Hi all,

I am impressed there is still not a dedicated topic on this. Am I the only one to experience ?

To me the virtual cockpits are incredibly dark. I can barely see any textures. The same for the aircraft exterior. It get too dark depending on angles.

Here is a shot with the NGXu in broad daylight:

Do you see the same?

 

 

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by ComSimPilot

Actually there are already topics about this and no, you are not the only one ;-). Here on AVSIM

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/588292-ea-51-plane-textures-turn-too-dark-over-time/

and here in LM Support Forum

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=140104

Not only cockpit textures are affected, also outside plane textures at the "shadow sided" side of the planes.

LM is aware of this also. Some devs did noticed it already and pointed LM in the right direction (Kaiii3)

Marcus

Edited November 1, 20205 yr by mpo910

I had to start using fs spotlights for some ac. Others you have to turn on vc nightlighting.

Unfortunately, I have had far worse issues with this.  The VC textures faded to the point that the switches and panels were amorphous black and could not be found.  This occurred for FSL, PMDG and Aerosoft CRJ.  I tried all options of EA on/off, HDR on/off, and Auto Exposure on/off.  Completely unusable.  Even the F35 showed problems.  Even dome and  flashlight (\) did not work.

I completely reinstalled 5.1 (I initially only installed client and scenery).  This did not help.  I removed all FSL, PMDG and CRJ aircraft and reinstalled.

At this point the CRJ and NGXu are working with AE off, although they are still dark.  FSL is too dark to use even on a clear day.

What am I missing?  

WIn10 Pro 2004.  Next to latest nvidia drivers.  

Maximus XII Hero, i9-10900K, 32G ram, 2080ti.  GSX, FSUIPC, number of sceneries.

Worked very well with 5HF2 with high settings @ 30Hz.

 

Probably heading back to 5HF2 if there is no fix soon.

 

I‘m using the Flight1 Mustang for serious flight training, since I fly a C510 single pilot RW.
The G1000 gets unreadable at altitude with EA on.

I adjusted the B,D,E values in C:\Prepar3D v5\ShadersHLSL\PostProcess\HDR.hlsl and recompiled the shaders.

//ACES based ToneMapping curve, takes and outputs linear values.
float3 ToneMap(float3 color)
{  
    const float A = 2.51;
    const float B = 0.03;
    const float C = 2.43;
    const float D = 0.59;
    const float E = 0.14;
    return saturate((color * (A * color + B)) / (color * (C * color + D) + E));

It fixed it for me but I can't tell you why.

 

If you don't use EA, you don't have the problem.  I'm finding the clouds better with EA off and using Active Sky or FS Global Real Weather.  EA is not ready for "prime time"!

Stan

10 hours ago, glider1 said:

I adjusted the B,D,E values in C:\Prepar3D v5\ShadersHLSL\PostProcess\HDR.hlsl and recompiled the shaders.

//ACES based ToneMapping curve, takes and outputs linear values.
float3 ToneMap(float3 color)
{  
    const float A = 2.51;
    const float B = 0.03;
    const float C = 2.43;
    const float D = 0.59;
    const float E = 0.14;
    return saturate((color * (A * color + B)) / (color * (C * color + D) + E));

It fixed it for me but I can't tell you why.

 

These seem to be the default values. What did you change them to please?

9 hours ago, spilok said:

If you don't use EA, you don't have the problem.  I'm finding the clouds better with EA off and using Active Sky or FS Global Real Weather.  EA is not ready for "prime time"!

Stan

i agree.  EA has to be off and HDR for me or I get this issue too

7 hours ago, Reader said:

These seem to be the default values. What did you change them to please?

Experiment since each setup is different and you can't do any damage and I'm using it for VR which is very different to flatscreen. In very rough description "A" raises tone curve, "B" sharpens curve, "C" lowers tone curve, "D" flattens the tone curve, "E" shapes the tone curve. Not an expert but it is straight photographic theory https://64.github.io/tonemapping/. Try increasing B,D,E by 20% see how you go. EDIT: (It is time consuming that is why we rely on shader mods to do the work for us)

Edited November 9, 20205 yr by glider1

PMDG-737-600NGXu.
I was actually looking at clouds so took screenshot of the VC for the forum post.