I've been working on aircraft lighting for fun for a couple years now.
I noticed a high spike in mainthread usage and performance degredation over time with the 777.
I went through the files and i saw that PMDG used nearly 400 Light Def's (lights).
The theoretical limit through testing with several other devs seems to be roughly 100-120 light defs before you start getting a hit on your CPU mainthread.
So seeing this mess i decided to remove most of the lights that made no sense and changed a view with issues. (kept most lights as it is, intensity and position wise in the cockpit)
I intended to use this for myself personally as i thought no1 would want it, but many requested it on discord and saw improvements on their end so i decided to share it here as well.
- removed the shadow casting light from the wing as it was visually bugged and they used too many light defs for it (improved positions as well)
- reduced the heavy sunburst bloom from the exterior light sources like runway, taxi and landing lights.
- removed the 100+ light defs that were used for just a little bit of knobs and switches ambiance on the overhead etc, replaced it with just 2 light defs that does something similar
- removed all soft lights values, these fx lighting values make materials look matte and dull, so plastics, metals etc look right now in the cockpit etc
- cabin is brighter as people said it was too dim, tho it might be too bright now but whatever xD (optional file, other has cabin fully disabled)
- removed soft lights values from the taxi, landing lights etc as well, makes any light u cast on the ground and scenery look better
summary : little optimization that helps CPU Mainthread > reduced the 377 light defs to roughly 150-160 (gained 8~10 fps on my rig at the gate)
There are two versions, one that includes the cabin lights and one that removes all the cabin lights as well for even more performance.
FinalLight
PMDG took a bit of my advice i guess or findings i say.. and they cut down the 377 light defs to 261.
The winglights are still not fixed.
The top right of the cabin overhead panel is lighting up but not the left still.
they also fixed the heavy blooming from the exterior view.
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Just pick one of the zzz folders and drop that in your community folder.
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