How to make FSX water darker and also less milky at night ?

[MZee1960]

I am running FSX with REX Essentials Plus. Tried various water settings for both inland and ocean water in REX, with only limited results.

At one time Striking Software had FSWC out, but now I am reluctant to try it as I don't know what files it changes/replaces for fear of not being able to 'go back' should something fail etc. This site is obviously not around anymore and the FSWC comes with only an auto-installer and hence I don't know what files will be changed/replaced. As there is no more support forum for this product, I am opting for another route to darken the water appearance. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank-you, in advance.
MZ.

[stearmandriver]

FSWC is really what you want for this. It's one click, seriously. Just use the preset "default fsx without Moonglow". To revert, just run it again and choose the preset "default fsx". Could not be easier. I just discovered this myself; before and after shots can be seen here :
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php/110373-Current-state-of-naval-tactical-aviation-simulation?p=1141272&viewfull=1#post1141272

[MZee1960]

FSWC is really what you want for this. It's one click, seriously. Just use the preset "default fsx without Moonglow". To revert, just run it again and choose the preset "default fsx". Could not be easier. I just discovered this myself; before and after shots can be seen here :
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php/110373-Current-state-of-naval-tactical-aviation-simulation?p=1141272&viewfull=1#post1141272

Thank-you for your prompt reply. I am running an ATI Sapphire 7970 HD card, and apparently some issues were reported wrt ATI 3xxx series cards where certain settings had to be set to 'zero' to eliminate artifacts. Hoping this won't happen to me with the 7xxx series, and should something show up, I'd like to be able to go back and restore the original shaders. Hopefully FSWC comes with an uninstaller which will restore original settings.

Cheers,
MZ.

[stearmandriver]

Thank-you for your prompt reply. I am running an ATI Sapphire 7970 HD card, and apparently some issues were reported wrt ATI 3xxx series cards where certain settings had to be set to 'zero' to eliminate artifacts. Hoping this won't happen to me with the 7xxx series, and should something show up, I'd like to be able to go back and restore the original shaders. Hopefully FSWC comes with an uninstaller which will restore original settings.

Cheers,
MZ.

I can't speak to the video card - I'm using an old school machine here with FSXA and a GTX480 - but I do think FSWC reverts to the original settings it finds on your setup, upon uninstall or whenever you choose the "Default FSX" preset. I haven't uninstalled it because there's been no need - the "default FSX" preset undoes whatever it did.

Oh, I have REX 4 textures installed too... It doesn't seem to mess with the textures at all just the lighting /shading.

[SSI01]

According to this thread tech support is no longer available for this add-on. I may not be able to do anything about this but thought I'd describe it anyway.

After initial installation I was asked to check on the proper path to my FSX installation. Here's what I got in a dialog box after the installation:

"Could not find a part of the path "G:\Microsoft FSX\Shaders HLSL Terrain\Water20.fxh'." (This is what the program says is my path to my FSX installation).

According to my review of my setup, the entire path is there, it's set up as follows:

G:\Microsoft FSX\Shaders\HLSL Terrain\Water20fxh.

There's a left slash missing in the path as laid out by the maker of the add-on. If that slash were in their path, it would match my setup and presumably I wouldn't be getting this message whenever I want to make a change to the water config. I'm not sure it can be changed, but that's all that (apparently) needs to be done.

[PhantomP]

I tried to download the newest FSWC today at www.strikingsoftware.com and the website seems to be down,or abandoned,does anybody have any news on this site,or who runs it? maybe they don't know it's down,or hacked.thanks

[MrZippy]

I tried to download the newest FSWC today at www.strikingsoftware.com and the website seems to be down,or abandoned,does anybody have any news on this site,or who runs it? maybe they don't know it's down,or hacked.thanks

Give this a try! https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/18898/fsx-flight-simulator-water-configurator-v315/

[PhantomP]

Thanks MrZippy for the link,There's also a lot of great scenery gone if the sites down,too bad if that's the case,does anybody have a link to the newest beta version of FSWC that works in Dx10?

[stearmandriver]

The flyawaysimulations link is where i got my copy... I do remember it being very adamant it wouldn't work with DX10. I hope someone finds a version that does for you guys.

[SSI01]

Same thing here.

[MZee1960]

Thank-you, everyone, for your input.

My ATI card is 7th gen, and since 3rd gen had the issue I'm hoping all has been corrected by now. Also, I couldn't find any more posts regarding this after this date, so probably fixed in a sequential patch/update as was promised.

I am aware of the missing 'slash' in the path, and this is easily corrected.

It's just too bad that many of the really good quality addons and utilities for FSX etc. are slowly disappearing for various reasons, and what's left has no support left.

With Rex textures running, many of the screenshots I've seen when FSWC is added are nothing short of spectacular :

http://www.voovirtual.com/t767-fsx-agua-do-rex-com-fswc

I think I will backup my ShadersHLSL file, and WATER CONSTANTS.XML just in case, and then run the installer. I also read somewhere that if you change your shader files back to original ones, you will probably need to delete the existing compiled shaders located in C:\Users\User\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\FSX\Shaders, so the set of original shaders is visible when you next start FSX.

Cheers,
MZ.

[PhantomP]

Can somebody please explain how to use the FSWC with REX 4 texture direct.Thanks