I've been reading here that there are several people that use multiple weather programs (REX Essential Plus, OpusFSX, ActiveSky 2012) as well as some who use little parts of the 3 such as combining the REX Textures to be used with OpusFSX, the ActiveSky textures to be used with OpusFSX, as well as a third party freeware set of textures that I've read is very good but I'm not quite sure if I should try or not.

 

I've never installed one of the above AddOns into FSX before and was hoping I could get some instructions/advice on using all 3 (Of course, I'm not referring to all 3 simultaneously, but switching between them to try them out as I wish). I've got all 3 of the aforementioned AddOns (REX Essential Plus, OpusFSX, and ActiveSky 2012) and was wondering what the best method to install all 3 is? Which should I install first? Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of? Are there any tricks to it?

 

How do you choose to use the textures of either REX, ActiveSky, or that freeware one that I hear raved about (I'm sorry, but I can't think of the name of it right now) with OpusFSX?

 

Is there any special steps or process involved in switching between them so that during one session I'm using say...OpusFSX with REX textures and then switching so that the next session I'm using REX....and then some other time another session where I'm using ActiveSky?

 

Please forgive me if the answers to these are in the doc for any of the above packages. The doc is a really long read and its quite a bit to take in and understand. However I'd like to learn and goof around with all 3 packages but am just not sure on how to go about installing them or switching between them once I get them installed.

 

Thanks!

You can only have one wx engine running at a time, but you can easily use the textures (clouds, sky, etc.) from say REX, Active Sky, FEX... as the texture load is really a separate process.

 

For example, using REX textures with Opus: You'd fire up REX, choose your textures and load them and then exit REX. If you're happy with those textures you won't need to load them again, they stay loaded, replacing the default FSX textures until you decide to change them - most users settle on one or two different cloud texture sets, changing seasonally or not at all once chosen. From then on, if you want to use Opus wx, you simply fire up Opus, and it will use the REX textures you'd previously loaded. Want to use REX as your wx engine - same thing. Fire up REX, and start its wx engine.

 

Scott

I just finally got round to installing my Active Sky 2012 yesterday and tried out here today, as its chucking it down with rain for the last few days...

My opinion of it:

 

http://youtu.be/P6rSsRuZ-rE

 

Was chucking it down in my virtual Cessna 172 at EGKB too, runway looked great, sky was overcast perfectly, with cloud cover pretty low and impressive..

Overall, I'm chuffed with it, but did have to play about to figure stuff out, as I haven't read the manual just yet..

 

I would say, whichever one you go with, go with just 1 for now, and learn it well..

I don't see the need to mix them all together, as AS2012 seems really impressive, the textures look awesome, so for me, that's job done on weather software purchases.

 

I Showed Active Sky 2012 to the cat too:

 

Thanks Scott & Richard.

 

Guess you really like AS2012 Richard...lol. I love the cat...thats awesome.

indeed I do mate... I was trying to decide between AS2012 and REX, but kinda got bored reading complaints about REX, as I saw more than I saw AS2012, but, I hear Opus is pretty awesome from what the guys at AVSim say about it... Worth considering..

Well...looks like you called it right Richard.

 

Just as an update, I got REXE+ installed and it worked fine. I only had an opportunity to use it a few times and experiment a bit. I just let it set the textures on its own based on its weather engine, it looked pretty close to what I saw out the window. The updates during flight weren't awful or anything, but they did certainly drop the FPS into the low teens for a few seconds. No big deal, but noticeable. Then I decided to upgrade to their Overdrive, followed the instructions on their website, and once upgraded to Overdrive it no longer downloads weather any more. Texture part works fine. The weather part...not so much. I put up a support request on their site and I'll see what comes from it.

 

So, looks like it was lucky I actually had several weather packages...lol.

 

So next I decided to give OpusFSX a spin. I'm kind of glad REX broke on me...because I really like OpusFSX. Sometimes "Keep it Simple Stupid" is the rule of the day and OpusFSX is simple, elegant, and it seems to work well. I've only done some little local flights in my virtual "practice area" near my home and it seemed to me that OpusFSX did a real good job of simulating what I was seeing out the window. I'm new to weather packages so I certainly can't speak with much authority...but judging by whether something works out of the box and works reliably...my hat is off to them. The weather updates during flight were painless and hardly noticeable. The only problem I've seen so far is that the surface winds reported by ATIS at the airport were pretty far off from the winds that were generated at that airport in FSX. I'm not sure if thats a common thing, a rare thing, or maybe its even my fault and I didn't set something right. Aside from that, so far so good though. I tried it with both the REX textures and the free HDEv2 Textures. Both were nice.

 

I'll take your advice and give AS2012 a shot next. Maybe by then I'll be able to get my REXE+OD fixed and see how that works for me.

Awesome mate... I chose AS2012 as I really didn't fancy having to wrestle with Opus + REX to achieve weather + textures, and for me personally, I love AS2012...

Weather seems accurate for my level of knowledge (Dont know about winds aloft thingies just yet) and it has textures too, which all look very realistic....

Weather injection seems to have zero impact other than a green bar that pop's up every so often to tell me its updated, which if it didnt, I would never know..

 

All I need to do now is read the manual and learn how to use it better :-)

 

I already have Accufeel, so didn't need the turbulence stuff.. So for me, feels like I got the best of both, but that seems to be the wonders of FSX..

Different strokes for different folks huh :-)