I've known for some time that my FS9 needs a makeover. I think I'm sold on Ground Environment Pro for the ground, but I'm undecided about the sky.Between REX and FE, most posters come down on the side of REX. Fine so far. But I have a couple of special considerations that could lead me the other way. First, (IMO) brilliant, glowing white cumulus clouds seen from above are one of the most prettiest sights in aviation, and I'd love to see that in FS9. The default FS9 hasn't shown me anything at all. Another of FS9's shortcomings is its display of a sharp division between ground and sky when up in the flight levels -- pretty unrealistic unless the visibility is > 500 miles or whatever. FSUIPC kind of tries to address the problem, but can't really. Do either of these two help with that problem?Another consideration is frame rates. I know FE just replaces the default textures so in theory shouldn't have any effect at all. How about REX? And is REX okay with weather downloaded by Active Sky?I got involved in some AI projects (available here at AVSIM) about a year ago and am looking forward to some real flying for a change. :( Thanks for any specific (or general!) comments on the subject...Blue skies to all......DaveDave JonesFort McCoy, Florida USA

REX works very well with Activesky. I get some pretty big frame hits using high def clouds and the sliders to the right. My machine is about 2 years old with quad core and an 8600GT. I get about 15 fps in heavy cloud cover, but its still pretty smooth. I used to use FE and ditched it for REX. No regrets. I recommend it.

For FS9 you can also consider Fs Elemental, which gives Fs9 a massive makeover as far as the skies go:http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info...products_id=928Al

Thanks for those comments -- I hope others will speak up too.I never heard of FS Elemental until this post by Chock, and naturally I eagerly checked it out. The screen shots look great! But in digging a little farther I see that it uses 1024x1024 textures, which I think will require more than my PC can readily give, and downsizing them sounds like more of a project than I really need. Still the fact that "sky textures include soft horizons to get rid of the visibility issue inherent within FS2004" isn't easy to overlook!Any reports on how REX manages the problem -- if at all? Any reports of glowing bright white clouds as viewed from above? Any other reports on FS Elemental? If not will try it as a new thread.Thanks again. This upgrade sounds really promising, no matter what direction I go on the sky enhancement....Dave

Take a look at Pablo Diaz's HDE v2 http://library.avsim.net/search.php?Search...t&Go=SearchYou can pick the best format to suit your needs, BMP or DXT

REX lets you set your textures to 512X512 and use less than high def. It also has some settings for less powerful machines. All of the aforementioned are good packages.

I use a combo of both FE and REX. I am not crazy about REX FS9 water to be honest (it looks awesome in FSX mind you).I would side with REX though as it is more versatile and newer (you can replace some things and leave others alone, say only doing your clouds if you want)

I too went from FE to REX, but there's nothing wrong with FE, indeed it's a lot quicker to use (REX takes over 10 minutes to install it's textures on my machine!). One thing that is often overlooked is the quality of ASV6.5's clouds. They appear more 'fluffy' sometimes, and in the right conditions reflect the sunset beautifully.Why not try Active Sky's textures first (I only have 6.5 so can't comment on some of their later ones, but I'm sure they're at least as good), and if you like them you've saved yourself some dollars. REX does have a few other tricks that FE and AS don't do, however.Cheers, SLuggy

I too went from FE to REX, but there's nothing wrong with FE, indeed it's a lot quicker to use (REX takes over 10 minutes to install it's textures on my machine!). One thing that is often overlooked is the quality of ASV6.5's clouds. They appear more 'fluffy' sometimes, and in the right conditions reflect the sunset beautifully.Why not try Active Sky's textures first (I only have 6.5 so can't comment on some of their later ones, but I'm sure they're at least as good), and if you like them you've saved yourself some dollars. REX does have a few other tricks that FE and AS don't do, however.Cheers, SLuggy

REX extreme 2004 with Active sky 6.5 and Zinertex water is the best. I surprise all the REX supporters have not chimed in. Maybe they are to busy flying in the sim using the product.Carl Perry 7+year sim pilot

+1 for Pablo Diaz's HDE v2. I run these at reduced resolution on an old Athlon XP 2700+ / GEForce 7800 with less frame impact than the default clouds. With FSMetar providing weather, cloud depictions are spectacular. I've got the payware (ASE, AS6.5, ASG, FE, FSElemental) stuff but I like these freeware solutions better. Haven't tried REX yet, I'm sure it's great, but I'm very pleased with what I'm using currently.Jim

REX extreme 2004 with Active sky 6.5 and Zinertex water is the best. I surprise all the REX supporters have not chimed in. Maybe they are to busy flying in the sim using the product.Carl Perry 7+year sim pilot

Heh, I also use Zinertek's Water, in addition to their Airport environment (just for the generic terminals which look a whole lot better than the defaults) and their Weather one, as the rain and snow and associated effects are also great. Nice and relatively cheap too. Strange company, Zinertek. They look like a data hardware company that has a FS enthusiast working for them that they allow to sell his stuff on their website.Cheers, SLuggy

Rex is certainly worth it. Fs9 got a whole new makeover with it. Although I have never been able to get the weather generation system to properly display the weather, so I use REX + ASv6.

Wow! This turned into some thread. Thanks for all the advice!I never heard of Pablo Diaz's HDE v2 either until it came up here. I had a look and have to say I'm impressed with the screenshots and your reports about it. I think the prudent thing to do is install HDE and then consider my level of satisfaction with it over a period of a couple months before deciding thumbs up or down on REX. REX does have some neat bells and whistles (like the weather engine) and is probably more complete. But how much difference will that make in everyday use? Maybe not much but I don't know yet.... I really like the FS Elemental screenshots, but don't know if I'm up to the job of resizing all those textures. Anybody know how many there are? Then, I think I do recall something about seeing a batch texture converter -- somewhere. If I don't need something at the time I read about it the info just doesn't stick. :( I do have Active Sky and AS Graphics installed. Its weather engine is great if you want real world weather (sometimes I do & sometimes I don't) but I'm not entirely happy with the ASG sky textures. I won't deny, however, that it is a worthwhile improvement over FS9.Another important point was brought up by altstiff (hope I got it right) who says he's not entirely happy with REX/FS9 water. I've seen the screenshots and I'm not either. I don't care for garish water textures and never have. I took a peek at Zinertek and really like what I saw. Good price too!Thanks again for all the suggestions and comments!...Dave

Wow! This turned into some thread. Thanks for all the advice!I never heard of Pablo Diaz's HDE v2 either until it came up here. I had a look and have to say I'm impressed with the screenshots and your reports about it. I think the prudent thing to do is install HDE and then consider my level of satisfaction with it over a period of a couple months before deciding thumbs up or down on REX. REX does have some neat bells and whistles (like the weather engine) and is probably more complete. But how much difference will that make in everyday use? Maybe not much but I don't know yet.... I really like the FS Elemental screenshots, but don't know if I'm up to the job of resizing all those textures. Anybody know how many there are? Then, I think I do recall something about seeing a batch texture converter -- somewhere. If I don't need something at the time I read about it the info just doesn't stick. :( I do have Active Sky and AS Graphics installed. Its weather engine is great if you want real world weather (sometimes I do & sometimes I don't) but I'm not entirely happy with the ASG sky textures. I won't deny, however, that it is a worthwhile improvement over FS9.Another important point was brought up by altstiff (hope I got it right) who says he's not entirely happy with REX/FS9 water. I've seen the screenshots and I'm not either. I don't care for garish water textures and never have. I took a peek at Zinertek and really like what I saw. Good price too!Thanks again for all the suggestions and comments!...Dave

If you find you like HDE2 you might think about Pablo's HDE 2010 it's amazing it even enhances all aircraft paint jobs along with ground and great 3d clouds.....John

Wow! This turned into some thread. Thanks for all the advice!I never heard of Pablo Diaz's HDE v2 either until it came up here. I had a look and have to say I'm impressed with the screenshots and your reports about it. I think the prudent thing to do is install HDE and then consider my level of satisfaction with it over a period of a couple months before deciding thumbs up or down on REX. REX does have some neat bells and whistles (like the weather engine) and is probably more complete. But how much difference will that make in everyday use? Maybe not much but I don't know yet.... I really like the FS Elemental screenshots, but don't know if I'm up to the job of resizing all those textures. Anybody know how many there are? Then, I think I do recall something about seeing a batch texture converter -- somewhere. If I don't need something at the time I read about it the info just doesn't stick. :( I do have Active Sky and AS Graphics installed. Its weather engine is great if you want real world weather (sometimes I do & sometimes I don't) but I'm not entirely happy with the ASG sky textures. I won't deny, however, that it is a worthwhile improvement over FS9.Another important point was brought up by altstiff (hope I got it right) who says he's not entirely happy with REX/FS9 water. I've seen the screenshots and I'm not either. I don't care for garish water textures and never have. I took a peek at Zinertek and really like what I saw. Good price too!Thanks again for all the suggestions and comments!...Dave

If you find you like HDE2 you might think about Pablo's HDE 2010 it's amazing it even enhances all aircraft paint jobs along with ground and great 3d clouds.....JohnSorry about the duplication!

Yes, I see that HDE 2010 looks great and is also under my serious consideration. Don't want to get too many things going at one time though, lest they begin to collide with one another.I just read a review of GE Pro that PC Pilot printed a few years ago and it raised a couple questions. First, it mentions that it has its own sky textures. Seems rather in conflict with FE, but aside from that, does that mean that I should install GE before any sky enhancements so that its own sky textures don't overwrite HDE or FS Elemental or REX or whatever I end up with?It also shows a screenshot of the GE Pro user interface on which you select your departure and destination airports. Too small to make out the details, but does that mean you need to set GE up before every flight so the right ground textures get loaded? Or does that only apply to its built-in real time weather facility? Seems like a bit of a nuisance, but would be worth it anyway because the textures look so good. Thanks again!...Dave