Off to a bad start

[Darth_Vapor666 54]

Hi,After doing quite a bit of reading and research, I finally purchased ASE yesterday. The product seemed very promising, and I must say I was initially impressed. Unfortunately, this was short-lived and soon gave way to anger and frustration. As in the attached screenshots, I am getting random artifacts, tearing and other display problems. I have no idea if ASE is not liking my other add-ons but in the absence of ASE, they all happily worked together. I have not noticed anything specific triggering these issues. They just happen randomly with ASE running. Another issue I cant show in the screenies is flickering scenery. And I dont mean little distant sections, this is like half the airport building flickering...Its very disappointing to experience such issues with a product that has been in the market for a while. I dont get much time for flight sim, but what time I do get, I want to be flying, not posting for help in forums. I am sorry if my tone offends anyone, but its the 2nd payware in as many weeks to not perform. And Im just starting to question the quality of new products being released by some publishers.I use my pc exclusively for flight sim. Here are the specs:HP Pavillion w intel core 17 860 3.03 Ghz processor 8GB Ram, Nvidia GTX260The programs I am running: FSX acceleration with all updates, REX 2, Aivlasoft EFB, RC4, EZCA, Shade, FS Global 08, FSpassenger, audio environment & FS Scene.(pic5: a thick coloured line across the co-pilot windscreen)Also the clouds dont look right. Are they supposed to be 2-dimensional?Thanks,Sam Mustafa

[Jean-Paul 167]

And Im just starting to question the quality of new products being released by some publishers.

I have been using Hifi's products for years and have never had the problems you mention. A shot in the dark but is REX (and its own weather engine ) running when you use ASE ?

[Darth_Vapor666 54]

Nope, not the Rex weather engine.In the past hour, ASE crashed and won't startup anymore. I think a full reinstall is in order.

[Damian Clark 1,083]

Hello,Honestly I've never seen anything like that and we've never had any reports of any version of our AS products causing any such behavior in any version of FS. There technically is no way an external add-on like ASE can cause graphical issues or artifacts, it is an add-on after-all. The best guess here is a graphics driver issue, memory issue (virus?) or FSX installation issue.Without having any experience with this I'm afraid we can't be of much help. But if you are unable to get ASE working on your system please contact our support center we can try to help you with further details or can offer a refund. Please keep us updated either way.

[Darth_Vapor666 54]

Wow thanks for that Damian. I am currently going through the painful process of trying to isolate the issue. Evidence so far is pointing to something other than an add-on problem. I have now had several freezes requiring a reboot. Apologies for any critical remarks in my post. It seemed too much of a coincidence earlier that fsx started playing up just as ASE was installed. My system has been rock solid since I got it, hence the suspicious tone.As I mentioned, ASE does seem to hold great promise. I just hope whatever is causing the problem allows me to experience this program. Currently I am tinkering with drivers and other system settings. Next, if unresolved would be a system restore and then clean boot :(Thanks again for your help and understanding.Sam Mustafa

[flyingscampi 2]

Are you running Win 7 64-bit? I got those spikes when I was running out of RAM - obviously not a problem with your 8GB as long as the OS can use it all.

[Jetman67 506]

yeh dont give up ASE is awesome, I have no such issues and the support here is second to none, i would agree i have seen issues like that on my system in the past, think it was definently driver related and was intermittent went away after system rebuild from memory, you will see clouds like that 2d stuff depends on the cloud type, i also see them but also see beautiful volumetric clouds, I use REX for textures, hope you get this sorted cheers

[vgbaron 3,491]

Those artifacts are caused by graphics system being overloaded - nothing to do with ASE. Your graphics card is on the edge for what you are running. Try dropping some settings, reinstalling the video driver, etc.Vic

[Darth_Vapor666 54]

Thanks for your valuable suggestions guys. I think I have done enough tweaking and testing in the past few days to make ASE work for me. Apart from updating drivers etc, I think the one thing that made the biggest difference was the 'cloud layer number' setting. Confident my system could handle it, I had them way up. Now down in single digits, artifacts, CTD's and low frame rates have suddenly disappeared. Im also discovering that choosing a weather depiction method involves a bit of compromise. I love DWC, but after I saw snow falling in fair weather conditions, I had no choice but to switch. I am yet to experience the joys of getting caught in a up/down draft (microbursts) or wake turbulence, but the anticipation is keeping things interesting.Cheers,Sam

[woodhick 504]

You don't want to get caught in a microburst. I've been there --it ain't pretty. The feeling of absolute helplessness is awful.

[Darth_Vapor666 54]

You don't want to get caught in a microburst. I've been there --it ain't pretty. The feeling of absolute helplessness is awful.

Ok Dan, I retract my statement. Although I was only referring to it in the context of flight simming.

[woodhick 504]

Yeah, I was too. The feeling is in no wise diminished, other than that you get to walk away and fly another day. In the real world?? Not so much.