J G 927 Posted November 26, 2014 Report Share Posted November 26, 2014 Christmas is coming and Rex is on my agenda. But what to get? All of my stuff is ORBX but I want to improve my environment. So I have been looking at REX. The website is a little confusing, do I buy REX Essentials or Rex 4? Do I need one before the other? ....... Link to post Share on other sites
hifly 925 Posted November 26, 2014 Report Share Posted November 26, 2014 John, I have REX Essentials and the textures are very good BUT they claim to download realtime RW weather which is certainly not true, that's why many also have Active Sky Next as well. Cannot vouch for REX 4. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 26, 2014 Report Share Posted November 26, 2014 geoff, sorry mate I have to disagree with you, rex downloads the current real time weather perfectly at least on my p.c. john, what you have to understand is what rex does , rex 4 just changes the textures in your fsx weather directory for want of a better description , you still need a weather engine which downloads the current or historic weather. This is where things get more complicated, as there are many options Personally i use rex essentials mostly as my weather engine but from time to time I use fsgrw as it is easy and at times gives more realistic cloud and weather , however like so many things fsx it is a personal preference , some prefer opus and there are other makes as well. one thing to bear in mind is VAS usage, from my experience rex uses less vas than fsgrw , for me that is important. the crazy thing about weather engines is that sometimes when you fire one up you are not happy what it produces visually and another with the same metar produces something sooo realistic however it is rare that you find 2 producing the same weather with the same metar Link to post Share on other sites
hifly 925 Posted November 26, 2014 Report Share Posted November 26, 2014 Nigel, I find REX pretty hopeless at getting UK realtime WX although they seem to get it right elsewhere. I had the same thunderstorm over Gatwick for a month Still, Buffalo was good in the recent snowstorms. Link to post Share on other sites
PCAviator 30 Posted November 27, 2014 Report Share Posted November 27, 2014 REX4 is a series of add-ons... They have only released REX 4 Texture Direct at the moment which is the texture component. They plan to release two other components in the series, one being a weather generation type product. So, at the moment, REX 4 is just textures. You still need a weather generation software. REX Essentials does this, and includes the older REX texture set. What a lot of simmers are doing is using the REX4 Texture Direct / Active Sky NEXT combination for their weather. Many are going this way with good results it seems. Hope that helps. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted November 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 27, 2014 ThanksPC, I use Opus for my weather, so I guess I only need REX 4. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 27, 2014 Report Share Posted November 27, 2014 Geoff, I had a similar problem with it constantly loading historic weather not current weather,, when you do it again check the date of the metar it is working from, Rex Stough spent a while hooked into my P>C one evening. and cured it, I believe it had something to do with the date format , they use the american date format as does NOAA , at any rate I no longer have the problem and it no longer downloads the same historic weather every time, drop them a line on their forum it is a known problem. BTW I found R.Stough very amenable we chatted as he did his thing in my p.c. seemed a nice guy unlike some of the other prima donna devs that abound in our hobby Link to post Share on other sites
Paul K 22 Posted November 27, 2014 Report Share Posted November 27, 2014 ThanksPC, I use Opus for my weather, so I guess I only need REX 4. John, that sounds the best idea. I currently use Opus with Rex Essentials cloud textures, but if I was starting again I'd buy REX 4 for the textures and still use Opus as my weather engine. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted November 27, 2014 Report Share Posted November 27, 2014 I kind of like the REX textures that come with Essentials better, the newer ones look a little fake sometimes. JMO Link to post Share on other sites
rstough 7 Posted November 29, 2014 Report Share Posted November 29, 2014 Thank you everyone for your support and kind words. We are releasing Service Pack 3 for all existing REX 3 Essential/Overdrive users this coming Tuesday. Here is a link to some of the major fixes coming: http://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/index.php?/topic/31955-rex-3-essentialoverdrive-service-pack-3-final-update/ Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,283 Posted November 29, 2014 Report Share Posted November 29, 2014 Great news Reed, thanks for the upcoming improvements. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 I have a couple of REX 4 based questions: How can I find out which service packs I need to install? Has anyone got any tips on which weather engine to use? I have recently uninstalled Opus and want to configure REX 4 for weather. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Hi JG, REX 4 has an update check on the info page of the program and you update straight from there. Don't forget REX4 'Texture Direct' is only a texture replacement utility, it is an autonomous program and doesn't generate weather. You can still use OPUS, personally, I use Active Sky Next. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted January 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 I have just installed Active sky Next and WOW! it is fantastic!!! I now have an aircraft on stand at Rivine waiting for the baton in a freezing cold thunderstorm !! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Not exactly holiday weather! Really pleased you got a good result. Link to post Share on other sites
needles 1,010 Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 Hey John, glad you like ASN, it is a real improvement on previous weather systems IMO. For me it makes the sim come alive. Enjoy. Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted January 28, 2015 Report Share Posted January 28, 2015 I have just installed Active sky Next and WOW! it is fantastic!!! I now have an aircraft on stand at Rivine waiting for the baton in a freezing cold thunderstorm !! I wish I had your ability to plan ahead effectively...my last minute approach for leg 6 ended up a bit of a muddle. Good luck on your leg! Looking forward to seeing your screens with updated skies...woot Link to post Share on other sites
Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 <sigh> Please don't mention ASN.... Having spent much of today trying to reinstall my Active Sky software, I am currently seriously and enormously fed up. To be fair, my installation of AS2012 is bedevilled by the fact that I have to input my AS2012 Serial number, whereupon it recognises that this is an update and asks me for my ASE serial number (from circa 2010?), whereupon it tells me that I have an "Upgrade Eligibility Verification Error". An uninstallation and deep clean and reinstallation and retry resulted only in the same tedious syndrome. I'm still waiting for a response to the ticket I raised with Hi-Fi, of course. The fact that if and when that problem is overcome I will then need to input my ASN upgrade serial number and probably go through the whole farrago of nonsense once again is something that weighs heavily upon me. I'd look at Rex4 (I have also bought REX in the past) were it not for the fact that they are now adulterating it with another paid-for product (something about soft clouds?), and if I have to start jumping through yet another set of similar hoops I might just burst into tears. So much for textures: suffice it to say that as far as weather is concerned, as a toobliner sort of guy I'm currently looking quite seriously at a *freeware* product called FSXWX.... Some developers do manage to shoot themselves in the foot.... Cheers, Bruce a.k.a. brian747 Link to post Share on other sites
Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142 Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Postscript to the above: I have now had a reply from Hi-Fi — "You will need to first reinstall ASE if you are having trouble installing the AS2012 upgrade.Since it is a new system there is no registry information regarding your previous product prior to the upgrade product." Grrr.... I seriously do not understand why the AS2012 update would need anything at all other than the previous serial number — what is this "registry information" of which they speak? And furthermore, if that is the case (and it evidently is), why is there not an error message which explains the situation clearly without the need to raise a support ticket? Hey ho. So in order to install an upgrade version of ASN in 2015 I had to dig through the archives to find my 2010 version of ASE (and its associated serial number, of course). So I did that <sigh>, and installed ASE. I was then at last able to install AS2012 successfully — and now I will (presumably) be able to repeat the process in order to be able to upgrade from AS2012 to ASN. So be warned, folks: if you have upgrade versions of Hi-Fi software be sure to hang on to your previous versions and serial numbers, since you'll need them *all* in the event that you come to reinstall. What fun! Cheers, Bruce a.k.a. brian747 Link to post Share on other sites
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