Quote:
Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch
I use REX, do you know how Active Sky compares?  |
REX for the main replaces textures, AS translates downloaded METARs into a weather environment in FSX. It does so in a way that I like more than in REX 2.0, which has a more rudimentary function on this. I bought AS evolution since it was a cheaper offer, but I would buy AS again and together with the new REX version, even for normal price. Of REX, I only use the texture randomizer, I think most users do not use any of its other functions.
ASE gets started before you start FSX. It then runs unobstruzsive in the background. By habit I then switch on default option to download weather in FSX every 15 minutes, but that possibly would not be needed, with ASE overwriting it anyway.
ASE creates more complex weather scenarios and more weather layers than FSX. REX+ASE imo is a must have combo like TrackIR or a realistic airplane addon.
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For Flightplanning, I use FlightSim Commander 9.2. It alows online flyers to have their tracks saved and threedimensionally displayed in Goodle Earth.
Interesting for Casey, maybe: global scenery in FSX is altered in three ways: manipuilating the mesh, the te3xtures or the ölandclass. Mesh is the wireframe of the Earth surface, textures repalces the patterns by which it's locations are "painted", landclass is the structure in which these texture tiles are arranged to meet the layout of towns, streets, rivers, coastlines, woods, etc. The mesh can be improved by decreasing the distance between the nodes. This makes the modelling of the 3D surface smoother and more detailed. The title to look out for would be "FS Global". A general texture replacement would be "Ground Environment", available per continent. A general improvement of continental landclass would be "Ultimate Terrain". Of all these three, "Ultimate Terrain" easily - depending on settings - becomes the most hurting to frames, and I use it no more (but did in FS9 on my old rig with no problem). Decent hardware probably has no big issue with the other two. Ultimate Terrain is said to have quite a problem-rising potential for quite some users. I would not use it or the other two until you have some really strong hardware. An d even then it can cause troubles. That'S why it never became as popular again for FSX as it has been with FS9, where it was considered to be a must have. When it works, and in combination with Ground Environment, it however looks spectacular, especially the night light effects.
For high altitude flying, none of these addons is of big interest, however. I save the frames, therefore. Weather improving addons and airports sceneries are of more noticable value for IFR flyers.
These addons are no local sceneries, but have global effects on the FSX default scenery.