britfrog 180 Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 well for those interested I can now give a reasonable idea of the differences between these 2 weather progs however I must say i may have some ideas wrong in how they implement their work what I am interested in is what we the users see. The first very noticeable point is the speed of opus it is massively faster than REX at everything it also uses much more up to date metar information, (here at LFMP they were using metars 2 hours newer than REX in fact they were less than 30 minutes old) so the portrayal is more accurate. I have been trying it for a few days here when the weather has been very up and down and opus wins hands down. There is no excuse for REX being so slow, they promised before the launch of essentials and again when they released the + version that it was going to be quicker but it isnt. The REX textures are still much better than anything else out there and their low cloud representation is more realistic than opus. One of the shortcomings with opus is that when you are approaching a low cloud layer and expect to be flying over it , the leading edge keeps melting back exposing the ground underneath ( a typical FSX fault ) which happens to a much smaller degree with REX . The opus winds aloft also works better than REX , however I found their update of weather disturbed the smoothness of the simulation more than REX. I have not tried any of the other progs like historic weather etc but have concentrated on the live weather for the moment. It is still early days yet so if anyone else is trying out both progs I would be interested to hear their comparisons Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 I have not been a busy FSX user recently but I do have OpusFSX and I agree it loads so much faster and with much less fuss than the latest iteration of REX. Like you, I did some checking of the METARS as they come from the same source and I had found them have the same timestamp. However, I have just been keeping an eye on the two and REX METAR was 10 minutes behind changing from 15Z to 16Z and the winds had shifted quite a bit in that update. It could be that REX has too much "luggage" to cope with when updating its servers from NOAA. I am also aware that REX has had quite a few server issues and could have been feeding out archive info. As you said, it's still early days for me so am learning from our members! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 Have been playing a bit more to get a better comparison, although opus is much quicker it does suffer from the winds aloft and change of direction syndrome which at the moment makes it more suitable for the low and slow brigade Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 Hi Guys, The main question I have about REX, Active Sky 2012 and Opus - which one takes the least resource on the computer and for slower computers which one would be best? Thanks, Jim Link to post Share on other sites
Jess-b 420 Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 Britfrog, iirc, opus doesn't feature actual winds aloft data, it's all made up as it were. But I think they're working on getting that data added at some point. Best wishes, Jess B Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 If I am not bothered about winds aloft and disable them in FSX - should I get Opus? I want something that will not hog my system and also I generally only fly up tp 5000 feet anyways. So should I? Thanks, Jim Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 Hi Jess I hate to disagree with you but if you look at their homepage (http://www.opussoftware.co.uk/opusfsi.htm) version 2.6 (my version) features " live weather engine-- true winds and temperatures aloft" I must admit the more i play with the 2 the more i come out preferring REX, despite its slow start, it is certainly less disrupting to the flight when it upgrades every 30 minutes or so that opus and the much heralded low cloud/ fog reproduction in opus for me is not as good as the new Rex equivalent, however i mostly fly airliners. UKJIM, the reason I started this thread is to get more hands on feed back from those that use both progs , so far, sadly, that hasnt come to fruition, getting back to my post a few posts back, to generalise , if you fly vfr small a/c then opus is best suited, and if you fly jets and use vatsim then REX is better. My main criticisms are that from the very start REX has always been slow to get going and despite many complaints and posts to the effect, they announced they had addressed this problem for the latest release , in fact they havent, but hey who am i to complain the last 2 big releases have been free!!! there is no doubt their textures are better than all on the market at the moment so Theoretically, if you use opus you can install the REX textures and use opus to portray them. However the company that has shot up quickly, addressed the slowness of the REX and HIFI progs are opus , they are making lots of big claims which if all come to fruition will make it no 1 If I were you, at the moment, looking for an all around weather prog with good back up, use REX, but be prepared that opus may well be the one to have in 6 months time As the saying goes time will tell...... Link to post Share on other sites
Jess-b 420 Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 Britfrog, you are indeed correct. In fairness the Opus guys work very quickly and I hadn't checked out thier forum in the last week or so to see the news of GRIB data now being used. Impressive. Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 Thanks for the heads up on OpusFSX Mike, I really must bring mine up to date. Cheers, Joe Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 thanks for the update guys! I have active sky 2012 for textures also FEX too - i was just wondering if OpusFSX uses less resource when running because it doesnt have all the other features to worry about! Ive read plenty of other sites comments bout opus and all seem to say its best purchase they made! I dont know how they cud say this if Rex does the same thing etc! Im gona try the demo and see performance and graphics - then try rex maybe! Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted November 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 this is what i have been doing, i have been taking pics as i go along swapping between 1 program and the other and making comparisons there is no doubt opus are doing a great deal of work at the moment , but never the less it is still very difficult to choose which is better, imho at the current time there is no outright winner. Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 tried the demo of opus and its great - has rex got a demo? anyone provide a link Link to post Share on other sites
gigemaggs99 0 Posted December 12, 2012 Report Share Posted December 12, 2012 I only have REX so I can't say for sure as I don't have a way to compare all the different programs. I will say I've read that REX takes a while to load the weather. I have REX Overdrive for FS9 and REX 2.0 Overdrive for FSX. I haven't downloaded the REX Essentials + for FSX yet b/c it sounds like they are still working out the bugs and the one I use for FSX works like a charm, so I'm going w/ the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it mentality right now". Back to the weather loading times on REX, most of the time on both FS9 & FSX my weather will load as soon as I turn the REX WX engine on and lick "load weather". At other times it will say loading weather and sits at 1% for what seems like 5-10 mins. I just shut the program down and restart it and then it loads again fast like normal. Then it seems to work normal throughout the rest of my flight doing automated updates. I'm not sure why sometimes it sticks like this but it's very seldom that it does so I don't have a real problem with the load times as a few seconds doesn't seem that long to me. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted December 12, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 12, 2012 I only have REX so I can't say for sure as I don't have a way to compare all the different programs. I will say I've read that REX takes a while to load the weather. I have REX Overdrive for FS9 and REX 2.0 Overdrive for FSX. I haven't downloaded the REX Essentials + for FSX yet b/c it sounds like they are still working out the bugs and the one I use for FSX works like a charm, so I'm going w/ the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it mentality right now". Back to the weather loading times on REX, most of the time on both FS9 & FSX my weather will load as soon as I turn the REX WX engine on and lick "load weather". At other times it will say loading weather and sits at 1% for what seems like 5-10 mins. I just shut the program down and restart it and then it loads again fast like normal. Then it seems to work normal throughout the rest of my flight doing automated updates. I'm not sure why sometimes it sticks like this but it's very seldom that it does so I don't have a real problem with the load times as a few seconds doesn't seem that long to me. I am not sold on essentials or essentials + or essentials+ o/d , i also was quite happy with rex 2 with o/d, and i agree if it aint broke why fix it, but if someone is offering a free upgrade which supposedly is going to be better then you download it, but honestly the improvements are very hard to see other than the interface, and there certainly isnt any speed increase on start up. If it wasnt such a fag i would love to uninstall and reinstall rex 2 but there were so many updates etc, i might as well just get on with what i have and be happy, however if i ever have to reinstall fsx - - - - Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted December 12, 2012 Report Share Posted December 12, 2012 I went for Opus and I must admit I use FEX for textures and the weather is always very accurate - if I look out my window and its foggy or raining - in game its exactly the same Link to post Share on other sites
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