Missing Wake on water and gravel on land

[Rudyjo]

I have been away from FSX for awhile and recently started using it again. When I was last using it, everything was working fine.
I noticed a few days ago that I no longer have a wake when using a seaplane or the effects of gravel being thrown off of the tires when moving on land.
As little as I know about how FSX works, I thought it may have something to do with the contact points, but it looks like the contact points are set in Aircraft Conf. for each separate plane. I have lost the wake and gravel on all planes.
Could there be something that somehow has gotten turned off that controls these effects on all planes?
Thanks for any ideas.

[Grafmann]

Seems like FSX can't locate your effects folder for some reason - if they are not showing for ALL Aircraft.
The wake & dirt effects are effects files (.fx) located there in the Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Effects folder.
I don't know of any "switch", or check-box, anywhere that turns effects on/off; so I'm thinking it might be a broken link.
Check to see if the Effects folder got deleted, moved, or renamed.
If it is still there, are these 2 files there?
fx_wake.fx (wake) &
fx_tchdrt.fx (dirt clods - what you have called gravel, I think)

Last, if they are in your Effects folder, are they listed in the aircraft.cfg file for the aircraft you are flying?
They should be in the Effects section like this:

[Effects]
wake=fx_wake
water=fx_spray
dirt=fx_tchdrt
concrete=fx_sparks
touchdown=fx_tchdwn_s

Hope this helps,
Grafmann

[Rudyjo]

Seems like FSX can't locate your effects folder for some reason - if they are not showing for ALL Aircraft.
The wake & dirt effects are effects files (.fx) located there in the Microsoft Flight Simulator X/Effects folder.
I don't know of any "switch", or check-box, anywhere that turns effects on/off; so I'm thinking it might be a broken link.
Check to see if the Effects folder got deleted, moved, or renamed.
If it is still there, are these 2 files there?
fx_wake.fx (wake) &
fx_tchdrt.fx (dirt clods - what you have called gravel, I think)

Last, if they are in your Effects folder, are they listed in the aircraft.cfg file for the aircraft you are flying?
They should be in the Effects section like this:

[Effects]
wake=fx_wake
water=fx_spray
dirt=fx_tchdrt
concrete=fx_sparks
touchdown=fx_tchdwn_s

Hope this helps,
Grafmann

Thank you Grafmann, I will go through the effects section and see if those fx_ files are there.

[Rudyjo]

Grafmann

I opened the effects file, there are only two sections listed, Sound and Texture.
The fx files you listed are not there.
Looks like they somehow got deleted. I assume they would have been under the "texture" listing.
A least I now know what the problem is.

Any idea how I can get those effect files back? I don't think running "System Restore" would do anything.

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

The Effects folder in FSX is where to check , these are all default effects and are unlikely to be deleted , If I were to suppose the cause it would be in display settings Special Effects Detail or the Aircraft casts shadows and landing lights checkboxes.

If these effect are in fact missing and you have fsx on disk there should be a repair option or right click & explore the disk's contents to copy them over to the effects folder .

Best CJ

[therealjambo]

Hi Rudyjo,

Over at AVSIM if you search for Timothy Murphy you'll find Fix for black contrails and smoke.I lost all my Gravel and Helicopter ground rotor effects, the package contains the 5 original Microsoft FX files and this fixed it.

Apparently it can happen when uninstalling some aircraft.

Hope this helps.

[Rudyjo]

Thanks Guys.
I will see if I can find the 5 missing files at Avsim
I am now sure that there are a lot more than the 5 effects files missing. I know that there used to be many more effect files in there. There are only about 10 now.
If that is the case, there are effects that were installed for planes both freeware and payware that will no longer work.

I will probably have to run the repair part of the installation disk and then re-install all the planes to get those missing effect files back. I don't know how they ended up missing.

I ran the repair many years ago, I seem to recall having to un-install SP-2, then SP-1 and then run the repair and then re-install both patches.
I'll see if I can find a step by step list of how to run the repair.
If I have to re-install all the planes, it will be a good time to delete the ones I never use anymore, I'll probably just keep the A2A planes and a few of the bush flying planes of other developers.

If I somehow deleted the effects files, it looks like it will take many hours to get back what was lost in a few seconds. It would have been nice to get a warning saying "You are about to delete files needed for FSX to run properly, are you sure you want to delete them?"

[Grafmann]

Rudyjo,

I'm glad I could point to the right place to look. I hope the repair process goes as smoothly as it can. I've never done a repair myself.

Unfortunately FSX does not have warning messages like you suggested. When we want to tinker with FSX we have to allow write access to the Effects folder in order to add new effects (or change the ones that are there). Thus the folder is vulnerable.

I"d like to make sure you are looking at the main FSX Effects folder & not some "Effects" folder attached to a download package.
It sounds like you are looking at the main folder, but your comment about "only two sections listed, Sound and Texture" threw me for a loop.
My Effects folder has a "texture" sub-folder, but not one named "sound".
The effects might use a texture (in the texture sub-folder) but the .fx files themselves should not be in the "texture" sub-folder.

To be clear - these effects (used by almost all the default aircraft) are in the...
Program Flies\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Effects folder.

My Effects folder contains 1,544 files (usually with names like fx_wake-or-whatever.fx), but I have downloaded hundreds of add-on planes & scenery files over the years.
Sorry I can't tell you how many were in the default when I first installed FSX.

Best wishes for a relatively painless restoration of your effects files.

[Rudyjo]

I have FSX under this order...Computer/ Local Disk ( C / FSX/ Effects/ then two sub catagories called Sound and Texture. Under Texture there are only a couple of fx files that have to do with different lights, probably from freeware downloads.

When I checked your path of going through MS games/ FSX/ effects/ it comes up empty.
It looks like the effects file has somehow been deleted.
I will try to find that list of how to properly do the REPAIR to get all those default files put back in.
I did it many years ago and when done correctly, it doesn't touch any addon planes or scenery.
PS, I cant seem to get rid of the happy face thing, it should be C:

[PhantomTweak]

I think, rarely, that if you used the disks to install originally, you can look through them for the Effects folder. Everything is in zip files, so you can just find what you need zipped up, and unzip it into your FSX install.
IF you choose not to do a Repair, of course. I use FSX:SE and it's Repair works great.
I use the FS9 disks, and I just search through the disks until I find what I need, should it become necessary. Like the times I have deleted a default scenery by accident, or a default plane or two (don't ask, it happens), I can just find what I need and unzip it and away I go again.

Hope this helps a bit.
Pat☺

[Rudyjo]

I think, rarely, that if you used the disks to install originally, you can look through them for the Effects folder. Everything is in zip files, so you can just find what you need zipped up, and unzip it into your FSX install.
IF you choose not to do a Repair, of course. I use FSX:SE and it's Repair works great.
I use the FS9 disks, and I just search through the disks until I find what I need, should it become necessary. Like the times I have deleted a default scenery by accident, or a default plane or two (don't ask, it happens), I can just find what I need and unzip it and away I go again.

Hope this helps a bit.
Pat☺

I will give this a try before doing a full repair, thanks