Flashing lights at Airports

[computerflyer 6]

I'm really happy with DX10 with Steve's fixer.  DX10 is way smoother than DX9, especially when using TrackIR.  About the only issue remaining for me is that when viewing Orbx airports (Blue Pacific NW) from a distance, there are a bunch of flashing white lights visible at the airport.  It looks like a bunch of camera flash bulbs going off.  I've tried various AA settings without much improvement.  Is this one of those unfixable DX10 things, or is there a way to avoid the flashing lights?       Thanks

 

FSX Gold

Intel 3770k @4.3 GHZ

Nvidia GTX 670

[Paul J 349]

This answer is no help. I know - but I've also noticed this on all airports, and have just put this down to my odd-ball pc having a conniption. Time to call Steve for a look-see I think! Email sent.

[cvearl 60]

Well there you go. I thought it was an ATI card issue. I thought of it as a twinkle. But now I think your description is better. A crowd of photographers in the night at the airport. Flash bulbs going off all over the parking lot.

 

It's the headlights of the parked cars. Fly all the way in and at a certain distance it will stop. I hope this can be fixed. Kind of kills night flights for me.

 

Charles. 

[SteveFx 258]

@computerflyer

 

Try setting the bloom setting for headlights to "Always Off" in the general dialog. In DX10 car headlights are increased in brightness regardless of bloom setting. This disables this behaviour and so reduces the intensity of headlights.

 

It may help reduce the effect you describe.

[jfri 42]

@computerflyer

 

Try setting the bloom setting for headlights to "Always Off" in the general dialog. In DX10 car headlights are increased in brightness regardless of bloom setting. This disables this behaviour and so reduces the intensity of headlights.

 

It may help reduce the effect you describe.

 

I also see light like sparks in the terrain and it's not only where cars can be expected to be.

[computerflyer 6]

To clarify this blinking-light issue a little, in my experience it occurs almost exclusively at Orbx high-resolution scenery associated with their airports.  But it doesn't just involve planes, cars, or runways.  For example, the Orbx scenery for Israel's Farm airfield WA56 (U.S. Pacific Northwest) has logs that are placed along a river near the field.  These logs, when viewed from a distance, are just a mass of blinking white lights (the blinking stops when the sim and TrackIR are paused).  At an altitude below 500' they start to actually look like logs, instead of looking like flashing Christmas trees. 

 

These flickering, blinking lights very rarely appear in the Orbx regional PNW scenery, just in the high-res. scenery at, and around, airfields.  (I don't have Orbx Global, so I don't know about that).  These lights do not appear in my Megascenery photoscenery.

 

I have tried adjusting the level of bloom, and clicking bloom off in FSX, with little or no change to the blinking lights.

 

I love DX10 due to its smoothness, and Steve's fixer has solved most of the problems.  I'm never going back to DX9. 

 

It seems that the blinking-lights-around-airports scenery problem might be something that Orbx could fix, maybe in one of their new libraries.  Or at least Orbx could avoid this problem when developing their new airport sceneries.  As more people switch to DX10, it will be in Orbx's best interest to fix this problem.

 

FSX Gold

Intel i7 3770k overclocked to 4.3 GHz

Nvidia GTX670

[SteveFx 258]

Ok, I bought Wa56 in the orbx sale to test this!

 

I have found the logs but haven't yet got them to flash - is this day or night?

 

What I can see is the mad photographers at night which are actually car headlights. These exist in dx9 and dx10 but are much much brighter and more of a distraction in dx10.

 

The new option that I referred to - headlights Always off does indeed greatly reduce this effect - to the same level as in dx9.

 

The problem here was that there are two aspects to bloom, enlarging and brightening the lights and adding a halo. the dx10 shader always did the former even when bloom was turned off. The new option disables this.

[TheFamilyMan 279]

Thank you very much SteveJP, for your headlight "dampener" is a feature which removed the top entry on my list of the most irritating things about DX10 preview. Well done!  ...now I'm off for some night flying with car traffic enabled in UTX.

[cvearl 60]

Ok, I bought Wa56 in the orbx sale to test this!

 

I have found the logs but haven't yet got them to flash - is this day or night?

 

What I can see is the mad photographers at night which are actually car headlights. These exist in dx9 and dx10 but are much much brighter and more of a distraction in dx10.

 

The new option that I referred to - headlights Always off does indeed greatly reduce this effect - to the same level as in dx9.

 

The problem here was that there are two aspects to bloom, enlarging and brightening the lights and adding a halo. the dx10 shader always did the former even when bloom was turned off. The new option disables this.

 

Finally. Now I can leave the insane asylum. I am been reporting this since months ago.

 

And.... Everyone will be glad to know that it is specifically ORBX Car headlights in their region scenery's and can only be seen late at night. In the distance. Even the cars on the roads do it. Paparazzi on motorcycles!

 

Now.. Here's  the clincher...

 

P3Dv2 has the same problem. I installed PNW SP5 in it with the Estonia Migration tool into P3Dv2 tonight and did some major night flying all over Vancouver area and it does the exact same effect! It is confirmed. DX10 and 11 no like the ORBX Headlights. Damn... I wish LH would fix it like you did Steve. Nice work on the patch brother!

 

Charles.

[computerflyer 6]

My issue with flashing lights in Orbx airfield sceneries only occurs during the day, not at night.  So it appears that I might have a problem that is unique to my setup, not a general problem for everyone.  But there's more...this problem began about the same time that I switched to DX10, so I assumed that it was a DX10 problem.  (There's a saying, "Never 'assume', because then you make an &@($* out of u and me.").  Anyway, I just tried going back to DX9 - and the flashing lights are still there with DX9! 

 

So, I feel a little silly mentioning this problem on a DX10 forum.  But I'm glad that we've all learned more about the flashing headlights DX10 issue.  I might need to post my particular problem over at the Orbx forums. 

 

And thanks to Steve for his great DX10 Fixer.  DX10 rocks!