I've had the pleasure of using REX new Soft Cloud add on for a week now. The first thing I noticed was the gain in performance and in addition the more realistic feel. The downfall, at least for me, was when I discovered the greater VAS hit it had on my system contrary to regular REX4 clouds.

 

Normally, I can fly the NGX between FlyTampas Copenhagen to Aerosofts Oslo Gardemoen X in any weather without problems, landing at any airport with around 100-200MB VAS left depending on the severity of the weather. I've flown this route many times with complete overcast using maximum cloud layers within FSX and "enhanced overcast conditions" in the Active Sky Next panel. 

 

Yesterday on a flight from exactly Kastrup to Gardemoen (I'm no long-hauler sorry) FSX crashed on approach. So I did some testing using both REX4 clouds and REX Soft Clouds, separatly. In my system, using exact same scenarios and settings, the Soft Clouds add on consumes approximately 250 more VAS, as indicated by the "Process Explorer" program. 

 

Anyone else who can confirm this? The Soft Clouds add on gives an incredibly realistic feel when plounding through an overcast, an immersion I've never had in my sim before, so I really want this to work properly without the annoying OOMs. Of course, I'm throwing in the VAS consumers there but up til now, my system has been very balanced. 

 

And, it shouldn't be necessary at this point to further deduce, but these are my other settings which I like to call

"How to almost not get an OOM in FSX"   

 

-Autogen set to normal

- No AI traffic

- REX clouds either 512 or 1024 resolution

- LOD 4.5

- Using DX10 Fixer

- Water Effects set to medium

- Airport textures set to minimum resolution with minimum apron detail

 

To end with, I just want to throw in some pictures of the amazing add on in action  ^_^

 

 

 

 

I am using soft clouds in FSX DX10 with Steve's fixer. I agree they are great but I unlike you have noticed no change in VAS usage. I do short-medium flights with the NGX and Airbus Extended between full airports by major scenery developers and have been having no problems. The best VAS usage I get with my 3 different platforms, FSX, FSX-DX10 and P3D 2.4 is with FSX-DX10 using the settings recommended here in the forums and by Steve himself. I do use NVI with all three, but the settings are slightly different in each case.

 

Lee

That doesn't make any sense. REX Soft Clouds is just a set of textures, 512 textures at that. It should not have any effect on VAS. I think something else is causing your problems.

 

Cheers!

That doesn't make any sense. REX Soft Clouds is just a set of textures, 512 textures at that. It should not have any effect on VAS. I think something else is causing your problems.

 

Cheers!

 

If it displays fog and more volumetric clouds it might display more textures than the old clouds, that is my guess.

Yes the rex soft clouds will add to the VAS if you use the default textures when installing. The default textures are about 1.35mb vs the dxt5 version which is about 350k. If you look in the rex soft clouds folder you can compare the 2 sets

Yes the rex soft clouds will add to the VAS if you use the default textures when installing. The default textures are about 1.35mb vs the dxt5 version which is about 350k. If you look in the rex soft clouds folder you can compare the 2 sets

 

Ok thanks! But are there any ways if changing between those two in REX Soft Clouds itself, as in REX4 Texture Direct? Because I assume since Soft Clouds may be used as an separate add on from REX4, there should be ways of selection either DXT5 or 32-bit textures?

 

Never mind, of course its an option when you change textures.

Ok thanks! But are there any ways if changing between those two in REX Soft Clouds itself, as in REX4 Texture Direct? Because I assume since Soft Clouds may be used as an separate add on from REX4, there should be ways of selection either DXT5 or 32-bit textures?

 

Never mind, of course its an option when you change textures.

yes there is a check box

I've had them for about three days...and have gone back to REX4 Direct's 512 cloud sets.  These 'soft' clouds look to me like the old and defocused puff-ball sprites of older X Plane editions.

 

I went back to the 512 Low Res REX 4 Directs, and had much more detail of cloud structure, and they look ten times better than their soft cloud 512 counterparts.

 

Of course each to their own...but for me....this was a bust.

 

Didn't see any performance gain, or take away with either using Soft Clouds, or REX4 Direct Low Res versions.

 

Ses

I've used soft clouds for a few days now and have noticed a slight and I mean slight increase in performance. I have noticed NO VAS hit. The main thing I like about soft clouds is how they look when you break through a layer and start to climb above them. I think that is where the program really shines. I think it's vastly superior than the REX4 textures in that regard.