Hey Eric how is REX on your FPS? The preview shots all beautiful. What are the down sides to it if any? Thanks.Hiram Hunt

The REX high-definition cloud sets (4096 and 2048 textures) can cause a frame rate hit. I find if you keep them at 1024, performance is smooth. And - matter of personal taste here - I think the 1024 textures look better. I've never seen real-life clouds as sharply defined as the REX high-definition sets. Your cloud experience may vary, of course...

The REX high-definition cloud sets (4096 and 2048 textures) can cause a frame rate hit. I find if you keep them at 1024, performance is smooth. And - matter of personal taste here - I think the 1024 textures look better. I've never seen real-life clouds as sharply defined as the REX high-definition sets. Your cloud experience may vary, of course...

You hit the nail on the head regarding high def clouds!! They look too sharp, like a magazine photo up close, but not representative of reality in any way. When I see real clouds they appear very wispy, almost blurry. In addition to looking too sharp they hit performance like you won't believe, I don't know if hardware will ever be powerful enough for 4096 clouds on top of everything else being rendered/processed by the CPU/GPU. A big waste of time and effort IMHO, but I suppose screenshot junkies appreciate them. 4096 bmps make sense for a flyable aircraft paint, maybe even some addon airport textures (if used sparingly), but they are overkill for weather depiction. Before I built my current high end rig, I even ran the clouds at 512, and had excellent performance on a midrange system. 1024 is all anyone really needs if they want to see plausible weather AND actually be able to fly in it.

Do you guys think if I just add REX that it will spruce up FSX enough without adding a seperate land class or terrain mesh product? I'm not opposed to doing that ,but I don't want to just add stuff for the sake of adding it. I would rather spend the money on additions to the hangar unless a landclass or mesh program will really add a ton in the eye candy department after I get REX.On a happy note I sprung for UT2 earlier tonight and I'm loving it. I went over to my nearest major airport, KIAH and hover taxied my Nemeth EC-135 over to terminal E. It was NG heaven. There was a 900 leading an 800 followed by a 700 followed by an 800 taxiing along. I can't wait to do some heavy Continental NGX flying. I see what everyone was talking about UT2 resetting all the traffic being an annoyance. The traffic models and liveries are just so smooth and beautiful up close that it's worth the headache. Thanks for all the advice so far everyone.Hiram Hunt

Do you guys think if I just add REX that it will spruce up FSX enough without adding a seperate land class or terrain mesh product? I'm not opposed to doing that ,but I don't want to just add stuff for the sake of adding it. I would rather spend the money on additions to the hangar unless a landclass or mesh program will really add a ton in the eye candy department after I get REX.Hiram Hunt

I would recommend REX 100%, but then again I would also recommend UTX and GEX as well if you really want to "spruce up" FSX. All three are great for what they do and it would be hard for me to choose one over the other if your ony going to buy one product. If you get REX make sure to use the DXT clouds if you want to gain some performance. I agree also with using the 1024's, since the higher res ones to me dont look all that much different in my opinion, but they do cost some performance and in some cases they look too sharp and fake.Keep in mind, REX wont do anything as far as landclass or ground textures, except for runway, apron, and taxiway textures. If you want landclass then buy it or buy UTX since it come with landclass as well as vector data upgrade. You might also want to get GEX if you want to improve your ground textrues.Also make sure in UT2 you have the jetways disabled to help with FPS and as 767fan mentioned, I would recommend mip mapping all your UT2 a/c textures to take some load off your GPU and help with occasional shimmer.Sean Campbell

FSX sucks. :( Best regards,Robin.

:( We haven't had one of those comments in a while. Too bad your not enjoying it, for me its been the most enjoyable sim I have owned up to date. Hopefully the next version will be even better.Sean Campbell

Why does the traffic reset when going into a menu? Mytraffic doesn't do that but mytraffic has a bit of an impact on frames.

Why does the traffic reset when going into a menu? Mytraffic doesn't do that but mytraffic has a bit of an impact on frames.

Because UT2 traffic isn't a normal traffic program that uses .bgl files, rather it "injects" traffic into FSX via simconnect. This is probably the same reason UT2 aircraft fly real flight plans and not from point A to point B like regular traffic programs do.Frankly, while its true that the traffic does reset when you access a menu, I have never found that to be that much of an issue and I have never understood why people access the menus so much. Typically when doing a flight in an airliner, I load ASE, then FSX, then select the a/c, airport, time, and season. Once everything loads then I am set, no menu accessing for me, but I guess some people like to keep opening them to look at maps or make adjustments, or whatever, in which case the traffic will momentarily reset. However, when it does reset the traffic pops back into place pretty quick, the only thing is you you have a plane landing or taking off, then it will probably reappear at the gate, altough I have seen a/c respawn in the air on final, just not while taxing.Like just about every other program or utility for the sim, they each have there good and bad features and as a user you need to determine which is best for you and how you use the sim. If you constantly access menus then UT2 might put you off the way the traffic reset when entering a menu, or if your like me and enter a flight and stay in it with minimal menu accessing then its not a bad deal. Sean Campbell

Oh I thought it completely reset everytime. That doesn't sound too bad. Might look into getting ut2 then

Quick questión. I have ut2, and for the most part the models look really good (for ai). The problem I have is that the crj and erj (especially erj) look like complete crap. I mean really really bad. Sticks for landing gear, tubes for engines. Is there a way to change this? This totally kills the realism when going into airports like ATL, DFW, etc where you have a lot of regional airline traffic. Thanks!

An unfortanate developer design, the smaller the airliner (GA is okay) the less polygons on it. But there is a benefit to this, since the smaller RJs are so popular, having the same amount of polys on it would kill Frames.But yes you can. You can replace it with the CRJ from FSX (and/or and downloaded aircraft you have in your list within the UT2 interface.Or you could create your own model. I don't know how but UT2 has its own forum. You need to create an account to see the support forum (and register your UT2 under it) so do that then create a topic.

You hit the nail on the head regarding high def clouds!!

The other thing that bothers me about REX (not something performance-related) is the sky textures. They're vivid (to put it mildly) but to me at least, they don't look like anything found in nature, except maybe on very rare occasions. Those saturated red skies (with the red tint spilling onto the ground) for dusk freak me out. So I've substituted these freeware textures, which look more like what I see in the sky most days. It's an easy substitution to make - you just follow the installation instructions in the freeware package, then make sure that you have the REX sky textures (dawn, day and dusk) de-selected so you don't overwrite the skies when changing other REX things.Like others here, I can vouch for the REX + GEX + UTX combination. I'd also recommend a good landclass - either SceneryTech or Cloud 9, depending on where you fly (each is better in some geographic areas - search out comments to find out what's best for where you fly). Then, if you want, you can tweak a little - I find that FS Water Configurator helps the REX water textures, which are pretty good to begin with.I recently flew over stock FSX for the first time in a long while - I was doing a tutorial flight over Europe, which is an area I rarely visit in the sim (sorry, I love Europe but like flying close to home). I was stunned at how bad FSX looked without any texture improvements. Am considering a Europe upgrade sooner rather than later so I can go exploring there.Again, hope this helps.

Used TrafficX but was really disappointed with the awful paint textures of the planes and hollow tube engines. I also had a large frame hit using this.Uninstalled and got UT2 and I personally find it amazing at 100% commercial and 5% vfr traffic - I don't notice a frame hit at all on my modest system. The textures are really good as well - just be careful if adding any payware planes for textures as that probably would have an effect. Only thing is no Fedex in the package so needs a bit of tweaking with WoAI planes and schedules to add them.Can't comment on WoAI as never tried this.John Ellison

Getting back to the OP's question - I get pretty satisfying results from MyTraffic 5.3b. Models are variable - some are quite good, others a bit primitive. Performance on my system (highly clocked, I'll admit) is good as long as I don't set traffic above 50 percent. It doesn't have UT's advantage of real-world schedules and routes, but on the other hand, it includes military traffic, which is a big deal for me since I spend so much time flying into and out of the Washington, DC area. I understand there are ways to blend UT and MyTraffic to get both real-world airliners and military, but I haven't gotten my head around them yet - maybe a future project.Any others working with MyTraffic? Apart from the frame rate issue referenced above, any opinions?