textures HDR on I get in the 30s fps, HDR off I get over 40fps in the Oklahoma City area. When I get time I will go to Seattle and do some experimenting.The upshot is I like the textures, will have to look into the Ultra payware later.PS. I almost forgot the most important thing, I keep my cloud percentage at 20%.

Edited by wb5okj

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Installing X plane right now, my graphics card is Radeon 6990 and processor i7 2600k 3.4 ghz. Will report soon how it runs with truly highest end graphics card at least.
Unfortuantely I doubt that well, ATI card owners (inluding myself, with a now very ancient 4870) are suffering from the ATI bug with any clouds and cars (see link below). My frames plummet when I add any of these features at the moment.http://developer.x-plane.com/2012/02/three-nasty-bugs/"Bug 1: Poor Performance with ATI Hardware on WindowsA code path used by the cars and clouds is stalling in the ATI driver on Windows. I don’t know why this is, but we are trying to follow up with ATI directly on this. The result is pretty unfortunate: if you have any cars (even “siberian”) or any clouds (even scattered) framerate absolutely tanks.As it turns out, if you set weather to clear and turn off cars completely, ATI performance on Windows is pretty good! Obviously that’s not a useful work-around, but if you have ATI hardware and are wondering what kind of fps you’ll get once we fix this, those are the two features to turn off. (I suspect rain may hit this code path too.)As with all driver-related problems, I must point out: I do not know if it’s our fault or ATI’s, and the party at fault may not be the party to fix it. Apps work around driver bugs and drivers work around illegal app behavior all the time…that’s just how it goes. Philosophically, the OpenGL spec doesn’t require any particular API calls to be fast, so you can’t really call a performance bug a bug at all. It’s ATI’s job to make the card really fast and my job to speculate which subset of OpenGL will cause the card to be its fastest.I have a Radeon 7970 and will write up some of my performance findings later. Unfortunately with the clouds affected by the problem code path, it’s hard to see how the card will really do."Hope Ben and team can find a fix soon.Rhydian

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Ok, well then will post review when its fixed. I am going to travel for 2 week holiday soon anyway, I hope that its fixed when I come back.

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Just wanted to say a very big thanks for these replacement clouds, they look great and perform well in the latest demo.I set my clouds to 20 and had a nice overcast with real wx over Seattle this evening.After a spin in that pea souper I set the weather to random and had an early-morning fair weather flight in the Baron.I had turned off HDR but decided to pop it back on, and was rewarded with the most beautiful spectacle I have ever seen in flight sim.Now having flirted and finally been wooed by XP10 I decided to put my money where my mouth is and ordered the Global (European) Edition from Aerosoft!So I will soon be on the look out for an XP-based VA, where I can fly that nice-looking Dash 8, CRJ and soon-to-be-released ATR (any VA recommendations?). :-)

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Hey guys, This is the most feedback I have gotten on CloudMAXX so far. Just to clarify these are completely original textures. Initially I released them at 1024x1024 and downsized them to 512x512. I noticed a slight performace increase right away. Currently I am running these textures at 256x256....Soon I will release these as CloudMAXX LITE, but if you wanted you could do this yourself in GIMP ;)FYI I will never go payware on CLoudMAXX/SkyMAXX or my airport scenery since I only want to support one payware product(no time for any more). Once UrbanMAXX Extreme is released I will continue to work on pefecting SkyMAXX and CloudMAXX.....One issue with CloudMAXX right now is on lower settings 10-15% flying through the cloud layers there tends to be pop up textures......I already have a good idea how to fix this. It will probably require a complete rework of the textures.....but thats a good thing because I have a technique to make these clouds more "REX" like....;) Thanks again, its good to hear this add-on is so well recieved...Best,JohnP.S. Be patient I am a one man show with a full time job and 5 kids...LOL

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deleted
Thank you for your warm welcome and deleting your post JP, as you see I "quit whining". ;-)Looking forward to using XP in earnest now!

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Hey, why doesn't Laminar reduce the texture size of clouds if it has a positive effect on the framerate??? They are hunting for every FPS...

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