Goodness me - you wait 5 years for a global fix to flashing runways and two come along within a month.

I have just spotted (google) that poster opv on the rex2 forums beat me too it and posted a fix on May 2nd

 

http://www.realenvir...ing-taxi-marks/

 

His solution is to raise the height of the runways and markings in the VS shader so that they are above the taxiway whereas mine corrects the accidental storing of the taxiway depths in the Z buffer.

 

As far as I can see his approach is entirely feasible so kudos to him!

If 2x AA is enough for you and if you don't mind a few flickering textures by night, it perfectly flyable. Visually, it can even be quite stunning as FSX bloom looks so much better than ENB in my opinion and that without impacting your frames. We've been waiting for ages for this fix and on the way, you might even gain a few FPS so why wait ? Your mileage may vary but there is nothing to lose. Moving back to dx9 is just a checkbox away.

+100

This is a biggest break through since Word Not Allowed's tweak. I copied your NVI setings Jean-Paul, and works a treat with Steve's fix.

I used to get terriable texture flashes at some airports with the bufferPool=0, now that does not happen. I get a wee bit of shimmering, but not enough to be a show stopper. Great find.

Just wanted to report in that I tried this out yesterday and it worked great for me! Now if only a shader can be changed to prevent the transparent areas of fences and such from turning solid black from certain angles, then my 2 main issues with DX10 would be completely resolved! :) Thank you for figuring this out!

 

 

-George

Hi George

 

Check out transparent textures post on my web page. I have a trial change that successfully fixes the fences however I am not happy that the selecting of Shader options within it is specific enough to post it here yet.

 

Steve

It certainly solves the flashing runways for me.

 

It doesn't seem to break anything else, but I'll keep looking.

 

Many thanks

 

Peter

It works here too.

stevejp, thanks for this, it really works! I'm still playing around but I never thought I'd see the day that DX10 became a real option in FSX. I have an old machine but the performance is incredible thanks to people like you. This particular trick could end up in the top 2 or 3 of all the tweaks.

 

 

Ok here is a new version.

 

It includes an experimental fix for the wire fences that become opaque at different viewing angles - check out Friday Harbor to see this - the fence is dark but if you change the angle from the spotter plane it becomes transparent.

 

Note the fence fix is disabled by default - instructions follow on how to enable it.

 

To make it easier to roll out any changes I have changed the method for patching the shader file.

 

If you have already made the changes its easiest if you revert back to the original general10.fx (you did take a copy right?!) Otherwise ask and I'll post some instructions.

 

 

The new instructions are

 

 

1) back up the general10.fx from the main FSX directory FSX\ShadersHLSL\General (in fact backup the whole directory!)

 

2) Confirm that you really did step 1

 

3) Place the two attached files into the directory FSX\ShadersHLSL\General

 

The two files are PatchGeneral10.txt and PatchOptions.txt.

 

Note I used txt as a file type just so I can upload as attachments - I promise I will figure out how to use the library at some point!

 

4) edit the file General10.fx and delete the last 9 lines starting from the line

"technique10 T0"

 

5) at the end of the file insert the following line

 

#include <PatchGeneral10.txt>

 

6) Go to AppData/Microsoft/FSX and delete the subdirectory Shaders10 (FSX will recreate it)

 

8) Run FSX

 

 

Thats all. If the spinning plane screen is black then the shader didnt compile.

 

In that case restore the backup you took at step 1 and run FSX again - checking it stil works

 

then try again!

 

 

Finally to try the fence fix edit the file PatchOptions.txt and change the number at the end of this line

 

#define OPAQUE_FENCES_PATCH 0

 

to be a 1 rather than a 0

 

 

 

Oops I forgot to add that after changing a setting in patch options you need to rebuild the shaders by repeating step 6 and err step 8. ( there isn't a step 7)

 

 

Steve, thanks for all your hard work and the benefit it has provided to this community. Any chance you might be able to come up with a fix for the other DX10 issues, or are they only going to be solvable by the add-on creators that have incompatible add-ons?

Thanks Steve. Fences are no longer opaque :Applause:

Thanks Jean-Paul!

 

I am slightly less confident about the fence fix, it depends on what else that combo of shader options gets used for, I worry that we may find semi transparent cars or something!

 

If you see anything odd turn the option off and see if it's my change or just dx10

 

Steve

Steve, thanks for all your hard work and the benefit it has provided to this community. Any chance you might be able to come up with a fix for the other DX10 issues, or are they only going to be solvable by the add-on creators that have incompatible add-ons?

 

What I have is a tool ( intel gpa) that lets me examine a frame and look at how a faulty element gets drawn.

 

I can then see which compiled shader is used. I have now largely figured out how the shader options map to the names of compiled files.

 

If the problem is in fsx itself and it's a simple dx10 state setting and the compiled shader isn't also used for something else with a different state then it may be fixable.

 

What cannot be fixed by a shader are missing textures, vsync or anti aliasing or plain missing code.

eg I assume that the progressive taxi just isn't drawn I doubt it's invisible but I will take a look!

 

Update: I just did look - to my surprise DX10 is drawing the progerssive taxi - it just isn't actually visible to us. Whether its fixable I don't know yet ...

 

 

What problems were you thinking of?

Thanks Steve! Finally a DX10 fix. I am using your method describe in post #53. The Flashing runway in DX10 Preview is fixed. However, I'm experiencing fsx go into window mode and pause about 2-3 minutes after take off and again just before landing. Maybe just only me as no one mention about this problem yet. Do I need to change anything in the .cfg file or Nvidia Settings? At the moment I'm using Jean-Paul NI settings posted here.

the new one works. i was worried hud transparency could get affected but looks fine (vrs f/a18).

 

i wish alpha fading can be fixed but i guess that's more of a core rendering issue than a shader issue.

 

thanks again.