REX Weather Force / Active Sky ... any comparison ?

[tozziFan]

Hello,
as a REXWF owner (of which I'm basically satisfied about clouds depiction), I cannot find any satisfying comparison with the newborn AS

again, as a previous AS owner throught the FSX/P3D years, I'm interested mainly in weather visual depiction and air turbulence simulation

thanks

[shadowgravy]

Perhaps this isn't the perspective you're looking for, but I do have Active Sky FS. I also use Active Sky in FSX; and Active Sky P3D (v5) along with "REX Weather Force for Prepar3D v4 and v5" in P3D v5. I do not have REX Weather Force for MSFS 2020.

With all that said, I immediately purchased Active Sky FS when it was released. I almost always fly using live weather, and I had really hoped that AS FS would be superior to the default live weather. AS FS has two live weather modes: Active, which replaces the default weather depiction; and Passive, which keeps the default depiction but supplements it with Active Sky data.

Active Sky's visual depiction is often more dramatic than the default visual depiction. This in of itself doesn't bother me much; however, my conclusion from observing local weather conditions is that the default visualization is usually more accurate. For this reason, I have been using the Passive mode in AS FS.

With a new patch for AS FS just released, I tested the Active mode tonight with two substantial flights: KGTF-KHLN-KBTM; and KBTM-KBIL-KGTF. The weather visualization changed very quickly along the routes, for example from an absolute cloudless sky to a single, mid-sized cloud lingering ahead; immediately to a solid overcast that obscures the terrain below; which suddenly disappeared, leaving only wispy puffs ahead. Later I did see some gorgeous cloud presets appear--but they dissipated fairly quickly. I finally gave up and switched back to Passive mode.

Again, I am only discussing my experience with the live weather modes. I haven't tried the static or custom weather presets, or the historic weather option yet.

[tozziFan]

it reminds me when, at the time of Nvidia new cards release after the 1080 series, there were no comparison benchmarks because the benchmark differences were unrelevant ;)

so, now, it looks like to me that, if no comparisons are around about the weather depiction, no big difference stands, justifying the purchase and leaving REXWF

[Maki Nishikino]

I have used Active Sky in FS9, FSX, P3D, XP and MSFS. I do have Weather Force for MSFS but I prefer Active Sky.

[Narf]

The only reason I had bought Rex WF back then was because the default live weather was unreliable for a time, either giving no data at all or giving temperatures of several hundred °C at high altitudes. Haven't used it in over a year now after live weather was fixed. It was such a performance hog and the weather transitions were just godawful, often very abrupt changes that were just really disruptive to the immersion. And of course just like Active Sky it has the same issue where the closed-off MSFS weather engine means it can only paint the entire sky in one big METAR.
The latter is the huge turn-off for me. What I absolutely love about the default live weather ingame is that I can actually see weather from afar, fly into it, around it, or away from it. Just yesterday I flew from England to Spain over a big weather front over France, and I absolutely loved how I could see the weather system from afar, fly over it, and then see it recede behind me. That would not work with AS (at least not in its active mode) or WF.

[ждун]

I don't use any of these.

Correct me if I am wrong, ActiveSky can only change the whole skybox. Like with weather presets, all or nothing. So if weather changes you don't see cloud fronts piling up in the distance ahead, but instead you see a sudden weather change everywhere around. This would pretty much make Active Sky utter crap compared to default MSFS live weather.

[Narf]

Originally posted by ждун:

Correct me if I am wrong, ActiveSky can only change the whole skybox. Like with weather presets, all or nothing.

Yes and no.

If you want to use it in active mode, meaning the skybox is actually being drawn by the addon, then that is true, and it can only paint the entire skybox in one weather, and then transitions the weather more or less abruptly across the entire sky if the metar your are in changes. And yes, that's utter crap compared to MSFS' live weather, but that's the restriction any third party weather add-on is under because the game's weather engine is closed.

Which is why the software offers the passive mode, too. In that, the game still draws the weather, so you get the usual live weather as you are used to from the sim. Active Sky then only adds some turbulence effects. If that's worth the purchase price is something everyone has to decide for themselves.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

Perhaps this isn't the perspective you're looking for, but I do have Active Sky FS. I also use Active Sky in FSX; and Active Sky P3D (v5) along with "REX Weather Force for Prepar3D v4 and v5" in P3D v5. I do not have REX Weather Force for MSFS 2020.

With all that said, I immediately purchased Active Sky FS when it was released. I almost always fly using live weather, and I had really hoped that AS FS would be superior to the default live weather. AS FS has two live weather modes: Active, which replaces the default weather depiction; and Passive, which keeps the default depiction but supplements it with Active Sky data.

Active Sky's visual depiction is often more dramatic than the default visual depiction. This in of itself doesn't bother me much; however, my conclusion from observing local weather conditions is that the default visualization is usually more accurate. For this reason, I have been using the Passive mode in AS FS.

With a new patch for AS FS just released, I tested the Active mode tonight with two substantial flights: KGTF-KHLN-KBTM; and KBTM-KBIL-KGTF. The weather visualization changed very quickly along the routes, for example from an absolute cloudless sky to a single, mid-sized cloud lingering ahead; immediately to a solid overcast that obscures the terrain below; which suddenly disappeared, leaving only wispy puffs ahead. Later I did see some gorgeous cloud presets appear--but they dissipated fairly quickly. I finally gave up and switched back to Passive mode.

Again, I am only discussing my experience with the live weather modes. I haven't tried the static or custom weather presets, or the historic weather option yet.

It seems they lack interpolation between weather areas based on what you are describing. The default weather system is actually very good at interpolation across areas. Sometimes you still get odd transitions and wind transitions that can separate the wings from your aircraft, but thankfully it is rare.