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GRLevel 3: Is it worth it?


SquatchinNY

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  • 3 weeks later...

Is GRLevel 3 worth the $79.95? Also, does it slow down your computer?

If you like tracking/analyzing hurricanes, GR3 is better because I believe it has dual-pol implemented. GR2 (which I own), from my understanding, is more for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes and does not have dual-pol.

GR2 doesn't slow down my computer, although my computer was new when I got it. I would say that if you have a relatively new computer, you should be fine. As long as you have a good processor then it should run smooth.

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If you like tracking/analyzing hurricanes, GR3 is better because I believe it has dual-pol implemented. GR2 (which I own), from my understanding, is more for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes and does not have dual-pol.

GR2 doesn't slow down my computer, although my computer was new when I got it. I would say that if you have a relatively new computer, you should be fine. As long as you have a good processor then it should run smooth.

Complete opposite actually. GRLevel2AE has had Dual-Pol since 2007 when it was just in the extreme experimental phase. (GR2 does not, and probably never will)

GR3 has been scheduled to have it's 2.0 upgrade that will enable all the Dual-Pol stuff, but that has been planned forever now.

Both are great, but due to the impending upgrade, I'd go with GR3.

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GR3 v2 update

Three more weeks possibly

GR3 2.00 is looking good now. The "death march" phase is complete. Estimated official release date is May 21. There will be a GRLevel3 1.92 release (with minor changes, not a required update) sometime soon that will aid in the transition to 2.00.

This is the first upgrade that GRS has performed so I imagine there will be some bumps in the road. Please bear with me as we go through this! I believe that 2.00 is a worthy upgrade, not just for the Dual Pol data but for the other new features as well.

Edit: I don't have a changelist available. There are some major changes (Dual Pol, LSRs, background, etc.) and quite a few smaller changes (Hail iconsheets, TVS iconsheets, etc.). The main window is largely unchanged, with just some grouping of items and the placement of the "Smoothing" button on the toolbar.

Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...

Taken from Owner Forum:

GRLevel 3, 2.0 release date: May 21st

Upgrade Cost = $40

Irritating Changes in 2.00

1. Requirement of a "Product:" statement in color tables

2. No automatic scale conversion for velocity and echo tops color tables

3. Shader Model 2.00 or higher hardware required

New in 2.00

1. Dual Pol

2. LSRs

3. TORR and TORE support

4. LLDV-dependent TVS icons

5. Hail size icons

6. Widelines for all GIS elements

7. Higher quality, multiresolution base roads

8. Automatic high resolution background

9. Per-product smoothing control

10. Alpha channel support in color tables

11. Support for 0.9 and 1.8° tilts

12. Web Publishing to the local file system

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If you already used a trial for GRL3 V1, do you get a second trial for V2? My guess is yes based on this quote from the user manual "GRLevel3 2.00 is a completely separate program and works with different directories and registry entries"

I think I'm gonna wait for a more active weather period to start my trial though....

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I've kept Version 1 installed for now so I can transfer over placefiles, AH codes, old radar colors (after converting them over to the new format), etc. Besides that, there is no reason to keep the old version installed, although I'm not sure if the upgrade license will require the first version to be installed for validation.

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So you obviously don't know the whole story...

GR3 2.0 was going to be released late last year, but Mike's Dad passed away in December due to brain and lung cancer, so he took a good amount of time off for that. In addition, his 25th anniversary with his wife was in March, so once again he took some time off.

Right now he has to deal with switching GRE over to AH, but Mike has stated that GR3 v2 is complete and will be released after GRE 2.0, which is set for release on the 16th.

Honestly, I'd expect GR3 2.0 to be out before May.

Mike is just one guy running this whole suite of programs. You have to give him some slack.

I think Mike bit off more then he could chew when he started the dedicated server for GR-Earth. Personally, I think he dropped the ball on that one because after a while it became apparent he couldn't activate licences beyond a certain amount of people. It also severely impacted his support of other/new products. Hopefully now that AllisonHouse (the guys who know how to make things work) are running the server items, Mike can start cranking these products out at an accelerated rate.

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I think Mike bit off more then he could chew when he started the dedicated server for GR-Earth. Personally, I think he dropped the ball on that one because after a while it became apparent he couldn't activate licences beyond a certain amount of people. It also severely impacted his support of other/new products. Hopefully now that AllisonHouse (the guys who know how to make things work) are running the server items, Mike can start cranking these products out at an accelerated rate.

Well said, and I agree.

In reference to the OP: turns out that anyone who purchased GR3v1 after 1 Jan 2011 will get a free upgrade, so there was no need worrying about when to upgrade all along! :lol:

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v2 has a 21 day trial available, so the easiest thing to do is just check it out.

For others who don't know about the dual pol products, I made a post in the 101 forum about dual-pol stuff with some links to learning material

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/34721-dual-pol-products/

It's not so obvious what each product is depicting, so some learning is required to make much sense of the data.

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  • 6 months later...

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