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Many of us have upgraded from FS9 to FSX I have found a good way to increase fps (I got a 10 fps increase) by using FS9 I copied the folder called "Weather" and used it to replace the "Weather" folder in FSX, you will not lose any of the weather effects like the rain, or wet taxi and runway textures, but doing this replaces the clouds to the FS9 clouds which look fine to me

Many of us have upgraded from FS9 to FSX I have found a good way to increase fps (I got a 10 fps increase) by using FS9 I copied the folder called "Weather" and used it to replace the "Weather" folder in FSX, you will not lose any of the weather effects like the rain, or wet taxi and runway textures, but doing this replaces the clouds to the FS9 clouds which look fine to me

I hope you kept the orignal file that was in FSX it is very posiable that there could be cloud types in FSX that are not in FS9 and when you get in the situation that needs a certain cloud type and it can not find it bad things could happen. I would advise caution telling people to do this without being absoloutely sure the files are the same. I am not saying that they are not the same but I sure would not tell others about this until I was 100% sure of what I am saying.

I sure you mean well but if there is even one file missing and you might not ever use that file but others may and it could cause some nasty things to happen.

As always - when making any major changes make a good back up of your original files 1st & check that they are there (& back up in a created folder - NOT to your desktop! (I've seen someone do this before & ending up with useless shortcuts) )

Many of us have upgraded from FS9 to FSX I have found a good way to increase fps (I got a 10 fps increase) by using FS9 I copied the folder called "Weather" and used it to replace the "Weather" folder in FSX, you will not lose any of the weather effects like the rain, or wet taxi and runway textures, but doing this replaces the clouds to the FS9 clouds which look fine to me

It does not replace the clouds it replaces the better developed weather data in FSX with the poorer weather data from FS9

I would be cautious about such changes. You may be removing more realistic weather which makes flying less realistic. As for a 10 frame change, I would have to see that to believe it. Frames come from hardware ability. Most people who think they see a huge frame jump have simply booted a flight that is different or have not flown long enough to know if a true increase has occurred. 10 true frames in FSX is like going from a low 7000 series card to a x1950xtx - 8800GTX

I have a ATI X1650 and when I did this got got a fps boost as for the cloud problem I have tried all the missions in the standard version with no problem

Many of us have upgraded from FS9 to FSX I have found a good way to increase fps (I got a 10 fps increase) by using FS9 I copied the folder called "Weather" and used it to replace the "Weather" folder in FSX, you will not lose any of the weather effects like the rain, or wet taxi and runway textures, but doing this replaces the clouds to the FS9 clouds which look fine to me

It does not replace the clouds it replaces the better developed weather data in FSX with the poorer weather data from FS9

I would be cautious about such changes. You may be removing more realistic weather which makes flying less realistic. As for a 10 frame change, I would have to see that to believe it. Frames come from hardware ability. Most people who think they see a huge frame jump have simply booted a flight that is different or have not flown long enough to know if a true increase has occurred. 10 true frames in FSX is like going from a low 7000 series card to a x1950xtx - 8800GTX

Replacing the "Weather" folder does indeed replace the "cloud" files, as they are in a sub-directory beneath the
"Weather" folder, along with the "Themes" folder.

That said, it appears that practically ALL the files contained in those folders are the same in FSX as they
were in FS9. Same file size but more recent date.

The files that are obviously different are:

In "Weather"  wxstationlist.bin  
in "Clouds" CloudArtFiles.xml...this is significantly larger in FSX  77kb vs 39kb.
in "Themes" the BMP files are larger in FSX but have the same names.


Using a HEX editor, I compared wxmapping.bin files. There are differences in the entries. Seems
to be a few less in FSX than FS9.  This file appears to contain the lat/lon  of weather stations
throughout the world.  
wxstationlist contains the 4-charcater codes for stations packed together "GMFZGMMEGMMYGMTA....."

The file cloudartschema.xml has a couple of new definitions if FSX
   

   

 The CloudArtFile.xml format uses the new "BLOATED" form for ID'ing files using GUID's:

FS9:
cloud description="altocumulus">
     
           
           
           
           
     

FSX:
     
           
                 
                 
                 
                 
           

So, it would appear that the only files that would result in any frame rate change would be the
actuall BMP files,  10 of them, contained in the "Themes" folder.

One could confirm this by first backing up those files and then replacing ONLY those
files with the FS9 equivalents.

    Paul

The cloud textures are in the Texture folder.

As I recall the weather folder defines.

I would not change anything in that folder unless I did not care about any upgraded weather changes in FSX. Also, they got the cloud load issue correct in FSX. FS9 clouds were a heavy hitter because of how they were designed. FSX textures corrected that and reducing those textures nets no gain, just visual loss.