Instead of normal smoke from my 707, I get a dense, black, trail of packed polygons that is nothing like engine smoke. This is a graphics issue, not "too much engine smoke" or something. Anyone have any thoughts about this issue? I am using Nvidia Inspector and running a fairly modest setup for my 770M cards that otherwise works great. Of course, I could start at random changing graphics settings, but I thought maybe someone had seen something like this before.

Never a dull moment in this hobby. I might even get to fly something one of these days.

Try reducing the sliders a bit. The 707 is hard on Graphics Cards, so turning the sliders down should ease the load on your GC. Or remove the virtual passenger cabin (using the ACE)

I still get torn graphics in the in the VC every now and again. When you consider that my computer is what I would class as a powerful rig, it surprises me that it still happens. :o

Yeah, that was the first thing I did. I saw this once before on some other product, but, of course, I can't remember what the solution was. I suspect my wonderful Nvidia Inspector custom FSX settings are to blame, but it's going to be a tedious trial and error process figuring out which setting unless someone can make an educated guess. I did take her for a spin and satisfy myself that I knew how the Doppler worked... really couldn't be simpler. I wouldn't hesitate to take her across the pond, but, unlike with the INS, you would have to take your position on faith once you left your last VOR and headed out over open water.

Well, this is worse than I thought. It seems to be a global FSX problem, and not just smoke, as I originally supposed, but contrails and wing vortices. If you look from the side, they are translucent squares that add up to a dense black artifact behind the airplane. It is not "smokey," in the proper sense, i.e. this is not just a case of the contrail being the wrong color. Impressive, no?

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800x600q90/600/nn37.jpg

Now I'm really clueless as to what is going on. This affects all of my airplanes. I removed my custom Nvidia settings and reduced all graphics options to nil, but that had no effect. The only weird thing I've done lately is dropping the 707 sound gauge renamed to the 727 sound gauge into the gauges folder, replacing the original. Don't see how that could cause this, though. Something has happened to the way FSX is making smoke and wing vortices, and contrails, too. I am seriously not in the mood to reinstall FSX. I have only just now got everything put back after a hard drive crash.

After that last few weeks, I'm beginning to wonder if this hobby is worth the constant "issues." You fix one and two more crop up.  :(

UPDATE: Stand by... think I'm on to something.

PROBLEM SOLVED. Sometimes when you uninstall something, FSX files get sucked into the void, too. This is often the cause for BLACK GAUGES or, in my case, BLACK CONTRAILS. In the A++++ library, search for "gauge recovery." Run the simple program that installs all your original GAUGES and EFFECTS that might have gone missing. It doesn't mess with anything else; just restores your FSX to what it should be. It fixed my problem in less than ten seconds.

Thanks for the great tip Tim  :)

Hello Tim,

While I am pleased that you seem to have found a fix, your original problem was simple.
Your effects were being displayed without textures which the Gauge Recovery utility has replaced.

The 707 uses these effects, all custom and apparently not addressed
by the fix you used.
cs707_smoke
cs707_smoke1
cs707_vaportrail
cs707_smoke_dark

However, all of them use the default effects\texture files fx_1.bmp and fx_smoke.bmp

As to why, I expect that tucked away somewhere on your computer, probably inside another folder in FSX,hopefully where there was not previously a textue folder, there will be a folder named texture that used to be at FSX\effects\texture. Easily done. :)

Should you wish to test this explanation, go to effects\texture and temporarily rename the folder to textureOFF.
Restart FSX and you will once again see what appears in your screen shot.

With textures
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a508/ncooper00/textureON_zps10450954.jpg

Without textures
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a508/ncooper00/textureOFF_zpse09c3067.jpg

Regards,
Nick.