SMP4 doesn't seem right on XP11

[MontanaAP]

Thanks sundog, I appreciate you looking into this. Skymaxx Pro clouds are truly awesome.

Attached is my log file and also a short video showing another oddity I found. If I use the Plugins manager to disable the Gizmo64 plugin, clouds will initially appear but then fade out. This is repeatable, enable Gizmo64, then disable, clouds again appear and then fade as in video.

Any visual affect setting lower than HDR gives this affect, HDR and above work as expected.

  

 

Log.txt

CirrusSF50_1.avi

[sundog]

Well, your log indicates a lot of conflicts and problems with your custom scenery and other add-ons, but I have no reason to think it might be affecting this particular issue with clouds disappearing when you switch HDR off. I tried again, just using SMP without RWC to get closer to your setup, and I still can't reproduce this behavior here. I suspect it's specific to certain Mac models.

I have a couple of suspicions of what might be going on, though. If you slightly change SMP's cloud draw area setting after switching into medium or low graphics and hit "apply", do the clouds return? If you set the graphics to medium or low, leave it there, and then quit and restart X-Plane, do the clouds appear?

As for Gizmo - that behavior is expected. SkyMaxx Pro relies on Gizmo for checking its license status. If you remove Gizmo, then SkyMaxx Pro believes it is unlicensed, and removes the clouds.

 

[Jose Almeida]

Hi,

Mine is the very latest Macbook Pro 15" with Radeon Pro 460 4096 MB; the curious thing is that this only happens with xplane 11.

José

[Jose Almeida]

Actually it does not seerm to happen any more; I can't tell exactly when it stopped because I haven't been testing the demo very often.

[MontanaAP]

On 2/11/2017 at 6:14 AM, sundog said:

Well, your log indicates a lot of conflicts and problems with your custom scenery and other add-ons, but I have no reason to think it might be affecting this particular issue with clouds disappearing when you switch HDR off. I tried again, just using SMP without RWC to get closer to your setup, and I still can't reproduce this behavior here. I suspect it's specific to certain Mac models.

I have a couple of suspicions of what might be going on, though. If you slightly change SMP's cloud draw area setting after switching into medium or low graphics and hit "apply", do the clouds return? If you set the graphics to medium or low, leave it there, and then quit and restart X-Plane, do the clouds appear?

As for Gizmo - that behavior is expected. SkyMaxx Pro relies on Gizmo for checking its license status. If you remove Gizmo, then SkyMaxx Pro believes it is unlicensed, and removes the clouds.

 

sundog,

Had some time today for more testing, testing was with graphics set to medium.

First I removed all custom scenery to make sure there were no conflicts then tried your suggesting of changing the coverage area. Still no clouds. I then disabled Gizmo after which clouds were initially created but then disappeared. Logs are attached.

Your explanation of disabling Gizmo makes sense but why does that cause clouds to initially appear (then disappear)?

Thanks, MontanaAP

Log.txt

GizmoLog.txt

Cycle Dump.txt

[sundog]

Your log doesn't provide any clues as to why disabling Gizmo caused the clouds to re-appear momentarily, but you definitely shouldn't disable Gizmo while using SMP (or any X-Aviation product.)

Did you try the experiment of setting graphics to medium, exiting X-Plane, and then restarting? I'm wondering if the issue has to do with switching it mid-flight.

[MontanaAP]

Yes, I have tried starting X-Plane with graphics set to medium but alas, no clouds. 

One thing I failed to mention, the Cirrus layer does work as expected when in medium mode.

[sundog]

Oh, well that's interesting. Maybe it is connected to Gizmo after all; cirrus appearing but no cumulus would be consistent with a failed license check.

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling SMP using its latest installer? That should ensure you have a complete and current installation of Gizmo as well as SMP. This could very well be the sort of thing where a reinstall clears it up.

[MontanaAP]

I tried a clean install of SMP this morning with same behavior (no clouds).

I would be available to help with some trouble shooting/testing if you could provide a test install that logs additional debug data. My email is tkoehn"_a_t_"orionlaw.com  

 

[sundog]

Your log already indicates that SMP *thinks* it is drawing clouds. But for some unknown reason, they are not getting through X-Plane's rendering process when HDR is off on your system. I don't think any additional logging on our end would throw any additional light on the problem.

I have a second Mac here at the office that I can try - perhaps I can reproduce it there.

For now, keep HDR on if you can.

 

[MontanaAP]

Thanks, hopefully you can duplicate as running in HDR is causing the frame rate to drop below exceptable.

Interesting that disabling Gizmo somehow affects the rendering scene.

[flyelmo]

Wish I could use my SmP4 in general, I can't activate since first day on sale and support won't respond on my ticket. I though one ticket should help, apparently no response. Last purchase I ever made. Disaster fraud company. I never experienced such a support.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sundog]

3 hours ago, flyelmo said:

Wish I could use my SmP4 in general, I can't activate since first day on sale and support won't respond on my ticket. I though one ticket should help, apparently no response. Last purchase I ever made. Disaster fraud company. I never experienced such a support.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How about posting a ticket number so someone can look into this for you, and turn this into a productive conversation.

[flyelmo]

Hello Frank, 

 

Thank you Frank for being customer orientated (Ticket 1482432+NBYOE) , but this in not the only problem I have with this company, a lot of Add Ons are not activated anymore and Im sick and tired of begging over and over again,  just because I reinstalling  my system or overclocking my system and my system issues a new Hardware ID. So for time beeing Im not in X-Plane anymore because of that. Besides that Im reading a lot of post within the past with same issues and when post are not fitting within its own comfort level post getting deleted. So at the time beeing I decited not to be part of this anymore.  X-A got his well deserved money so there should be worry about anything  .

 

cheers Bjoern 

 

 

 

[JohnMAXX]

I'm courious as to what is going on here myself, only Cameron can answer this question......

[Cameron]

Sharing. It does nobody any good...

[JohnMAXX]

Thanks for clearing that up Cameron

And with that it seems you don't value our efforts as much as you claim, I'm aware it's frustrating but without what XA provides to us developers we wouldn't be where we are today......

Edited February 17, 2017 by JohnMAXX

[sundog]

Getting back on topic - the issue where MontanaAP was losing his clouds whenever switching to a non-HDR mode.

I installed SMP on an iMac with the following specs:

macOS: Version 10.12.1 (Build 16B2555)
CPU type: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz CPU speed (mhz): 4000 Bus speed (mhz): 100 RAM (MB): 16384

X-System folder:'/Users/Frank/Desktop/X-Plane 11/', case sensitive=0
OpenGL Vendor    : ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL Render    : AMD Radeon R9 M395X OpenGL Engine

Clouds appeared upon starting, and after switching HDR off by selecting "medium" graphics, the clouds remained:

I remain at a loss as to what might be going on with your system. The strange link to Gizmo may suggest some odd licensing issue, still. The only thing left that I can suggest is to install a fresh X-Plane 11 demo in a clean folder, install the latest SMP version to it, and see if the problem persists (using nothing but default scenery and aircraft). If so, make sure all updates to your system from Apple have been applied via the app store. 

If anyone else is experiencing this, please let us know.