FSX Constant Blackscreens

[TexXxan91 19]

Ok, I have been getting a lot of black screens lately and I cannot for the life of me figure out what exactly is causing them. Almost every time I access one of the menus in a flight and exit out of them, I get the blackscreen... At first, it seemed that I was only getting them with the PMDG 747 and Aerosoft Airbus X, but just recently, I got one with my CS 757. Like I said, they only happen when exiting from one of the menus during a flight. I've tried so many things but now I'm seriously out of ideas on how to fix this... I think they only happen with more complex aircraft at complex sceneries/airports and I am able to exit menus sometimes but very rarely.I've tried many cfg tweaks, rebuilding my cfg, copying the vista uiautomationcore.dll in the main directory, clearing my shader cache..none have worked. Attached is my fsx.cfg as it is right now.These are some addons that are being used when I get the blackscreen:REX 2 External FPS Limiter set @ 30 FPSENB modFSWCPMDG 747-400X, Airbus X, CS 757Orbx FTX AUS 4.0 and YMML v2 Aerosoft Mega Airport Heathrow and Frankfurt X Specs:FSX w/ AccelW7 x64WD 500GB dedicatedQ8300 @ 3.2 GHz4GB @1066 Mhz GTX 470 @ 700MHz (Driver ver: 266.58)I have Nvidia Inspector controlling my AA and AF. AA=8xS, AA transparency=2x supersampling, AF=16x Any suggestions regarding this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks,Trey

[Bob Scott 7,780]

First thing I'd do is back off on your GPU overclock. 700MHz on a 470 is a very aggressive overclock--the stock clock speed on that GPU is 607 MHz and the fastest factory clocked 470 I've seen on the market is set at 650 MHz.Insufficient voltage to the GPU, due to an insufficient or faulty power supply, voltage regulation issues on the GPU board itself, or possibly insufficient voltage for the overclock in use, can cause the black screen issue--often accompanied by a nvlddmkm driver module error.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

[TexXxan91 19]

Ok, I turned down the core freq on my card to 675mhz (which is lower than what I had it before I got these black screens) and its running perfectly stable. I went to start up FSX and I got that fs had stopped working error. I start it up again and this time I get this error with pmdgsounds.dll that looks like this:"Flight simulator has detected a problem with a third-party software program: Name : PMDGSounds Dynamic Link LibraryVersion : 10,0,61355,58Compagny : PMDGFile : PMDG\DLL\DLLs\PMDGSounds.dll Do you want to run this software ( not recommended )?"I hit yes the first time and FSX just crashes, I start it up again and hit no and FSX starts up but when I started just the default flight I was getting HORRENDOUS frame rates. I'm talkin like 5 fps. LOL I closed FSX immediately and that is all I've done so far. The only changes that have been made to my computer before I started fsx today was that windows update installed the W7 SP1. I made zero changes to fsx itself. This is getting really weird...

[Bob Scott 7,780]

I don't know what the W7 Service Pack changes, but video drivers, sound drivers, and DirectX are all fundamental parts of the foundation that FSX or any other PC game is built on.I'd check for updates on all three, and maybe considering uninstalling/reinstalling the drivers if the problem persists. Many people also do not know that even if you have DirectX 9.0c, there have been updates to 9.0c released every couple of months or so for years now. Going to the Microsoft downloads center and downloading/running the latest dxsetup.exe will install those updates. Some of the newer drivers (like your 200-series nVidia driver) depend on the changes made in some of the newer DX versions.That said, any time I start seeing problems that appear to be driver or hardware related, I drop back to stock clocks on everything before I troubleshoot, and I get things running at stock speeds before pushing the clocks back up. A stable overclock can be rendered unstable by BIOS, OS, and driver changes, as well as by physical changes in the hardware components themselves as they age.My last ugly battle with black screens turned out to be a bad voltage regulator on a GTX280 video card. Dropping the overclock fixed it for a while, and then the problem re-appeared as the board's VR continued to deteriorate. Bob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

[TexXxan91 19]

Ok thanks, I'll revert back to stock clocks. An update on what I've done so far:I uninstalled both my PMDG 747 and J41 and removed all pmdg related .dll entries from the dll.xml and rebuilt my cfg again. I don't get the error on start up anymore but I'm still getting terrible fps in flight which I have found that it only occurs when the sound is OFF or the sim is paused. When I turn the sound back on, the fps plummet again. I have never seen this happen before so any ideas on how to get this fixed? Thanks,Trey

[TexXxan91 19]

Ok whew, got the sound problem fixed. I'm not sure exactly what I did but I do remember hitting OK on this window that came up (can't remember what it said) when I opened the sound menu in my control panel. I was considering a complete reformat at one point I also went back to stock frequency and voltage on my video card. Will report further results concerning the black screening. Trey

[Benjamin J 751]

I'm curious to know if you'll be able to track the origin of your problem since I've been having the same kind of problems. Tell me, do you have any OrbX FTX stuff installed? I think it could be either FTX or the PMDG MD-11 which triggered the problems, but I'm not at all sure.

[TexXxan91 19]

Well I found out that my black screens are being caused by the enbseries mod. After I took my card back to stock freq, instead of getting just a black screen, FSX would actually crash after I accessed a menu. I looked to see what caused the crash in event viewer and saw that it was the d3d9.dll every time. I've now been trying out different versions and different settings of the enbseries mod to see if I can get one that will cooperate. @Thralni: Yes, I have Orbx FTX AUS and YMML, but now I think the culprit is the enb mod. Moreover, I've also found that it is easier to trigger a black screen/crash with more complex aircraft and sceneries. I hope this info helps you get yours figured out too, if you have any other questions, I'll try to be of some assistance.

[Benjamin J 751]

Sorry for necroposting, but I have an update concerning the black screen situation. Seems I found out the cause. At this point I have reinstalled 99.9% of my addons. The only things not installed are some TropicalSim sceneries and the CS707 and.... Yeah, WoAI. WoAI was the cause. One or more aircraft/repaints were probably corrupt or something of the kind, and thus caused a OOM. I have had something like it with a PMDG747 repaint in FSX. I'm now using MyTraffic X and haven't had any problems. Actually. FSX is running really well. Well, performance is lacking at some airports with some aircraft, but I don't care too much.Anyway, this tale has ended. For as far as I'm concerned, I don't need to go back to FS2004 ever again. FSX is working and working well.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Yeah, WoAI. WoAI was the cause. One or more aircraft/repaints were probably corrupt or something of the kind, and thus caused a OOM. I have had something like it with a PMDG747 repaint in FSX. I'm now using MyTraffic X and haven't had any problems.

I remember a while back that the Spanair WOAI package had a problem with one of the textures in the EvoleAi A320 and you had to convert it to dxt3 then it worked. Prior to UT2 comming out I was running all 350 or so WOAI package and never had any problems thankfully, but I did install some of the military packs and accidentally let the WOAI installer install some FS9 AFCADS into my scenery folder that caused me some issues until I figured it out.

Anyway, this tale has ended. For as far as I'm concerned, I don't need to go back to FS2004 ever again. FSX is working and working well.

Glad to hear you back up and running again. Hopefully this will be the last install you have to do for a while. I feel fortunate that I am still running the same FSX install for over 3 years now. I read a post somewhere the other day where the poster said he reinstalls FSX 3 to 4 times a year, lol. If I had to do that I think I would find a new hobby.

[Benjamin J 751]

I remember a while back that the Spanair WOAI package had a problem with one of the textures in the EvoleAi A320 and you had to convert it to dxt3 then it worked. Prior to UT2 comming out I was running all 350 or so WOAI package and never had any problems thankfully, but I did install some of the military packs and accidentally let the WOAI installer install some FS9 AFCADS into my scenery folder that caused me some issues until I figured it out.

That actually makes sense to me, since I remember the A320 being problematic with texture loading. After running some tests when I still had WoAI installed, I saw that it was mostly the A320 model that lost its textures. The Boeing 747, for example, didn't have the problem. It's funny how one little thing can bring down a complete system, isn't it? Anyway, I'm not going into WoAI again, even if the problem is found. I'm sticking with MyTrafficX. Its models might not be the best, but the customizability is great and the support is brilliant.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

That actually makes sense to me, since I remember the A320 being problematic with texture loading. After running some tests when I still had WoAI installed, I saw that it was mostly the A320 model that lost its textures. The Boeing 747, for example, didn't have the problem. It's funny how one little thing can bring down a complete system, isn't it? Anyway, I'm not going into WoAI again, even if the problem is found. I'm sticking with MyTrafficX. Its models might not be the best, but the customizability is great and the support is brilliant.

Yeah I dont blame you for not going back to it either. Since I got UT2 the only thing I use it for are some cargo packages and some paints that UT2 was missing, plus the fact that WOAI was a FPS killer compared to the FSX options availabe now like MTX or UT2. Back then when their weren't amny choices for FSX, WOAI wasn't bad, especially for the price :-)