Mark, I am under the impression that running REX textures together with the ASA weather engine isnt going to give you the best of results. When I had FSX installed I wondered which weather program I would add. Since REX was cheaper and I wanted to know if FSX would run smoothly on my pc first before investing more, I purchased REX. Meanwhile, I had ASA 6.5 installed for FS9. After reading a post that the ASA weather could be used together with FSX/REX I tried that and yes, it all worked well. Hoever, I notice when doing so I lose the haze. Visibility is unreal. However when using the REX weahter engine the haze is good, visibility is limited to 40 - 60 miles and all looks real.Could it be that the ASA haze textures have a different name? The default FSX weather has almost no haze either so it is my impression that both ASA and REX add these textures using their own filenames. So when using the ASA enigne it calls the ASA haze files which of course are not found if you dont have the ASA graphics installed.Menno

Hi Menno,Thanks for the info. I may try Graphics X as well. I know some users have said good things about the ASA/REX combination but I can see your point about different naming of textures. I love the way REX clouds and water look. ASE has the snapshot option so if I purchase the ASA graphics I can try different combinations of graphics to see which work best. I am also going to try the cfg tweak that others have mentioned and see if that improves my overcast look.Mark

Hi All,FYI here: none of our weather engine products that run with FSX contain any textures. They only use the textures that are installed in FSX at the time you start FSX. So there are no different naming systems or anything like that, because there are no textures. This is for ASv6.5 in FSX mode, ASX, ASA, and ASE. If you use REX or X Graphics the textures are all named the same way also!Also, there are settings in all the above products to limit the visibility to whatever you, the user, feels is accurate.

H Jim,Thanks for clearing that up about the naming systems. I had a flight tonight above and overcast layer and I got similar to what you posted in the pic earlier in this thread. I could still see spots of ground below me, but overall the WX was a nice effect. Thanks,Mark

Hi All,FYI here: none of our weather engine products that run with FSX contain any textures. They only use the textures that are installed in FSX at the time you start FSX. So there are no different naming systems or anything like that, because there are no textures. This is for ASv6.5 in FSX mode, ASX, ASA, and ASE. If you use REX or X Graphics the textures are all named the same way also!Also, there are settings in all the above products to limit the visibility to whatever you, the user, feels is accurate.

One must remember that "overcast" or OVC as written in a METAR is only what can be seen from on the ground at the reporting station. It is quite possible for gaps in the clouds to appear say some 10 or more miles away that are not visible at the reporting point. Obviously from a cruising height of say FL200 one has a much wider field of view than from on the ground. In fact from FL 330 to FL450 in both FS9 and FSX one can see the entire METAR region!!!!! Remember also that cloud layers can also appear to be overcast. However, the METAR usually reports the cloud layers as such. But ONLY if there is no associated haze! The weather engine (whichever one we use) may or may not interpolate between the reporting stations. If they are close then the continuity of cloud cover looks convincing. If not then obiously there will be gaps. Also as mentioned before if the OVC layer is at a low (height above AGL) then this will almost always be accompanied with haze which contributes to the lack of visibilty and therefore produces the OVC condition. This is why it is not a good idea to to turn off the haze layer. The weather engine needs it. Remember that the further away one is from the haze layer boundary the more it is possible to see through it! What is seen as OVC from the ground and from the air is different. When we are flying at altitude what we interpret as OVC is almost always due to multiple cloud layers and rarely due to one single cloud layer which from the ground may be reported as OVC due to the associated haze.Another point also. The sim does not interprete the METAR reading 9999 properly. It interprets it as completely cloudless which is incorrect. There is a fix but I can't remember where I saw it.vololiberista

It's a common phenomenon.

Yes it is. However in nature you also can heavy very heavy stratus clouds with absolutely no see-through of any kind. This is what we have often in the summer in the Bay Area - perhaps a 1000 ft thick stratus that from above looks like thin in height but nevertheless a very dense blanket. These types of conditions are impossible to get in FS.

another phenomenon which does display in the sim is valley haze. Very common here in the Alps. From on high it is clearly haze but the METAR will frequently say INVIS.vololiberista

FSX - user-defined weather, using REX textures - two layers of Cu + 2 CuNim between 2000 and 11000 ft, with 1+ mile or so visibilty.Cloud Density - maximum. Detailed clouds checked. Cloud Draw - 60 mileshttp://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/pj_...mview=slideshowJust taken five minutes ago. Overcast is fine in FSX - you just have to experiment a bit.This was FTX from Arlington 330 degrees, climb to about 13 or 14000ft and back.

Hi Paul,Thank you for those settings. The WX you have in that pic is exactly what I am looking for. I will give it a shot on my computer.Thanks,Mark

FSX - user-defined weather, using REX textures - two layers of Cu + 2 CuNim between 2000 and 11000 ft, with 1+ mile or so visibilty.Cloud Density - maximum. Detailed clouds checked. Cloud Draw - 60 mileshttp://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/pj_...mview=slideshowJust taken five minutes ago. Overcast is fine in FSX - you just have to experiment a bit.This was FTX from Arlington 330 degrees, climb to about 13 or 14000ft and back.