Rex weather woes

[BendyFlyer]

I had been and avid user of REX when they first introduced REX 2 or REX Essential. It worked fine and I liked the texture enhancements it provided it was a bit clunky now and the but it was ok. On that basis when the offered REX 3 or REX 3 OVERDRIVE it seemed to offer improvements, similarly with their soft clouds program. From then on the problems began I can now confidently say they all related to the programs interface with FSX and the variety of claimed added weather engine functions, it is a dogs breakfast.

First set of problems, the had an autoupdate service, then they ditched it. Updates and fixes. There were no changes to REX2 but the updates and patches for REX 3 flowed thick and fast. Service Packs, Hot fixes etc. I did them all. In the interim the program interface stopped functioning and another menu interface had serious issues and failed to work properly, the upgrades and patches were supposed to fix this but became simply nonsensical. One update claimed to change to the latest version would not do that, at one stage all the patches cumulatively reverted the program to the first installed version. They provided no logical information on the support pages as to what sequence or ordering of updates should be and some disappeared to be replaced by others. Support was slow and non existent. Yesterday the whole program began a new series of issues, it would only generate random weather themes, would not allow for the selection of real weather in real time which is supposedly the whole core basis of the so called weather engine and no amount of deleting and reinstalling with fresh copies fixed anything.

I think I know what the culprit is, poor programming and an attempt by REX to steer users into a pay as you go service for various functions that used to be standard and free. The last round of Microsoft Windows updates for Windows 7 simply have broken it because it can no longer draw windows properly and is in a state of lockup vis a vis communications, and yes I have all the appropriate Microsoft NET versions and installations etc.

In summary they took a good product and wrecked it.

Today I reinstalled REX 2 - Goodbye REX 3. There were a lot of promises but they failed to deliver in my view, the latest versions are shoddy work and fail to work as advertised and are replete with a variety of self inflicted issues.

Now it may sound like I am unloading on REX but I am not what is apparent is how go fast and who knows what ideas can wreck what was a stable reliable and good addon for FSX.

Other users may have different experiences. This has been mine.

[BendyFlyer]

Having wasted two days in a futile attempt to get REX to do anything but load textures onto the WWW for another solution, I discovered a freeware/shareware program called :
FSWX the location is http://www.fsrealwx.net/index.php/downloads/fsrealwx-downloads. I did some studying on how it works and was impressed with simple (relatively) architecture and the fact that it would use FSUIPC or SimConnect or both to connect to and get real weather and then would direct it into FSX. I worked out I could use the REX textures, load them into FSX and then basically lock REX out of FSX and shut it down except when when I want to change themes. Which is very satisfactory as I have always been impressed with the quality of the textures they have developed, just the rest I thought was crap.

I am impressed with FSrealWX or FSWX, it did not take long to set up, it works very well and does what it says. It has an easy to access wiki help page The interface can be accessed in flight and you can use it to find and check the weather elsewhere to work out what is going on in different places. It uses the NOAA servers (basically so does everybody else). You only have to register to get a copy but that is not an issue as far as I am concerned and if they want some dollars that is fine by me also.

However I am most impressed at how it has taken a significant load of FSX when it is operating, it loads the weather textures basically instantaneously and there is none of the nonsense of flashing graphics or tears or stutters or delays while this is done. The update rate and distance is up to you. No more stops and starts ala REX as it worked out where to load stuff, and no more REX nonsense of basically borrowing FSX features and repackaging them within their own scripts and dialogue boxes with the resultant continuous issues and demands this was making on FSX.

I have given it three workouts in three different locations around the world with three different aircraft and weather situations. It performed flawlessly. What more can I say. A great solution to a problem about real weather injection into FSX that has gone on now for years for me on a WIN 7 system.

[papab]

REX servers have been down since yesterday for updates:
https://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/

Rick

[scotth6]

I have to disagree with your evaluation of REX. My experience has been very different. I purchased REX Essentials 2 for FSX years ago, and have had constant updates, including an update to REX Essentials 3 Overdrive for free, and a licence purchase for P3D use for about $5. I only use REX Essentials for textures, and leave my weather settings to Opus FSX, and TBH have never even tried the REX weather. I have only ever had one issue, with my P3D licence purchase, but that was dealt with very quickly by Reed at REX.

I often think I should buy more of their products even though I don't need them, just because I have used the REX Essentials product with so many updates for so many years. I have considered "Weather Architect" a few times, but I already stuff around with planes and scenery too much to do the same with weather. I did purchase the Worldwide Airports HD product immediately after release, and again they are still improving and giving freebies away with that.

I will be purchasing their new weather product (REX Sky Force) which sounds amazing.

As mentioned above, I received an email a few days ago warning that due to system updates their servers would be out of action for a few days. No problem for me as I don't need to connect to their servers regularly.

All just my personal experience.

[BendyFlyer]

I guess that is part of my problem I would agree, however I do not like that fact that a weather program is not standalone and is dependent on the developers servers to connect to world wide weather servers (NOAA or others) and to work real time. It is the reason I purchased the product(s) and I might say I had been a loyal customer (REX2, REX3, REX3PLUS, REX4) It is one of those things, works fine for some and on other systems nothing but problems and that has been my experience and for some reason the support from REX has been diabolical. Any how the solution I have works fine, I am using the textures but not the rest and that's the way it will remain.