Is it just me, or is the intensity of dynamic lighting way over done at some addon airports? I do not want to sound like I am providing a free advertisement for UK2000 airports, but I find the dynamic lighting at UK2000 airports to be much more "comfortable" to the eye when compared to some other airports that I have installed. In complete contrast, the dynamic lighting at (for example) ORBx EGPN Dundee seems to be rather harsh, and I also noticed the same at one or two of the freeware Scotflight airports (EGPL Benbecula springs to mind).

Maybe the "harsh" ones are more accurate? All I know is that the more subtle dynamic lighting at some airports feels better when I am sitting under the lights!

It is also worth noting that I am not able to use dynamic lighting at a handful of large (non UK2000) airports because of the performance hit, but that is not a problem with the UK2000 Xtreme airports.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by Christopher Low

The test of a good developer is how their dynamic lighting is. 

Ranging from terrible from Gayasim,to fantastic from inibuilds.

you can all the 3090tis you want buyt youll still get a stuttering pile of rubbish from gayasim at night. for example.

but as customers we will buy CRJS that fly in circles, 777s that pitch all over the place, weather apps that overload simconnect and crash the sim, so the jokes on us to be honest 

 

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by fluffyflops

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

Is it just me, or is the intensity of dynamic lighting way over done at some addon airports?

Yes, it is.

Like Pete pointed out, iniBuilds do great dynamic lighting for some airports.
It's quite easy to replace the original lighting of airports in their list and get better-looking and better-performing lights in your sim. Give them a go.

the other thing that surprised me at times is the number of devs who would release V5 sceneries but with dynamic lighting FX that are not in accordance with the SDK and changes from the way DL worked in V4.  An example is many out of the box payware sceneries required a patch or even 3rd party replacement of DL just to have pbr aircraft parked at the gate not be completely black.  

I do have some of the iniBuilds dynamic lighting updates, but the performance hit at some airports (Aerosoft London Heathrow Professional and MK Studios Dublin are two examples) is a bit too much for my PC. I suspect that using 4xSSAA does not help matters here, but then the UK2000 airports are not a problem (and that includes large airports like Gatwick).

I may test these again to be certain.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by Christopher Low

29 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I suspect that using 4xSSAA does not help matters here

Using SSAA and dynamic lighting is guaranteed to cause a big performance hit. Using external shadows with DL turned on is another eater of FPS.
8x MSAA is plenty and works well at night, IMO.

It's been a while since I've flown at night into a UK2000 scenery. I've forgotten how I feel about Gary's night lighting, I do know that iniBuilds' stuff feels right for the most part.

Anything less than 4xSSAA is not good enough @ 1920x1080 resolution on my monitor.

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by Christopher Low

3 hours ago, F737NG said:

Yes, it is.

Like Pete pointed out, iniBuilds do great dynamic lighting for some airports.
It's quite easy to replace the original lighting of airports in their list and get better-looking and better-performing lights in your sim. Give them a go.

I must be living under a rock. First I’ve heard of this. Does it not impact on copyright?

Orbx LEBB and JustSim Rhodes are two examples where turning onto the runway with taxi & landing lights on with certain aircraft and in 4K eats VRAM usage and the stutters start. If that can be improved I’m in, thanks. 👍

47 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I must be living under a rock. First I’ve heard of this. Does it not impact on copyright?

No, I don't believe it does since it's similar to GSX Level 2 jetways replacing the original developer's jetways or someone creating an alternative ADE file to replace the the original developer's one.

iniBuilds use their own custom-built replacement DL bgls and effects library to display (IMO) better quality and more performance-friendly lighting.
You turn off/rename to .off the original scenery's DL (where this exists) and place the iniBuilds files as instructed.

They are primarily for older scenery where DL was not already present, but some people have requested more recent and better quality payware airports such as YSSY, EDDF, EGNT and KATL to have their DL redone.
 

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by F737NG

Even some of the iniBuilds dynamic lights are over-done, sharp lighting edges, etc.  Orbx's PSP is one example.

P3D has the worst, most inefficiently rendered lighting of any sim which is why you get devs doing wildly different things to get it to work for their particular scenery. 

I may get shot down here, but I have consciously turned the DL feature off.

Low performance was not the only reason, to be honest. While I theoretically like the idea behind DL, the way it actually is implemented in P3D is far from my liking.
The lights are usually terribly bright, and after sunset my VC, where I spend 99% of my sim time, looks just ugly, both with HDR on and off.
I may be losing some nice effects, but at least performance is so much better and the cockpit lighting seems natural and good-looking to me.

Luckily for me, I mostly do daylight flights anyway.

13 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

P3D has the worst, most inefficiently rendered lighting of any sim which is why you get devs doing wildly different things to get it to work for their particular scenery. 

The engine is 20 years old that's why. 

6 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

 

Ranging from terrible from Gayasim,to fantastic from inibuilds.

 

On the topic of Gayasim, we know LGKO at night is terrible fps when facing the terminal (for me 2-9fps on a GTX 1080) compared to 25-30 looking elsewhere. Seeing this discussion my curiosity was piqued and I found the LGKO_Dyn_Buildings.bgl file in the scenery folder and imported it into model converter x. I exported it in the Prepar3d 4.4 plus format, dropped it in the scenery folder, renamed the origional to .off and loaded up the sim. Testing the airport at night and facing the terminal the fps is between 15-22, still not great bus a vast improvement from 2-9. Even if they are busy with other projects,  they could have taken the  less than 60 seconds I did to lessen an issue so customers can enjoy it. Oh well. 

14 minutes ago, FrankSalo said:

On the topic of Gayasim, we know LGKO at night is terrible fps when facing the terminal (for me 2-9fps on a GTX 1080) compared to 25-30 looking elsewhere. Seeing this discussion my curiosity was piqued and I found the LGKO_Dyn_Buildings.bgl file in the scenery folder and imported it into model converter x. I exported it in the Prepar3d 4.4 plus format, dropped it in the scenery folder, renamed the origional to .off and loaded up the sim. Testing the airport at night and facing the terminal the fps is between 15-22, still not great bus a vast improvement from 2-9. Even if they are busy with other projects,  they could have taken the  less than 60 seconds I did to lessen an issue so customers can enjoy it. Oh well. 

They don't test.  Why would they  bother. Orbx will put a fancy sticker and advertising campaign. And delete your messages when you complain. Same as aerosoft and pmdg.  

Edited April 3, 20215 yr by fluffyflops