Wow.... ok, if I understand all of this correctly, I just spent (whatever) so I can undo my entire system to fix an issue PMDG may have created while all the rest of my FSX works just fine. Hmmmm. I love the plane, but this is a bit much. By the way before everyone begins yelling "not enough resources", blah blah....I'm running a Core7 950, with 6 gigs of ram and a 285 x 2gig card. It's not that. AB DeanKJAX

Nor is it a resource problem with my i7 920/6GB triple channel DDR3 1600.OTOH I have seen this with other add-ons like LDS and CS so I do not think it to be a PMDG problem.Fundamentallly, FSX is broken.

Good morning,I recently experienced similar issues following a complete reinstall of FSX and related software subsequent to a reformat of of computer. Noticed at night, random textures would stop rendering. First time it was the floor and panel. Next time it was the engines. My system too has plenty of resources and a more than adequate graphics card.I deleted my FSX.cfg file and went step-by-step through Nick's tutorial which is available online at http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041. If you are using an Nvidia graphics card and Nvidia Nhancer I suggest you have a look at this tutorial. For me it seems to have been the result of either my BufferPool settings or AA.JW

Nor is it a resource problem with my i7 920/6GB triple channel DDR3 1600.OTOH I have seen this with other add-ons like LDS and CS so I do not think it to be a PMDG problem.Fundamentallly, FSX is broken.

After months of tons of different tests, installs etc. I whole heartedly agree. I believe the problem is a D3D issue personally. A direct draw problem. I'd love a way to turn off the interior seats of the passenger cabin to test this theory. My thoughts (from experience) are that we know even though we do not see the textures, they are being drawn, so the seats for example are always there. Direct draw, draws them over and over again as we change our views, slew, etc. So let's say in a more detailed aircraft such as the PMDG and Level D, that we have our center in the middle of the plane and a radius of 100' around our plane. We have X amount of textures being drawn, not sure exactly but X in these aircraft is a Much higher number than any other planes. So looking at the seats and amount of textures per, lets say an additional 400 textures (it doesn't matter that the texture is the same, it is being drawn 400+ times). When we see this problem I think it is a D3D issue caused by a type of memory leak or memory displacement, Or as some have said, the Bus being saturated (I doubt this, but possible I suppose) although I have a i7 920 @ 3.80 (Stock cooling) and 12gb of DDR3 @ 1603. We are still playing around in an aging (and incomplete) 32 bit program which is only using a fraction of the hardware we have due to it's architecture. It could be just that some addons are just TOO detailed for the FSX arena (Not in what is on the texture, but amount of them being drawn). So far my current test (or perhaps just good luck) is running great, where I have only had this issue once and was running tons of other background programs like PhotoShop, several pages of IE, etc, etc... The other thing though is I currently have mostly been only running the MD-11 and have been focused on learning it's systems rather than contintue to stress test. I also believe it is D3D related since the problem is more rapidly reproduced during dusk/night times and the use of Alpha channels are coming into play. I don't see this issue 1/10th as much in the MD-11 as I do in the 747.My current test has been running with bufferpools added to my FSX.cfg. This keeps a type of hold or memory lock on the amount of memory I have around my location radius.Just to list a few of the things I have tested that did not work.

• Fresh Reinstalls with PMDG 747 as my only addon.
• Settings tweaking in every possible way I know.
• I converted Every PMDG texture there was to DXT5 (including default textures).
• Ran my sound at telephone settings of 800hz.
• Bought the latest $200 sound card and disabled my on board sound. (This didn't fix anything, but has increased my FPS).
• Formatted and Resinstalled Windows.
• Etc...

So once again, I would love to test with the option of shutting off the passenger seats. I think it honestly may help. I may be wrong, but think I've tested everything else I can think of. If anyone else understands how things are drawn you would agree that it may be a case of just too many textures under certain conditions that are just causing a hiccup in the system.By the way. Has anyone ever reported this issue with FS9?

Dan...you've certainly done your homework. I remember, in FS9, hauling around an invisible "service truck" with somebody's aircraft, and , sometimes, in flight ..it would weirdly just "show up" ...that was strange...flying along dragging a service truck /starter. So, back to your hypothesis....seems plausible and, frankly, I'm backing off of my "PMDG's at fault"...eh, you say off-handed stuff when you are disappointed sometimes. Anyway, back to your scenarios...here's some interesting things I tried...albeit not as radical as yours.1. Went through and changed time of day, weather, location. Time of day seems to do something...see #52. Changed aircraft...interesting that when the "transparency error" occurs, all subsequent A/C loads from CS, to LVLD, to Default are also "transparent".3. In my case the "light maps" ARE visible, while the rest of the textures are gone, so I have this glowing phantom taxing for take off.4. Disabled onboard sound...no effect.5. Time of day...interesting. Dawn, Dusk...problem. Noon...ok. For the record I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x 64 bit version. I can say for a fact that for ARMA2, and some rounds of Call of Duty, my system has a minidump due to hiccups with the d3d9.dll file. Oh, and I have the Beech and 747 in FS9 and this does not happen.Here's a thought...all Windows 7 Ultimate users can run FSX in XP mode. I haven't tried it yet.... :( AB DeanKJAX

5. Time of day...interesting. Dawn, Dusk...problem. Noon...ok.

Exactly my experience. I don't fly too often with 747-400 or MD11 because of flight length, but when I do, and it's dusk, I invariably get this problem.(Unless it's a rapid dusk, as in the tropics.)FSX, Vista 64-bit, nVidia GTX 280.

Gents-This is caused when the machine is not able to meet resource demands. It is most frequently found in areas where there is significant scenery data being crunched from things such as UTX, FSGEnesis, and a complex airport scenery. We've seen this a number of times- and the solution is pretty straight forward: Reduce the sound quality settings in Windows.We chased this without any ideas for quite some time- and discovered that it happens with many different complex add-ons.

HI Captain !Can u please tell me how to reduce the sound quality setting in Windows Vista 64?Thanks A lot Alfredo

HI Captain !Can u please tell me how to reduce the sound quality setting in Windows Vista 64?Thanks A lot Alfredo

Goto Control Panel (Make sure you're under "Classic View"), double click the sound Icon, Double click "Speakers", select the top right tab "Advanced", change the sample rate from the drop down to the lowest setting, click Apply.This may help you with taking some load off of the cpu, but will not eliminate the disappearing textures. Good luck.

Thanks ! So actually useless ! we have to fly complex plane without textures :(

Well originally when Rob pointed me to another thread on disappearing textures and lowering the sound quality as possible relief, I honestly thought it had fixed it for several flights. So it definitely did seem to help.

Exactly my experience. I don't fly too often with 747-400 or MD11 because of flight length, but when I do, and it's dusk, I invariably get this problem.(Unless it's a rapid dusk, as in the tropics.)FSX, Vista 64-bit, nVidia GTX 280.

I agree that the problem is most likely to occur at dawn or dusk, but it can also appear during the daylight hours in my experience. In my case, however, reducing the sound quality to 8000Hz (telephone quality) has solved the problem completely.Tim

:( Yep, Windows 7 ...reducing the sound to "Telephone" quality did it. After 12 "twilight" start ups...no "Wonder Woman" invisible plane. abdeanKJAX

:( Yep, Windows 7 ...reducing the sound to "Telephone" quality did it. After 12 "twilight" start ups...no "Wonder Woman" invisible plane. abdeanKJAX

The sound quality solution seems to work on my rig as well. Although I had to uninstall my Soundblaster X/Fi Gamer from within W7 device manager as well as the PCI slot. Then I simply utilized the PT6 Deluxe onboard sound, which provided a W7 "telephone" quality setting. Going to run a few more test flights, but so far so good. Nice work to all helping on this FSX issue.

What I find weird with this issue is that it only happens with the MD11, only in FSX (FS9 is fine) and only with my new i975 computer with Vista64. I did not have this issue with my very old and slow computer with less than half the memory and a very old graphic card.To mske it worse I can't modify my sound properties, I get a "Windows host process (Rundll32) has stopped working" error.Any ideas?Dan

I can affirm, it absolutely does not happen with WinXP_x64. After reverting from Win7_x64, I have not had one missing texture on any plane using the exact same hardware, clocks, software, and NickN's tweaks. It has something to do with how Vista and 7 cache RAM for video. All these tweaks and tips such as dropping the sound quality are placebo affects and do not solve the root of the problem; period.

I can affirm, it absolutely does not happen with WinXP_x64. After reverting from Win7_x64, I have not had one missing texture on any plane using the exact same hardware, clocks, software, and NickN's tweaks. It has something to do with how Vista and 7 cache RAM for video. All these tweaks and tips such as dropping the sound quality are placebo affects and do not solve the root of the problem; period.

Hey there Al, I agree, but lowering sound quality has helped reduce the stress on the CPU and aliviated the issue to a point. When I first posted this post, I was runnning tests in the exact same conditions and after PMDG's Rob mentioned the 800hz I tried it and it was the first time entire planes stopped from disappearing. I believe it was Tim (tfm) that mentioned at one point that there was a drop of Direct sound support in DirectX 10, which in turn could be why only Vista/Win 7 users experience this issue. It makes perfect sense, but not why Microstupid would do that is beyond me.Thanks for the confirmation on XP though, I am in mid stream on building another gaming rig and think I'll make that one my FSX box, with XP once again.PS. When I say in DirectX 10 I am not referring to DX10 Preview btw.