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How accurate are weather-related effects?

How SimFX reads the sim's weather data in Live Weather, weather presets, and 3rd party weather engines.

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This article covers the following platforms

  • MSFS 2024
  • MSFS 2020
  • ATS
  • FSX
  • Prepar3D

SimFX interprets weather from the data the sim makes accessible. That data shapes effects like contrails and rain effects. How much data SimFX gets depends on your weather mode.

Live Weather

In “Live Weather” mode, very little information is available. SimFX can read the nearest METAR up to a certain distance. Beyond that, it can only read the outside air temperature, some information about a cloud the aircraft is in, and the current precipitation type and rate.

Weather Presets

Presets provide more data than Live Weather: cloud layers and their composition, thunderstorm presence, temperatures, wind layers, and everything else in the in-sim weather panel. This is the most precise weather mode for Immersion.

3rd party weather engines

3rd party weather engines inject their weather through the presets system, so SimFX gets all the information it needs to create weather-driven effects.

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