I just bought REX2 today, and I'm not whether I'm using it right. I have gotten a couple in-game messages that it's updating weather, and I see that it generates more clouds if I ask it to. But I can't tell whether it's adding any new textures on the ground. Around Hartford, I saw nice moving ground traffic on highways at night; did REX do that? If so, that's great! But in Friday Harbor, things look pretty much the same as I remember from FSX -- the ground and water textures don't look any different. What should I be seeing? Should I increase my display settings in FSX? The manual says if I touch any of those, that will reduce a texture max in the .cfg file. Not sure what I should do.Also, I understand that REX can't load textures while FSX is running. But does REX stay up in the background nonetheless? I click "fly now" in REX, and FSX starts automatically. Am I supposed to close REX now? I keep getting .NET errors after closing FSX, and I'm wondering if this is why.Thank in advance.

The changes REX makes depend on the options you select when you configure it with various themes, for example, runway texture choices, cloud sets, water colours etc. Having configured it, you save that configuration and the replacements will load into FSX. Then you fire up FSX and you see the differences. Trust me, if you've got it working right with the replacement textures in FSX, the difference will be dramatic, and there'll be no mistaking whether or not it is doing something visually.Al

REX doesn't do nothing for ground textures, except for runways. REX mainly changes cloud and water textures and the bump-mapping of the latter. Updates during flight are for REX weather engine.You really should see the difference if you've installed REX textures as clouds and water look 10^1000 times better than in vanilla FSX.

Go to theme creation and spend some time looking at the textures available to choose from. Create your own theme based on your preferences and don't forget to save it for later. Then click "install" and wait. This will be the theme that will remain in FSX until you change it with another if you so wish. If you download the free "overdrive" pack you will have an extra selection of HD cloud textures available to you. REX is one of the best add-ons for weather and sky creation and you should definitively see an improvement. Try flying a GA aircraft in some "weather", truly amazing. You may need to consider the ability of your PC to render "heavy" weather. With my ( 2 yr old ) PC I often have to choose between a detailed add-on airport or weather because it can't keep up with both. What are your specs?

Thanks for the replies. I will follow your suggestions to spend more time configuring water and cloud options. So the moving cars I saw on highways outside of Hartford: those come with vanilla FSX? I don't remember seeing them before, but then I've only been playing a couple weeks.As for specs, I have a reasonably robust system: i7 2.80 GHz, 12G RAM, GTX 580, CH Eclipse yoke, CH pedals. I probably should create a signature, shouldn't I.

So the moving cars I saw on highways outside of Hartford: those come with vanilla FSX? I don't remember seeing them before, but then I've only been playing a couple weeks.As for specs, I have a reasonably robust system: i7 2.80 GHz, 12G RAM, GTX 580, CH Eclipse yoke, CH pedals. I probably should create a signature, shouldn't I.

The i7 2.80 Ghz is possbly the 860 ( same as mine) . It's still a good processor but will struggle under certain conditions. Flying the PMDG 737NGX through a cloud layer will severely reduce frame-rates on my PC. But then I haven't spent too much time applying tweaks like many others have here on AVSIM. The GTX 580 will certainly not create any problems for you as FSX is CPU ( as opposed to GPU) heavy, but then you probably already know that.

As for specs, I have a reasonably robust system: i7 2.80 GHz, 12G RAM, GTX 580, CH Eclipse yoke, CH pedals. I probably should create a signature, shouldn't I.

a 2.8ghz processor is extremely slow for fsx. a gtx 580 is nothing if your processor speeds aren't high 3s or 4s.

a 2.8ghz processor is extremely slow for fsx. a gtx 580 is nothing if your processor speeds aren't high 3s or 4s.

Not true at all. It all depends on the processor architecture. An Intel i7 at 2.8ghz is plenty fast. It's obviously not as fast as it would be overclocked to 4ghz, but it's still fast and plenty for FSX (for the average user anyway.)

The i7 2.80 Ghz is possbly the 860 ( same as mine) . It's still a good processor but will struggle under certain conditions. Flying the PMDG 737NGX through a cloud layer will severely reduce frame-rates on my PC. But then I haven't spent too much time applying tweaks like many others have here on AVSIM. The GTX 580 will certainly not create any problems for you as FSX is CPU ( as opposed to GPU) heavy, but then you probably already know that.

Actually, I have the i7 930 2.80 GHz. I've had no framerate trouble at all with FSX, with all the graphics options maximized. But this thread did prompt me to peek at some benchmark data, and true enough, my CPU is now distinctly middle-of-the-pack -- no longer the hot rod it was when I first got it. But so far, it's holding up great in FSX.

Not true at all. It all depends on the processor architecture. An Intel i7 at 2.8ghz is plenty fast. It's obviously not as fast as it would be overclocked to 4ghz, but it's still fast and plenty for FSX (for the average user anyway.)

I wasn't talking about for the average user. Regardless of the architecture if you want to run addon scenery and airplanes with ai traffic and graphic addons then you need a processor above 4ghz.

I wasn't talking about for the average user. Regardless of the architecture if you want to run addon scenery and airplanes with ai traffic and graphic addons then you need a processor above 4ghz.

Not true at all, My specs and add-ons get along just fine together 90% of the time. Admittedly I will need to upgrade at some point in the future as add-ons continue to get more complex. But I certainly wouldn't hammer an i7 @ 2.80 given that turbo-boost will ramp it up to about 3.50 GHz when required.Staying on topic the i7 930 will generally run REX 2.0 without any problems based on my own experience.

I wasn't talking about for the average user. Regardless of the architecture if you want to run addon scenery and airplanes with ai traffic and graphic addons then you need a processor above 4ghz.

My I7 2600k is at 3.4ghz and I can run places with AI, high quality addon scenery and high quality addon plane with nearly full graphics settings (from FSX default ones I can run them with ultra high, but I have pushed some parts beyond that)

Staying on topic the i7 930 will generally run REX 2.0 without any problems based on my own experience.

Yes, so far REX 2.0 runs smoothly on my i7 930, with graphics settings set to max. I haven't had occasion to overclock the CPU up until now, but FSX addons may give me a reason to do so. We'll see.