REX Simulations has released Atmos CORE, its next-generation atmospheric engine for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. The tool, which the developer refers to as a “core-level” system, surpasses shader tweaks and post-processing filters by injecting changes directly into the simulator’s rendering engine.
That’s an important distinction. While many simmers are familiar with tools like ReShade or Nvidia Freestyle, Atmos CORE isn’t sitting on top of the sim, it’s working inside it. That means when you dial in a haze layer, adjust the tint of the horizon, or push cloud softness up a notch, the engine responds in real time rather than applying a visual overlay.
At the heart of Atmos CORE are three editors:
- Weather – lets you build or modify scenarios on the fly, from a quiet VFR day to a hurricane, with full control over layers, wind, humidity, and visibility. It also integrates with live weather and third-party engines like ActiveSky.
- Atmosphere – handles the physics of the sky. Rayleigh scattering, particulate density, atmospheric depth, and phase functions can all be tuned, which means you can chase that “perfect” horizon or finally fix cloud lighting that looks too flat.
- Enviro – gives control over light and color in the environment, right down to individual RGB channels. Want a slightly greener terrain tone under certain skies? It’s possible here.
Changes apply instantly in the sim, with real-time rendering removing the guesswork. Presets can be saved locally or to the cloud, shared with other Atmos users, and even set to auto-load each time you fly.
The release also debuts a Particulate Simulation Engine, which models atmospheric effects such as haze, pollution, or dust storms. According to REX, this allows simmers to recreate anything from smoggy LA mornings to Saharan dust blowing across southern Europe.
Importantly, the system is non-destructive. Exit Atmos CORE or hit reset, and MSFS 2024 returns to its default state. No core sim files are altered.
Atmos CORE is available now through major stores including the REX Store, Contrail, SimMarket, and more. REX is offering a 50% discount for those who already own Atmos for MSFS 2020.
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