I am afraid that many believe that the SimConnect is going to be the answer to issues in FSX's weather, such as: smooth pressure, smooth wind transitions, smooth general weather transitions, etc.

 

First, it is a great improvement and I am thankful that Microsoft has provided this tool, but many of the elements in the weather engine in FSX have not been changed since FS9.  I believe FSXI will be drastically different when they get a chance to work on it.

However, these issues are not fixed and only somewhat improved. 

 

So what makes products like Weather Maker, Active Sky, or FSMeteo different than just using the plain old FS weather loader.

Here is the difference and what the Simconnect module will help with:

 

1.)  With Simconnect we now have a direct connection to the weather API and thus, gives us a little more customization of the weather effects.  With SimConnect we can add more weather stations so this allows us to populate more weather stations and create a more realistic weather front; especially over water.  That in itself will help with some of the transitions issues, but will not fix it completely.

 

2.)  With Simconnect we can now integrate some other features of the sim into the weather engine and expand our ways of handling certain affects on the aircraft more than what was available in the past.

 

3.)  With Simconnect the use over a network is much easier than previous.

 

4.)  Development and code production is much easier.  For example the ATIS report and actual winds and visibilities match up correctly.  That is a BIG improvement.

 

So the next question is which is better FSUIPC or Simconnect.

 

In my opinion right now I am split.  Simconnect gives me the developer more room for development, but it is limited only to FSX.  There are a lot of FS9 users out there and so using only Simconnect limits us to the FSX user base.  I think as FSX gains hold - especially after the great improvement with SP1 then this will not be an issue.

 

Also, Simconnect will help in getting more accurate reading for FSX, such as visibility, and wind direction.  But FSUIPC does help in some aspects of the smoothing.

 

The truth is that the problem is really with the Weather Engine itself and not the add-on.  The weather engine (FSX/9) takes data and stores it in memory heaps on the CPU.  FSUIPC allows the developer to access those memory heaps and change the data in them.  This is not the best way to do this in that it can cause issues.  Peter Dowson has done a brilliant job with handling this and making this possible.

Simconnect allows us to force the actual application FSX to handle these weather changes, but still there is not an engine with FSX that handles the transitions well.  This will have to come in the next version of FS.

 

In humble opinion I think this is a trial period for the Flight Sim product.  I have never seen Microsoft push Flight Sim to be a more public product as a game with Service Pack udpates, and even Expansion Packs. This could be a very good sign.  I do think that if FSX really succeeds especially if we can get what we see with Vista and Direct X 10, then FSXI will be incredible; especially, in the Weather Department.

 

Just my two cents!

 

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