I'd like to address the issue I have with P3D V5.4  with regards to the lack of illumination or reflection from aircraft landing lights on the runway.

I heard that perhaps this is a bug that LM did not fix in V5.4 - I think that this was not an issue with V5.3 and earlier.

Does anyone know of a fix for this for V5.4? If you use P3DV5.3 do you also have this issue? Thanks

This is with P3DV5.4

This is same aircraft in P3D V4.5

 

As you can see in image from P3DV4.5 the landing light casts a visible beam on the runway and the image from P3DV5.4 does not.

In fact, all my P3D V5.4 aircraft does not cast a visible landing light beam on the runway.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by B38058

If you're using a Nvidia 50XX series card there is a bug with the effects for P3DV5 and P3DV6.  Not sure if the landing lights are part of the problem. I do know most of the landing lights for my 100 plus planes worked find with my 2070 card and most stopped working with my 5070 card.  Also, a lot of interior lights have issues.  This 50XX bug also includes the effects like the Las Vegas fireworks, smoke from stacks, red tower lights, etc.  LM and NVidia are aware of the issue. Here is a link to the issue on the P3D forums regarding this issue. It was just updated on October 10.

RTX5090 GPU - Prepar3D Forums

John C.

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by johncott

31 minutes ago, johncott said:

If you're using a Nvidia 50XX series card there is a bug with the effects for P3DV5 and P3DV6. 

RTX5090 GPU - Prepar3D Forums

John C.

I'm using Nivdia GeForce 3060 card.

Edited October 13, 2025Oct 13 by B38058

2 hours ago, B38058 said:

I'm using Nivdia GeForce 3060 card.

I might have another solution for your problem. Which plane is this? I can look into it tomorrow. Unfortunately I’m using 5.4 as well and have a lot of issues with aircraft landing lights and interior lights I think some are cause by the 50xx card and some are issues with 5.4. I have modified some fx files to fix the problems I was having. I was hoping the 50xx problem would be solved by now, but looks like they’re playing the blame game now.

John C.

11 hours ago, johncott said:

I might have another solution for your problem. Which plane is this? I can look into it tomorrow. Unfortunately I’m using 5.4 as well and have a lot of issues with aircraft landing lights and interior lights I think some are cause by the 50xx card and some are issues with 5.4. I have modified some fx files to fix the problems I was having. I was hoping the 50xx problem would be solved by now, but looks like they’re playing the blame game now.

John C.

I got this from SOH  the RYAN Navion B

If you are a registered member

here

I have the RYAN Navion B and it works ok without any mods, one of the few planes that the lights work ok for me without some tinkering. This may be a setting. In options, under lighting, turn on Dynamic lighting if it's not on and see if that fixes the issue. Also check out the links below for more info on this issue.

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=142654

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=144113

John C.

Here's another easy fix I posted on my website: https://sites.google.com/view/thep3dfiles/p3d-aircraft/landing-taxi-light-fix

Dave

 

30 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Here's another easy fix I posted on my website: https://sites.google.com/view/thep3dfiles/p3d-aircraft/landing-taxi-light-fix

Dave

 

That didn't fix my issue. Still no landing light runway splash. I also have P3D V4.5 and I don't have this issue. Light in V4.5 work just fine.

I can see the bulbs lit in V5.4 but not the illumination of the runway.

1 hour ago, B38058 said:

That didn't fix my issue. Still no landing light runway splash. I also have P3D V4.5 and I don't have this issue. Light in V4.5 work just fine.

I can see the bulbs lit in V5.4 but not the illumination of the runway.

Did you check the to see if the Dynamic lighting option is enabled as I mentioned in my previous post. Under lighting, turn on Dynamic lighting if it's not on and see if that fixes the issue.  For the Ryan B Navion by turning the Dynamic lighting option on and off, I could toggle the landing light splash showing up on the runway.

John C.

9 minutes ago, johncott said:

Did you check the to see if the Dynamic lighting option is enabled as I mentioned in my previous post. Under lighting, turn on Dynamic lighting if it's not on and see if that fixes the issue.  For the Ryan B Navion by turning the Dynamic lighting option on and off, I could toggle the landing light splash showing up on the runway.

John C.

Yes DL is enabled - Trouble is that none of the stock or 3 party addon aircraft illuminate the runway. I lamps are visible

but not lighting the runway.

Edited October 14, 2025Oct 14 by B38058

This looks like an effects folder issue. I wonder if its corrupted or got moved or renamed by mistake. For the Ryan B Navion the light bulbs are part of the model but the effects and how they show up on the runway are effects that are stored in the effects folder.  You can check in your main P3D folder if there is an effects folder and that the files are there.

40 minutes ago, johncott said:

This looks like an effects folder issue. I wonder if its corrupted or got moved or renamed by mistake. For the Ryan B Navion the light bulbs are part of the model but the effects and how they show up on the runway are effects that are stored in the effects folder.  You can check in your main P3D folder if there is an effects folder and that the files are there.

I don't want to toss the baby out with the bathwater, so is there a conservative option to rebuild the effect folder other then starting over from

scratch and reinstall the whole shebang of P3D V5.4?

 

Edited October 14, 2025Oct 14 by B38058

1 minute ago, B38058 said:

I don't want to toss the baby out with the bathwater, so is there a conservative option to rebuild the effect folder other then starting over from

Your plane may have custom effects files and not use the stock fx_landing.fx file for the landing lights, so my fix wouldn't work.

The aircraft effects, which work in v4.5, may be obsolete, as P3D changed things in later versions.

If you can locate the specific effects file the plane uses for the landing lights, then you could still try adding or changing the falloff exponent value.

Dave

24 minutes ago, B38058 said:

I don't want to toss the baby out with the bathwater, so is there a conservative option to rebuild the effect folder other then starting over from

scratch and reinstall the whole shebang of P3D V5.4?

 

Did you check to see if your effects folder is in the main P3DV5 folder? If it's missing, maybe it got accidently move by an unintentional drag and drop.  If it's missing, you can do a search for it and put it back in the proper location or you can do a search for some of the lighting effects files for the Ryan B Navion to see if you have them and where they are located. Here is a list of the lighting effects files to look for:

fx_LDRNavion_landing_lg.fx

fx_LDRvclight.fx

fx_LDRnavred.fx

fx_LDRnavgre.fx

fx_LDRstrobeL.fx

fx_LDRstrobeR.fx

fx_LDRbeacon.fx

fx_LDRNavionTaxiLight.fx

If the effects folder is where it's supposed to be and the files are in that folder, I'm not sure where to go from here without a full install. Since every plane and add-on could install effects to the effect folder you many have to install everything.

Please note that there are issues with the aircraft lighting in P3DV5.3 and 5.4 and what works for one aircraft will not work for the next one as dave2013 mentioned.

John C.

 

29 minutes ago, johncott said:

Did you check to see if your effects folder is in the main P3DV5 folder? If it's missing, maybe it got accidently move by an unintentional drag and drop.  If it's missing, you can do a search for it and put it back in the proper location or you can do a search for some of the lighting effects files for the Ryan B Navion to see if you have them and where they are located. Here is a list of the lighting effects files to look for:

fx_LDRNavion_landing_lg.fx

fx_LDRvclight.fx

fx_LDRnavred.fx

fx_LDRnavgre.fx

fx_LDRstrobeL.fx

fx_LDRstrobeR.fx

fx_LDRbeacon.fx

fx_LDRNavionTaxiLight.fx

If the effects folder is where it's supposed to be and the files are in that folder, I'm not sure where to go from here without a full install. Since every plane and add-on could install effects to the effect folder you many have to install everything.

Please note that there are issues with the aircraft lighting in P3DV5.3 and 5.4 and what works for one aircraft will not work for the next one as dave2013 mentioned.

John C.

 

I did an uninstall client (P3DV5.4) kept the activation and just reinstalled it back. No change on light issue. I was hoping it would of.

Edited October 14, 2025Oct 14 by B38058