Weather mod v1.9 for DCS

[Scal]

Hi bandit648 ! 
First of all, thank you for this great mod witch permits splendid atmosphere and game-play !!! 
I use it as much as possible during multiplayer missions. But I'm facing a little problem: Some player does not have it installed and do not want to loose time before we start as it is not mandatory. What happen, for example is that mod user are in the clouds and the other in a sunny day.

Is there a way to detect if the mod is installed through a script or a piece of lua code ?
If not would it be possible that if the mod is not installed it uses a dcs preset similar/close to the mod preset ?
Or would it be possible to make the mod mandatory ?

Edited August 20 by Scal

[Scal]

On 12/14/2023 at 4:50 PM, Hiob said:

@bandit648 Very cool!

Does every client need the mod installed or only the mission creator?

Yes, every client need to have the mod installed to see the effects.
Unfortunately the mod is not mandatory, so if a client does not have it, the weather will be a default sunny day.

[Scal]

On 8/17/2025 at 12:37 PM, Spartan111sqn said:

Thanks a lot, when in MP with dedicated server, and all the clients have the mod, we all see the same cirrus change at the same time?

Yes, we all see the same !!!

[Nealius]

Are the scattered t-storm presets supposed to have lightning? I'm not seeing any.

[bandit648]

1 hour ago, Nealius said:

Are the scattered t-storm presets supposed to have lightning? I'm not seeing any.

No. Unfortunately the lightning shader is invoked by the game engine code when the PRECPTNS is set to Thunderstorm in the weather setting. No way for me activate in the weather presets.

Edited Sunday at 05:14 AM by bandit648

[Nealius]

How'd you get the picture of the lightning strike in the first post? That shows a lightning strike with scattered clouds instead of the overcast required in the legacy weather system.

[swartbyron]

Spectacular Cirrus formations at dawn in Afghanistan.

 

Edited yesterday at 05:03 PM by swartbyron

[bandit648]

On 8/23/2025 at 11:38 PM, Nealius said:

How'd you get the picture of the lightning strike in the first post? That shows a lightning strike with scattered clouds instead of the overcast required in the legacy weather system.

Follow the instructions to create thunderstorms in the first post, and you should see lightning along with it.

 

[jef32]

Hi again Bandit

After some flights, I think that the shader cache issue, even with 1.8.1 is not totally solved. I have severe freezes with some weather configurations, on heavy maps like Germany.
I even thought to switch back to 1.7 but unfortunatly for me, I've erased it.

[bandit648]

20 minutes ago, jef32 said:

Hi again Bandit

After some flights, I think that the shader cache issue, even with 1.8.1 is not totally solved. I have severe freezes with some weather configurations, on heavy maps like Germany.
I even thought to switch back to 1.7 but unfortunatly for me, I've erased it.

I'm interested to know more details about your performance issue. If you're running VR, heavy weather settings and Germany map then I'm not too surprised you're seeing poor performance. If there is an issue caused by my mod I want to fix it.

[jef32]

I was flying an F-18 from Rammstein to Berlin with a flight above Frankfurt. Low altitude from Rammstein to Frankfurt and high altitude after Frankfurt. When I climbed to the high altitude, I had long and severe freezes approaching the clouds. 

( no preset from ED or from yours, Base:5326 meters, Thickness 6350 meters, density 3, no rain, 8:00AM local time, 15 May, bloom activated.)

I have a 5080 and 64Go RAM, my DCS preload radius is set to 90800 and my Meta Quest 3 is set to 40704 X 2728, 72Hz refresh rate, pixels X1.3.

Edited 7 hours ago by jef32

[jef32]

Hi again

I've made a try on a mission at the same place but with only your clouds and my f-18 and I'd no freezes at all. I'd even tried with heavy thunderstorm with rain and 14 density Perhaps your mod is a little bit V-RAM eater than before and that some of my missions are now reaching the V-Ram limits when the number of items I've put in them is high.

[bandit648]

23 minutes ago, jef32 said:

Hi again

I've made a try on a mission at the same place but with only your clouds and my f-18 and I'd no freezes at all. I'd even tried with heavy thunderstorm with rain and 14 density Perhaps your mod is a little bit V-RAM eater than before and that some of my missions are now reaching the V-Ram limits when the number of items I've put in them is high.

That sounds possible since I'm increasing the size and resolution of the cirrus cloud textures. I'm about to release v1.9 and will do a performance comparison video on the CWG map for reference.

 

[grim_reaper68]

Hi

I have a strange issue with the mod.

I tried everything on the settings TAA MSAA SSAO on/off etc, reinstall it, but nothing works. The ED assets haven't the issue. I'm not sure it comes from the mod, but maybe someone can help me.

My PC, R9 5900X, RX 7900XTX, 64G DDR4, single monitor 1920-1080.

I just run some tests and it seems that only "scattered showers 5" is affected by the phenomenon. 

[bandit648]

54 minutes ago, grim_reaper68 said:

Hi

I have a strange issue with the mod.

I tried everything on the settings TAA MSAA SSAO on/off etc, reinstall it, but nothing works. The ED assets haven't the issue. I'm not sure it comes from the mod, but maybe someone can help me.

My PC, R9 5900X, RX 7900XTX, 64G DDR4, single monitor 1920-1080.

I just run some tests and it seems that only "scattered showers 5" is affected by the phenomenon. 

I'm pretty sure I saw a thread a while ago reporting this as a bug, so it's an issue with the game engine cloud rendering. I'll see if I can tweak the settings on scattered showers 5 to get rid of it. It does only seem to occur in certain types of cloud formations.

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by bandit648

[bandit648]

4 hours ago, jef32 said:

Hi again

I've made a try on a mission at the same place but with only your clouds and my f-18 and I'd no freezes at all. I'd even tried with heavy thunderstorm with rain and 14 density Perhaps your mod is a little bit V-RAM eater than before and that some of my missions are now reaching the V-Ram limits when the number of items I've put in them is high.

4 hours ago, bandit648 said:

That sounds possible since I'm increasing the size and resolution of the cirrus cloud textures. I'm about to release v1.9 and will do a performance comparison video on the CWG map for reference.

 

I did some performance testing on CWG map, flying around Berlin in heavy clouds/rain. Since my mod is increasing the cirrus clouds from 1K to 4K texture resolution, it does cause increased VRAM usage. In my case it was about 1G more VRAM being used with the mod active. This hasn't ever been an issue for me with the 4090. In version 1.9 I will offer a version with lower resolution (1024x1024) cirrus textures. This will keep the VRAM usage roughly the same as default but still offer better visuals and variety. They won't look as good as the 4K versions up close but for VR users it won't matter much. FPS and frame times are basically the same in my testing of mod vs default. 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by bandit648

[bandit648]

All new cirrus clouds in v1.9. 

20 unique variations in total!

 

Edited 1 hour ago by bandit648

[Esac_mirmidon]

Oh man ¡¡¡

That last pic.........

Beautiful

[grim_reaper68]

That's impressive! You deserve that your work would be integrated as DCS core weather. 

[bandit648]

Alright guys, v1.9 is out! Give it a try and let me know what you think.

8/26/2025 - Updated to version 1.9

- ALL NEW cirrus cloud textures
- 20 unique highly detailed cirrus, cirrostratus and cirrocumulus variations
- New shader code insures a different cirrus texture loaded with each mission reload for better variety.
- Shader "patch mask" helps break up repeativness, adding gaps of clear sky between areas of cirrus
- Moon size increased
- Star size decreased back to default
- New LOW RES version available for people using VR or lower end PC. (see link below for download)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jEVEdgFXQAVfvUsUMLnOiC4RaUGxEaA5?usp=sharing