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Active Sky Advanced, is it worth it?

IanHenry

IanHenry

Charter Member
Hi,
I am thinking about getting Active Sky Advanced but I already have REX installed, is it worth buying Active Sky or is there nothing to be gained by installing another weather engine?
I also have FEX which I don’t have it installed but I understand that some people have all three on their computers. What do you gain from that?
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Thanks in advance,
Ian
 
I have ASX (not advanced) and I love it. Never fly without it. It is far superior to the default engine.

I haven't a clue what FEX/REX is, but I'm assuming they are addon textures (like Graphic X). Active Sky is just a weather engine and has nothing to do with textures. It uses whatever cloud texture you already have on your system, regardless of whether it's Microsoft's, HiFi's or anybody else's.
 
I have ASA and REX. Both in tandom are far better then ASX and FEX in my mind. REX also has its own WX engine which is going to be refined and tuned when REX 2.0 is released. But with ASA and REX its stellar depiction of WX i get that I love for the coming Hurricane season. Im still learning all the advanced features of ASA. ASA is also a great backup to REX or vice versa. Both work in Harmoney excellent and ive found much better Fluid fps with this combo. Dont forget about the Freeware FSWC water shader tool. that tool really helps out greatly.

edit: With ASA also it will work with Both Sims a plus and REX is leaning the same but not sure if its programed like ASA. Thats were ASA is valuable in its ability and Versital. ASX will not rid the Default haze layer with out a couple tweeks that i think req ASG. ASA although has more options and has a option to rid that default haze layer.
 
ASA has up sides for sure over other weather engines but I like the REX package best. Awesome real and surreal textures (some in 4096x4096) along with weather engine. I still think ASA has better real world weather plus more sever weather options too. But REX is just sexy.
 
All I know about ASA is that many were having troubles upon its release.. But of coarse they have some of the best teck support around too...
 
Well I've bought ASA and used it once in conjunction with textures from REX. It seems to have worked well without any problems. I do like the fact that you have more control of the weather, particularly control of the “haze layer”. I suspect there will be other benefits yet to be discovered. I have also been told that the weather engine gives a more accurate depiction of real weather than the one supplied with REX, but it’s a bit soon for me to comment on that yet.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
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Regards,<o:p></o:p>
Ian<o:p></o:p>
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Glad that you like it...Thats always a plus when you purchase...LOL
 
I made the jump from ASX to ASA, but I am a bit dissapointed. I made the jump because I wanted to use thermals and the ridge lift that they advertise as part of the package. Unfortunately, while the thermals work, the ridge lift does not. Made it almost completely useless to me. This is not to say it is bad, it for me however was not as big a change technologically wise to substantiate the jump for me. If you do not have a weather engine however, ASA is well worth the money.
 
Hmm maybe someone could post pics showing the difference in weather showing the REX engine then with ASX (with Rex textures)?:kilroy:


I have REX... but the weather does not match what I am seeing live... if ASX is much better then this is a MUST buy. A better engine with REX textures would have me jumping.
 
I've got both, but i only use ASA any more. The fact that it integrates so well with REX makes it a hands down choice for me..
 
Hi All,

Thanks for the comments and the support! Of course I saw this thread yesterday, but couldn't chime in. If you don't mind running a beta, please update with B431 from our new web site or forum at AVSIM. AS for the one problem reported here, we could never duplicate this and Damian got ridge lift to work every time he tried.

Thanks!
 
Hi,
I now think ASA dose a far better job of the weather than REX, particularly regarding the visibility. I followed the advice of NickN on here:
http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=30553
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The important part as far as I’m concerned is the disabling of the Haze Layer and the enabling of the Fog option (sorry can’t remember its exact name)
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ASA has so many options that you can play with, I think I will probably be experimenting for months to come, but for the moment I quite like it as I have it set up now after following Nick’s suggestions.
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Regards,
Ian
 
pretty picture time..

This is ASA with REX and the current weather conditions over Kathmandu...

2009-6-13_1-39-31-391.jpg
 
OK, you guys talked me into buying this and I just did that from work. Now I have to wait to get home to try it (no FSX in office rigs).

I am sure this is good as the built in real weather function in FSX does not seem to work. I always get clear skies, no wing and 50mile visibility.
 
warchild said:
pretty picture time..

This is ASA with REX and the current weather conditions over Kathmandu...
Click to expand...


Thanks Warchild.. looking for 2 pics... one with just REX and it's weather engine... and then with ASX on.

With REX... the weather just never matches up to what I am seeing outside... a thunderstorm front shows up as 1 single thunderstorm and not a front of storms... I am hoping ASX can handle that.

:wavey:
 
I like the fact that you can load up sets of textures from both FEX and REX and install them, through ASA into the sim, and it takes a fraction of the time that it does to load a set of textures direct from REX.
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Ian
 
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