Classic British Flight Sim

What does anybody use for real weather in FSX?

I used Active Sky 6 in FS9 which was fine except for
a) clouds would suddenly appear and disappear, making it difficult to determine when anti icing was needed
b) wind and temperature at supersonic cruise levels were appalingly simulated.

Does anyone know if Active Sky Next is better at either of these functions?

Regards

Ady

I use ASN and think it's great. Not seen any clouds appearing & disappearing.
No idea on point (b) though.

Hi Ady

In FSX I use one of two weather programs depending on the type of flying I plan on doing and the aircraft that I'm using for that flight. Both use the same cloud textures and the same settings for generation ranges and visibilities.

!. FSGRW. This is my preferred system when I'm flying GA or anything from Captain Sim with their own weather radar. It has a lighter footprint in use and generates some very realistic weather with the returns on the radar matching what is seen out of the window. I also use this to generate my FS9 weather for my classic flying, including Concorde, without problems.

2. Active Sky Next. I bought this one for use with the iFly 737 (and now 747) which have the ASN radar integrated with the ND. I also use Bryn's radar gauge on my PMDG birds. I normally use this for longer flights as it has an ATIS function and I can check arrival weather en route. Again what is on the display matches what is seen out of the window very well. It does use more system resources than FSGRW but the integration with the radar and the ATIS are worth the loss.

It took a little fiddling around with the settings of both to balance performance against FPS impact to eliminate popping, but now they give very smooth weather. Both receive regular updates, and apparently give realistic displays on the radars. I have found that neither seems to work very well with the "other" radar, but that might just be my impression. I have also found that the ASN map corresponds very well to real on-line radar images, at least here in Brazil.

I don't have anything that cruises at supersonic speeds in FSX so I can't specifically answer that, but I don't remember any issues when honking around in the Lightning.

Hope that helps

Thanks guys, I will probably get active duty next, system resources really should not be a problem on the pc I have just bought I will report back on its performance with Concorde one I have installed that asked tried it out.