Active Sky 6.5

[jgf]

Before I consign this to the digital dumpster, does it still have any use?  Is there anything I can still do with it in FS9?

[johnhinson]

It seems not.

 

From https://forums.hifisimtech.com/threads/active-sky-for-fs9.6953/ in March 2019:

 

Quote

Active Sky 6.5 has reached it's End Of Life cycle and is no longer supported nor can it be used online.

As previously stated Active Sky Evolution is the only other product we had available for FS9 but has been discontinued and no longer available for purchase.

I can confirm Active Sky Evolution still works but there is no certainty how long that will continue.

 

John

[Baron Fritz]

Hello JGF.

There are a couple of payware weather programs out there that still work with FS9 such as Global Weather, however they were not that highly rated last time I checked and I do not know anything about them.You may very well be stuck with the default weather, however there is hope. If you are interested in a bit of an up grade you should try High Definition Environment clouds.This is still available over at Avsim.su .The file name is HDV2.zip. (29152) In my opinion, they are about the best freeware clouds out there. I use them with Active Sky Evolution, (which is unfortunately no longer available), fine-tuned with FSUIPC ver 3.999. This combination produces a fair to midlin weather and it may be the best you can do with Fs2004 nowadays. Good luck!

[michaelkalinowsk]

You have probably to use different products for cloud textures and real-time weather nowadays to make the most of FS weather. For cloud textures I personally use REX and REX soft clouds and for real time weather I have FSrealWX3.0 by Hanse-Coders.

[joaopaz]

3 hours ago, michaelkalinowsk said:

You have probably to use different products for cloud textures and real-time weather nowadays to make the most of FS weather. For cloud textures I personally use REX and REX soft clouds and for real time weather I have FSrealWX3.0 by Hanse-Coders.

Same here. 

I'm using REX Fs2004 and FSrealWX Lite, the free version. Gorgeous skies every time!

[Mowgli22]

I use ASE and HDE. Perfect skies and perfect clouds, what more can i ask. Also GE Pro, ground and sky magnificent. I forgot  Envtex.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Mowgli22
added text

[jgf]

Well, I used AS with REX clouds, Zinertek water, UT, and GEPro.  And I know AS is a defunct antique,  I just wanted to be certain it was now absolutely useless before removing it (was there some unknown, to me, function beyond downloading weather).

 

(EOL means nothing in and of itself;  how many people are still using XP, Vista, and Win7.)

[JSMR]

FSGRW works great for me. Is it as good as ASK 6.5? Or ASE? Hmmm...Having used 6.5, maybe not. But its more than acceptable for me. Just to throw another option into the loop. 
 

[jgf]

Thanks for the input.  I have d/l'd a freeware weather program recommended for FS9 but not installed yet.  Currently pruning my install of scenery, aircraft, utils, etc. rarely if ever used anymore (or no longer functional, lol). 

[michaelkalinowsk]

I have both FSGRW and FSrealWX and found that the representation of the real weather conditions at a current location is better with FSrealWX compared to FSGRW. This is true for the clouds/cloud layers especially. The only thing I miss with FSrealWX is that it is not updating AI traffic to use take off runways in accordance with prevailing wind conditions. So you have to save the situation and re-start FS in order to have this corrected. But FSrealWX comes at a lower price than FSGRW and has some additional features like flight recording, load manager and flight planner - even though I I don't use those.

[johnhinson]

2 hours ago, michaelkalinowsk said:

I have both FSGRW and FSrealWX and found that the representation of the real weather conditions at a current location is better with FSrealWX compared to FSGRW. This is true for the clouds/cloud layers especially. The only thing I miss with FSrealWX is that it is not updating AI traffic to use take off runways in accordance with prevailing wind conditions. So you have to save the situation and re-start FS in order to have this corrected. But FSrealWX comes at a lower price than FSGRW and has some additional features like flight recording, load manager and flight planner - even though I I don't use those.

Flight Simulator will use runways for whatever weather exists. I think what you are experiencing is the weather loading after AI traffic has made its decisions. You can fix that by changing the FS time by as little as a minute to reset the AI traffic AFTER the weather has loaded.

John

[JSMR]

5 hours ago, michaelkalinowsk said:

I have both FSGRW and FSrealWX and found that the representation of the real weather conditions at a current location is better with FSrealWX compared to FSGRW. This is true for the clouds/cloud layers especially. The only thing I miss with FSrealWX is that it is not updating AI traffic to use take off runways in accordance with prevailing wind conditions. So you have to save the situation and re-start FS in order to have this corrected. But FSrealWX comes at a lower price than FSGRW and has some additional features like flight recording, load manager and flight planner - even though I I don't use those.

I’ve had the opposite experience and tried a couple different versions of FSrealWX all with similar results…the worst one I’ve ever used. By a considerable margin. It just doesn’t inject anywhere near the correct weather into FS2004.

 

Like all other FS2004 issues on his support forum, there isn’t any given. 
 

FSGRW has good historic weather. Works great with fs2004/simbrief flight plans, and works well with multiple sims. I rarely have issues or see the wx too much different to reality. 

[michaelkalinowsk]

3 hours ago, JSMR said:

I’ve had the opposite experience and tried a couple different versions of FSrealWX all with similar results…the worst one I’ve ever used. By a considerable margin. It just doesn’t inject anywhere near the correct weather into FS2004.

 

Like all other FS2004 issues on his support forum, there isn’t any given. 
 

FSGRW has good historic weather. Works great with fs2004/simbrief flight plans, and works well with multiple sims. I rarely have issues or see the wx too much different to reality. 

I have to agree with your critique, in part only. Sometimes, for reasons I don't understand the weather is injected to the sim and instantly changed back to standard conditions (29.92 inHg / 15 Deg C). Then, it sometimes takes minutes until the downloaded weather is injected correctly. But in my opinion the type of clouds I see after the weather is loaded into FS9 is better than with FSGRW. Perhaps this is only a matter of personal taste, but based on comparing what I see on the screen and what I see outside of my window. With the general weather phenomena like baro pressure, temperature, wind conditions and visibility there is no difference between FSrealWX and FSGRW and of course I never would regard FSGRW a bad add-on at all . . .

 

Michael 

[JSMR]

2 hours ago, michaelkalinowsk said:

I have to agree with your critique, in part only. Sometimes, for reasons I don't understand the weather is injected to the sim and instantly changed back to standard conditions (29.92 inHg / 15 Deg C). Then, it sometimes takes minutes until the downloaded weather is injected correctly. But in my opinion the type of clouds I see after the weather is loaded into FS9 is better than with FSGRW. Perhaps this is only a matter of personal taste, but based on comparing what I see on the screen and what I see outside of my window. With the general weather phenomena like baro pressure, temperature, wind conditions and visibility there is no difference between FSrealWX and FSGRW and of course I never would regard FSGRW a bad add-on at all . . .

 

Michael 

I do agree with the cloud depictions. I have both the free and version 3.0 which as now expired for me. But even the free version does do a good job in this area. But its frustrating when it doesn't inject anywhere close to the real wx. So I gave up trying. 

[JSMR]

Strange thing is, the Lite version does a better depiction than both FsRealwx Pro and FSGRW. Odd. 
Not sure if i want to spend 15 euro's or whatever on V3 though.