kterz

Hi, when ActiveSky reports runways "in use", it follows the exact logic the internal fsx/p3d atc has when determining which runway the AI (and/or user aircraft) will be assigned. So, in 99.9% of cases the active runway reported by AS is what you'll get from the internal fsx/p3d atis. Unfortunately, there are limitations in the way the internal sim atc handles parallel active runways. And depending on the conditions (calm or variable winds, cross wind with slight magnetic errors in the scenery bgl etc), you may end up getting active runway(s) (from ActiveSky/simAtc) that is/are different to the ones reported by real world sources, even if wx conditions match 100%.

Hi, ActiveSky (since ASN) actually does that (plays an altered audio file when hail is present) and depicts snow in order to give the closest possible (within sim restrictions) feeling of being in hail. So, it doesn't work? What is the ambient precipitation reported by ActiveSky debug window?

Hi, unable to reproduce the "change back to live weather and ws warning not going away". In my case, once live weather was downloaded and injected, the winds and warning disappeared (as they should). May be it's a timing issue and since this is easily reproducible, I welcome any fellow simmer/ ActiveSky user to give this a test. If there is an actual bug, then please open up a support ticket so that we can investigate in which configurations this surfaces up. One other thing that would be really helpful is to enable the "Shear" button on the map. This would show something like this: This shows the presence of a microburst around the airport at the time. Please keep in mind that gusts are a different thing compared to wind shear/microbursts. The wind direction in a microburst is centrifugal (and not "steady") from a specific "center" where also the downdraft is maximized. This is the way this phenomenon is described in real life and that's the way we simulated it. As for your landing issues, I suggest (at least for GA aircraft that don't have an on board radar), that you install XGauge and enable the aural prediciton warnings. Cause in these conditions you are really lucky you didn't actually crash :)

Hi, just uncheck the "Realistic thunderstorm up and downdraft rate" and you're done. I think however that the simming community underestimates (and thus considers "unrealistic") the issues coming up due to the huge amount of energy accompanying thunderstorms. In contrast to the way people feel about them in real life. It's not unusual to get 6-10000feet/ min updrafts/downdrafts when penetrating a thunderstorm (or when the 20miles upwind safety margin is not respected). And that's what ActiveSky attempts to simulate. Take a look at this: https://www.airlineratings.com/news/thunderstorms-a-must-to-avoid/

Hi, not sure the exact time you've been there. This is what I get for yesterday: at 1400z: EBAW 181420Z 27015KT 250V310 9999 BKN027 07/02 Q1002 TEMPO 25025G35KT at 1500z: EBAW 181520Z 28012KT 9999 SCT032 SCT045 07/02 Q1002 TEMPO 25015G25KT at 1600z: EBAW 181620Z 27010KT 9999 SCT032 SCT045 07/01 Q1002 TEMPO 25015G25KT at 1700z: EBAW 181720Z 26006KT 9999 SCT032 SCT045 07/02 Q1002 TEMPO 30015G25KT 3500 SHRA at 1800z: EBAW 181820Z 21006KT 9999 SCT032 SCT045 06/02 Q1002 TEMPO 30015G25KT 3500 SHRA at 1900z: EBAW 181920Z 23008KT 9999 -TSRA SCT020CB SCT045 06/03 Q1002 TEMPO 30015G25KT 3500 TSRA while the TAF for the following hours was: EBAW 181711Z 1818/1903 25010KT 9999 SCT025 TEMPO 1818/1903 30015G25KT 3500 SHRAGS SCT008 BKN012CB Please refer to the exact metar when reporting an issue or claiming that something is not realistic, so that we can be on the same page

AS16 and AS for P3d version 4.x do not create multiple overcast layers. This was an option only back in ASN but is not needed since we introduced ASCA overcast models so it's disabled by default.

Hi, "Something" corrupted the file wxmapping.bin inside p3d\weather folder, hence the message you got from ActiveSky. It was just attempting to restore it (and it failed). Recent versions of ActiveSky (since ASN) just read and do not touch this file anymore, since our depiction is not based on internal sim station anymore. A corrupt wxmapping.bin will cause a CTD in weather.dll This is known since many years ago. Our support team will help you fix it.

It shouldn't be there when ASCA overcast cloud structures/ models are installed. I remember working on this specific issue more than a year ago and made adjustments to the radar code (when working with the ASCA model) in order to fix this issue. Keep in mind that any adjustments I make to the radar code have to be model specific (cause as I said the "stitching" of the cloud models is different each time). There is no "generic fix" on this one, cause this is not ActiveSky's problem per se. It's the overcast model's design that leads to it (in an attempt to make the overcast more solid) So, are you sure the ASCA overcast model was properly installed when you tried this with ASCA? If yes, I'll need more info and proof (screenshots etc through a support ticket), to see what's going wrong.

Hi, keep in mind that the radar depiction reflects the actual precipitation produced by certain clouds, so it's greatly affected by the cloud structures used in the sim. So, the "solid overcast" advertised by the cloud structure program you may use might also mean that the lateral "stitching" of the cloud structures is affected and while this may not become apparent when looking directly the clouds in the sim (unless maybe you look carefully), they are revealed when looking at the radar as these grid lines. With ASCA (and the default fsx/p3d overcast models) we have full control where the cloud sprites are, so we avoid these issues altogether. We cannot ascertain however that it will show up ok in all cases regardless of the depicted cloud structure. The radar signals are just a vertical projection of the depicted cloud model (assuming all of it contains precip).

Hi, this is unrelated to ASCA (or Active sky). It's the way cloud sprites are rotated by the way P3D is rendering them. In your case it's more pronounced due to the low zoom level (I think). In addition, the GPU/driver combo may play a role as shaders tend to behave differently in some cases (e.g. ATI cards)

Hi, both ActiveSky and ASCA API are well documented and open for integration. Any add-on can take advantage of the dynamic cloud/sky texture handling ASCA offers.

Hi, Most of us have been using 64bit CPUs and 64bit OS since many years ago. The big difference is that now the sim will actually be 64bit (it will be compiled using x64). So, in addition to the gains in memory what does this mean for the performance of an application? - First it will avoid the indirection layer of WOW64 32bit emulation used in Windows. This leads to to a slight increase in performance. - In x64 mode an application has access to twice as many registers compared to 32bit (the so called x86 mode). This means that local data calculations will not need to access the main memory, more cache memory will be available and thus we'll gain speed. - It uses double the number of XMM registers (the ones used for floating point calculations, vectors etc). - Functions are called with the "fast call" convention, avoiding (in many cases), CPU cycles to create stack frames etc. - On the other hand, a single pointer is now 64bits, meaning it's double in size, so for relatively small data (such as a small array), this means you'll need double the amount of memory. So, what's the net effect? A simple recompile of an application to x64 bit without any other changes/optimization as an average will lead to a 20-30% increase in speed, but this depends on the type of the application. For a whole world flight sim, where the "basic stuff" (such as the lat/lon coordinates) need to have double precision (aka 64bit), this is even more important and so CPU performance will likely see even more benefits. The one thing you have to keep in mind as far as modern games are concerned is that the main bottleneck in most cases is not the CPU. It's either the GPU itself (depending on the power, the AA level and the amount of semi-transparent objects that need to be rendered such as the clouds) or CPU-GPU communication. In a whole world sim, the disk-RAM also play an important role as we need to update objects and textures on the fly As far as P3D v4 (since I've been a beta tester), I think we get the expected performance gains. I've seen (on my modest machine, with everything default except for AS/ASCA) a steady increase in frames from 25-55 in P3D v3 (depending on the conditions) to about 35-75 in P3D v4. Of course YMMV and things will probably get worse as we add more addons and stuff, but I think it's a good starting point. Kostas Terzides, Active Sky developer

Yes.

Not true in full dynamics mode. See my explanation here: http://www.hifisimtech.com/forums/showthread.php?6529-Difference-between-full-dynamics-and-global-automatic&p=32482&viewfull=1#post32482

Hi, this has been fixed and will be part of an upcoming hotfix. For now, first close AS16 and then the simulator