FSX-MS Get Rid of Snow & Rain Spray

[N738NM 0]

Hi, folks. Can someone please tell me how to get rid of the annoying snow and/or rain spray effect while taxiing? I'd like to remove it globally (for all my aircraft) if possible. If not, I'm willing to remove it plane by plane if there's some sort of line in the config files. It's just driving me crazy. Okay, thanks in advance for any and all help.

[lliaudais 2]

Try one or more of these; probably the water line, but try the dirt if that doesn't work. Concrete is the ever-so-realistic sparks from wing or tail strike.You can use fx_dummy to block an effect that would still show the default if you merely deleted the line... I've used this handy little file for years... it's in your effects folder.{EFFECTS}wake = fx_wakewater = fx_ dummy //fx_spraydirt = fx_dummy // fx_tchdrtconcrete = fx_dummy // fx_sparkstouchdown = fx_dummy // fx_tchdwn_s, 1Loyd

[gr8av8r 36]

Try searching for 'effects_package_1.2.zip' in the AVSIM library. This package fixed the Snow spray. It's not the best at fixing the water spray but it definietly helps it.Hope this helps.

[irocx 292]

Hi, folks. Can someone please tell me how to get rid of the annoying snow and/or rain spray effect while taxiing? I'd like to remove it globally (for all my aircraft) if possible. If not, I'm willing to remove it plane by plane if there's some sort of line in the config files. It's just driving me crazy. Okay, thanks in advance for any and all help.

Hi, I just deleted the contents of the appropriate effects files. The two used for the wheel spray are fx_WheelSnowSpray.fx and fx_WheelWetSpray.fx. Leave the header in the file - so it ends up like this: [Library Effect]Lifetime=5Version=2.00Radius=-1Priority=0Hose everything else (after a backup, of course :( ) It's been awhile, but for some reason if I didn't leave this header the sim kept searching for the missing effect file, verified by using filemon. If you want to stop the snow being blown by the engines the effect file used is fx_SnowEngineWash.Hope it helps.

[Daveo 36]

Hi, folks. Can someone please tell me how to get rid of the annoying snow and/or rain spray effect while taxiing? I'd like to remove it globally (for all my aircraft) if possible. If not, I'm willing to remove it plane by plane if there's some sort of line in the config files. It's just driving me crazy. Okay, thanks in advance for any and all help.

You can also put 2 front slashes before the effects you want to disable if you don't want to delete stuff. That turns the lines into comments.For example [EFFECTS]//wake=fx_wake//water=fx_spray//dirt=fx_tchdrt//concrete=Opensky_sparks, 1//touchdown=fx_tchdwn, 1

[FalconAF 213]

You can also put 2 front slashes before the effects you want to disable if you don't want to delete stuff. That turns the lines into comments.For example [EFFECTS]//wake=fx_wake//water=fx_spray//dirt=fx_tchdrt//concrete=Opensky_sparks, 1//touchdown=fx_tchdwn, 1

That's the best way to do it. You are never DELETING anything that is default from FSX that way, so there is no need to save BACKUPS of the files all the time. You will always have the ability to "restore" the effect in the future by just removing the slashes in front of the line entry.You can do the same thing (in a different way) with other file types in FSX by APPENDING the file name. If you are going to overwrite a file called something like "filename.cfg", just change the entire filename to something like "filename.cfg.ORIGINAL.FSX". The file will stay in the directory, but FSX will ignore it because the filename extension has been changed. Yet BOTH files will be next to each other if you use Windows Explorer to view the file folder...they will still be in alphabetical order. Makes finding replaced files and original FSX files easy if you ever want to go back to the original FSX files...and no backups of the original files are needed.

[N738NM 0]

Hi, guys. Thanks for the ideas. I'll give them a try this weekend. And, I have to say that the flight sim community is the best in terms of giving advice. Thanks again.

[N738NM 0]

Hi, again, guys. I tried "//"-ing out the effects in the aircraft config file. No luck. So, I tried renaming the offensive effects (water spray, snow spray, and prop snow spray...whatever they were called) with a ".off" extension. Worked like a charm...no more crazy snow spray during taxi. Okay, thanks again for your suggestions. And, as my friend George would say, keep the shiny side up. :(

[irocx 292]

Hi, again, guys. I tried "//"-ing out the effects in the aircraft config file. No luck. So, I tried renaming the offensive effects (water spray, snow spray, and prop snow spray...whatever they were called) with a ".off" extension. Worked like a charm...no more crazy snow spray during taxi. Okay, thanks again for your suggestions. And, as my friend George would say, keep the shiny side up. :(

Thanks for posting back. I already knew that commenting out the effects entry in the .cfg file wouldn't work because I had been down that road. Like Rick (FalconAF), I usually don't like DELETING things either, but I am a big boy and have a complete, master backup of FSX - not really pain with these supersized hard drives.I'm no effects guru, but I found that by simply renaming the file as you did it will certainly stop the effect - but it will not stop the call for it - resulting in the sim to continually search for that missing effect file. This can rob some cpu and performance, hence my decision to delete out the"guts" of the file. Kind of a "best of both worlds" thing.

[N738NM 0]

Thanks, Kendall. I'm feeling adventurous, so I might just back up the files and then gut the effects like you recommended. I see your point about FSX still calling for the effect (would be nice to save the extra CPU sweat). I'll give it a try. Thanks again.

[FalconAF 213]

Thanks for posting back. I already knew that commenting out the effects entry in the .cfg file wouldn't work because I had been down that road. Like Rick (FalconAF), I usually don't like DELETING things either, but I am a big boy and have a complete, master backup of FSX - not really pain with these supersized hard drives.I'm no effects guru, but I found that by simply renaming the file as you did it will certainly stop the effect - but it will not stop the call for it - resulting in the sim to continually search for that missing effect file. This can rob some cpu and performance, hence my decision to delete out the"guts" of the file. Kind of a "best of both worlds" thing.

I'm a big boy too. I do disk images of my entire computer to an external hard drive periodically, so I never have to worry about "backing up" FSX by itself in case anything goes wrong. And this doesn't take up ANY of my hard drive space on hard drives IN the computer. Why save FSX-Only backups on the hard drives you USE regularly to "run" your computer (regardless of how large they are)? I agree with your conclusion about the "calls" issue. That's why I only use the "file appending" method of renaming a default FSX file if the file is going to be REPLACED by another file with the same default FSX name. Two common ones this always happens to are the HALO.BMP and SPOTLIGHT.BMP files. With my TH2G setup, these two files need to get replaced to prevent "beach ball sized lights" for runways, etc. Then they can be "tweaked" using the various "...Surface Scaler=xxx" entries added to the fsx.cfg file. Renaming the original files in FSX using an ".ORIGINAL" file extension always leaves the original files available in the FSX folder (and easy to identify as an FSX "default" installation file), and no backup of them is required then. They get replaced for "calls" with files of the same name.I quit doing "FSX Installation Only" backups several years ago. The price of an external hard drive and a GOOD Disk Imaging program is relativeley cheap today. I back up the WHOLE computer whenever I make a major change to FSX, like adding another large addon, complex airplane, etc. This way I don't have to worry about Registry entries not agreeing anymore, or files getting "mixed up" between FSX and OTHER programs because one addon changed something, but my FSX-only backup didn't contain those changes, etc. It's very easy with the complexity of addons nowadays for this to happen with files like EXE.XML, TERRAIN.CFG, the WINDOWS REGISTRY, and a host of others that FSX depends on to run correctly. Once I change anything in FSX and make sure EVERYTHING is working OK (not only in FSX, but on my ENTIRE computer), I create a new Disk Image of the entire computer again. If I added something and it "hosed" FSX, or ANYTHING ELSE on the computer (it happens!), I can just do the Disk Image I had PRIOR to the addon to get EVERYTHING on the computer back to normal. I can always get EVERYTHING on the computer back to "where it was working right" this way if something goes wrong. No "hunting and pecking" required in various areas of FSX, the Windows Registry, backup folders that OTHER addons make themselves (like GEX, REX, etc). It's a much simpler solution having a Disk Image to restore for the WHOLE computer instead of just trying to re-install a backup of FSX itself.Rick

[kevinh 409]

Sorry to resurrect this very old thread, but it helped me find an even better solution to this problem which I wanted to share. Microsoft coded these spray effects as lasting for an infinite time, so you can land on a dry runway after taking off from a wet one and the spray will continue to exist. Rather than delete the contents of the two effects files, leaving just the headers, search for the lines:

 

[Emitter.0]

Lifetime=0.00, 0.00

 

0.00 means inifite. Replace the lifetime line with

 

Lifetime=50.00, 60.00

 

This is provides a minimum time of 50 sec and a maximum of 60.

 

Repeat for the similar 'Lifetime' line under [Emitter.1] (and also [Emittter.2] in the snow effects file)

 

Do not change any other 'Lifetime' lines, especially not the one in the header.

 

Do this for both wheel spray effects files (fx.wheelwetspray.fx and fx.wheelsnowspray.fx). The spray will be visible on wet and snowy runways but should stop emitting spray a minute after takeoff and not be visible in cruising flight or on landing.

[Bjoern 1,153]

Great find, thanks!

 

 

My addendum:

One can also make the effect less pronounced by reducing the maximum (and minimum) "Lifetime=" values in each [Particle.n] section. Very small values like 0.1 for maximum and minimum should make the effect almost disappear. Just don't set it to 0.0.

 

Not sure if "Rate=0.00, 0.00" for each emitter produces a valid result in FSX, but it theoretically should prevent the emitters from creating any particles at all. Needs experimenting.

[tonymerry 0]

Newbie question, how do I locate the FSX cfg file to do the alterations?

Tonym

[charliearon 3,017]

Just reading through these posts on getting rid of the spray effects after a time limit, I saw no mention of editing the

 

FSX.cfg.  They were talking about the [effects] inside of the aircraft.cfg and it looks like the final solution was to

 

edit the [Emitters] inside of the effects themselves.

 

 C:\Users\(Your Windows User Name)\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX  This is the path for FSX.cfg.  Make

 

sure you have "show hidden files and folders" checked in your Folders Options.