Lighting effects missing on some outputs of the same card

[MistyBlue]

I had asked this on the ProPlus forum but haven't gotten an answer. Hope someone has some insight. This is a weird one I can't figure out.

Summary: Dynamic lighting effects seem to not work across all outputs of the same graphics card. On one output the dynamic lighting is fine while the others have no dynamic lighting.

Configuration:

- A master server P3D PC and two P3D clients networked using multi-channel
- All PCs with P3D v5.3.17.28160
- Each client PC has a single NVidia RTX 3090 with three 2K displays connected to the three Display Port outputs
- The displays on each PC are configured as FWD, 45 degrees and 90 degree views
- Each view is in its own P3D window and the windows are managed as a view group.
- I'm running RealTraffic/PSXT on the server with identical AIG aircraft installed on all three PCs

Problem:

The FWD display on each PC shows all AI traffic with proper dynamic lighting effects. However, on the 45 and 90 degree views on both PCs, the AI Traffic has no dynamic lighting effects. So when you see an AI traverse from the FWD view to the 45 or 90 view the AI traffic strobes, navs, tail lights, and landing lights go dark.

Troubleshooting Attempted:

- I have made sure AI effects folders are matching across PCs (though it wouldn't matter if effects are correct on the FWD view then they should be on the other views on the same card).
- I went back quite a ways on the Nvidia drivers trying to see if it's a driver issue. No difference.
- I played with all the graphics menu settings in P3D, setting mins, maxes, different anti-alias, resolution, etc. Nothing worked.
- Increased the point lights values in the P3D.cfg.
- Played with view group view settings. There was an issue with effects not being visible if a view was larger than a certain degree angle, but nothing I did seemed to resolve it.
- Reset Nvidia driver settings

Here's an example. Left side is the FWD view, right side is the 45 view. Both connected to different Display Port outputs on the same graphics card at the same time. Note no dynamic lighting effects are visible on the right.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0taykud2571o3 ... e.PNG?dl=0

Anyone have any idea what might be going on? My mind is boggled. I can't think of anything in my setup that would cause that. I don't think it's Multi-Channel related because the AI looks perfect on the FWD views and both FWD views are synced properly.

[MistyBlue]

Following up on this...I think this may be related to LODs but I'm not certain.

I'm currently using a View Group to tie all my 6 displays together as one wide view. However, I gave NVidia Surround a try tonight and found that if I zoomed in the closest AI would go dark. Zoom back out and they light up again. Unfortunately, with my wide display setup, to look right it apparently has to be zoomed in past where the AI turns dark.

Does anyone know if AI traffic lighting LODs can be adjusted? Or maybe there's something else I might be missing?

[alaxus]

I am having the same issue. Dynamic lighting only works on the center projector. The left and right projectors are dark. However, some of the better 3rd party sceneries don't exhibit this behavior. It's more noticeable at dawn and dusk.
Be nice to find a fix.

[JorgenSA]

MistyBlue, kindly allow me to quote your problem summary:

"Dynamic lighting effects seem to not work across all outputs of the same graphics card."

With all respect, this does not sound like a simulator issue to me, rather like a graphics card or graphics card driver issue. And it's probably not the horsepower of the graphics card, but that elusive "something else".

I would post this one in the nVidia forums.

Jorgen

[MistyBlue]

Thanks Jorgen,

Yeah, I was thinking it could be a driver issue as well, but I can't confirm it.

Honestly, I think this is a lost cause. Appreciate the input, though.

[Beau Hollis]

The field of view displaying on the server may be limiting what effects/animations run on the server which could in term limit what shows up on the clients. I believe when the view group is activated on the server it tries to assign the overall field of view of the group to the view on the server so that you can see the entire seen and also to ensure that models are visible and trigger their animations. If you set up views with raw frustum values, then they not line up with the side angles set for the group as a whole.

If objects are culling on the server, it could be because at this wider field of view their pixel size is small enough that the LOD system decides not to draw them at all.

The min pixel radius is 2 but it's configurable. You could try setting it to 0 on the server and objects will cull based on distance/frustum check rather than screen size.
RS_MIN_OBJECT_PIXEL_RADIUS=0.0

There are also some config entries you could try that will force objects to draw at a min size. These are used primarily for VR use cases to tune how other aircraft appear at a distance.

The following values would attempt to draw sim objects at a min of 4px radius as long as they were within 100km of the camera. This is also limiting the object scaling to 10x.
SIM_OBJECT_FORCE_DRAW_DISTANCE_METERS=100000.000000
SIM_OBJECT_FORCE_DRAW_MAX_SCALE=10.000000
SIM_OBJECT_FORCE_DRAW_MIN_PIXEL_RADIUS=4.000000

[MistyBlue]

Hey Beau, thanks for the help.

I was optimistic this was it, but unfortunately it didn't seem to help. Still getting no effects on 4 of the 6 displays.



It's very possible it's related to the extremely wide view (beyond 180 degrees if I recall) and probably even more likely something is not quite right with my configuration (though it looks correct on screen).

I dont' see a way to attach files directly here, but here are the XML files I'm using for Multichannel, displays and view groups.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hntq3dvc ... 0yo9k&dl=0

Hopefully you can get to them.

I would be thrilled if we can figure out what's going on here. Likely whatever we find may very well help others running a larger multi-monitor setup as well.

Thanks again!

[MistyBlue]

Just to clarify...the server does appear to be displaying all effects across the entire view. Here's the server's view. Note the effects are visible in the far left of the view. Those same effects don't seem to be showing up on the side clients displaying that part of the scene. Same goes for the other side.

[Beau Hollis]

Thanks for the update and the detail reproduction steps. I was able to reproduce the issue and track down the cause. It should be fixed in the next release.

[MistyBlue]

That's fantastic news! Thank you!

If you need any help testing, I'm here to help.

[MistyBlue]

By the way, Beau, since this issue affects both v5 and v6, is there a chance it will be addressed in both versions? If not part of a wider update for v5, which I'm guessing won't get any further major updates, then maybe a simple patch file? I currently use both because many developers haven't updated their software for v6 yet.

[Beau Hollis]

At this time, no decision has been made on a future Prepar3D v5 patch release. The same approach would work to fix this in v5, so If there is another patch in the future, this fix would be a candidate for inclusion.