Graphics corruption in FSX - (UPDATE: possible solution found!)

[SLKVP 13]

I have had Issue #1 but was resolved as described in the post. I have noticed MD11X FSX crash but were happening when switching from PMDG747X of other complex aircraft to MD11X so it doesn't count.

[Tabs 2,790]

I have had Issue #1 but was resolved as described in the post. I have noticed MD11X FSX crash but were happening when switching from PMDG747X of other complex aircraft to MD11X so it doesn't count.

Yeah do not do that - that's a big no no in FS since basically forever. If you're going to switch between custom programmed aircraft, you need to exit FS and restart clean. This is not related to any of these issues here.

[Nemo 1,305]

* SOLVED! *I was planning to write a new post, but due to Ryan being so kind to 'follow up' on this thread, I guess my best contribution is to post here for others benefit. I'm 110% confident, that this 'solves' the Dissapearing/Skeleton VC Textures, I'm also confident that this will get me on the 737 Beta Team :)You can start by adding this in the [GRAPHICS] section of your fsx.cfg file. also, the 'theory' about sound, is partially correct, it was totally on track on what (part) of the problem was... :) the 'sound' plays a huge role here.. specially, the sampling rate.[GRAPHICS]SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=1 // it 're-builds' the Shader Cache (good to do on every fsx.cfg change) just enter a random number (versioning)HIGHMEMFIX=1STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647 // (2048 megabytes)[Display]TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400 // Default is 40 (made 10x faster so we dont end up filling the stale buffer which is also used by the sound card)TextureMaxLoad=30 // Default is 3 (same as above, we need to make video texture transfers *fast* so it won't affect low latency devices)[sOUND]SOUND=1SOUND_QUALITY=2SOUND_LOD=0Also, make sure the sampling rate/quality, for your 'sound card' is set to the 44100 sampling rate (CD Quality) you change this in your Sound Control Panel. 44100Hz is the format used for most .wav files in FSX, when a 'wav' needs re-sampling it takes 'time' which you can't afford to loose in our case. I know some of you have never seen 'some' of the above settings ever, but if any of you guys (reading) are ex-MS employees or were involved with the development, you can confirm to the group what I'm saying ;) you can Ask Rafael Cintron (and no, he was not kind enough to give me the info, I had to spend DAYS reading HEX codes to figure this out) the root cause of the problem is a DPC latency issue + stale buffer saturation with the Video and Sound card in your system, the above settings 'balance' things so both play well together. For those that used my 'shader tweak' you can forget about it... you don't need it anymore after this, also ALL FS2004 ported A/C work with no problems. The only 'caveat' is that now, ANYTIME a texture object or building 'dissapears' you'll get an application crash in the FSX API.dll module when you switch windows, thats NOT bad, it just means, you have now a WARNING! I'll provide aditional info when enough people test this solution, this is ONLY TESTED on Windows 7 64-Bit and FSX with SP2 installed. (don't know if it works for acceleration, SP1 or RTM) have not yet tested under Vista or XPone more thing.. this is NOT the solution to the 'black screens' caused by Windows TDR (Timeout Detection & Recovery) that problem is caused for OTHER reasons I've mentioned in other posts that nobody seems to read or believe (its due to the command buffer being flushed, for excessive ammount of draw calls made to the D3D API and the video card not being able to keep up reading the ring buffer fast enough) also, this is NOT related to 'mouse clicking' the VC and getting and error, that is yet ANOTHER error... (the one people fix with UIAutomationCore.dll) Enjoy people... and remember, *IF* you get an API.dll crash, don't worry... this solution can be tweaked to your particular 'setup' and make it work... the HIGHMEMFIX=1 is what 'triggers' the API.dll error, by default this value is set to 0, so, FSX (very cleverly) doesn't crash!! but, starts making stuff dissapear and gets unstable (and eventually crashes later on) specially when on final ;)As for the Black Screens caused by the Windows TDR (Timeout Detection & Recovery) I'll later post a solution to that as well... I have more than 3 weeks researching this, and I'm exhausted.

Thank you so much *******,Now I am able to fly into the NY Area with PMDGs JS4100 without any graphical issues particular disappearing textures: Coming from the Hudson River and flying over ManhattanX (Aerosoft) to land on RW 13 KLGA at about 15-20 fps - Simply stunning. I also have fsdt KJFK installed and My Traffic is running (35/10). So its a really heavy loaded area. Let me add some points: I only used the HighMemFix=1 tweak together with BP=0. When I added other lines from your grahics or display setting (e.g. STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD ...) I got some corruptions. But this could be a problem with the known "flashing VC issue" of PMDGs wunderful bird.I also kept my NHancer settings (according to Nick N.) which gives me a perfect image quality on my 1680x1050 display.kind regardsHarrymy relevant settings:[GRAPHICS]TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024NUM_LIGHTS=8AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1LANDING_LIGHTS=1AC_SELF_SHADOW=0EFFECTS_QUALITY=2GROUND_SHADOWS=0HighMemFix=1[bufferpools]poolsize=0[sCENERY]LENSFLARE=0DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=4[DISPLAY]BLOOM_EFFECTS=0SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0[PANELS]QUICKTIPS=0PANEL_OPACITY=100[TERRAIN]LOD_RADIUS=3.500000MESH_COMPLEXITY=85MESH_RESOLUTION=22TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=28AUTOGEN_DENSITY=1DETAIL_TEXTURE=1WATER_EFFECTS=1[WEATHER]CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3DETAILED_CLOUDS=1CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=6THERMAL_VISUALS=0DownloadWindsAloft=0DisableTurbulence=0[TrafficManager]AirlineDensity=35GADensity=10FreewayDensity=5ShipsAndFerriesDensity=20LeisureBoatsDensity=20IFROnly=0AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=1

[damocles 1]

Here's another happy flyer.I have just completed three day > night flights which always caused messed up graphics after I closed FSPAX.....so far it's very stable....:DThank you so much ******* dude.Like others have stated this could put fsx to another level.While my FPS have stayed the same, I usually get 25+ at UK2000 EGLL and Aerosoft LEMD it does feel more stable........NOW!!! Any ideas on how to fix the poor windowed mode performance issue - mine won't go above 14fps and makes my usb fmc monitor all but useless during flight and approach...;)Chris Farrell.BTW: PMDG- employ ******* as he's a genius

[McCrash 3]

highmem fix worked for me, praise *******! :(

Ditto!

[Tigh 6]

I've just completed my first flight with the new settings. I did EGLL-EDDF using UK2K EGLL and Aerosofts EDDF, REX, GEX, UTX, etc. in the PMDG MD-11 and included a day-night transition. The first thing I noticed was that I could spawn at EGLL in the MD and switch to outside view repeatedly with no texture loss. I continued to switch to outside view through my taxi out wilth no ill efeects. I got slight stuttering as I climbed out of EGLL but nothing I can't live with. The transition to night happened smoothly with all textures intact and my arrival at EDDF was uneventful because the airport appeared in all it's glory exactly as it should.This is the sort of flight that in the past I could have pretty much guarenteed getting texture loss during. I also managed to spawn straight into the MD at EGSS using the UK2K scenery. This scenario was my first test scenario because I could guarentee texture loss. Not a thing, absolutely perfect. I will continue to test over the next few days but at first sight this could be the magic bullet many of us have been looking for these past couple of years.Thank you *******.Regards,Dan Parkin

[damocles 1]

While the visuals are sorted........it does seem to result in the sound 'missing frames' ...or skipping ....hhhmmmmmm?

[corkyo4 2]

I have absolutely no edits in my cfg and get a consistent 35 fps providing smooth flight throughout.I'm probably one of the lucky few who doesn't need to tweak now that I'm on win 7.What I will say is - Seems people get hooked on needing high fps, surely the key is smooth consistent fps??????Tom

[FlyinMisfit 0]

Check event viewer, you'll notice that those 'black screens' were caused by a 'Driver restart' what happened, is that your CPU stalled your GPU with too much info. Most likely, you run nHancer, with max IQ settings, am I correct? yes?

you are correct. however, Nothing Ever shows up in Event Viewer in reference to the FSX black screen crashes. Nothing to do with Nhancer or any Nvidia drivers either.does this mean that i have a prob. with the 285? the reason i ask is that the black screen probs. that im having is that the system seems to be hung after the black screen occurs. i have to press the reset switch and reboot to get back to the desktop. sometimes during the initial reboot i get a BIOS beep code that (according the ASUS P6T-Deluxe V2 Manual) indicates that the video card is not detected. however, the system will continue the boot process normally into Windows. occasionally, the initial restart via the reset switch will not work and i have to turn the PSU off via the PSU power switch. then i can turn the PC back on via the power switch on the PC and the PC will boot into Windows without any probs.thanks again for the help.happy flyin, Tim Wheeler

[Tabs 2,790]

Ok guys,I spent the entire afternoon on Skype with ******* (an exceedingly good guy btw), who walked me through everything he did to discover and isolate this issue. I'm very much convinced now that he has more than likely solved our issue #4 with the HIGHMEMFIX=1 and STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647 lines. I recommend that everyone seeing the issues try these settings and report back.This is an incredible piece of detective work on his part and we're all going to be in debt to him for this if it in fact pans out for everyone as I suspect it will.

[dazz 69]

surely the key is smooth consistent fps??????

It's about smooth performance of course. Personally I can fly even though it sometimes stutters when fps go below 20 in bussy airports, and I don't mind lowering some sliders if needed, but it's also about knowing why someone with your specs is getting such good performance without any tweaks while peeps with faster quad cores, triple channel architecture, etc, are not even close to that.What add-ons/settings do you use please?

[bojote 20]

you are correct. however, Nothing Ever shows up in Event Viewer in reference to the FSX black screen crashes. Nothing to do with Nhancer or any Nvidia drivers either.

It wont, the event viewer shows you the event that took place, it doesn't tells you 'why' it ocurred. But, FYI.. what happened is a 'mechanism' present in Vista and Win7 to 'prevent' applications hanging. its called TDR, the TDR (timeout detection and recovery) detects that the driver is not responding and 'restarts it' thats what you saw in event viewer a 'restart'Why it happened? it depends... do you have a BufferPool setting? if so whats the value? I suspect you have it set to 0 or a very low value (default), otherwise there is no need to the card to be 'overloaded' thats why BP=0 (altough great for performance) is BAD for stability... so its not a tweak for everyone.

[bojote 20]

Ok guys,I spent the entire afternoon on Skype with ******* (an exceedingly good guy btw), who walked me through everything he did to discover and isolate this issue. I'm very much convinced now that he has more than likely solved our issue #4 with the HIGHMEMFIX=1 and STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647 lines. I recommend that everyone seeing the issues try these settings and report back.This is an incredible piece of detective work on his part and we're all going to be in debt to him for this if it in fact pans out for everyone as I suspect it will.

Nice chat ;) Ryan.. I'm not sure if a shader re-compile is needed... but, in the unlikely case that someone says it didn't work for them, I would also include SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=1 to force the shaders to be re-compiled

[Guest 413X3]

Do we only put shader cache version in one time to allow the recompile? Or leave it in so every time it starts it recompiles?

[HUSSAR 272]

*******,I added the following as per your post(s):[GRAPHICS]HIGHMEMFIX=1STALE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647 // (2048 megabytes)[Display]TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400 TextureMaxLoad=30[bufferpools]UsePools=0I run FSX with FPS Limiter and I have left my nHancer settings intact and have not changed any other settings in the .cfg except for Texture_Max_Load=4096 which is set by REx. With ActiveSky Evolution producing weather I am running smoothly except for a little jitter here and there, adjust BufferPools perhaps? One other issue for me and for other perhaps is that autogen such as buidlings and trees load when they come into range of my aircraft, is there a setting that I could change to load these at a greater distance without affecting performance? Please note that there are already some buildings and trees that are in view before these stragglers pop into view to fill the voids.I was able to replay my landing in the Level-D 767 without any terrain texture loss or the screen going completely black (another first), and I forgot to mention that when Ryan asked if any other addon was affected, my apologies I had not flown the 67 in a while.Tomorrow right after work I will be reversing the sound DLL edit that Ryan suggested and verify if this has fixed the issue. Thanks for your hard work ******* and for helping us here in the community.