REX ESSENTIAL **OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT**

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Jun 20 2012,10:59 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Something must be wrong with my installation then, as when I load FSX through the GUI after loading Auckland's real world weather, I get clear skies and no wind change, even after waiting forcing the load, then leaving the sim running for 30 minutes...?

Are you letting the initial data download complete before launching ("Fly now")? Initially, I found my load was ELEVEN minutes, but this now seems to have settled down to just over 3 minutes. My problem was that, up until yesterday, there hasn't been a cloud in the sky in Auckland for two weeks (in reality) - so I always had to go at least as far as Wellington to get some "real" weather to view.

I found that it doesn't matter which order I do it in - FSX then REXE or REXE then FSX, the important thing is to use the "Fly Now" button in REXE, once it's done its thing.

I must admit they weren't *that* clear about explaining that the old (separate) weather engine had gone - incorporated into the REXE GUI. I raised it in their forums, saying they could at least have mentioned it in the manual to save potential confusion from old REX users. I got a rather luke-warm reaction to that, but the dialogue in many other threads is quite active and positive.

BTW - My theory about the loading time/wait is that it's largely down to Internet delays - and with NZ being the Internet backwater that it is, what takes seconds in the USA or Europe can take hours here. I did some speedtests to the NOAA server and the results were truly appalling. I have a suspicion that REXE downloads the *full* weather set (for the whole world) from NOAA, then uses what it needs and updates from then on, depending on your FSX location. I feel that the GUI should remember your last location (as 90% of the time it will be the same) and only grab that subset of data. If you're startinf from a new/different area, then again - you only need that particular subset. However - this is pure guesswork on my part

EDIT: I think there's a problem with downloads from Vatsim, so I have that unchecked.

[Timbo]

I much much preferred the stand-alone weather engine, it had a small foot print and ONLY loaded for the precise area I was in, am like you Adam.. I download weather for a good ten minutes then load up in NZNI and.... nothing


And dont suggest reading the manual, I dont do that, like ever

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jun 20 2012,3:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

- and with NZ being the Internet backwater that it is, what takes seconds in the USA or Europe can take hours here. I did some speedtests to the NOAA server and the results were truly appalling.

Internet backwater and for a ridiculous cost ... Welcome to the third world NZ , now when they, the jerks in govt sell the infrastructure it may get faster ..

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jun 20 2012,4:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

now when they, the jerks in govt sell the infrastructure it may get faster ..

You must be joking. All they want to do is make a fat profit for their shareholders. Hardly a cent will get spent on the infrastructure.

In the 10 yrs I've been here, I've seen Telecom go from dreadful to *totally abysmal*, as they pass the contract for line maintenance to each successive bunch of chimpanzees. No-one appears to be accountable to anyone.

My last Telecom call-out was hilarious (I have an issue almost every 3 weeks). I said diverting incoming calls to my mobile was not an option, as I'm in a mobile black hole (as well!). Guess what ... when the engineer hadn't turned up after three promised deadlines they said "We can't seem to get in touch with him ... his mobile appears to be off!". Duh. This is *Auckland*, BTW - not Timbuktoo. However, I suspect it's 19th Century Auckland

Rant over ... back on topic

[Ian Warren]

Got away from Telecom , went to TelstraClear - never had a problem since , more stable and course the main hub is only down the road .

As for the weather , was questioned after posting with a Boomerang in the West Coast and the weather changes , end of the day as Rob said , just let the PC and program work , start from Wobblyville and fly across to Hoki , realisticly how much can the weather change in Canterbury ... they cannot create the famous North West Arch that appears very regular in Wobblyville , only one of the few countries in the world that get it .

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jun 20 2012,5:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As for the weather , was questioned after posting with a Boomerang in the West Coast and the weather changes

Translation please, Sir!

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jun 20 2012,7:10 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Translation please, Sir!

Was a thread about weather and screens I posted months back and questioned weather and the happenings in Real World Weather in FSX .

[ardypilot]

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jun 20 2012,2:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Are you letting the initial data download complete before launching ("Fly now")? Initially, I found my load was ELEVEN minutes, but this now seems to have settled down to just over 3 minutes. My problem was that, up until yesterday, there hasn't been a cloud in the sky in Auckland for two weeks (in reality) - so I always had to go at least as far as Wellington to get some "real" weather to view.

I found that it doesn't matter which order I do it in - FSX then REXE or REXE then FSX, the important thing is to use the "Fly Now" button in REXE, once it's done its thing.

The REX support team got me to clear the 'metarxml' folder and the 'VATSIM' folder- must have had some corrupt data, and after a restart its working alright now.

I just timed the loading bar on the bottom of the REX Essential GUI (to download and interpolate the NOAA data) when it first starts up- took me 2 minutes 50 seconds. It only took 1 minute 5 seconds with 'data purge at closing' unchecked.

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jun 20 2012,2:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I must admit they weren't *that* clear about explaining that the old (separate) weather engine had gone - incorporated into the REXE GUI. I raised it in their forums, saying they could at least have mentioned it in the manual to save potential confusion from old REX users. I got a rather luke-warm reaction to that, but the dialogue in many other threads is quite active and positive.

I have a suspicion that REXE downloads the *full* weather set (for the whole world) from NOAA, then uses what it needs and updates from then on, depending on your FSX location. I feel that the GUI should remember your last location (as 90% of the time it will be the same) and only grab that subset of data. If you're startinf from a new/different area, then again - you only need that particular subset. However - this is pure guesswork on my part

EDIT: I think there's a problem with downloads from Vatsim, so I have that unchecked.

Yep agreed- if you open up the MetarXML file and open one of the .xml files in notepad, you'll find it contains 4362 METARS from all over the world. I'm also surprised there isn't a region specific option- as I don't care what the weather is in Micronesia when I want to simulate a flight in Queenstown.

Another thing the manual doesn't explain well- do 'WX TEXTURES' need to be loaded each time you fly? Say it's sunny as it is this morning in Auckland. You click 'WX TEXTURES' and it will give you fair weather CU clouds and nice blue sky textures, however, if it was thundery, and you clicked the same button, it would generate a darker moodier bunch of textures? I was under the impression REX had a massive bank of textures that were loaded into a folder somewhere during the initial install, and it selected the appropriate ones automatically??

I also have VATSIM disabled. I never used it with REX2 either.

And for my next question: I've been running FSX with a frame rate limiter. This worked fine in conjunction with REX2 as it loaded up the engine when I ran the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Limiter\fsx.exe.limited.bat" launcher. Is there a way to edit REX essential so that instead of running the normal FSX.exe when I click 'Fly Now', it will load my fsx.exe.limited.bat?

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Jun 21 2012,10:34 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Another thing the manual doesn't explain well- do 'WX TEXTURES' need to be loaded each time you fly? Say it's sunny as it is this morning in Auckland. You click 'WX TEXTURES' and it will give you fair weather CU clouds and nice blue sky textures, however, if it was thundery, and you clicked the same button, it would generate a darker moodier bunch of textures? I was under the impression REX had a massive bank of textures that were loaded into a folder somewhere during the initial install, and it selected the appropriate ones automatically??

Well (unsure) ... I've never had to do anything with "WX Textures" - and I certainly get a wide variety of clouds. All I did was create my default set (much as in the old REX) and haven't touched it since. Like you, I don't quite understand the process - and the manual doesn't really seem to help. Kelvin???? Your thoughts??

QUOTE (Trolly @ Jun 21 2012,10:34 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And for my next question: I've been running FSX with a frame rate limiter. This worked fine in conjunction with REX2 as it loaded up the engine when I ran the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Limiter\fsx.exe.limited.bat" launcher. Is there a way to edit REX essential so that instead of running the normal FSX.exe when I click 'Fly Now', it will load my fsx.exe.limited.bat?

No problem. Launch REXE, then FSX via your .bat file, then the "Fly Now" button simply "connects" REXE to FSX.

Do you have an nVidia card? I found that I could use nVidia Inspector to use nVidia's own framerate limiter instead. Works a treat.

I found the new colouring in REXE completely did away with my need to use SHADE - which would also have been needed to be run from a batch file/shortcut - so a similar method for launching as above.

[AndrewJamez]

I found the new colouring in REXE completely did away with my need to use SHADE - which would also have been needed to be run from a batch file/shortcut - so a similar method for launching as above.
[/quote]

The latest version of shade alows you to "burn in the settings" or loads in the new shader files so the batch file start is no longer nessisary. As far as I know REX does not alter the lighting of terrain shadows.

[Ian Warren]

Shade was like a YIPPEE ! that fuzzed out .. sorta like a fire work that did not go BANG ! .. well it was cheap

[Adamski]

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Jun 21 2012,8:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As far as I know REX does not alter the lighting of terrain shadows.

Absolutely right - it doesn't. However - you can set the sky palette for morning/mid-day/evening however you like and that "appears" to give a different hue to the whole picture, though I suspect that's a *perceptual* change. As you imply, the terrain colours aren't changed at all.

The problem I found with Shade was that it also appeared to darken my VC cockpit. If I just wanted to darken shadows, I'd just tweak the video card gamma settings, but Shade offers tweaking of colours - not just light and dark. I bought it in good faith - had a brief flirtation with it, then sort of forgot about it!

[Ian Warren]

Shade is fine , but it really dose not help with the weather and it only works in the time off day - morning or evening , the one thing with a program like this - why dose it not come as a complete package for the owners to simply remove the previous brought version and install this as a brand new addon rather than in patch's .

[Adamski]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Jun 22 2012,9:42 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Shade is fine , but it really dose not help with the weather and it only works in the time off day - morning or evening , the one thing with a program like this - why dose it not come as a complete package for the owners to simply remove the previous brought version and install this as a brand new addon rather than in patch's .

If you mean REXE, it did come as a complete package. I removed my old REX + OD completely then installed REXE. When the OD version comes out, *that* will be a patch.

[ardypilot]

Would anyone testing to see whether they can get real world weather at NZAA in thier sim with REX essential this morning please?

I can get it working at CH and WN, but it's only giving me CAVOK conditions at Auckland. Even the METAR inside the REX essential engine shows 4000m vis and SCT020CB.

Any screenshots of what other people are receiving live would be much appreciated.

[AndrewJamez]

Similar trouble. REXe showing sunny days in hamilton and out the window its cold windy and wet.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (AndrewJamez @ Jun 26 2012,12:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Similar trouble. REXe showing sunny days in hamilton and out the window its cold windy and wet.

We cant get everything yet .... least they are still looking at all the possibles ...

[ardypilot]

After 2 weeks and a bit, the REXe team finally told me how to get NZAA's METAR weather to load. You have to disable real world wind/visibility smoothing.
Don't ask me why but it works!

[Ian Warren]

I'll give it a try in CHCH , thanks Andy