I've been looking at this forum with interest and you've got me seriously interested in taking the plunge. A more stable, better performing FSX? Where do I sign?

 

But there's just one thing holding me back. Somewhere in one of the various discussion threads on the subject, someone made a throwaway comment to the effect that... "DX10 doesn't work at night" (not exact words).

 

Is that true? And to what extent does "not working" mean? If it's simply that the visuals are no better than DX9, but otherwise it's business as normal, I could live with that. But if it's serious enough that you're effectively limited to daylight flying, that's a dealbreaker for me.

 

More power to Steve and the DX10 Gurus! Keep blazing the trail for the rest of us to follow.

 

Dr V

Hi Doc; Welcome to the crazies forum!

 

You are partially right, there were some night issues with textures not showing up, but it's part of Steve's DX10 patch. The only other complaint I've had concerns the Orbx PNW cutom street lights - which randomly blink on and off when using DX10. As they also randomly dim on and off when using DX9 I suspect there is some small variance from the SDK which is causing this.

 

If you want to "Try before you buy" (no - it is free), you might download the pre-modified ShadersHLSL folder from here, and replace the existing ShadersHLSL folder (after you've backed up the original) - then all you have to do is change D3D10=0 to D3D10=1 in the FSX.CFG, in the [Graphics] section.

 

Have fun. :lol:

 

pj

Like the old saying goes, you don't have to be crazy to post here.... :-)

 

Well I dived on in and gave it a try, following your how-to guide at the top of the forum (no point in taking shortcuts). Unfortunately I ran right into the same problem that Jim reported a week or so back - dual monitor setup and DX10 insists on starting full screen on the smaller secondary monitor. I know there's a fudgey work around, but that sort of niggle.. how did you put it.. burns a hole in my skull when something's not quite right!

 

Performance wise I can't say I noticed much difference. I did notice that panning the VC view with the hat seemed smoother with no sign of any screen "tearing" (which I sometimes see a little of) I'd have said that there wasn't any real noticeable improvement in visuals, except when I switched the setup back to DX9 everything seemed strangely... blander. I have no idea what's different, I couldn't consciously point out any obvious visual differences between running with DX9 and DX10, but the effect must be subtle and subliminal.

 

There were a couple of other minor niggles, like aircraft lights not working properly, which I'm sure would be fixable with a bit of forum searching here. At the moment I'm back on the fence - back to DX9 for day to day flying, but I'll probably dip a toe back into DX10 next time I feel like tinkering with something. For now though I just want to get on with flying.

 

Thanks for the help and advice, and for the very helpful how-to guide.

 

Dr V

You're welcome, Doc. Yes - I'd noticed the subtle colour intensity, too, and have no explanation, other than the observation. My love is the water, and the whitecaps showing the wind direction.

Good evening gents,

DX10 nights....I think it is hit and miss. I do most of my flying during the day, but this is what I have foumd so far. FSDT is fine at night, Blue Print is fine at nigth, but FlyTampa, no runway lights, but have taxi sign lights and terminal lights.. I have the 3.1.1 shader mod installed, added the cfg settings for lights and have them at 9, and replaced the halo bmp, fx_2 and both strobe fixes. I will keep testing more payware airporst and see what kind of results I get. I will add to this thread as I go along. Am I missing something, or is this just the way the night textures were written for certian airports??

 

I prefer to fly during the day, I very much enjoy seeing my scenery, but have come acorss a late flight where my destination, the sun has set and the night textures have taken over. So any help I can provide, not sue what that can be, but would love to help in any way shape or form to work this glitch out. Othe than the night textures, DX10 is for me, will not be going back to DX9.

 

Blue Skies

Brett

I have the latest shader but there are still problems with night/dawn textures on some airports that I was trying out.

So, for whatever reason the Achilles’ heel of using DX10 still seems to be the lights.

 

I for one appear to have noticeably “lost” strobing, approach and VASI lights at most of the airports I visit.

 

True, sometimes the VASI lights do appear “intermittently”.

 

But (to all intense and purposes) it is as if the gremlin of John Lythgow’s Twighlight Zone nightmare has been teaming up with the folks who worked in the control tower of the first Airplane movie.

 

Has anyone come across a “fix” for this yet, I mean apart from don’t use DX10? Forbidden fruit and all that..........

 

Regards

Stuart

I'm with you, too, Brett. 99% during the day, loving the evening shots, and only needing approach lights for IFR, of which I haven't done any yet! In DX9 I set the base height to 4 or 500 feet, solid all the way to 5000, then VOR-ADF to plan and fly an hour - hour and a half route, generally around the PNW. This was an exercise to prevent the boredom that occasionally drifts in. I guess I need to see how they work under those conditions. Night flying? Nahhh - maybe once in a while, but I like to look at that beautiful Orbx scenery.

 

:wink:

You always have to ask the 3PD if their scenery is 100% DX10 compatible, that's the only scenery I buy, some 3PD will make planes DX10 compatible without cockpit shadow for example, up to you to decide if you want it or not.

 

I'm not saying that some problems with planes or sceneries can't be fixed with some work around here but if you know that your scenery is fully compatible with DX10 the chances of seeing a problem is grately reduced.

Disregard

I have a list going on runway lights in DX10. I want to finish it before I post it but here are 3 so far:

 

FSDT: LAX ...,good

BluePrint: KSDF...good but faint.

FlyTampa: MDW and BOS, none at all. Taxi sign lights and terminal lighting good just no taxiway or runway lights.

 

That is all the time I had last night to test, but will be testing many many more. All payware scenery.

 

I would like to say I should have a very detailed list by the weekend but please don't hold me to this. But as soon as I am able to get to every airport in my scenery library maybe we will have something to work with looking at those airports that are black and examining their halo bmp's for runway lighting.

 

Sorry Paul. I may have jumped the gun a bit with LAX and assuming the rest were the same. I was wrong so back to the drawing board.

 

Brett

 

P.S. Sorry for the double post. I was logged in as my old username.

Well I say, I suppose I must have offended someone somehow with the original thread title for it to have been changed.

 

Any chance the moderator responsible could change the new title to not be ALL CAPS? One doesn't want to come across as some sort of shouty n00b. :rolleyes:

 

Dr V

Sorry Paul. I may have jumped the gun a bit with LAX and assuming the rest were the same. I was wrong so back to the drawing board.

I don't have any issues with you jumping any kind of gun, Brett!

I'm doing the same as you are, except it's with the smaller airfields of the Orbx PNW.. My exceptions are KSEA, KPDX (both modified) and FT's St. Maartens. I have to repeat a few, as I did change to Mike Swannick's halo, and it's too dim to be used for approach lighting systems. (I think)

Well I say, I suppose I must have offended someone somehow with the original thread title for it to have been changed.

Any chance the moderator responsible could change the new title to not be ALL CAPS? One doesn't want to come across as some sort of shouty n00b. :rolleyes:Dr V

 

Yeah - I wondered about that... It makes it sound as if the poster is advertising to all that DX10 is a waste of time, doesn't work, is buggy, the water is cartoonish, and so on....

 

Can you change that, Jim?

Well I say, I suppose I must have offended someone somehow with the original thread title for it to have been changed.

 

Any chance the moderator responsible could change the new title to not be ALL CAPS? One doesn't want to come across as some sort of shouty n00b. :rolleyes:

 

Dr V

Don't know who changed your title or why (only stumbling on this after it has been reported to us), what was it originally? For now I've changed it so that it's not all caps, anything else needs changing in it - let me know.