I hope this is the right place for this question.......but, what are suggestions for the first programs like, weather, land scenery and traffic, most likely payware..........have a couple Carenado props, they are great, but looking to add a few more business jets as well.........appreciate the help B42L8

I think you'd get a better response posting in the FSX forum, perhaps a forum moderator will move the topic there. But since I'm on the thread, I'll have a shot at offering some suggestions anyway...Some of what you choose to add onto FSX will depend on how much spare processing power you are enjoying, what graphic card you have, and how much RAM you have. FSX can be quite demanding on a computer, so you have to weigh up how much power your computer will have to spare for other things, as most things you add will be likely to put more demand on your system. If you have a very capable computer, it will not be a worry, but keep it in mind.Most people will certainly recommend Real Environment Xtreme (REX), which as you may know is a utility program that can make a lot of changes to how the skies in FSX look and act. It changes and improves the clouds, sky colours, runways textures, water textures and all that sort of thing, and there are numerous options for all that stuff via its very simple and attractive interface. On its highest settings, REX can bring a computer to its knees, but on its (still very visually pleasing) lower settings, it can actually improve your frame rates in FSX. On top of making things look better in FSX, it makes them act a bit better too, by improving the turbulence, icing effects, updraughts and all that kind of thing. It also has a built in flight planner and a map on which you can see the weather for a planned route, and it has an improved weather generation engine which can download real world weather reports and generate weather a bit better than FSX can by default. The built in flight planner in REX is not that great, but since it was kind of an afterthought which they put into the program in addition to all the other stuff, the fact that the flight planner is not that great means that it is not a big deal. REX is a very big download and a big install on your computer too, but it is certainly among the best add-ons which make FSX look and feel better, especially considering its very modest price. It is not the only program of it's kind, but it is probably the most popular.You might be happy with the way the clouds already look in FSX, in which case you might want to look at an add-on that simply makes a better job of creating the weather based on the clouds and textures already in FSX. In which case you might want to look at something like Active Sky Advanced, which has a lot of capability to make FSX weather more realistic. You can of course use it in combination with something like REX and that would give you the improved cloud textures of REX and the improved weather generation capabilities of Active Sky Advanced. ASA can do a lot more than that though, it has extensive mapping and reporting capabilities, as well as much better turbulence and thermal generation than the default FSX, and that means it is hugely realistic if you like flying smaller powered aircraft and gliders, which are both likely to be affected in a noticeable fashion by such a detailed simulation of the air mass. ASA is a very mature product which has been developed over very many years, and its sophistication is very evident. It is fairly pricey, but you do get what you pay for.One thing adding more realistic clouds with something like REX will do however, is make it more apparent how mundane the ground textures in FSX can be when you compare how pretty it has made everything look and although REX does tweak some runway and airport textures, and the water, that's about all it does, so you'll probably be looking at getting something to improve the appearance of the ground. It's hard to recommend a specific product for that really, since a lot depends on where you want to fly and how you want to fly too.There are basically four different option you could go for with land scenery though: Photorealistic terrain, improved land class, hybrids of the two, and improved mesh...Photorealistic is of course terrain generated from aerial or satellite photos, and there are lots of them (especially for the US), so that's just a case of looking for one covering the areas you like to fly. But there is an interesting development on this front recently though, in the form of FS Altitude's range of products. These are of the photorealistic type, but they are designed to only gradually kick in as your aircraft climbs higher up, which means they do not suffer from the one problem with photorealistic terrain which tends to spoil it - the fact that it doesn't look very good when you get extremely low down. FS Altitude products cover most of Europe as well as the US, with more apparently on the way, they are expensive, but you do get a lot for your money. Needless to say they are fairly massive in size since they cover a large portion of the globe, but they do certainly look good.Improved land class products attempt to sort out and beautify the default textures by making FSX use better generic textures for the terrain it is trying to depict, so they can vary from simple tweaks to the colours and file groups, to completely new textures and improved autogen models. There are quite a few about for both land and oceans.New meshes are aimed at improving the actual contours of the terrain and they can improve the look of FSX considerably, but they are of more interest to users who like to fly low enough to make use of such visual improvements, since when flying airliners up high, one is unlikely to be close enough to notice a big difference. This is especially the case with FSX, given that almost all of the FSX world is based on data from a doppler terrain scanning mission made by the NASA space shuttle some years ago, which mapped almost the entire Earth's surface. This means the mesh data in FSX is not dreadfully inaccurate to start off with in comparison to earlier FS incarnations, but it can be improved upon in some areas, you just have to decide whether such an improvement is something your want. If you are into 'bush flying', then that may very well be the case.I suggest you consider which of the main types of terrain improvement are for you (generic textures, photorealism, or improved topography). When you know that, you'll be better placed to shop around for what suits you.Realistic traffic is something that can make a big improvement to the look, sounds and even the frame rates of FSX. There are one or two freeware AI traffic packages out there, as well as the payware offerings such as Ultimate Traffic and Traffic X. Of them all, Ultimate Traffic 2 is the most up to date one, having only just been released a few weeks ago. It is therefore the most capable, but weighing against that is the fact that older competitive products are cheaper and may suffice. And of course there are the free ones too. A lot will depend on whether you want to fly into big airports and see the latest up to date airliners with current liveries. If you are not too bothered with that level of realism and just want the planes to be a bit more realistic in general, then one of the older payware or freeware options could be enough for you. Whatever you decide on, it is worth replacing the default FSX AI with something, as it is likely to improve frame rates and will certainly make ATC sound more believable, with realistic airline callsigns being used instead of the generic 'Soar' 'Emerald Harbour' and 'World Travel' airlines which you hear by default.With regard to getting some business jets, you have a lot of choices, so rather than mention specific aircraft, I would simply recommend checking out the companies which are worth a look when considering that kind of thing, who have tended to make stuff along those lines. That would include Eaglesoft, Flight 1, Wilco Publishing amongst others. I would probably take a look on the following sites if I were you, and don't forget that AVSIM too has an online store, accessible from the main page:www.simmarket.comwww.fspilotshop.comwww.flightsimstore.comwww.pcaviator.comHope that helps a bit.Al

REX is amazing. Cloud slider all the way to the right, a sky full of beautiful clouds. And I have everything turned up on REX and still get decent performance. Ultimate Terrain is another good add-on, and improves the look of things at all altitudes. I use Just Flight's Traffic X, and think their models look great. We are waiting for REX's 2.0 update, which is supposed to make it even much better. Radar Contact is an excellent replacement for the default ATC.I use REX, Ultimate Terrain every flight and Radar Contact on and Trafffic X on 90%. REX also has a weather engine that I find good enough.If you have an up-to-date computer that is a good foundation to build on.

REX and FTX...check 'em out....