I am considering getting a new weather engine. I currently have rex plus w-overdrive and love the textures. The load times are frickin killing me though and when the weather updates clouds just instantly appear or disappear. I am looking at active sky 2012 and Opus. My flights tend to be pmdg 737 ngx. I am using vox atc and EFB. Based on my addons which would be the best fit. It seems like EFB likes AS2012, but I do not have ezdoc and would like the camera feature that comes with opus.   

I would recommend OPUS the weather feature alone makes it great and the great camera utility is icing on the cake to me

 

Lee

AS2012 is very good, very stable and comes with its own textures as well.

Opus has a demo, give it a try. Another engine you can consider is FS Global Real Weather, it is also very good, and has a demo available. There are a few threads comparing the weather engines in the FSX forums, they can give you an indication of the features people use, but you need to try them so you find the one that suits your flying.

I always used AS2012 (well, FSMeteo long before, but no longer a player... For winds and Temp aloft it is very good, and you can tune it according to the type of flights you're going to simulate (low level VFR, IFR, high level...).

 

I have also been reading good reviews of FSGRW!

AS2012 all day long.

 

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

 

Opus Wx.

AS2012 in the weather engine war.

FS Global Real Weather with REX textures, go try their demo! Great program and simple to use.

 

Cheers

Martin

I've tried the most of the popular weather programs and recently changed to OpusFSX, its the best weather program I've used to date.  Its a  small 13mb download, has excellent weather synthesis, light footprint and little impact on framerates. Try the demo, you won't be disappointed. 

I'll have to get behind OPUS myself.  It works as lightly and flawlessly as you could want.  The camera features are an extra bonus.  I always had problems with Active Sky changing suddenly, not matching real world weather reports, and suddenly clearing up on arrival.  I haven't tried FS Global Real Weather but it also has good reviews, but I know for sure that OPUS works well.  Also the developer updates it continually, and OPUS now features flight planning reports and weather maps.

OpusFSX. SInce the OP already has REX he doesn't need the AS2012 textures which COULD have been a reason to go for AS. However, if he doesn't like how long it takes REX to load he also won't like how long it takes AS to load. OpusFSX all the way, specially since he is also interested in the camera part of Opus!

I'v been using AS from version 6.5 in FS9 until AS 2012 SP2. When I got my new PC in December 2012, I bought Opus FSX which I really liked. It is a huge improvement over AS, but I always missed all the possibilities of Ezdok which I actually didn't want to install again by that time, due to the fact that installing all my addons on the new machine was already a lot of work.

When FSGRW came out, I tried the demo version on two flights, and it just blew me away. This tool provides the most realistic weather, is a breeze to set up and use and doesn't affect FSX performance at all. It is the best weather engine I've ever used so far. The winds on approaches can be very challenging (the local weather effects are phenomenal), while in cruise, I never had a single wind shift in FSGRW. Combined with REX and Ezdok, I have the most immersive experience since I started flying MSFS some 15 years ago.

I agree with Michael above.  I'm an avid user of AS2012 but now I can't seem to stay away from FSGRW.  I tried OPUS when it first came out and still have it installed with the latest beta but the popping clouds and wind shifts just get on my nerves and I do understand its a limitation with FSX.

 

Somehow FSGRW has completely done away with wind shifts not using DWC but FSUIPC.  I'm not seeing any popping clouds or wind shifts and really enjoying this program.  I recommend it highly.  I still use AS2012 but rarely touch OPUS anymore but still track the beta's for any significant changes.

I ended up getting opus. The cameras for 737ngx is nice compared to the default cameras. So far I have been happy with the weather generation and I actually took a F-18 out for a flight to see some of the clouds quickly. Flying through the clouds seemed good. Time will tell if I will be fully happy with the purchase, but it is nice not to have to wait for rex to load up. 

Now you've already bought Opus but otherwise I would have suggested fsgrw. I have all weather engines and like someone else said above I've never used a better weather engine!

 

What I like most is how the weather actually affects your aircraft and I too have experienced some very challenging (fun) approaches and landings since I got fsgrw. Also the weather is injected into FSX extremely fast since it as I understood it is prepared and processed on the fsgrw servers and with the recently released build #007 the weather injection is even faster than it was before. I would say the normal time to inject the weather is 1-2 seconds!

 

If I was in your position although you already bought Opus I would give the fsgrw demo a go.