P3Dv4.2 loss of dynamic lights and ACFT flood lights

[GEK_the_Reaper]

Hello all,

this is my first topic and also my first post in this forum (so be gentle ;) ).

I "suffer" from the following issue: I loose the mentioned lights under certain camera view angles (HDG and Tilt).

I can 100% reproduce the issue on e.g. default EGKK (Gatwick) ARP!

The loss of lights happens only if the camera (or ACFT itself) faces an angle between 270 and 360 degrees and I can reproduce it as follows:
1. On the ground
On default EGKK scenery place the ACFT on STAND 130 (the plane faces S). Go in an external view to see the pilots meaning that the camera is pointed somewhere towards the N. In this view I have no ground illumination (reflection) of any ACFT lights e.g. no red/green nav lights on the ground, no taxi lights, and so on.
Tilting the view up and down (with the HAT switch for example), the reflection on the ground goes on and off. The same thing can be observed if the cockpit if you have turned on any flood lights -> no reflection on the ground, no flood lights in the cockpit.
Looking from another angle e.g. from the tail, everything shows correct.

2. In flight
I takeoff and fly a circle above that region at e.g. 6000ft. My flood lights will always turn off if my plane faces between a HDG of 270 and 360deg (so to say...on a quarter of the circle, I have no cockpit flood lights).

I don't have this issue on all the ARP e.g EDJA, EDNY, LRTR,.... does not show this annomaly.

Can somebody test this?

Just for mentioning: with v4.2 release I did a clean install of my OS and P3D. I already uninstalled things like ENVTEX/ENVSHADE and cleanend my shaders, deleted and rebuilded my .cfg, and so on.

Best regards,
Gerald

[GEK_the_Reaper]

Hello guys,

this topic seems to not get any love at all.
I have opened the same topic on avsim and some users have the same issue. Here the link:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5318 ... od-lights/

Hoping for a reply from LM or the community.

Best regards,
Gerald

[pracines]

There is no doubt that there are night lighting issues - I cant prove one way or another what the problem is ( P3D or an add-on) , but I know there is a problem.

Flying at night with these issues is not a show stopper but lights cutting in and out is irritating. Just a couple hours ago 12:30 AM local at KSFO (Flightbeam) in the NGX at gate E68 external view looking down from about a 45 degree angle down and from right rear quarter the DL was in sight; if I keyed CTRL-SPACE for a 0 degree pitch at the rear the DL disappears. Looking down at the FMS with a bit of the external view in sight, I can see the DL, but reset view to forward (CTRL-SPACE) and DL is gone. Its like the horizon plays a part in whether I can see DL at KSFO, but then there are certain other angles in pitch where the horizon is not in the view and DL is cut off.

This issue kind of reminds me of the taxi tutorial #4 in FSX (no add-ons at all) and how in the external view, the A/C shadows would be clipped out sporadically as if the terrain got priority in certain spots, however if one uses the hat switch and looks around, the shadows can reappear at certain angles. This never got fixed and is still present in FSX-SE today; the DL issues in P3D 4.2 remind me of this same kind of thing.

I don't use add-on shader enhancements and my shaders folder gets deleted and rebuilt often enough. Display driver is the most recent.

I trust that somebody will figure this out so it can be fixed.

[Martyson]

EGKK DL test looks good:
I use Orbx Global but not updated for P3dv4.2 yet.

Short video:

https://youtu.be/69FvP-JDznY

[GEK_the_Reaper]

EGKK DL test looks good:
I use Orbx Global but not updated for P3dv4.2 yet.

Short video:

https://youtu.be/69FvP-JDznY

Hello @martyson,
thank you for your video. You said you still have v4.1 would be nice if you (or someone else) could test v4.2.

Nevertheless here is what I see (sorry for the quality):
https://youtu.be/-6Nxwv5wFto
https://youtu.be/KSuadPGJfHM

[Martyson]

" You said you still have v4.1 would be nice if you (or someone else) could test v4.2."

I tested with P3Dv4.2

The Orbx global has not been upgraded for P3Dv4.2 yet.

Do you use Orbx Global?

However, I have never seen the problem you are reporting on any of my flights yet.

[GEK_the_Reaper]

Sorry I missread your answer.

No, I don't use ORBX global only the AddOn's from my signature (which, as I said have uninstalled, cleared shaders, new cfg... etc).
You must try to also tilt your camera up/down...

EDIT: I have not tried it without ChasePlane though......will try to disable it.

[Martyson]

"You must try to also tilt your camera up/down..."

I did in my video.

But, at any rate, I am always tilting my camera all over the place especially during product testing.

On a normal flight I very seldom leave the cockpit.

You may want to give the debugging steps a try:
http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=123246

[GEK_the_Reaper]

It is not ChasePlane. Here another video:
https://youtu.be/aG9AAKezXSs

Had to zoom out more in OUTSIDE SPOT view!

Some of the DEVs have seen this issue:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5323 ... nt-3817817

I can name another 2 "big guys" (as in known developers) who could experience the same.

Still hoping for an official statement from LM...(please LM I am spending a lot of time in trying out things and this issue drives me mad).

Thank you.

[Martyson]

You mentioned:
"Just for mentioning: with v4.2 release I did a clean install of my OS and P3D. I already uninstalled things like ENVTEX/ENVSHADE and cleanend my shaders, deleted and rebuilded my .cfg, and so on."

Well, you have tried a many things to solve your problem.

It may be good to get back to a default P3D setup and test it.

Either by the Debug steps:
http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=123246


Or a full P3D uninstall / reinstall and test before any add-on get installed.

[GEK_the_Reaper]

I have started the Witch-Hunt: I uninstalled all my Add-On's in reverse order then finaly dropped P3D (afterwards deleting all remains from my system).

I'm currently adding them 1 by 1 with a short test in between.

Up till now I have a working vanilla P3D (no issues) and already installed FSGU NG mesh whith no issues at all.

Will keep you posted....give me time...

[Martyson]

"I have a working vanilla P3D (no issues)"

Glad to hear all is ok with the default P3D install.

[GEK_the_Reaper]

I installed every single addon one by one and checked my sim. No issues!

Now the best part: the last thing I installed was UTLive and BOOM! With UTLive my lights go out, disabling UTLive all is perfect! WHAT THE HECK?????????????

Can anybody reproduce this?

[Martyson]

I installed every single addon one by one and checked my sim. No issues!

Now the best part: the last thing I installed was UTLive and BOOM! With UTLive my lights go out, disabling UTLive all is perfect! WHAT THE HECK?????????????

Can anybody reproduce this?

I returned UTLive. It did not work properly on my setup. Maybe I will be able to use it in a future version.

Glad to hear you found the problem.

[natbrain]

Hello all,

this is my first topic and also my first post in this forum (so be gentle ;) ).

I "suffer" from the following issue: I loose the mentioned lights under certain camera view angles (HDG and Tilt).

I can 100% reproduce the issue on e.g. default EGKK (Gatwick) ARP!

The loss of lights happens only if the camera (or ACFT itself) faces an angle between 270 and 360 degrees and I can reproduce it as follows:
1. On the ground
On default EGKK scenery place the ACFT on STAND 130 (the plane faces S). Go in an external view to see the pilots meaning that the camera is pointed somewhere towards the N. In this view I have no ground illumination (reflection) of any ACFT lights e.g. no red/green nav lights on the ground, no taxi lights, and so on.
Tilting the view up and down (with the HAT switch for example), the reflection on the ground goes on and off. The same thing can be observed if the cockpit if you have turned on any flood lights -> no reflection on the ground, no flood lights in the cockpit.
Looking from another angle e.g. from the tail, everything shows correct.

2. In flight
I takeoff and fly a circle above that region at e.g. 6000ft. My flood lights will always turn off if my plane faces between a HDG of 270 and 360deg (so to say...on a quarter of the circle, I have no cockpit flood lights).

I don't have this issue on all the ARP e.g EDJA, EDNY, LRTR,.... does not show this annomaly.

Can somebody test this?

Just for mentioning: with v4.2 release I did a clean install of my OS and P3D. I already uninstalled things like ENVTEX/ENVSHADE and cleanend my shaders, deleted and rebuilded my .cfg, and so on.

Best regards,
Gerald

Hi, I'm going to revive this by saying I too have experienced the same problem. I saw this thread on avsim too. My lights were also disappearing in certain angles until I reduced my AI traffic to 50% or under. At one airport, I even had to reduce it to like 15%. I normally have the traffic at 60-70%. I read that the disappearing dynamic lights is due to the fact that p3d is trying to limit how many dynamic lights it has to render, in order to optimize performance. I also read that someone was dealing with a disappearing spotlight and was able to fix it by editing the spotlight parameter in the p3d.cfg file.

SO, that gave me an idea to try that out myself. If you go to %APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\Prepar3D.cfg, and open the p3d.cfg, you'll see two parameters under the [GRAPHICS] heading: MAX_POINT_LIGHTS, and MAX_SPOT_LIGHTS. I'm not sure what the difference is between a point light and a spot light is, but, by default, in my v4.1, those are set to 250. So, I jacked them up to 800 and 700, respectively. All of a sudden, my lights were no longer disappearing, and I was able to return my AI traffic to my normal 60-70%, and even at the airport where I had to reduce the % to 15% was working at 60-70%. So clearly, the disappearing lights problem is due to a setting that limits the maximum number of lights that program can display at any given picture, and for good reason, because dynamic lights are often heavy on performance. Obviously, you don't have to set these numbers to 800 or 700, but you get the idea - try increasing these numbers and toying around with these until you find an acceptable balance between performance and traffic %. I have a GTX 1080 TI so the increase in dynamic lighting didn't really hurt me, but it might for you if your hardware isn't as strong.