PMDG products and REX2.0

[Sawydz 4]

Hi guys,I know some of You are using REX 2.0 with PMDG aircrafts and since I'm looking for some nice replacement for FSX's weather environment (I already own ASE but now I would like to make my sky look better) I was wondering what hit on performance should I expect? Some people report FPS decrease some and report increase, but since PMDG products are very demanding I'm not sure if I will be able to land on any bigger airport with such addon. What's Your experience?Thanks.

[Tabs 2,790]

As long as you have a good amount of video memory and set REX up correctly as far as the resolution and compression options, it should be little to no impact. I personally think it's one of the biggest improvements you can make to FSX - the sky and clouds are so much better than the defaults that it's not even a contest.

[Sawydz 4]

Thanks, and one more thing: do I need to turn BLOOM on to get all effects (this will kill frame rate) or does it have some "mod" like ENB, etc?

[Turbine777 13]

ENB (HDR) makes it look even better, but without it is more than fine. Of course the default light bloom won't have much effect on the cloud edges that the ENB series plugin does but there are other issues with it that I'm sure you've heard of, at least recently.Rex2 was one of my most profound upgrades, and could never fly without it. If you are short on video memory the 512 textures were very well done as well and still a huge improvement over default,,, huge.I prefer to use ASE for my wx engine but Rex textures in case you're wondering.

[Sawydz 4]

Thanks guys for input, I have already bought it and it's downloading right now, seems another sleepless nigh ahead of me

[Cras 6]

ENB (HDR) makes it look even better, but without it is more than fine. Of course the default light bloom won't have much effect on the cloud edges that the ENB series plugin does but there are other issues with it that I'm sure you've heard of, at least recently.

What is ENB (HDR)? I have not heard of it, and it sounds like I should have. As for REX2.0, it is awesome. I remember coming across their website with previews of what they were working on, and waiting eagerly for I would say about a year for it to come out. 2.0 made it better, and now Overdrive adds even more. The water, the clouds, runway and taxi textures, the taxiway signs, aircraft lights, it improves so much. When ever I do a reinstall of FSX, REX is the very first add-on that goes in, it is a must for FSX.

[Turbine777 13]

What is ENB (HDR)? I have not heard of it, and it sounds like I should have.

Hi Scott, Here is a good page with some screenshots from Tim over at REX's forum. He also provided his ini and someone else did a couple palletts on page 2 of this post.http://realenvironmentxtreme.com/forum/index.php?topic=7467.0Basically it's a .dll for shaders that someone took from (I think) Grand Theft Auto and decided to try it with FSX, and it worked.It is truly incredible and free! It really makes the sky look better as well as other things. It is like Bloom, but without the FPS hit. BUT it has been causing crashes for some of us that you can read all about here:http://forum.avsim.net/topic/302491-enbseries-plug-in-and-altenter-crash/Don't worry though, if you crash, just delete the ini and the .dll and it's gone. No install or uninstall needed. You can also edit the INI file on the fly, in windowed mode.*Another good freeware is FSWC!http://www.strikingsoftware.com/*Warning: Does not work with *******'s Shader 3.0 fix. Uninstall them 1st.It gives you a GUI to set and forget water details. I haven't yet had time to really fly many water areas but it is pretty sweet and now I know how the FSX movie makers get the shine, reflections and vibrance they do!

[Cras 6]

Thank you so much! Can't wait to get these installed and see how they look.

[Turbine777 13]

No problem. The more people that start using it, the more people will have FSX crash and the more minds will be at work trying to figure out a solution for us all.Ooops, did I say that out loud? :(

[Tabs 2,790]

Basically it's a .dll for shaders that someone took from (I think) Grand Theft Auto and decided to try it with FSX, and it worked.It is truly incredible and free! It really makes the sky look better as well as other things. It is like Bloom, but without the FPS hit. BUT it has been causing crashes for some of us that you can read all about here:

Though the version we're all using was originally made for the older GTA games by it's author, ENB Series is actually an HDR (high dynamic range) lighting mod available for a ton of different games that intercepts the game engine's Direct 3D calls, places the HDR effect onto them, and then has the card render them. It's not part of GTA, it was a mod for that game as well. It sits between FS and DirectX 9 essentially. HDR is a common feature in most advanced game engines today - FSX's "bloom" doesn't implement it in an efficient way, which is why something like the ENB dll is needed.The official site for it is here:http://enbdev.com/index_en.htmlI wonder if the developer knows how popular its become in the FS world? I think I'll email him and see if he knows and if he can perhaps improve it at all for FSX specifically...EDIT - I guess he's stopped development on it, that's too bad.

[MistyBlue 8]

So does that mean most of you are running FSX in DX9 and not DX10? I thought I recall framerates being better with DX10 as well as textures.

[Sawydz 4]

Now when I bought REX I'll try it in DX10, but generally DX10 causes so many problems that most of us is avoiding it as much as possible at expense of frame rates and sometimes better looks.Dan, as You said I was forced to use 1024 textures, I had 30% performance hit, time for new graphics card

[Guest acezboy561]

For some reason and ENB slices my FPS in half with REX. Without it, no problem, a smooth 30FPS over FTX, but with it on. =/

[Sawydz 4]

Something like this happens to me when I try to use FSX's kneeboard, the FPS are immediately cut to half.Sometimes they go back to normal after few minutes and sometimes the only solution is to restart FSX.

[des182001 1]

So does that mean most of you are running FSX in DX9 and not DX10? I thought I recall framerates being better with DX10 as well as textures.

That is correct as the ENB file DX9, DX10 was never properly implemented by the aces team in FSX.

For some reason and ENB slices my FPS in half with REX. Without it, no problem, a smooth 30FPS over FTX, but with it on. =/

When I first started using FSX I loaded a rather aggressive ENB ini file that I used for FS9 and it cut my frames in half. After Tim uploaded his more subtle version over at REX I gave it a try with no performance impact at all.