SweetFX and REXplus

[Daveroo]

i installed sweetFX and rex...they both have FSX launchers,seems to me id rather go use the REX program and features to set up my flight plan(im going to plonk down the $1.99 a month for atleast awhile.

what im wondering..will the "effects" of sweetfx still be in play if i dont "run " it when im starting a flight session?

[DarrenL]

SweetFX should be self running everytime on start up no matter what you start FSX with, {SCROLL LOCK} turns it on and off in game.

[Daveroo]

am i to understand it "runs automatically" when FSX starts?...im not real sure i know what it is...when it first came out,from the screenshots i thought it was just a graphics enhancer...but its a program that runs in the background as FSX runs?

[alehead]

That is what I thought too... It is a post processing tool like FXAA...


Andrew Entwistle

[DarrenL]

It's not a program it just uses a custom Direct3D runtime dll which DirectX games will use when loading and it doesn't make any permanent changes to anything. The settings this sweetfx dll uses are kept in the SweetFX_settings text file.

Have a look at that to see what it is loading, 1 means it's loaded on starting, 0 means it's off. Under Choose Effects you might have something like this:


#define USE_SMAA_ANTIALIASING 1 //[0 or 1] SMAA Anti-aliasing : Smoothens jagged lines.
#define USE_LUMASHARPEN 1 //[0 or 1] LumaSharpen : Also sharpens the antialiased edges which makes them less smooth - I'm working on fixing that.
#define USE_BLOOM 0 //[0 or 1] Bloom : Makes bright lights bleed their light into their surroundings (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_HDR 1 //[0 or 1] HDR : Not actual HDR - It just tries to mimic an HDR look (relatively high performance cost)
#define USE_TECHNICOLOR 1 //[0 or 1] TECHNICOLOR : Attempts to mimic the look of an old movie using the Technicolor three-strip color process (Techicolor Process 4)
#define USE_DPX 0 //[0 or 1] Cineon DPX : Should make the image look like it's been converted to DXP Cineon - basically it's another movie-like look similar to technicolor.
#define USE_LIFTGAMMAGAIN 1 //[0 or 1] Lift Gamma Gain : Adjust brightness and color of shadows, midtones and highlights (avoids clipping)
#define USE_TONEMAP 0 //[0 or 1] Tonemap : Adjust gamma, exposure, saturation, bleach and defog. (may cause clipping)
#define USE_VIBRANCE 1 //[0 or 1] Vibrance : Intelligently saturates (or desaturates if you use negative values) the pixels depending on their original saturation.
#define USE_CURVES 0 //[0 or 1] Curves : Contrast adjustments using S-curves.
#define USE_SEPIA 0 //[0 or 1] Sepia : Sepia tones the image.
#define USE_VIGNETTE 0 //[0 or 1] Vignette : Darkens the edges of the image to make it look more like it was shot with a camera lens. May cause banding artifacts.
#define USE_DITHER 1 //[0 or 1] Dither : Applies dithering to simulate more colors than your monitor can display. This lessens banding artifacts (mostly caused by Vignette)
#define USE_SPLITSCREEN 0 //[0 or 1] Splitscreen : Enables the before-and-after splitscreen comparison mode.

So you can see it's sharpness, bloom, colour tones, vibrance and other effects that are set by SweetFX. Then below that will be all the sections for all the settings above.


Turn AA off in the FSX settings if you use the top SMAA option. SMAA is a different type of Anti-aliasing that is better on frame rates. Pressing [Scroll Lock] during FSX will turn SweetFX off, and on so you can quickly see the difference it makes.

[Daveroo]

ok..thanks for your feedback