Whatever the cause, it happened all at once. I surmise it has something to do with an addon but I have not been successful at pinning it down. The effects folder appears intact, the relevant files are all there. Help would be most appreciated. I'm running Acceleration with Win XP.Chuck

Chuck,Smoke, at least, is not lost when turning special effects sliders to minimum - I just checked that. If it were me, I'd save a copy of FSX.cfg off to the side and let FSX build a new one. If that fixes it, go on with life...If it doesn't then I would be considering a repair or re-installation of whatever upgrade you did last; perhaps a dll responsible for those effects is damaged or altered in some way...Loyd

Thanks, Loyd. A new fsx.cfg produced nothing positive. I'd like to think there's a solution short of re-installing a multitude of upgrades but maybe I'll have to bite the bullet...or do without the eye candy! Chuck

"The effects folder appears intact, the relevant files are all there."Chuck is the "texture" folder still in the effects folder, with the matching texture file? Maybe your addon overwrote the bmp's (happened to me on a few). Here's the matching bmp's and datestamp's on my setup.fx_smoke.fx=fx_smoke.bmp (7/26/06)fx_contrail_s.fx=fx_smoke.bmp (7/26/06)fx_wingtipvortice_r.fx & fx_Vortices.fx=fx_smoke.bmp (7/26/06)Most of the sprays are all fx_1.bmp (7/26/06)and wakes are fx_wake_1/2/3.bmp (7/26/06)Garett

I think you've nailed it, Garett. Most of the texture files you reference are nowhere to be found. I'll get into the FSX disk and see what I can recover. Many thanks!Chuck