No runway or taxiway lights at most add-on airports in FSX (PAPI OK)

Runway/taxiway lights missing at add-on airports (PAPI OK)

Ken, the fact you still see PAPIs and the terminals are lit tells me FSX is rendering lights in general — it’s specifically the airport edge/centerline/taxiway light objects that aren’t showing up at most of your add-on sceneries.

A couple of things to clear up first: those scalars in the cfg will change size/intensity of lights that already exist, but they won’t make lights appear if FSX isn’t drawing them (or if the scenery is suppressing them).

Here’s how I’d tackle it, step by step.

1) Confirm it’s not a simple display setting issue
In FSX go into your Graphics settings and temporarily:

• Make sure Light Bloom is OFF (for testing).
• Make sure scenery/detail sliders aren’t at minimum (especially anything related to scenery complexity).
• Set Global texture resolution to a sane value (not minimum).

Then re-test at a problem airport at night.

2) Test with a “known stock” airport at night
Pick a default airport (not ORBX, not Simmarket) and check runway/taxiway lights.

• If default airports also have no runway/taxiway lights: that points more to a global FSX rendering/settings or shader issue.
• If default airports are fine: then it’s most likely an add-on scenery layering/exclusion issue.

3) Temporarily disable Airport Lights Environment X v2
Even though it “shouldn’t” remove lights, for troubleshooting you want to eliminate it from the equation.

• Disable it per the product’s own method (however it restores the default files), or temporarily roll back to default if you have a backup.
• Re-test one affected add-on field.

4) Check scenery library ordering and duplicates
Missing runway/taxiway lights at add-on airports can happen when there’s a duplicate AFCAD (airport file) or an old “stub” file sitting in another scenery layer that’s taking priority, sometimes with lighting turned off or with an incomplete airport definition.

• In the FSX Scenery Library, ensure the airport’s scenery layer is above any broad “regional” layers that might include airport files for the same ICAO.
• If you have multiple products covering the same area, temporarily disable the region/mesh/airport layers one by one and re-test.

5) Quick sanity check: time/weather/visibility
Sounds basic, but worth ruling out:

• Use clear weather and set time to full night.
• Make sure you’re not sitting in extremely low visibility fog where you’d still see PAPI but lose edge lights at a distance.

A few targeted questions so we don’t chase the wrong thing

• Are runway/taxiway lights present at default airports at night, yes or no?
• Which add-on airports are affected (name + ICAO of 2–3 examples), and which ORBX airports are OK?
• Do you have any AI traffic add-ons or “airport enhancement” packages besides ALEX v2 (anything that modifies airports globally)?
• Are you running FSX in DX9 or DX10 Preview mode?

If you can answer those, I can narrow it down fast (especially whether we’re looking at a global rendering issue vs. duplicate/priority airport files).