WEATHER WITH FSUIPC

[titan4305]

HI,

I AM TRYING TO SET PRECIPITATION AND CLOUD LAYERS USING FSUIPC ON FS2004, BUT AM HAVING NO LUCK CAN ANYBODY STEER ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION IS THERE A PARTICULAR SEQUENCE OF WRITES THAT MUST BE ADHERED TO AND ARE ALL THE ADDRESSES DOCUMENTED IN FSINTERROGATE VALID?

[Pete Dowson]

HI,

I AM TRYING TO SET PRECIPITATION AND CLOUD LAYERS USING FSUIPC ON FS2004, BUT AM HAVING NO LUCK CAN ANYBODY STEER ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION IS THERE A PARTICULAR SEQUENCE OF WRITES THAT MUST BE ADHERED TO AND ARE ALL THE ADDRESSES DOCUMENTED IN FSINTERROGATE VALID?

Please find the key on your computer keyboard labelled "Caps Lock" and turn it OFF!

There are three different methods of setting weather through FSUIPC:

1. The old FS98 method, only applicable to global weather and restricted to facilities which worked in FS98. This is via offsets in the 0F1C to 0F8C range. It is the least likely to work well in FS2004 as you must prevent localised weather changing your settings or overruling them. Global settings only apply where there is no localised weather, i.e. immediately after you clear all weather properly.

2. The Advanced Weather Interface (AWI) which was invented to handle the more advanced weather systems in FS2000. It still only works with global weather, but allows all of the other features added in FS2000 to be utilised.

This uses special commands and data structures, and is documented in the separate AWI header and text in the SDK -- a separate ZIP. The program "WeatherSet" uses these facilities and is a demonstration of what they can do. It works well in FS2000 and not too bad in FS2002, but in FS2004, because the weather is constantly dynamic, you still get discrepancies unless you regularly clear all the weather and re-establish it. Unfortunately this give flickering or stutters.

3. The "New Weather Interface" (NWI) using offsets again, in the range C000 to CFFF. Documentation is again separate in the SDK, with structures and values defined in a header. This works with FS2002 and later, and is the only method which allows both global and local (ICAO-identified) weather to be set and read. Programs like FSMeteo and ActiveSky currently use this. The program "WeatherSet2" uses it and is a demonstration of its capabilities.

When and if you ever get to FSX there are yet other methods, but the FS2002/2004 AWI works fine with that too (or at least it will once MS has fixed all the FSX weather bugs). There's also a "straight to SimConnect" facility supported to set weather using METAR encoded strings.

Regards

Pete