External Weather Engine ?...

[Javis]

For about 5 days now i am trying to get my brandnew FSX up to scratch ( as well as other stuff like Railworks/TS2013 ). 2 times out of 3 Windows7 wouldn't even startup anymore. I'd rather stick my hand into a box full of venomous spiders than format my C drive and reinstall W7 but i guess it was about time... :mix-smi:


After i sent my puter specs and FSX.cfg to Bojote for his magical tweaks the report adviced a.o. to install an 'External Weather Engine'. Not only for better rendered weather but also to save fps.

Been reading very good things about OPUS. Is OPUS the only 'external weather engine' or are there more ?

Any OPUS users here that can confirm increase of fps compared to using REX with Maximum Cloud Draw Distance/Covering Density ?

REX is NOT an 'external weather engine' , is it ??....

I am perfectly happy with Rex Essential Plus so i don't really see the need to install OPUS but if it will save a few fps i'm all for it.

Btw, by reinstalling a fresh FSX/Acceleration on a fresh OS it was again astonishing to see the positive difference in fps after installing Bojote's tweaks and Steve Parsons' DX10 shaders fix.

I certainly hope to ONLY reinstall the aircraft i actually love to fly. What a treat to access the aircraft menu in 3 seconds instead of 3 minutes...

Momentarely i have installed UTXEurope/US, FTXGlobal, UT2 and REX. And i'm going to install one of the available Shader programs. Anything else essential that i'm still missing ?

Any hints/tips highly appreciated ! :salute:


Thanks!
Jan

[IanHenry]

Hi Jan,
Yes REX is an external weather engine.

Regards,
Ian.

[Bjoern]

First of all, a weather engine is only directly responsible for bad FPS. Performance depends on the weather outside and moreso on the cloud textures you're using.
Ideally, you'd want low-resolution clouds to avoid any slowdowns during heavy weather situations, but this kind of defeats REX "OMG,OMG,it'sHD!" purpose.


Lots of people seem to use Opus these days, but there's still Active Sky and FS Global Real Weather. The latter kind of seems to be the current benchmark for reported smooth weather injection and accuracy.


The only free weather engine seems to be FSRealWX.
http://board.hanse-coders.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2

[Kiwikat]

Opus gives me the best performance and good visuals, so I still use it. REX was by far the worst for FPS (but looked the best!), and Active Sky was somewhere in the middle. YMMV.

[MCDesigns]

REX, OPUS, FS Global Weather, and Active Sky are the ones I know about. As for shader apps like ENB and especially Shade, while they look great for screenshots, I find them unrealistic while simming

[Javis]

Thanks gents!

Couple more inquiries if i may:

#1: So if REX is 'external' is it correct that the 'Visual Settings' and 'Cloud Detail' sliders in the FSX/Weather menu have no effect anymore ? ( i'm not 100% but that seems indeed to be the case.. )

#2: I seem to understand that OPUS does NOT come with cloud textures ?... So if you'd want better looking clouds than FSX default while using OPUS you'd still need REX, right ?

#3: Does FS Global Weather come with its own set of textures ?

I have only setup REX very quickly, not even sure if i'm using HD clouds or lower res. Quite happy how it all looks with very acceptable fps. (all sliders max but no road traffic and FTX Global) That's probabely also because of REX of which i didn't know it actually is an 'external weather engine'... Thanks, Ian !

@ Kiwikat: so do i understand correctly that you use FSX default clouds with OPUS ?....

I was very happy with the Shader program i used, i have to investigate which one exactly it was.... Not ENB because i liked the other one better ( all i know is that it was released a while after ENB... )

Thanks a lot again, guys ! :salute:

cheers,
Jan

[Kiwikat]

@ Kiwikat: so do i understand correctly that you use FSX default clouds with OPUS ?....

I use REX for graphics only. I find it far too clunky and hard on FPS for its other features. So OPUS weather, REX clouds, sky, airport textures. Seems like a good combination to me. I can definitely understand not wanting to purchase separate programs though.

[orionll]

Here's a free weather engine: http://www.plane-pics.de/fsxwx/home.htm.

[Bjoern]

Here's a free weather engine: http://www.plane-pics.de/fsxwx/home.htm.

Wow, I did not know about that one!


And judging from a look out of the window, (at least) the weather map is spot-on!

[Javis]

I use REX for graphics only. I find it far too clunky and hard on FPS for its other features. So OPUS weather, REX clouds, sky, airport textures. Seems like a good combination to me. I can definitely understand not wanting to purchase separate programs though.

Ok, thanks,Kiwi. Remarkable that you can use two of these weather programs together. I've had REX ever since it was released but never really checked out all of its possibillities. Finally have time for that now. OPUS seems even more complex to work with..


@ Orion: thanks for the link to FSXWX,sure looks very interesting too !


cheers,
jan

[Bjoern]

REX mainly provides the textures, so of course you can use another weather engine in conjuction.