Graphics Corruption SOLVED!

[TurbofanDude 50]

Hello all,After hours and hours of testing, like 20 settings, and numerous phone calls and emails to nvidia and microsoft, here it is:The problem: (from the other post)"Issue #4: The “skeleton plane” issue - loss of textures and geometry on the external model and VC. This is the issue that’s going to have the most discussion…I want to put forth a new theory we’ve developed on this over the past week or so:I was talking to one of our new programmers about this issue and we stumbled upon something quite interesting. I was mentioning to him how some users seem to have success in resolving the issue via lowering the Windows sound quality setting. This sparked the realization that something all the aircraft we’ve heard of this issue happening with (which includes the Level-D 767, the Captain Sim aircraft, the Flight 1 Super 80, and now most recently the Flight Sim Labs Concorde X) have in common is custom sounds that are generated through an external processor dll and not by the FSX audio engine. We believe that most addons have used a very similar method code-wise for playing these custom sounds back, one which predates the modern Windows OSes and Direct X versions by nearly 10 years. I remembered back to issues we’ve seen in the past with sound crackling while using the 747 and MD-11. Sound crackling is usually the result of something called direct procedure call (DPC) latency. DPC is the method Windows uses to stream real time events like audio and graphics processing across the system bus. High DPC latency backlogs these events and can produce audio and visual artifacts. The proverbial lightbulb went off and we asked ourselves “What if the sound is somehow overloading the bus and this affects the graphics subsystem too?”Acting on this hunch, I’ve had several people who see the issue try disabling the PMDGSounds.dll gauge and then flying to see if the problem occurs. Doing this results in none of the custom panel sounds playing back, just the engines (which sound via the FSX audio engine) but it provides something of a way to test for the effect of the gauge. We’ve had some very promising results from the couple of people who’ve tried it. Both users also have the Flightsim Labs Concorde X and I had them disable that aircraft’s sound gauge as well - it is likely identical to the PMDG gauge since the same person, Lefteris Kalamaras, wrote both of them. Both people reported that they were able to complete numerous long flights without any major issues and that in the case of the Concorde, both were able to see the external model for the first time without it almost instantly disappearing/corrupting upon loading the sim. My theory (I will readily admit I don’t know for sure on this) is that the Concorde may be loading more custom sounds than the 747 or MD-11 do, and this explains why the issue is more prevalent there than it is with the PMDG products.Now, that said, we are not convinced this is all of the story – one of the testers told me he did see a piece of the 747-400 VC (the floor) disappear even with the sound dll disabled – it did not however cause a CTD or any further corruption in the visual model. What this tells us is that we are undoubtedly at least on the right track with this idea that the issue is caused at the root by the system bus getting overloaded with real time data streams. Only certain systems seem to be susceptible to it as well, including systems with much higher specs than some that don’t see the issue, which further complicates pinning anything down. I’ve tried in vain to make it happen on my own system and I can’t, even when running just about every crazy maxed out addon I can throw at it.We’re providing this information in the hopes that it sparks ideas among the whole community (other developers and knowledgeable simmers alike) on this issue – it’s clear that this affects everyone and that this is going to be a problem for almost anyone making complex aircraft for FSX. If the clues we are publishing here can lead to a solution, we will share this information with all developers in order that the entire community benefits from this discovery. Clearly this problem affects more developers than just PMDG, so a solution will benefit everyone."The Fix:Turn your settings down, make sure to reduce the water quality to at least low 2X. Disable/discontinue use of the REX 2.0 weather engine, reduce your computer's sound quality to 3 settings from the bottom.Use *******'s fix:"add the following lines to their corresponding sections your FSX.cfg (located in the C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX folder)[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)[sOUND]SOUND=1SOUND_QUALITY=2SOUND_LOD=0and as well follow this adviceForce VSYNC to OFF on your Video CardLet The Application control Antialiasing and Anisotropic Filtering (set them to application controlled in the nVidia control panel) Make sure you use MultiSampling AA, and not SuperSampling or Combined.if you use the evil nHancer, set Aniso there to OFF (it will still work), seems to be a bug with nHancer.If you use dualview or Clone mode, DISABLE it, make sure you ONLY use one monitor when doing the tests.Set pre-render frames to 0Finally, go back with your Nvidia drivers to 197.71 or the oldest your card will support.. I've yet to see a performance change in new drivers, but old ones restore compatibility. MY system:Windows 7 Ultimate 64bitIntel i7 Quadcore overclocked to 3.07 GhZ8GB DDR3 RAMNvidia GTX 470 4GB driver version 197.71Collin BiedenkappALL USERS WHO TRY THIS PLEASE REPORT BACK!

[Tabs 2,790]

Uh Colin - you're aware that most of that is just copied and pasted out of my thread where the solution was discovered that's still stickied on this forum right? HIGHMEMFIX=1 is the solution to the problem, nothing else. The other stuff like stale buffer threshold proved erroneous - we had this confirmed by some of the people who worked on FSX's engine. No problems with more recent video drivers either.http://forum.avsim.n...solution-found/

[Cuddly1956 1]

WOW good find there Colin - I'm sure that ******* Altuve (bojote) will be most impressed and interested in that information.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery they say....John Ellison

[Rickie Welsh 27]

Hi, in particular to Tabs. I have w7 home edition 64bit with i7 920 2.67ghz cpu. Obviously you have gone to great lengths to correct the Graphic Corruption problem which seems to have affected so many users, I have never interfered with my PC and never experienced the problems you have outlined. Is there some reason why this anomaly hasnt affected my system or have I just been lucky. Curiosity has just got the better of me. richard welsh.

[TurbofanDude 50]

Uh Colin - you're aware that most of that is just copied and pasted out of my thread where the solution was discovered that's still stickied on this forum right? HIGHMEMFIX=1 is the solution to the problem, nothing else. The other stuff like stale buffer threshold proved erroneous - we had this confirmed by some of the people who worked on FSX's engine. No problems with more recent video drivers either.http://forum.avsim.n...solution-found/

I know, I was just summarizing what fixed it for me. I should have been ,ore specific. A few other things seem to cause trouble on my system and I thought I'd try to add to the existing knowledge base and summarize all I've read and learned. I only take credit for what I've done, which is not using the REX engine for now (until I can test), reducing water settings (from a friend of mine)I wasn't trying to steal *******'s ideas, instead add to them.As well, like before, the newest drivers did indeed have problems on my system in a similar way, bu more with alt-tabbing instead.CollinATTENTION ALL! A lot of this is from the other post by Ryan. I was just backing his ideas up and adding a little information for the people that his idea didn't quite fix if for. A good chunk of this is just me copying from the other post to back it up and summarize it.I will be testing with bringing my settings back up and using the REX weather, and if my test prove successful, I'll report back. If not, I'll identify the issues.If anybody else has any other information or troubles they would like to add or need help with, please post it on the stickied post or here.

[TurbofanDude 50]

WOW good find there Colin - I'm sure that ******* Altuve (bojote) will be most impressed and interested in that information.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery they say....John Ellison

Please read my post to the bottom. Thanks, but ******* came up with most of this, I just summarized his and added a bit of my own knowledge and time to it.Collin (with two L's, :)

Hi, in particular to Tabs. I have w7 home edition 64bit with i7 920 2.67ghz cpu. Obviously you have gone to great lengths to correct the Graphic Corruption problem which seems to have affected so many users, I have never interfered with my PC and never experienced the problems you have outlined. Is there some reason why this anomaly hasnt affected my system or have I just been lucky. Curiosity has just got the better of me. richard welsh.

It may in fact be due to your graphics card, your drivers, your FSX version, your addons or anything. I seem to have more issues with power hungry addons. Your computer may just be more compatible with things. At least now you know that if it happens, you can fix it. As well, I summarized a lot of *******'s ideas about this (like the HIGHMEMFIX=1) and that and I added a bit of my own knowledge and time. I will be testing with the REX weather engine and much higher settings to see if it stays stable or now. Either way, Good luck!Collin