Hi,

 

I bought the fixer last year and since then I was trying to work out the solution for myself. I wasn't very successful however, so now I'm here to see if you have any further advice.

 

Here a couple of screenshots, so you can see what I am talking about. This example is from EDDH Hamburg, but it's the same for nearly every airport from Aerosoft and some other developers.

 

 

In the first shots I have the lightfield for this airport activated.

 

 

 

As you see, all the obstacle and blue taxiway are flashing, about once per second.

 

 

 

I then changed the viewpoint. Now only the obstacle lights on the terminal buildings are flashing, the rest stays illuminated.

 

 

 

 

I again changed the viewpoint- now it's the same as in the first set: All obstacle and blue taxiway lights are flashing about once per second.

 

 

 

 

Now I deactivated the lightfield. As you see, with this viewpoint all the lights are there and steady, but when panning a tiny bit down, the obstacle lights at the terminal and runway end disappear.

 

 

 

 

Changing the location again. I lose all the obstacle and blue taxiway lights. Turning slightly, everything is back and steady.

 

 

 

A last viewpoint change. Now the bluw taxiway lights are ok, the obstacle lights on the runway end and the apron are there, but missing on the terminal.

 

 

Similarly, this also happens to the runway approach lights, sometimes to the PAPI as well. The runway lighting itself as well as the green taxiway lights are always unaffected!

Also, enroute, the ORBx street lights show up as intended, no issues with that!

 

 

 

Approaching EDDL Düsseldorf. In this phase the PAPI disappears when the white runway threshold lights flash, and comes back when they are out.

 

 

 

On short final the PAPI remains invisible at all times.

 

 

 

During daylight hours, the sun is rather small and the lensflare effect is so large (yes large, not small), that you barely can see it.

 

 

 

On sunset, this looks as intended.

 

 

I use REX 4 Texture Direct and Soft Clouds.

The DX10 Controller is updated to 2.11, the libraries are installed and up to date. I use the 16x CSAA setting.

Legacy Setting is Balanced.

I converted all effects including ORBX street lights and shockwave lights.

 

 

 

My NVidia Inspector settings.

 

 

If you need any more informations, I would be  happy to provide them. Hopefully you can help me in finding a solution for this..

 

Regards,

Matthias

Unfortunately you have the same issue as DerFleiger  in the thread titled

"Lights - issues with dx10 " on page 2 and I couldn't help him - its well worth reading as it is describing the same problem.

 

Most people (including me) don't have any problems with flashing lights at those airports so it is a mystery why just a few isolated people appear to.

 

As you have found the light field powers up lights - you need either to have an aircraft with unconverted light effects or a light field to "power" lights.    But the light field doesn't protect from the inheritance of flashing from another legacy light somewhere.  I think if you tick the options to exclude Shockwave the matters may improve if you have the landing lights on but I cannot be sure.

 

Can you try that and tell me if it helps within the constraints I have described.

 

On an aircraft by aircraft basis you could attach some dark lights which should fix it - I can describe how to do that.

 

What AI aircraft do you use btw

What is your special effects detail slider set to in fsx?

Hi Steve,

 

thanks for your reply! I would indeed like to try the aircraft approach instead of the lightfield approach. As far as I understand you have to position a light in front of the aircraft so that it is always seen from the cockpit, and then replace it with an invisible one. Could you tell me which effect to use? It's not stated in the manual.. or at least I didn't find it.

My special effect slider is set to medium.

To use Shockwave or non Shockwave lights doesn't make any difference from my knowledge.. and this also would't be a good approach as i only have shockwave lights in very few aircraft- I stopped using them some time ago when addons came with better lights themselves.

I don't use AI aircraft at all, only the IVAO MTLs.

 

Interesting is that the flashing only occurs when the lightfield is active. What causes lights to flash? Isn't this coded into the effect the scenery uses?

Does the use of REX 4 Texture Direct (in DX10 mode) make any difference (worse or better than 'normal' effects)?

 

Matthias

Can you try setting the special effects slider to max with a lightfield at Frankfurt first?   

 

I have found that I can get flashing lights at Frankfurt with the slider at low - and at a distance with medium so I am curious if this is the reason for the difference.

 

Textures such as REX 4 have no bearing on this.

 

The lights are all coded fine and they display in DX9 fine - the problem is that the DX10 preview mode has some kind of lights optimisation function enabled which has bugs - it has nothing to do with the GPU displaying lights in DX10 which works fines.   I think that this function sorts all the lights in the scene so as to display them in less drawcalls to the GPU. Unfortunately some properties such as view angle and flashing  seem to be initialised incorrectly with the first few light textures and so get associated with lights that have no flashing specified.   This problem seems to die out beyond the first groups of lights texture.   For a legacy airport all "lights" are using the same texture and thus if they inherit the flashing property you see what you describe.

Hello Matthias?

Hello Steve!

 

I will try to test it tomorrow, I have some other stuff to do right now.. real life doesn't stop somehow :wink:

That's ok!!

Ok.. so it appears that with the special effects slider I get blinking lights as I posted before.. with the slider to min the lights menshioned (blue and red) do not appear at all.

ok you should find two effects  fx_dx10shieldtest and fx_dx10shield.

 

The first (shieldtest) is a collection of red lights,  edit aircraft.cfg to place them just in front of the VC  and confirm that you can see them.

 

You should find all our flashing is solved when these lights are on.

 

When you have it in the correct position substitute the shield version which is exactly the same but with invisible lights.

After some testing I can confirm the light shield fixes the problem, even without lightfield.

Finally having fun again at night.. many thanks for your support!

 

Edit, one more question.. I defined the shield lights as nav lights, which makes sense I guess.. if I should run into an aircraft using non-standard lighting, is there a way to make the light be always on?

Hey Steve, bringing up this old topic once more..

The lightshield has done a good job since you helped me out on this, however with the FSLabs A320X I ran into the problem that it uses non-standard lighting. Defining the shield as a navlight doesn't work here, as all lights are activated internally outside the usual FSX-logic.

Is there a way to make the fx-file being active all the time?

You could try adding it to fsx.cfg as another type of effect like the engine?

Hmm, I don't know if I really understand how to apply an effect in front of the windshield of a specific aircraft using the FSX.cfg..?

Sorry I meant the aircraft.cfg...

 

There is a lights section and an effects section.