Issue with red overhead light

[Jarek]

Having some issues with this one in the night. After some time (like 30 minutes) they tend to switch off, but if I change my view - say by 30 degrees left or right, illumination comes back. Then after some time they switch on and everything is normal till the next period when it reoccurs.

[avduarri]

Similar happened to me with the FSLabs A320. The cause was a limitation in P3Dv4 on how many dynamic lights can be loaded.
In the config file of P3d there's a line where you can overwrite this limitation and put a higher number of dynamics lights to be drawn, but I can't remember the exact line. I'll check and let you know what line is it.

[Jarek]

Thank you for pointing in the right direction.

I found this thread in which symptoms looks similar: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=128836.
Indeed, this happened to me nearby SFO when traffic is high and there are many lights on the airport.

So probably this is it:
[GRAPHICS]
MAX_POINT_LIGHTS
MAX_SPOT_LIGHTS

[avduarri]

Yes, this is the lines to change. I changed the default values from 250 to 400 and the problems with dynamic lightning in the cockpit disapeared.

[Blitzer]

Hmmm, this sounds like an issue I experienced last night where various internal lights would go out as if switched off. What I note was that it rather weirdly depended on which direction the Bonanza was facing and/or the position of my head to the cockpit (I use TrackIR).

I was suspecting it may have had something to do with P3D, Chaseplane, TrackIR, the level of zoom I was using, or a combination of these. I will have to look into this thanks for posting.

[Nick - A2A]

Thank you for posting this Prepar3D.cfg tweak guys. It's one I wasn't aware of and we'll probably add it to the FAQ thread.

Cheers,
Nick

[Raller]

+1
If that works I am very happy

I have this issue in several Airplanes (inside the Cockpit and also the Taxi- and Landing-Lights) and had already resigned me to it...

PS: Thank you so much guys. I put both values to 400 and the light fails are gone

[Blitzer]

Have just tried this fix myself, but unfortunately it does not appear to have fixed the issue for me. What I am seeing and is repeatable with the Bonanza or Cherokee is that if the plane is facing between approx. 105 to 155 degrees in direction then the landing/taxi lights do no illuminate the scenery... unless I turn my head, I guess until my view point exceeds the 105 to 155 angular relationship. I can also replicate this using an external spot view, again the equivalent viewing angle will result in the lights appearing to switch off. Turning off dynamic lighting fixes the issue, but the old lighting system looks horrible in comparison.

[Raller]

BTW i use ChasePlane and thought that this was a ChasePlane-Bug. I had almost the same symptoms as you. At certain angles (external or internal) the lights went off. This behavior is gone after the fix!

[Blitzer]

BTW i use ChasePlane and thought that this was a ChasePlane-Bug. I had almost the same symptoms as you. At certain angles (external or internal) the lights went off. This behavior is gone after the fix!

Happy to report that I tried again this evening having increased these settings from 400 to 800 and this has cured the problem... I will try reducing these a little as I am guessing there may be some level of negative impact.

For reference I also use ChasePlane plus TrackIR. Doing an online search there seemed to be some connection with Ultimate Traffic Live as well which I also use, I did not get as far as disabling that to see if that fixed the problem. All a bit odd, but hey if the problem can be overcome with these settings I will be happy.

It has to be said that disabling Dynamic lighting and returning to the FSX equivalent was not particularly pleasant - I had not realised how much nicer the dynamic lighting was!

[szln6z]

Yup, fixed my issue too. Went with 600.
James