ActiveSky and SkyMaxPro

[JG19]

Hi,

Does anyone recommend getting both? I was thinking skymax pro for the clouds, and Activesky for the weather insert.

[Ryan88]

i've heard xvision and active sky have a good preset that works well

[John W]

Normally you would use one or the other. I have xEnviro 1.10 and Active Sky XP. They do not work together. Active sky has an enhanced cloud set that you can use but doesn't really provide much of an improvement on the cloud layers and draw distances. I don't know about SkyMaxPro.

I would recommend taking a look at video reviews of the different weather engines on the net and see what they look like. Normally if you purchase SkyMaxPro it is recommended to also purchase Real Weather Connect.

I switch between xEnviro and Active Sky XP quite a bit. Normally when the weather representation on one just doesn't look right. Then I switch and see how it looks in the other engine. For the most part Active Sky XP looks very good with one exception which really bugs me. When beneath an overcast it's as if you're under a flat disk of clouds, which extent equally in front, behind, left and right. That is not realistic and looks really bad. I understand why it is done, and that is to keep the frame rates up, but it still looks bad.

Good luck with your search for a weather engine. Keep in mind that the makers of Active Sky XP are supposed to be working on their next version. So if you purchase Active Sky XP then you will have to purchase it again when the next version comes out. This is the same for me with xEnviro once they move from version 1.xx to version 2.xx.

[Kosmozuikis]

Xenviro has terrible looking clouds which breaks the immersion and no one wantss to play on 20-25fps. Skymaxxpro has terrible draw distance, there's a small cloud box around you and when you look further there's nothing. If you increase the draw distance fps drops and it's unplayable. Active sky has great representation of cloud layers. You can use it with xvision which provides better clouds.

[John W]

Using xEnviro I get anywhere from 20 to 60 fps. Yes there is an issue with the clouds presently in version 1.10 so I am anxiously awaiting version 1.11 which is in the works. Most of the time, even with the present cloud issue in xEnviro, I prefer the clouds it generates to the ones in Active Sky XP. But then again I do switch back and forth between the two. This is all personal preference. Active Sky clouds look good for the most part except for the draw distance when under overcast layers. If you can wait a bit longer before purchasing a weather engine that might be best, but at the present time I would suggest that Active Sky XP is your best bet.

[JG19]

Thanks All look like it all down to personal preference since you have all said different things! Now it all depends how long the next version of ActiveSky will take, if it like say a few months, I will purchase this for now

[Stringbean]

I'm not personally fooled anymore with these weather packages. I don't think any of the third party developers can give us what we want. This has been going on for over ten years now ever since I owned FSX back in the day.

Personally, I'm happy with FS Global Real Weather to inject the weather and use X-Plane default clouds.