Your results are pretty much in line with what I have seen. Another thing that AS seems to be at is downloading and using the most recently available metals. Compare the times of the metars being used and you will see what I mean. I have also seen quite different Wx depiction between AS and XP, again with AS being more correct. I also really like the VATSIM Wx feature as pretty much all my flights on done on VATSIM. One last thing, if you start AS before XP, manual Wx will be automatically selected.

Metars generally only gives you clouds up to 10 - 12000 ft agl. For a weather engine to be exact it should include both the general forecast and the metar, not just one or the other.

Excellent review... Thank you Q8Pilot👍👍👏👏

Thank you for your excellent work and continuing stream of excellent content!

Great content as always, keep it up!

This doesn’t surprise me. I loved active sky in XP 11 so this makes sense. Thank you for the excellent comparison.

Thanks very much Q8 for this excellent short comparison. Not sure which way I'll go at this stage, was a user of AS for XP 11 and still looking at how far we get with XP 12 without too many addons. As I don't fly on VATSIM, exact weather (the definition of which is obviously subject to some debate...) is not as crucial for me, so I might stick to XP weather for now. On another note, LR need to keep working on those cloud aspects and textures: interestingly in your first example XP weather shows cirrus clouds on the weather panel but in the sim they look like puffy cumulus. Again many thnaks for all your very well balanced and thoughtful work. Cheers

Excellent comparison!

Thank you for doing this comparison. It would have been fair to mention that ActiveSky for xp12 is still in beta and I'm sure the developers will improve it further before initial release.

its impossible to get 100% exact weather. just because it matches the local airport, doesn't mean it's "more accurate". things shift all the time. as long as its close, it works. what matters a lot more is how it feels to fly in, and how it looks through the window.

Thanks for the video, I have used Active sky in XP11, and will now get the upgrade to XP12.

You have the most distinctive voice of flight sims. It's been so many years I've watched you , thank you bro.

Great video....thanks for the review

Dear Friend, Again, again and again you create invaluable material that is of maximum benefit to all of us in the community. Only you can perform these honest assessments, evaluations and insightful analyses. What a relief that you have now confirmed what I suspected for a long time. When I fly on Vatsim, I am usually the only one who has a certain weather and wind, which causes problems and I have occasionally had to disconnect. That's why I'm usually back to XP11 and xEnviro which gives the right data and a fair presentation. With ActiveSky for XP12, part of those issues seems to be solved in a good way. Just a shame that we seem to need a bunch of plug-ins even for XP12, also for the bare essentials. The weather presentation also needs to be solved for XP12 to feel realistic. Getting accurate weather data and realistic weather presentation is absolutely critical in flight simulation with no room for compromise. Thank you for all the effort and time spent which adds enormous value. This was another masterpiece by the master himself.

In my experience with ASXP so far, it wasn’t accurately depicting winds aloft. It just the surface winds from the METAR all the way through the flight levels. It’s also not depicting high level clouds. I loaded at my real life location the other day XP12 weather was much more accurate than ASXP. I think they still have some work to do. XP12 might still be a little behind but seems to be more accurate overall.

As ussually excelent video!! Thanks a lot! Specially now I know it's possible free upgrade for active sky. Thanks once again!

Good review Q! Just purchased. On sale as well 30% off.

Hello buddy, Thank you very much for this informative video.

Thank you for the video

Was the opening pan during the intro done from LSZM (formerly LSMF)? Very much looks like it Also thanks for all the content, really enjoy watching your videos :)

good review, but why in the world are there so many buttons on asxp12 when you just want one which is current weather on or off.

Can you make an autoOrtho installation video for X-Plane 12?

It is a pity that the new ASXP12 is not backwards compatible with XP11, which was the intention of the publisher at the beginning of the product release, and from which they unfortunately had to withdraw. I believe this is a temporary inconvenience and will be resolved in the near future. Currently, people using XP11 and testing XP12 (testing, because when flying in VR, XP12 is not a "finished" product) must install the old or new version of ASXP each time, depending on which sim they use ;-)

I just wanted to contribute something quickly in regards to the wind direction accuracy, not speaking to the overall accuracy discussion between XP12 and ASXP12. Wind direction in a METAR is based on true north, and in an ATIS/AWOS is magnetic north. In your example of Valdez airport (PAVD), there is 19 degrees of variation to the E between true and magnetic north. This means that in the simulator weather depiction, 100% accuracy at PAVD would show a 19 degree difference between what is being depicted in the simulator and what the METAR says.

Hey, loving the videos! I’m thinking about purchasing X plane 12 and I was wondering if I have to completely repurchase my payware aircraft from X plane 11 for X plane 12?

Have you had a chance to look at AS with Xplane's new cloud depictions? What's it like?

And the clouds change smoothly, e.g. there is little cloud cover and the next METAR reading shows CAVOK? Is it like in xp11 that suddenly everything disappears?

Hello mr Q8 sir, i'm really hooked with your review for this plugin and decide that i want to bought it. But if I may ask sir, currently there are 2 product in store AS for XP11 and AS for XP12. My question is, can I just buy one of the product and use the same license key for both product? Or do I have to buy all of them for their own each license key? Thank you very much in regards sir. Please reply

Nice vidéo as Always but for me Active Sky IS not a major Addon for XP 12 as it was for Xp11. Don't loose money for that !

the intro still reminds me of Matt Davies

Thanks for your video. As per my understanding and I have been old user of AS, AS uses METAR source only and then interpolate the weather data to upper layer which is limited and not accurate specially on low airports area; however, XP12 is using METAR source for airports weather and NOAA grid weather for upper layer which gives more accurate weather at upper layer. I am not sure why XP12 showed wrong data at airport maybe a bug.

Nice comparison. But once you've introduced its xp12 and active sky 12, just say the version number all the time isn't necessary and can get irritating.

The first set of METAR have observed at 1530 UTC and it was compared to one at 1500 UTC The second set was observed at 1556 UTC and compared to one at 1456? A lot can happed during that time difference when it comes to weather? Am I missing something?

They did not send out emails on the free upgrade and i do not follow social media. Missed that as I was out of town. I liked the program a lot in XP11. 42.86 USD is just too expensive for what it provides. Almost the cost of the simulator itself.

The bad thing is that you can not use simultaneously Active sky in xp11 and xp 12 you have one option use it in xp11 or xp12

Usual marketing aside, you could have given a slight bit of attention to abrupt weather transitions based on current conditions in active cell at plane's location which goes against the principle of having a global weather model.

Is there any weather add on for xplane12 that shows falling white snow? The falling snow in xplane12 is black. xplane11 had good snow effects why not xplane12?

Hello my friend, do you plan to make a video about visualxp soon? Thanks

I will stick with stock, because stock takes in more than just metars and using metars as your sole based judgement of the weather is highly inaccurate. Metars are only up to 12k AGL and less than 5 miles around airport. Also ActiveSky will fall prey to the fact that the APIs LR exposed for third party devs is purely tied to the current weather station, so no proper weather fronts.

Why did you just compare the metars and not the general weather-conditions above? As far as i know ASXP is much less realistic in that regard for now.

Just my thought that why can't Laminar inject real weather just as well if not better than Active sky? Why do we have to have so many addons?

Is there any possibility to use the AS on the macOS ?

Is the update to AS XP12 still free for previous users?

On my flight today from LPPT to EGKK running XP12 and ASXP12 I could see snow on the south coast of UK... 🫤

What do you think about ShadeX?

Hi can you tell me how to update the airac of active sky, I have subscription with navigraph. Regards

Good video but I think the clouds in msfs it's better

There is any alternative for this Active Sky?

So thats pretty much a no brainer for user who already have AS XP11.

Hi Captain - 1st and foremost many thanks for taking time out of your busy life to create this comparison. I do own AS but currently am not using it as it blocks flow of METAR data in planes that are ATSU/AOC equipped.(as a VR flyer that system comes very handy). I recently discovered NOAA weather injection which also now allows for METAR data to appear n the Avitab . I have not done a detailed comparison as you have here but so far I like the results. Would love to get your opinion on that. This is what I am using in XP12 : github.com/biuti/XplaneNoaaWeather/releases/tag/v3.2.1

Do you know anything about the ff777v2 and when it’s coming? Sorry if you don’t. I’ve looked on the instagram already

You are lucky.I deleted all ToLiSs aircrafts because after I finish one flight with it and switched to another aircraft throttle does not work.

What really bothers me are the fake puffy cottonball type of clouds that Xplane 12 makes. And does Active Sky use alot of FPS slowing down the computer?

Hello Q8 Pilot! If you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a profession? I am deciding what path in life I’d like to take regarding my college major of choice. I am aware that Embry Riddle University has a very good aviation program, and would like to know if you have any college experience, what have you studied? What is your work life like? Is aviation a part of what you do for a living, or just a hobby? I’d love to know a little more about yourself, thank you! If you aren’t comfortable answering this publicly, perhaps we could exchange emails/discuss 101? Kind Regards - Louis

Sorry but that misses a lot of depth. How long after the METAR has been issued have you done your test? Could it be that XP just had the previous METAR? That has nothing to do with accuracy. It is by design in XP.

What is "accurate' data? Numbers on a meter and in a piece of software match? I would be much more interested on what the Visual Differences are! Can the average pilot SEE any monstours differences? Look. feel, quality of then experience should be the key factors. I find this take interesting when your earlier take basically said you could not really SEE any meaningful difference!

It’s horrible to watch those 4K videos on mobile devices. Those tiny fonts within the settings windows are unreadable. Please enlarge overlay windows (like ActiveSky in this case) or reduce recording resolution.

I purchased this software and what a total waste of money it turned out to be. It works for about two minutes and then all clouds disappear leaving clear weather only! What a rip off!

Xp12 own wx engine sucks. If fly in scandinavia during winter time you will experience 100 % frozen taxiways and runways. You should have studded tires in order to turn your aircraft proberly , arrgh! And icing effect is absolutely grazy, nothing to do with conditions of IRL. And metars, omg , total crap I dont fly with xp12 anymore, bored with wx engine😢