if you are talking abut me, well I am not ashamed for having stop enjoying the simulator! because first, I do not play to learn how to fly properly as if I was a real pilote. I always used the sim as a mean to relax and explore. And second I got mfs since pre SU7 and i know how realistic it was back then (the sky) every flight was different and really gave me the impressions of flying in different part of the world! not all da variety is mostly gone… so excuse me if I cannot enjoy it anymore! but, good for you though if you didn’t know any better and love mfs as it now 
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It’s totally your choice my man. Have you tried downloading some presets? If realism is not your goal then weather presets might give you what you’re looking for.
Are they saying it isn’t? Wanting more variety in live weather, and achieving an analogue of that with weather presets are not mutually exclusive. You can achieve some pretty stunning results if you play with the weather presets. We just tend to get very similar looking clouds now, with less overall variety. You used to get amazing cloud banks, sheets of clouds, at different levels, and a lot of that was lost when they introduced the METAR blending.
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Sorry, it’s badly worded. Rather I was trying to say if you don’t mind not having real winds, or having weather change throughout a flight then presets can be great.
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That’s the whole point. We don’t want presets, we want decent LIVE weather.
There’s no point planning out realistic airline trips and going through all the proper steps just to get up there and have completely deterministic continuous weather at all times. It pretty much ruins the whole experience.
Presets are nice when you’re buzzing around in small GA aircraft, doing extremely short hops or just fooling around the local area.
They really do look much better and showcase everything MSFS can do with weather graphics.
Our major gripe, is that these are the same things that MSFS doesn’t deliver when LIVE weather is used.
Presets just don’t cut it, not for any real airline or cross-country flying. Makes most of the planning and careful decision-making that goes into it completely pointless.
So, whenever someone says they cannot enjoy the sim at all because the weather looks awful - THAT is really what they mean. It’s all about, and ONLY about LIVE Weather.
- I’m personally one more of “those people” who just don’t enjoy the sim anymore because of this. We’re not playing because of it. I come here just about every day hoping for some news of when I’ll be able to enjoy the sim again. But it is extremely frustrating that Asobo appears to be completely ignorant of the issue, or if not, just doesn’t communicate well at all.
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Well they didn’t necessarily say they were doing cross-country flying, rather that they were exploring. That could mean anything really. Presets might work for them, or they might not. It was just a suggestion.
Yeah, it’s the same problem that Rex weather has. It can produce pretty good results, but it’s the same everywhere until you reach another METAR area. There isn’t really an alternative until they either open up the weather API, which they won’t unless some contract they have expires, or someone finds a way to live weather by injecting it somehow, perhaps from another source.
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Yes, exploring is another case where Presets can be used.
But that’s really it, static weather conditions are only acceptable in cases where flight planning is not involved.
That rules out a full half of the Flight Simulator experience, where people dedicate many consecutive hours into fully reproducing a real pilot’s experience.
That’s where LIVE weather, or at least a reasonable approximation thereof is absolutely critical.
In no small part because there are extremely valuable tools, such as SimBrief, that will make use of current conditions to generate airline-grade flight plans with not just all the details, but even a replica format of the documents issued by various real airlines.
With the current state of Live Weather in the sim, though - These things just don’t have the same value, and that is really disappointing.
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Fair enough. There seems to be a lot of people flying airliners in the flightsim community that are obviously enjoying the experience, but I can understand if you’re looking for as much realism and authenticity as possible then it would be disappointing.
I’m cursed with the need to fly only in live weather, and yes, the skies post SU5/7 are a huge disappointment compared to what we started with.
If there’s no improvement in cloud / visibility depiction in 2024, I’m not sure I’ll even buy it.
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meanwhile a competitor platform is actually working on clouds improvements.
and they are a small team with a small budget compared to Asobo and MS as it’s backer.
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Does it match the METAR? Yes? Then I’m happy. The quality of the visuals is likely secondary.
The Meteoblue only weather was superior in most aspects, but it often meant that weather in the vicinity of an airport was not always matching the METAR accurately. So it was changed, and here we are.
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regressed for the sake of vatsimmers, didn’t even make it an optional toggle to blend metar… here we are xD
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I’m very happy for you that you enjoy those clouds in X-Plane like this.
I have to say that my clouds in ultra look better.
But that’s why the colors are up to taste.
Is live weather perfect? No.
Am I still regularly in awe I get to experience the following from live weather from an unmodded software? Absolutely
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i’m fully maxed out at ultra as well mate, i don’t see that variety in MSFS at all.
neither are there cirrus clouds.
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METAR is only a snapshot of the exact weather at the specific time the reading was taken.
As long as there’s no dramatic changes (e.g. FG when reported CAVOK, or VCTS, or wind direction reversal), there can be upto one hour’s worth of weather variance until the next METAR is issued.
I like that there was an attempt to bring in weather per METARs, but the implementation hasn’t been great. There are visible pockets of weather sitting over an airfield using the METAR depiction. These stand out against the weather data being pulled in from the area outside the airfield’s weather radius.
I find I’m using MSFS’ live weather less often in favour of REX’s Weather Force in spite of its limitations, such is the difference.
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Yes, the METAR islands are very easy to see. You don’t really need to ask for the direction of the airport most of the time, it’s so obvious.
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There will never be realistic, highly textured cirrus clouds in MSFS unless they make a major change in how clouds are created.
MSFS uses 100 percent volumetric techniques to form clouds, and that does not lend itself to creating thin, yet highly detailed cloud structures.
In older sims that have realistic-looking cirrus, clouds are formed using pre-defined 2D textures. MSFS does not support that. They would have to create a hybrid cloud rendering system that uses a combination of volumetric techniques and pre-defined textures.
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Well then let’s not talk anymore…
White and bottled = Milk
If you found what you were looking for in X-Plane, enjoy it, then.
Let’s not waste any more time.