Once you fly cross country, or at altitude, you’ll notice a lot of problems with REX, and limitations too.
How many miles are we talking? I’ve done a few Dallas to San Fran or Dallas to Tampa and didn’t have any issues. If you weren’t having the weather change that was a known issue with the servers that hopefully will be worked out in the update the dev said they’re working on.
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When I tried it the other day, REX rendered local weather globally…so all I saw out my window was the conditions that I was flying in- as far as the eye could see. If it was partly cloudy at the local METAR, that’s all I saw. Same with thunderstorms. Checkerboard thunderstorms. Even if the area only had one cell, the sky would be full of storms. I don’t know if this is a bug or whatnot, but MSFS renders weather much better, with a lot of variety and nuance that I have yet to experience in Weather Force.
Just keep your expectations low- updates and fixes tend to come slowly with REX. Earlier programs were promised fixes for “known issues” for a year or more, sometimes never. Skyforce, problems with their weather engine, Environment Force. Hopefully this is not the case with MSFS. I hope they changed their ways.
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90% of the time METARs are inaccurate? Why on earth would aviation weather service providers worldwide give such inaccurate data? To what basis are you saying they’re inaccurate? 1 knot? 10 degrees? 1 HPA? A 100ft change to the cloud coverage?
Of course the conditions will change, that’s why METARs are update every hour, or less depending on country/location etc. But the condition change isn’t necessarily going to be as drastic as a 180 degree wind swing, or the temperature changing by 10 degrees (Celsius, for clarity). If they did, METARs would be updated more frequently, since they are provided for real life aviation purposes, not for simulators.
MFS weather has only been close to the METAR reported on less than 50% of occasions in my experience. Granted what we’ve just said about METARs not being accurate for the whole period, but I’m talking about wind being a third of what was reported, direction being out 50-60 degrees (makes a big difference if it’s changing the active runway or is a high wind speed), temperature being 4-5 degrees Celsius out, QNH being as bad as 20 HPA (600ft!) out, and cloud coverage being CAVOK in sim whilst the METAR reported SCT040 (and the TAF having had SCT040 from -3 to +7 hours from the METAR time, so there was no drastic changes).
I want dynamic weather to work in MFS, I really do. But it’s just so hit and miss given my experience, and it kills the immersion when I have to hit ‘B’ to get an accurate QNH, or can’t use a real world aviation weather service to accurately plan what runway is going to be in use at my destination.
I only hope that Asobo/Meteoblue can utilise reported data from METARs to validate and correct their dynamic weather model, rather than a massive disparity between the two.
Some general observations of MFS live weather vs the METAR.
This is Longreach, YLRE. The METAR as of 7 minutes prior to taking this screenshot. It is an automated METAR.
METAR YLRE 292330Z AUTO 03022KT 9999 // NCD 26/11 Q1017 RMK RF00.0/000.0
TAF AMD YLRE 292304Z 2923/3008
02020G30KT CAVOK
FM300300 34008KT CAVOK
RMK FM292300 MOD TURB BLW 5000FT TL300300
T 25 30 33 33 Q 1017 1014 1011 1010
For reference, TAF wind is 020/20G30 for this period.
The MFS reported weather using version 1.9.3 (with the fixed wind/ground friction, apparently). Wind 062/9, T29, Q1013 (29.91 on the instrument but I can’t change that display yet either…). The cloud was reported NCD, but that I would believe, since it looks like mid-level cloud that probably wouldn’t be picked up by the sensor.
I loaded up at Alice Srpings, YBAS. Appears live weather isn’t depicting. Full restart of the simulator.
Second attempt, wind not correct. Temperature is non-ISA though, so live weather is being applied? METAR for reference. This is a METAR reported using airfield instrumentation and a meteorologist, not an AUTO observation. I restarted my computer after this and still had the same result for YBAS.
METAR YBAS 292330Z 11013KT CAVOK 21/10 Q1018 RMK RF00.0/000.0
TAF YBAS 292311Z 3000/0100
14013KT CAVOK
FM301000 09008KT CAVOK
RMK
T 22 27 30 29 Q 1018 1016 1014 1014
MFS wind 215/3, T29, QNH 1013. CAVOK.
On more for good measure. Adelaide, YPAD.
TTF METAR YPAD 292330Z 31010KT 9999 FEW020 BKN037 15/09 Q1013 RMK RF00.0/013.8 NOSIG
Much much more accurate conditions in the sim. Except I’m not sure about the cloud coverage. TAF also stated FEW020 and BKN040 for the next 4 hours or so.
TAF YPAD 292309Z 3000/0106
29014KT 9999 -SHRA FEW020 BKN040
BECMG 3004/3006 26014KT 9999 -SHRA SCT018 BKN035
FM301000 23007KT 9999 NSW FEW025 SCT040
FM301800 02006KT 9999 FEW030
FM010200 34012KT CAVOK
INTER 3005/3009 4000 SHRA BKN015
RMK
T 15 17 16 15 Q 1013 1013 1012 1014
I’m at 3000ft looking down. There’s meant to be FEW020 beneath me. That’s not few. That’s basically an overcast deck.
Whilst I was flying around the TTF at YPAD updated.
TTF METAR YPAD 300000Z 31011KT 9999 SCT025 BKN037 15/10 Q1013 RMK RF00.0/000.0 NOSIG
Above cloud image doesn’t look few or scattered.
For reference, here’s the current Adelaide skyline from the airport webcam. You can see that there is two distinct layers of cloud.
My point is that the simulators weather depiction is more miss than hit.
Longreach weather is inaccurate across wind, temperature and QNH.
Alice Springs weather only attempted to change the Temperature to a grossly incorrect value.
Adelaide weather looked pretty good, except the cloud coverage seemed to blend two distinct layers in to an overcast blob. Also, the visibility depiction in the simulator, even beneath the cloud appeared to be limited significantly.
Overall, you can’t just have a blanket statement that METARs are inaccurate 90% of the time and and call the live depiction in MFS correct or that a dynamic model is better. Between METARs and Meteoblues dynamic mode, I’ve made a decision on what I think is less accurate, and it isn’t the Government funded aviation weather service provided to Australia. Like I said in the previous post, hopefully Meteoblue can begin to drag the METAR data in to validate or correct what their model is depicting.
Meteoblue use globally generated algorithms and inject that into the sim. There is no way it can or ever will be accurate. imagine if real world pilots used algorithms to flightplan with.!
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I’ll wait for historic weather before I consider picking it up, it’s the biggest limitation of the default weather system for me.
wanting to know if the new Rex Weather add on is worth buying?
Does it work well with the new update 1.9.3.0 ?
I decided to wait and see how its performing against bugs from the previous MSFS patch.
They do exactly that when it comes to planning the effect of upper winds on ground speed and time enroute. The upper winds used in aviation planning always come from computer forecast models, not from real time observations.
Likewise for terminal forecasts that pilots use to determine the likely weather conditions at their destination airport. Those also come from computer models.
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I’m happy with what we get- if it’s not perfect, so what? Just fly in the sim world instead of the real one. I bought Weather Force out of sheer stupidity to think this company would finally produce something that actually lives up to marketing hype. I guess things never change.
But, at the end of the day, if I want local metars for takeoff and landing, I can do it with Weather Force and then switch it off and let the default handle the cruise.
However, this really is a step back and it fails to utilize the full potential of the default weather engine.
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Disclaimer: I have not purchased that addon.
That being said after this new patch I feel like Asobo is working on the weather pretty diligently and I’m not sure what the addon would provide in the long run. I’ve just loaded up a flight near my house and the weather is pretty spot on with thunder/lightning/rain. And with them fixing the wind it’s getting more realistic by the patch.
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no i bought it and the default system with all its problems better
Hi @Flykeeper197 there has been some discussion on this already.
From the sounds of it I would hold off for now for a better weather injection, but have a read of this thread and see what you think.
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Actualy i think.
Default weather not real but enough for flying.
Best option what i want to see. Fully real METAR based weather.
Kinda depends on what you are looking for.
If you want to 100% real to life depiction based on METARs and don’t mind abrupt transition when data refreshes and new METARs are loaded then REX sounds like it would be pretty good.
If you don’t mind if the weather is just a general representation for a given an area and not always 100% accurate but you like the smooth transitions and dynamically changing weather then I’d stick with default.
Metar isn’t always real. It’s a point in time snapshot at a very specific location.
So I agree the current weather might lack behind, irl metar is also not exactly the readings you’ll get in your cockpit either.
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But is better solution for us
I would stay away from REX, once you buy it is yours. If you hate it or it doesn’t work properly or as you expected there is ZERO chance of getting a refund from them other than going through your bank to dispute the charges. I had to do this with Sky Force when it did not work and REX told me it was me then said an update would be coming which never did.
Somethings from Rex work great but their weather systems have always had issues. I would wait for Active Sky or check out what @duesen has done with the Unreal Weather Metar Engine which is free. There is a thread about the Unreal Metar on the forums.
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I don’t have REX Weather Force, but from the review videos I’ve seen, when it works, the weather conditions presented are more visually accurate than the built-in Live Weather. However, the initial release version of REX is also reported to have some significant bugs and sometimes doesn’t work as expected. Someone even pointed out that the clouds can end up displaying visible repeated shapes, similar to a tiled texture. (Example from a post on the REX Discord channel)
I personally feel that the default Live Weather works good enough for my purposes, but I’m still interested in REX, so I’m just going to watch and wait, see how it looks after they patch it up a bit.