Can anybody recommend a good a weather add on for FSX that doesnt have a big hit on FPS?

Active Sky?

There are two main leading products:
Active Sky 2012 just recently came out is supposed to be pretty good:
http://www.hifitechinc.com/products/active-sky-2012

And the also great REX 2.0 which has been out for a while and I own and love for terrific realistic looking sky, clouds and water textures and they are supposed to be coming out with a free upgrade to the weather generation portion shortly:
http://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/index.php?/topic/14715-announcing-rex-essential/

I don't think you can go wrong with either one, AS2012 is probably stronger on the weather generation portion, REX was stronger on the clouds/sky/water textures up until now and hopefully the weather update forthcoming will make it compete on the weather portion, but I have not seen the textures from AS2012.

Happy REX user here but I have heard AS2012 is terrific too.

Thanks guys.

One other question, How are the FPS hit vs with and without the add on?

It all the depends on the amount of clouds rendered and thus, on the weather outside.

But if you don't elect to install high res 4096px cloud textures, you won't notice much of a performance hit.

No Measurable FPS hit compared to standard textures and weather for me, I stick to the 1024 textures on clouds since I think they look just as good as the 4096 ones at least to my ageing eyes, some examples here:




I'd assume AS2012 does the sky textures as well, with REX that is one of the cool things I love too, you can see how nice the moody red sunset sky can be for screenshots.

Cool thanks guys. Now I just have to decided which one to go with LOL. Am I to assume that Active sky can do real weather via download and keep it up to date during your flight? Also REX would be a set your weather and go no real time weather?

REX updates itself during your flight using real-world weather information, much like FSX's default real-time weather engine.

^ On my system this causes considerable stuttering - only for a minute or so - but if it happens at an inconvenient time (when landing - which it has done) it's a bugger. It doesn't happen often "at the wrong times though".

For REX is there an option for just one update instead of every 15 mins?

So it looks like REX will be the one I go with. Quick question, REX dosent generate airport traffic does it? Also I see a lot of stuff about REX overdirve for FSX. It says it free but I am assuming its an add on for REX 2.0 correct?

No REX and AS don't generate airport traffic, there are separate traffic programs for that if you want more than FSX does (I use Ultimate Traffic 2 for that).

Yep REX Overdrive (and the upcoming REX essentials) are both free for registered REX 2.0 owners.

Cool I use Traffic X for my traffic. I just wanted to make sure REX didnt gen traffic as well. I will be getting REX tonite. Thanks guys

You can set how far you fly before the weather is downloaded again. Say you take off in EDDK and you have set the weather change to 50 NM, as long as you fly circles within 50 NM of said airport, the weather will never download again.

However, with the upcoming REX Essentials there seem to come more features to control the weather download.

Cool thanks man. Just got REX installed adding the Overdrive package and reading the manual.

You won`t regret it, it looks soooooo much better than default.

Btw. don`t get nervous when you are loading a theme into FSX, it takes a while copying the textures, last time around 20 minutes I think.

Quick question when I do real time weather and make a flight plan. Should I load the theme into FSX or just go fly? I guess what I am getting at is if I do the real time weather and don't load the theme will I still get the actual weather I just Downloaded?

See my post in the following link:

click

Cool thanks man. One more question, I use the add on air hauler which starts FSX from the add on it self. So when I start FSX I am in the plane in a cold pit config. How do I get REX to load my current weather?

I don`t have this addon, so I don`t really know. However, there is a setting on the config page of REX saying something like "Start REX weather engine with FSX". Check this and the weather engine popup should show while FSX is loading.

Cool I will check into that. You sure know alot for not having the add on!

oooops,

misunderstanding here I think, I don`t own "Air Hauler", so I don`t know how it influences FSX start-up procedure, but for sure I own REX.

Sorry, English isn`t my first language.

No you were good LOL. I was at work dealing with other things when I read it. I was driving home and it all of the sudden hit me, I was like wait he was talking about air hauler not REX DUH!!!