Rex...now, New Issue.

[spilok 1,132]

REX ran well for me a day ago, after installation and defragmentation. But yesterday, REX started giving me weather that is always hazy. Do any of you have this problem, and can you shed any light on how to correct it?Stan

[FalconAF 213]

That issue is posted in their support forum. If you use the Real World weather engine, it reads any METAR report of Visibility 10+ miles AS 10 miles and sets the visibility at 10 miles. Doesn't matter if the real visibility is 100 miles...you are gonna get 10-mile visibility at most using the weather engine for real weather. This is only apparantly happening "near the ground" and you should be able to "climb above it". How far you have to climb exactly hasn't been determined. Some folks are reporting a couple thousnad feet AGL, some are reporting different numbers. It is evidently tied in to the "smoothing" effect that the REX weather engine uses to "smooth out" visibility (or something like that).They admit they have a problem here. Just seems very, very strange that the beta testers didn't see this prior to the release.I'm getting more and more inclined to start looking at REX as solely a "texture upgrade" for clouds, water, skies, etc. If I ever get it to install and actually allow me to load the textures, I think I'm going to just use those textures only with another third-party real-weather program I already have. There just seem to be too many "overlooked issues" with REX that *should* have been *noticed* by the beta testers, and fixed, prior to release of the product. Just my opinion.FalconAF

[Geofa 108]

That issue is posted in their support forum. If you use the Real World weather engine, it reads any METAR report of Visibility 10+ miles AS 10 miles and sets the visibility at 10 miles. Doesn't matter if the real visibility is 100 miles...you are gonna get 10-mile visibility at most using the weather engine for real weather. This is only apparantly happening "near the ground" and you should be able to "climb above it". How far you have to climb exactly hasn't been determined. Some folks are reporting a couple thousnad feet AGL, some are reporting different numbers. It is evidently tied in to the "smoothing" effect that the REX weather engine uses to "smooth out" visibility (or something like that).They admit they have a problem here. Just seems very, very strange that the beta testers didn't see this prior to the release.I'm getting more and more inclined to start looking at REX as solely a "texture upgrade" for clouds, water, skies, etc. If I ever get it to install and actually allow me to load the textures, I think I'm going to just use those textures only with another third-party real-weather program I already have. There just seem to be too many "overlooked issues" with REX that *should* have been *noticed* by the beta testers, and fixed, prior to release of the product. Just my opinion.FalconAF

My understanding is it was a choice rather than a bug. I can understand why. Since most metar reports just report up to 10 miles visibility max. how does any program know what figure to use when a report says that? Where I live it is rarely greater than 10 miles visibility except on a few exceptional days so if every time it said 10 it changed the sim to unlimited that would be a bad choice for me. I know xplane in past versions (I don't have the current) always limited visibility to 10 miles-one of the reasons performance was good. I suspect the only way to solve something like this would be to have a database of average visibilities of all reporting stations world-then if the metar came up 10, change the visibility for the average best visiblity of that location..

[jackcnd 0]

REX ran well for me a day ago, after installation and defragmentation. But yesterday, REX started giving me weather that is always hazy. Do any of you have this problem, and can you shed any light on how to correct it?Stan

I just turn off the REX weather system, and no haze.As said above by Falcon most of the issues people are having with REX is when auto REX weather is turned on.I'm not using that or the flight planner, just using REX to design texture themes copy them to FSX and fly direct from FSX.I set the weather in FSX as needed. After you copy the textures you can shut down REX,and just use FSX like normal.Also after you find water that you like and copy it to FSX,uncheck the 5 water boxes in REX then the next time youchange clouds, etc, the copy to FSX will be much faster.I also had to change the clouds to DXT5 to stop crashes.Works great that way for me, no delays , no crashes, etc.REX textures + GEX textures really turn FSX in to FS 11.

[vgbaron 3,496]

REX textures + GEX textures really turn FSX in to FS 11.

That's what I'm aiming for but so far can't get the textures loaded w/o crashing my system - complete reboot every time. Tried DXT5 setting - no joy. Latest suggestion is to delete and rebuild my FSX.cfg file. This I am pondering. Won't be able to do it until I get home tonight but it's taken me quite a while to get FSX exactly the way I want it and the thought of rebuilding the cfg file doesn not make me a happy camper.IMHO, an add-on should not force a change to a basic system. I have my settings fixed where I like them and dumbing them down to use an add-on is not an option.However, from some comments, the textures are beautiful AND frame rate friendly so I'll keep playing with it.

[mleegard 2]

REX ran well for me a day ago, after installation and defragmentation. But yesterday, REX started giving me weather that is always hazy. Do any of you have this problem, and can you shed any light on how to correct it?Stan

What is the flight planner all about? Do not seem to find any comments on it?

[jackcnd 0]

That's what I'm aiming for but so far can't get the textures loaded w/o crashing my system - complete reboot every time. Tried DXT5 setting - no joy. Latest suggestion is to delete and rebuild my FSX.cfg file. This I am pondering. Won't be able to do it until I get home tonight but it's taken me quite a while to get FSX exactly the way I want it and the thought of rebuilding the cfg file doesn not make me a happy camper.IMHO, an add-on should not force a change to a basic system. I have my settings fixed where I like them and dumbing them down to use an add-on is not an option.However, from some comments, the textures are beautiful AND frame rate friendly so I'll keep playing with it.

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

My understanding is it was a choice rather than a bug. I can understand why. Since most metar reports just report up to 10 miles visibility max. how does any program know what figure to use when a report says that?

Geoff,If this was a choice in the program, I would be wondering just how much effort was made to design a sophisticated weather engine. The engine should be able to model the visibility based on available data. Water vapor is a major factor in visibility and simply knowing the dew point, temp, pressure, and wind, one can approximate the extended visibility when 10 miles is reported. Those unlimited visibilities in Colorado in the winter, or Arizona in the summer are based on very few particulates and very dry air. I would expect anyone designing a weather engine would know this and integrate it into the simulation. If not, the engine is just an automated way of setting the FS weather to match the METAR. Nothing fancy in that! There were free programs to do that back in FS98. The same goes with the problem of station reports with CAVOK. There's no information on cloud height or type, but I'd expect the engine to use aloft temp and dew point data along with adiabatic dry and wet rates to estimate the type and height (along with tops) and create them in the sim. If the designer just left the sky clear and said it was a 'feature', I'd question how serious the design process was or how much experience the developer had with meteorology.Bruce

[brucewtb 247]

Geoff,If this was a choice in the program, I would be wondering just how much effort was made to design a sophisticated weather engine. The engine should be able to model the visibility based on available data. Water vapor is a major factor in visibility and simply knowing the dew point, temp, pressure, and wind, one can approximate the extended visibility when 10 miles is reported. Those unlimited visibilities in Colorado in the winter, or Arizona in the summer are based on very few particulates and very dry air. I would expect anyone designing a weather engine would know this and integrate it into the simulation. If not, the engine is just an automated way of setting the FS weather to match the METAR. Nothing fancy in that! There were free programs to do that back in FS98. The same goes with the problem of station reports with CAVOK. There's no information on cloud height or type, but I'd expect the engine to use aloft temp and dew point data along with adiabatic dry and wet rates to estimate the type and height (along with tops) and create them in the sim. If the designer just left the sky clear and said it was a 'feature', I'd question how serious the design process was or how much experience the developer had with meteorology.Bruce

This issue has been around a long time with other weather programs disappointing that a brand new entrant in the weather engine business can't come up with a more satisfactory solution. Think I will bide my time before getting REX and see if the wrinkles get sorted out, quite apart from the 4 gig download, 60 AUD is rather a lot for REX if you only end up using the textures.Bruceb

[spilok 1,132]

I've decided to remove REX and use FEX until more issues are resolved. I will re-install it later. My sim works much better without it right now. The process seems too involved and complicated to get the results I was hoping for. Load times, hazy atmosphere, and a complex procedure to the load process before FSX starts. It's not ready for "prime time" yet, and I expect the developers to fix it soon. When they do, I'll give it another go.Stan

[michal 44]

The engine should be able to model the visibility based on available data. Water vapor is a major factor in visibility and simply knowing the dew point, temp, pressure, and wind, one can approximate the extended visibility when 10 miles is reported.

Bruce, Please let us know when someone creates a weather engine for FS that takes into consideration vapor, dew points, pressures, adiabatic rates, to estimate visibilities, cloud tops, etc, I would like to live long enough to see such a day. Yes, they all pretty much work with METARs, TAFs, maybe do some fancy interpolation, make probably plenty of simplistic assumptions but if you think any of them is even close to employing processes you are alluding to you are living in a simulation fairly land.

[Geofa 108]

I've decided to remove REX and use FEX until more issues are resolved. I will re-install it later. My sim works much better without it right now. The process seems too involved and complicated to get the results I was hoping for. Load times, hazy atmosphere, and a complex procedure to the load process before FSX starts. It's not ready for "prime time" yet, and I expect the developers to fix it soon. When they do, I'll give it another go.Stan

Stan-you could also do what I am doing. I find the clouds a toss up with Fex-but the water, and other additions top notch and superior in Rex.Just load your favorites in rex once-then run the sim without rex. Just did an fs real weather download using the rex textures and it is great. I've never liked the water in fsx-but the rex water almost makes it acceptable for me. :( In otherwords, use it the same way you use fex...

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Please let us know when someone creates a weather engine for FS that takes into consideration vapor, dew points, pressures, adiabatic rates, to estimate visibilities, cloud tops, etc, I would like to live long enough to see such a day. Yes, they all pretty much work with METARs, TAFs, maybe do some fancy interpolation, make probably plenty of simplistic assumptions but if you think any of them is even close to employing processes you are alluding to you are living in a simulation fairly land.

Michal,symulacji wr

[FalconAF 213]

I'm of the same conclusion as Geoffa above right now. I finally got REX installed with no more errors happening while running FSX. But the real-time weather engine comes nowhere near simulating real-time/real-world weather conditions in it's current state. Getting a maximum of 10 miles visibility all the time when using it is about as UNREAL as you can get. No other weather generator I use presently does this. That said...I must admit the water textures are some of the best I've ever seen in a flight simulator. My initial impression of the HD cloud textures are that they are very impressive also, but not "revolutionary" in the sense that they outsurpass FEX HD clouds that much (or even at all when comparing various FEX vs REX textures).It's a nice addon, and for a $39 US price, is comparable to other addons that do much the same. The "lesson learned" though, should be one for the developers. The release of REX is a disaster of marketing technique. There's an old saying..."You only get one chance to make a first impression"...and the first impression of REX for the community has not been very positive. From the initial download experience, to getting it "up and running", too many problems have left many buyers with a sour taste in their mouths. Much more "pre-release" examination of the product should have been done, particularly in the User Manual area. Initially, I was amazed that the entire manual was only 29 pages long. It soon became apparant why...it doesn't contain anywhere near the necessary information needed for a user to use the product. This was demonstrated by the need for an end-user to write a forum post explaining how to get the various options available in REX to work correctly...followed by the developers asking for permission to "sticky post" that information in their own support forum. This is information that should have been explained coherently in the included user manual. The FIRST fix I would recommend for the REX Development Team is the issuing of a new user manual that explains the program better, and in much more detail than the current one. Until that happens, their support forums are going to be inundated with "How do I...." posts that will have to be repeatedly answered over and over again. This is NOT the same as having to reply to people who simply refuse to read a manual that DOES have the information in it already. That will always happen. But the current manual doesn't even contain the information needed by people who DO read user manuals. One example is the "Theme Creation" screen. It is confusing as heck. It has "Currently Installed Theme:" at the top of it. Then 10 "selection boxes" under that for making "selections". THREE of those boxes use the word "Theme" in them...Sky, Cloud, and Weather. The other SEVEN don't say "Theme" at all. Then there is ONE button on the bottom that says "Install". What the end user is actually doing when they click that "Install" button ends up being a total mystery if they have no prior experience with another similar type "weather/texture replacement" program. Hell...I'M still not sure what REX considers a "Currently Installed Theme" to mean (the entry that would be shown in the "Currently Installed Theme:" box at the top). Why? Because even after I went through the first NINE boxes and changed the "textures" for those, after I hit the "Install" button and they get "loaded" to FSX, there is NOTHING (no entry or name shown) in the "Currently Installed Theme:" white title box. This has to be totally confusing to any brand new user of an addon like this. The "Save" button will allow the user to NAME their selections as a "new theme", but this isn't made clear in the manual. New users may easily be confused (and afraid) to hit EITHER button, as they won't know what the difference between Save and Install will actually DO to FSX or REX.The developers missed two of the most important items to make sure are included in any teaching documentation...Common Core of Experience and the concept of teaching from the Known to the Unknown. Any user manual must follow those two principles, or it it useless. The developers took too much for granted with the manual, making the assumption that someone with no previous experience using an addon like this would understand how to use the addon by simply reading the "short descriptions" of the various options shown in the user manual. That doesn't work, unless the end user has a lot of previous experience using a similar addon ("Common Core of Experience"), and already knows the difference between just installing textures vs using a real-time weather generation engine (teaching from the Known to the Unknown). REX is over 4 GB in size...and contains a User Manual that is easily less than 1/4 the size of competing products that are much smaller program-size wise. The manual is the FIRST thing that needs to be "patched".Overall, I'm going to use some of the textures from REX. At the present time, I will not be using the Weather Generator, as I have other similar addons that in my opinion do a much better rendition of "real-world weather" generation, in a much more "user friendly" way. That's not to say REX is "bad" or "broken"...I'm not saying that. It just isn't "revolutionary", or even "as accurate as", other similar programs I currently have, that are easier to use. I sincerely hope REX can be made "better" in these areas with future patches, etc. It just isn't there yet, in my opinion, as a "fully functional Weather Generation" application.FalconAF

[guenseli 1,577]

Hello,I agree completely with you, Falcon.The REX Release is for me the flop of the year!Month over month they have presented outstanding screenshots and promised us everything under the sun and the "dawn of a new era"They have to compete with there own words and under this aspect they've failed completely.I believe more and more the REX Team is just an enthusiastic gang of a few teenies :( The only thing which makes REX better than other products like ASX or/and FEX are the framerates!But any other apsect of this product isn't anything new or better than anything else:Usability of the Interface is horrible...Same with the logic how REX is working or give feedback what REX is actual doingMany of the cloud textures are not this, what the screenshot should make us believe... some of them are good, some a little better as FEX.and last but not least, there are many, many bugs and I wonder how it was possible they can ALL past beta testings...the "full flight planer" is a jokeAll of the points would be annoying enough, but apart from this the boys have claimed over month with words like "breakthrough in simulation analysis", "dawn of a new era", and statements like that they wouldn't release a product which isn't perfect and tons of screenshots I'm hardly able to achieve... :( Just my 2ct about REX...