Taxiway lines drawn by the AFCAD program

[hjwalter]

Hi All,

 

I've recently and very unexpectedly run up against a new FS9 problem in that solid center and edge taxiway lines, which are all drawn by my trusty old AFCAD program, have suddenly become dashed when viewed from around 100 meters/yards and further. At closer ranges the lines are all rendered correctly but the problem moves along in front of me as I taxi in any aircraft and at any airport. In fact, a really terrible sight, also when approaching.

 

I've tried editing all display options from within my FS9 and also those of the graphics card itself but nothing seems to help.

 

This all now causes me to suspect the AFCAD textures themselves, e.g. no mipmaps and/or incorrect DXT compression but wherever I search, I just cannot find where these very specific AFCAD textures are stored nor can I find their names from within the AFCAD program itself.

 

Can any of you experts point my nose into the correct direction .... Please !!

 

Any reactions/help will be strongly apreciated.

 

Regards and thanks in advance.

 

Hans

[chris_eve]

The textures "used" by AFCAD are just the default textures supplied with FS9.

All AFCAD does is generate a bgl file which complies with the FS9 "standards" for airport layout, then the simulator itself applies the appropriate textures as required.

Is it possible you've applied some kind of "enhancement" which purports to improve performance by replacing original textures with smaller files, or even a scenery download which has replaced the default files without asking permission?

I remember it being fashionable to resize textures for trees and such, where the originals were possibly of unnecessarily high resolution for a feature which was only ever likely to be seen in passing.

One would ideally need to compare the contents of your FS9\Texture folder with the default textures from an unmodified installation to be able to recognise if there are any noticeable differences. or even just copy all the textures from a fresh install to your FS9\Texture folder and hope to over-write the culprit(s).

Good luck.

[defaid]

Hi Hans.

 

The file in question is taxiway_marks.bmp in the folder ../fs2004/Texture/

 

If there is a fault with the file then it's probably in the alpha channel. Attached a zip with the original for you to compare.

 

D

 

Here's the zip:

taxiway_marks.zip

 

Here's the normal file:

 

 

Here's a modified file with black transparency bottom left:

 

 

[defaid]

Who needs realism?

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

3 hours ago, defaid said:

Crank up Hendrix Purple Haze in your headset, Excuse me while I kiss the sky!

[hjwalter]

Thanks a million chris-eve and defaid for your help.

 

I copied/pasted all default and other FS9 texture names beginning with "taxi ......", from my oldest backup (2016) into my main texture folder, overwrote anything found there and that immediately solved my problem.

 

And yes, my problem seems to have been caused by a recent automatic scenery installer, even although I always install those into a special safety folder nowhere near any of my active FS9 folders. In any case never directly into my FS9.

 

Thanks again Guys.

 

Hans

[hjwalter]

In the meantime I've compared my active main texture folder contents with backup versions and found that there were certainly more unexpected and/or strange texture compression differences. I also found some textures which were missing their previously existing alpha channels.

I now no longer trust this folder and will proceed to overwrite it's textures by all those from an older backup, while for safety reasons, leaving any newer ones, which were not (yet) backed-up.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what had caused this absolutely huge folder to have become edited in such a structural way and without me ever noticing it.

 

Long live FS2004 !!

 

Hans