Yes, and my particle effects are fine with and without the fixer, i am waiting for the OP to confirm that an aircraft with missing spray is using the original MS fx_spray.fx and show me the particle definition so I can see if it has been altered.

Thanks for looking into this Steve - even though as we suspect - it's not a Fixer issue.

 

So, yep, water=fx_spray in the aircraft.cfg

 

and in the fx_spray file the attributes are:

 

 

 

As far as I can see, that is identical to what I have - i.e exactly as in the original install, so the fixer (correctly) hasn't edited it. 

Its worth checking that the textures exist  fx_1.bmp  and fx_5.bmp  but I don't see how they could cause what you describe.

You are certain that in DX9 you can only see dust from some angles? 

Are you using a camera addon at all?  

The way that fsx draws effects is a technique called billboarding.   For each particle it  creates a square, then rotates it to face the viewpoint and then samples the texture (which will have transparency - so you don't see the squares (unless in dx10 a texture is missing).   Now that rotation  happens in the fsx core code not in the shaders.

Here is some spray without textures so you can see the squares, note that they all face the camera.  Those in the foreground  are cutoff by the ground.

 

 

Bit of a breakthrough I think Steve,

 

I went back to DX9 (god, does it look awful after DX10) and disabled Orbx Region England and voila! dust kicking up, smoke, etc from all angles. I wonder if this is a graphics card issue - GTX780 - with the buffer filling up and going wonky. I also looked at a few Youtubes of this particular aircraft - Razbam Harrier GR7/ GR9 - and by the looks of things the smoke only appears at the same angles for everyone. So I'm happy to leave things alone but many thanks for your help.

 

Changing the subject completely, if I may; I use the above aircraft a lot and I would love to be able to use Crazieman's ENB Russian Bloom Night Vision Mod (info here:  http://www.hovercontrol.com/cgi-bin/ifolio/imageFolio.cgi?img=0&search=nvg&bool=phrase Is there any way I can do so - or any way of simulating Night Vision in DX10 as Night Ops await?

 

GPUS aren't that clever, they just see millions of triangles, they cannot choose to drop spray and keep the aircraft as they wouldn't know which triangle was which!

I think that there is some throttling of effects inside fsx  so that might be occurring, but why orbx would be drawing lots of effects I don't know. Have you updated their libs recently?

Ahhh, this is doing my head in - they've gone again!!!

I loaded back in to DX10 via the Fixer and started up with no Orbx scenery at all. Not a puff of smoke even on engine start. Usually the Harrier will kick up dust - same as Helos - on lift off and land - nothing. Is it time to repair FSX from the disks - what will be the connotations for the Fixer if I do.

 

Desperate to get the old Harrier belching smoke from those vector nozzles!

 

Try an airport in Mongolia to rule out any scenery ( I assume you are unlikely to have any Mongolian addon!)

Ok, just returned from Mongolia! Sorry I didn't bring you any Yak products. No smoke, no dust no nothing.

 

So that's scenery out then.

 

 

Ok so what now happens in dx9?

We have big smoke in DX9! From all angles and all cameras. Luverly!

It's such a disgusting polluting aeroplane - I love it.

So in summary I suppose; full smoke (all cameras/ all angles) in DX9 and only reduced smoke (not as full on/ fainter) from certain angles and cameras in DX10.

Smoke also is directed correctly according to Nozzle angle

Uninstalled Fixer, rebooted PC, reinstalled Fixer, rebooted PC.  All is ok now.  Who knows what happened.