Opinions on REX 4

[malibu43]

I wanted to get some input from people who have owned both REX Essentials and REX4. How big is the improvement, as far as what you actually see in FSX? The screenshots look great, obviously, but that doesn't always translate into in-game experiences.

It's been less than a year since I decided to go ahead and buy REX E, so I want to know I'm going to see some significant improvement if I'm going to go for REX4. The $20 sale price is making me think about it...

Also FWIW - I generally prefer wave animations/water shaders from FSWC over REX E. So improvements to wave animations/water shaders from REX4 probably carry less weight for me.

PS - I'm still DX9.

[William Njurmi]

Installation was again quite painful. I don´t know what´s going on, but lately the new addons have given me headaches.

I was planning to go and fly to test those textures, but after three hours googling and cursing, the programme is finally installing itself.
In order to get help I should have changed my internet browser before entering their temple.

And yes, for that PC Aviator price it was easy decision.

Let´s see now...

[Deacon211]

I just jumped on the sale bandwagon as well.

In my brief hour of flight time:

1. The speed is huge...it takes seconds. Previously, I only loaded textures on occasion or when changing theaters. With REX 4, I'll do it every flight.

2. The one thing I sort of miss is that you need to load the weather theme by selecting manually or by entering the ICAO code in REX 4 prior to going to REXe to load weather. Before I loaded the flight plan and usually let REXe choose the textures for me (when I did change them). I guess it's the same, but wonder if there is any disconnect. Still, considering the speed, see 1.

3. Might be my imagination, but it seems that there are fewer textures in REX4 compared to REXe? It might be because the interface seems slicker and you pick "groups" of things. I didn't do much fiddling with REXe, so I could totally be wrong.

4. There are some cool options with REX4 like lightning options, and even lighting that make the FTX Global lights seem different (big and bright, starlike and squinty) that I never saw in REXe and it really changes the flight when the airport lighting is realistically hard to see in a sea of city lights.

5. The water does indeed look nicer, but I only tried one texture and thought it a bit much, the effect giving a moire (sp?) effect to the water at a distance. Still, I thought the REXe tropical water was a bit too electric, so this seems to give you some easy choices.

Overall, I'd recommend it for $20. The ability to easily change textures (even if you just autoload or choose random textures which is what I plan to do) I think will add some variety to your FSX flying. I regret not being able to really wring out the clouds yet, but even if they are only a little better than REXe, I think they will only make a nice environment nicer.

Deacon

[Paul Anderson]

Is there a connection between REX and FTX/ORBX?
Just tried clicking support on both sites and the support area for both were down.

REX4 looks good, but says for operating systems Vista and above.
Guess that means either program won't run in Windows XP or would be too taxing even with the low settings.
The earlier versions of REX for XP look good, just wondering (they are not on sale that I can see).
Anyone here know?

[adi518]

The rex forums, where support lays, are currently down. They'll be back soon.

As for Windows XP. My best advice is to revamp your rig and get Win 7. Most, if not all add-on are developed for a 64-bit Win 7 environment. Vista is long forgotten by now, it was replaced by Windows 7.

[malibu43]

Hmm... I'm still on the fence (or maybe leaning toward "not right now"), but I have a couple more specific questions:

1. Worn airport markings - The close up images of these look really nice. Does it really eliminate the big, bright, runway markings when approaching an airport as advertised? If anyone has a screenshot demonstrating yes or no, it would be greatly appreciated! If it makes a big difference, that would be a big selling point for me.

2. I still use 1024 max textures in cfg file. I doubt my laptop can handle a bunch of 2048 textures thrown at it. Anyone know if that affects the answer to #1 above, or if have any other insights regarding only using 1024 textures and it's impact on the benefits of REX4?

Sorry for all the questions. You may be thinking "Seriously dude? It's only $20! Just give it a try!" But if I follow that logic for every flight sim/addon that comes along and catches my eye, I'd be broke!

[Sundog]

Thanks for asking Malibu43, as I've been wondering the same thing as you. For the price, it does seem hard to pass up. But I've been wondering how it works with RexE & OD, and also how it effects Orbx "everything." I guess it installs the textures through Rex e, but loads much faster now, which in and of itself would lead me to use it more as well, as noted up thread.

[manfredc3]

I have REX E and have been wondering myself if REX4 was worth the upgrade,

Since I have the $5 discount as a previous REX purchaser, I just would have kicked myself in the .... if I hadn't spent the $15 for REX4. So I just made the purchase, but the downloads will not start. Must be busy at the server.

[Deacon211]

Got to fly a little more last night.

I can't say if the airport markings are dramatically different...I guess I never was too bothered by them in the first place. There are several choices of textures though with varying degrees of wear. If I can, I'll take a pic tonight and post it.

I think the sky looks better with more blending than REXe. The clouds seem smoother as well. I finally just injected some weather into the sim as my test flight was too calm and pretty. The clouds, like the sky, seems smoother with less of that "that looks like a semi transparent cloud texture" thing that REXe occasionally had.

Thunderstorms are suitably scary, with wicked looking lightning and thick clouds. Dark looks quite dark and the stormy night I selected was black as pitch with no horizon and no clouds visible until you flew into them.

BTW, I'm running in 1024 mode for speed as well.

As for how REX 4 works, it is completely standalone from REXe. You open REX 4, select textures either individually through a pretty easy interface, through selection of a theme (one you create, one you've saved, one that someone else uploaded, or by typing in an ICAO code and letting the engine generate a set of textures), install the theme into FSX (quick), and that's it. REX 4 will give you the option of starting FSX for you...click yes or cancel and REX 4's work is done.

Then you can just fly FSX or open whatever weather engine you like, including REXe. REXe works just like it always did, with the exception that, if you load textures from it, it will overwrite anything you loaded from REX4.

So, REX 4 makes the textures from REXe (or whatever part of REX had the textures in it as I get confused by the "essentials" "overdrive" distinction) more or less redundant and REXe becomes more or less your weather/flight planning engine. I guess REXe still has a lot of say as to how many of what cloud is displayed, density of lightning, etc so I don't mean to underplay it, but the texture part has moved entirely over to REX 4....should you decide to use it that way.

As I said, REX 4 does seem to interact with FTX a bit in that the light sources can be changed to suit your tastes, and I found the difficulty I had in finding LaGuardia amidst the millions of bright lights of the city to be extremely realistic.

Hope that helps and I'll try for that pic this afternoon. Is there a particular altitude, orientation, or weather you would find most illustrative? If not I just try to take a shot or two on the visual final in broad daylight.

Deacon

[tracyq144]

Following this discussion as well. The long loading times of Rex+E, when changing textures, meant I never experimented. Would like to see some comparison pics.

[Deacon211]

OK, let's see what I can do here.

Here's what I did:

I didn't want to screw with too much so there may not be an apples to apples correlation here, but you get the idea. I set up a flight in KSEA. Wx - Few008 Sct015 Ovc055 7SM -RA

First pics, I loaded REXe, set up a short flight plan, loaded textures (load time ~3min) and flew the flight.

Second pics, I exited, went to REX4, went to the themes tab, then the weather subtab, entered my point of departure, selected generate, saved the suggested textures , and installed them (load time...seconds). Then I went back to REXe, loaded the same flight plan, BUT DID NOT load textures this time, and flew the flight again.

So, I still think you might be getting a few REX4 textures in the REXe shots, but I think you can still see the difference.


REXe:




REX4:





Notice the darker clouds and increased density.


REXe:





REX4:



I'm not sure if REXe overwrote my last night's runway textures or not, so those may both be REX4 just different selections. Note the dirty stripes.


REXe:



REX4:



Note softer edges, the way the REXe texture looks like a flat pane and the way the REXe texture touches the ground unrealistically.

REXe:



REX4:




REXe doesn't look very OVC055. REX4 definitely more so and darker...more moody.

REXe: Light and fluffy.



REX4: Dark and scary.





To be continued....

[Deacon211]

These are for Malibu.

I tried to pick the most worn/Heavy use textures across the board though some are just different choices. I don't know if it addresses your issue, but the old and worn markings look suitable I think...

[Deacon211]

Just an attempt to show how the light textures change. May be hard to see in these pics, but the second one has star-shaped lighting compared to the more round fuzzy ones in the first...there are several choices.



It just gives it a bit different feel. The rounder ones seem right for a hazy summer night while the stark ones seem like you might see them on a clear winter's evening.

Here's a low altitude shot of the starry ones...

[Deacon211]

Just a few REX4 jots and tittles that don't fit anywhere else. Overall, I'm increasingly happy with REX4 and, at this price, I'd say it was well worth it.

If nothing else, the speed of the load makes there no reason that you shouldn't change textures every time you load FSX up...it's just that easy and it looks like the weather theme autoloader picks out some very good textures to match the weather...better it seems than REXe.



Enjoy!

Deacon

[malibu43]

Thanks Deacon! Very helpful!

[Sundog]

Thanks for posting all of the pics. I'm definitely going to pick this up this weekend.

[manfredc3]

Update on my previous post:

I managed to download all files this morning. Getting pretty excited after seeing these pics.
Surely looks like it was worth the 15 bucks.

Will give them a try tomorrow.

[letourn]

Well id like to add some new look into My FSX but i am using a 3 screens setup so FPS is kind of low already.

How is the FPS with these new textures. ORBX says that there new autogen increase the FPS

So basically REX4 Texture is what you could get with ORBX Global or GEX but for 20$ this week end.

THanks

[Deacon211]

Well id like to add some new look into My FSX but i am using a 3 screens setup so FPS is kind of low already.

How is the FPS with these new textures. ORBX says that there new autogen increase the FPS

So basically REX4 Texture is what you could get with ORBX Global or GEX but for 20$ this week end.

THanks

Hey Letourn,

I detected no slowdown running REX4. In fact, I was more than a little surprised that FSX seemed to be running better than ever as I took a flight from SEA up into Canada with my new combination of...

FTX Global
FTX Vector
REX4
REX Essential + OD

I added REX4 and Vector roughly at the same time, so I don't know if this had anything to do with anything or if it's just that I'm flying into more deserted areas, but I am having the best performance I've ever seen with FSX.

Just to be clear, REX4 IS NOT FTX Global or GEX! Those two programs (FTX and GEX) cover ground textures and the like. REX only covers weather, runways/taxiways, lights, etc.

Deacon

[dvj]

Fair warning. If you ever go to P3D V2, REX clouds make a huge hit on the FPS. Apparently a known problem and one could hope there would be a future fix.

[letourn]

Thanks Deacon and DVJ

I tought REX4 was covering ground too.

No P3D for me for the moment.