State of REX Weather Force ?

[Midnight Music 252]

1 hour ago, rob0203 said:

I really like flying into weather systems as the Live Weather generates, sudden changes of clouds like with REX is a immersion killer for me personally!

In REX settings you can select gradual transition if you prefer.

Lee

[Mike S KPDX 597]

The whole thing for me in flying airliners is simply two things:

getting winds aloft along the route for FMC programing

getting arrival airport metar at around 120 miles out for FMC progaming

Currently you can not get that info with the MS default and likely never will.

[rob0203 689]

Isn’t weather in real life dynamic, I mean a metar report can also be not spot on in real life. Weather can change really fast or maybe I am wrong?

[rob0203 689]

18 minutes ago, Midnight Music said:

In REX settings you can select gradual transition if you prefer.

Lee

Yes, but it doesn’t do it very well!

[sidfadc 1,344]

Same here, using weather transitions which pop in is going back 10 years!  Give me the lovely dynamic weather of the default system anyday.....only time it really is a massive issue I guess would be flying online (VATSIM/Pilotedge) but I don't do much of that nowadays so default weather it is.

[flyinion 280]

The two biggest issues with REX at the moment are the large FPS hit during weather updates and that due to their server issues  weather is at least 2+ hours behind usually any time I try to use it.  Just Saturday night I tried to use it and live Zulu time was around 0200 and REX had metars from like 23xx and didn't match what simbrief was reporting as winds had shifted.

 

The FPS thing can be mitigated by using instant load, but that causes more problems than it's worth with violent wind shifts at cruise altitude.  For that I've found the best solution is leave the update type on the default and you get the hit for about 60 seconds or so.  The "persistent" option which is supposed to load more gradually just drags the FPS hit out 3x as long.

[fppilot 4,371]

4 hours ago, rob0203 said:

Isn’t weather in real life dynamic, I mean a metar report can also be not spot on in real life. Weather can change really fast or maybe I am wrong?

There is no weather engine in any flight simulator that does not use either forecasted weather or reported weather.  The term "live weather" is a chuckle.

Forecasted weather has flaws as it may not match actual conditions that emerge.  Reported weather will always come with delays as it takes time to process and stream.  I fly exclusively in the USA and REX WF has been significantly superior to MSFS default where I fly.  I also fly exclusively GA at 23,000 and below, and at or under 300 kts IAS. Usually below 250 kts.  I have not experienced weather load  hesitations with either REX WF or MSFS default, perhaps due to my IAS.  Neither of the two weather engines matches the accuracy of either AS16 or FSGRW in the other flight sims.

Edited April 6, 2021 by fppilot

[sbczyz 5]

I've been using REX from the beginning and with the updates I use it all the time when I do flight planning based on current weather conditions. FPS takes a hit with weather updates but the weather's accuracy is much more dependable than with default and gradual transitions help with the immersion immensely. When I'm flying VFR and don't care about current weather accuracy I will use default weather and enjoy it. I recommend REX.

[fppilot 4,371]

40 minutes ago, sbczyz said:

I've been using REX from the beginning and with the updates I use it all the time when I do flight planning based on current weather conditions. FPS takes a hit with weather updates but the weather's accuracy is much more dependable than with default and gradual transitions help with the immersion immensely. When I'm flying VFR and don't care about current weather accuracy I will use default weather and enjoy it. I recommend REX.

Believe it is important in topics comparing MSFS default weather to any other wx engine that we all clearly state where we are flying.  My perception is that there may be a significant difference bases on that.  My experience with MSFS default wx in the USA appears to be different that the experience of those flying in Europe as an example.

[ryanbatc 12,853]

6 hours ago, rob0203 said:

Isn’t weather in real life dynamic, I mean a metar report can also be not spot on in real life. Weather can change really fast or maybe I am wrong?

METARs are typically very accurate, especially for cloud bases, visibility, wind, altimeter etc.  The only times they may be off are with convective activity passing through.  Even in that case, a SPECI is generated and those update like every 6 minutes (vs about every hour for the METAR).  

I get both sides of the argument  - flying around in Asobo's dynamic weather system can be really neat and I like it when you can see an area of low pressure approaching in the distance - awesome...  but in my experience, the immersion some find amazing with built in weather, is ruined by cloud bases/vis/winds that are wildly off from real world METAR stations.  I do a lot of my sim flying based on what the METAR says at an airport.  In previous sims I enjoyed flying approaches with poor weather....  if the METAR says OVC004 - in P3D/XP11 with Active Sky - you'd break out right around 400 ft AGL.  You guys who love the default system - don't you ever get frustrated flying around, and you expect to load up an approach due to the METAR saying low cloud ceilings - only to find MSFS default weather is showing a high cloud layer (or clear skies)?  Who knows....maybe in Europe the sim's weather is more accurate.  For me in the US it always feels like MeteoBlue's data is 4-8 hours old.

I do use the Unreal free mod too.  It's awesome for departing an airport and staying within say 30-40 miles of that one airport (for practice approaches etc) but they don't have cloud top data or winds aloft I don't think.  And coming into a new area isn't great because you can't choose which METAR station to load up...it just picks the station you are immediately overhead of...so yeah it's ugly and sudden cloud/atmospheric changes.

Nothing is perfect but both can be good for different types of simming.  

[mikealpha 266]

Thanks for the all the valuable opinions and feedback, much appreciated.

I made several tests with the real weather yesterday. While ATIS was correct and corresponded to the actual METAR, the visual picture did not. Three cloud layers reported, none visible in the Sim. Later on I checked Simbrief wind data at cruise level in the CRJ ND and again, the result was disappointing. It was not even close.

The opinions of REX Weather Force are not really convincing regarding actual METAR and even more, smooth transitions.

To be useful for airliner simulation, I think Asobo should open up their weather engine and make something like Active Sky possible.

[Ricardo41 5,949]

Being the low-IQ simpleton that I am, I have a very unsophisticated way of judging the "accuracy" of an in-sim weather engine: I live fairly close to my home town airport, so I go outside, look at the weather. Then select my home town airport. If what I see
outside matches what I see in the sim, then that's enough for me. Flying from a different airport, I try to find a webcam. For additional weather information I use allmetsat.com and windy.com.

Using this highly scientific method, I find that the default Live Weather has gotten much better over the past months. In contrast, and unfortunately because I do like REX's products, REX Weather Force has been hit and miss.  It did work quite well the first few months after release. 

Edited April 6, 2021 by Ricardo41

[Baber20 1,438]

15 hours ago, rstough said:

- Dynamic aerosol integration with atmospheric moisture content
 

Extremely excited for this. But the problem with the current implementation of aerosol density is that as its value increases, it makes everything look orangish red. I hope you can fix that.

[Rene_Feijen 125]

I fly only VR and check pancake sometimes to change settings. REX then looses the weather and I have to reinject. That is a bit of a shame.

[fppilot 4,371]

10 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Who knows....maybe in Europe the sim's weather is more accurate.  For me in the US it always feels like MeteoBlue's data is 4-8 hours old.

Ryan,
I totally agree and it is precisely why I continue to request that each member posting his/her results disclose what regions they fly in when they each have their individual experiences.  I have perceived the quality of experience varies by region, but have no accumulated evidence to back that up.