pink sky bands

[hurricane3]

I've just finished installing FS9 to my D drive and all is ok except the sky has pinkish bands which are very noticeable at dawn and dusk.I didn't have these bands when the install was on c drive.
My vidieo card is a Navidia GForce GTX 570 and I set up Navidia Inspector the same way it was set up when my install was on the c drive.The bands look kind of like the sky looks in CFS2 but those bands are not pinkish and are not as noticeable.This isn't a big deal but they are a little annoying and kind of puts a damper on the immursion(spelled wrong) factor. Any ideas?I have the latest driver for my vidieo card.

[aeromed202]

Can you post some pics? Possible issues are the video card drivers (XP, W7, 32 or 64bit) , The texture files themselves ( been a long time since I saw default sky textures) may be normal but just don't look so good, but there are a few alternative sets out there that IMHO are far better. First going down the vid driver route, are there other sky images that display bands of any sort other than FS? Open some pictures of the real blue sky or even plain solid color panels the full size of the monitor and look for any signs of color changes in bands from top to bottom, these bands can indicate incorrect drivers. There should be a smooth top to bottom color, no horizontal edges. You can always reinstall the drivers that came on the card install disc, newest isn't always best. Nvidia's website has a diagnostic that only needs Java to run and it will detect and recommend the latest drivers for your card. Second, was your previous install for XP? The above Nvidia site will recommend for your current OS. 32 vs 64 bit systems typically need specific driver sets. Third, search for dawn or dusk texture sets and try them out. Pablo Diaz made a great sky to go with his clouds. Since you have the disk space, I would recommend saving a copy of the main texture set folder, all the sky and cloud sets are in there.

[hurricane3]

Since I don't have a grapics program like paint or whatever I can't post screen shots ,but I never had these bands on the C drive.I'am running Windows 7 64 bit which was the same as when the install was on the c drive.The driver is also the same as when on the cdrive.I checked some backdrop wallpaper that has a lot of blue sky and there are no bands there.Everything is the same as when I had fs9 on c,monitor,o.s.no changes in anything but the drive.
I did have Silver Wings installed on the other fs9 and havent got around to putting it back in this install.I don't know if it had any different sky textures.
My cfs2 install is on c and has always had some banding of the sky although those band aren,t pink, more like a layering of the sky and not as noticable as these pink bands.
I checked the Navidia website but couldn't find the diagnostic tool that you spoke of.

[hurricane3]

I just installed Siiver Wings but there isn't any difference that I can see. The bands are only in the blue sky, not the clouds or any other textures.

[hurricane3]

I tried some different sky textures with little or no difference.I don't really care for the HDE cloud textures from Pablo Diaz they look to painted on for me, but I tried a few sky only texture with not much difference.I also noticed the banding on overcast sky.Seems like a vidieo card issue although I don't understand why the sky was ok on the C drive.

[hurricane3]

I found a solution to my pink sky bands and that is to run in windowed mode which I had forgotton was what I ran in on the C drive.I oridginally ran FS9 on C in windowed form because the GPS screen would flicker if I didn't, and on my new install the GPS didn't flicker in full screen so I had forgotton about that.Thanks for the suggestions and Happy Holidays to all.

[aeromed202]

Congrats, now have a beer and go flying! BTW, for future use go to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx, then look down at "Option 2" and click on Graphics Drivers, this takes you to a new screen and the scan starts automatically. Sometimes it will fail to run due to Java being out of date. You can then download and keep any recommended driver for future consideration.

[kikas]

Hi, when i do new clean install of FS display colours are set to 16 bit, go to settings -> display -> hardware and look if your resolution is set to something like 1024x768x16, then change it to 1024x768x32 (1024x768 is my display resolution, yours should be different, just change what you have to be 32 instead of 16 at end) and you should have normal colours. When you switched to windowed mode your fs automatically jumped to 32 bit colours that your desktop is set and those pink bands dissapeared.

[Mick]

Do your pink bands look like this?

Attachment 2030 (click to enlarge)

At some point did you install Thomas Grillo's "Sky Colors for Dawn & Dusk?"

The image above isn't a screen shot, it's a real world picture of what the painter is attempting to duplicate: "These textures add the red-orange strip of horizon haze seen at dawn and dusk in the real world every day. The effect correctly displays in the right part of the sky as seen in the real world."

Of course we don't see this every day because of changing visibility and weather conditions, but it's there when seen from altitude in decent conditions and good visibility, and it's seen from the ground when conditions allow it.

[hurricane3]

Thanks guys I'll get the Navidia thingy and kikas I learned somthing .I never knew that 16 was for 32 bit and 32 was for 64 bit.I have always run my sims at 1600x1200x16 because that was the (I thought ) "best" setting and I always had a computer that would handle it.So ,I went to 1600x1200x32 and what do you know ,I can run full screen with no pink bands and no flicker of the GPS!Thanks again guys, Happy New Year!

[hurricane3]

No Mick my pink bands were across the whole sky not just the horizion.

[kikas]

Thanks guys I'll get the Navidia thingy and kikas I learned somthing .I never knew that 16 was for 32 bit and 32 was for 64 bit.I have always run my sims at 1600x1200x16 because that was the (I thought ) "best" setting and I always had a computer that would handle it.So ,I went to 1600x1200x32 and what do you know ,I can run full screen with no pink bands and no flicker of the GPS!Thanks again guys, Happy New Year!

Those 16 bit and 32 bit colors i wrote about means color depth, they have nothing to do with 32, or 64 bit operating system. Just go to your settings like i wrote in my previous post and look if display resolution is set to 32 bits and then check if you still have distorted colors in your fs at full screen.

[hurricane3]

Thanks Kikas ,sorry I misunderstood you ,my fault.Anyway I went with 1600x1200x32 and like I said in my next to last post the bands are gone and no flicker of the GPS in full screen mode.I also found this took away the sky bands in my CFS2 install.

[stansdds]

16-bit color limits you to a 256 color palette. 32-bit color allows 1024 colors. The 16-bit color option is a hold over from days long ago when computers were so slow that users were sometimes forced to use fewer colors just to gain acceptably smooth image rendering.

[hurricane3]

Once again proof that SOH is the best sim site on the web.By going to 32 bit it has helped the looks of all my flight sims.Happy New Year to the greatest group of people you would ever wanna meet.