FSX: Steam Edition: Black Boxes Appearing on Ground Scenery

Black “boxes” on the ground in FSX:SE are usually a texture or shader/rendering glitch. It can also be a corrupt scenery texture, or a DX preview issue.

Try this quick checklist in order:

1) Disable DX10 Preview (if enabled)

• In FSX settings, make sure DirectX 10 Preview is unchecked.
• Restart FSX after changing it.

2) Reset graphics slider basics

• Temporarily set graphics to a mid preset.
• Turn Bloom off, if you use it.
• Test in a default aircraft at a default airport.

3) Rebuild FSX.cfg (fast way to rule out a bad tweak)

• Close FSX.
• Rename your config file so FSX builds a fresh one.

Typical location is:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX\FSX.cfg

Rename it to something like:
FSX.cfg.bak

Then launch FSX and test again.

4) Clear the shader cache
FSX can get “stuck” with corrupted shader output.

• Close FSX.
• Delete the shader cache folder contents.
• Restart FSX and let it rebuild.

Common locations to check:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX\Shaders
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX\Shaders10

5) Rule out a bad add-on scenery/texture
If this started after an install, it’s often the culprit.

• Temporarily disable non-default sceneries in the Scenery Library.
• Or move suspect add-on entries down, then test.
• Also test with default weather and time of day.

6) Video driver sanity check

• Do a clean driver install if you recently updated drivers.
• If it started after a driver update, try rolling back one version.
• Remove any forced AA/AF overrides temporarily, and test.

A couple questions so we don’t guess blindly:

• Are the boxes only at certain airports, or everywhere?
• Do they appear only with certain add-on scenery, or even default scenery?
• Is DX10 Preview currently enabled?
• What GPU and driver version are you on?
• Did this begin after installing any scenery, texture packs, or shader tools?