Ok, now let's recapitulate what we know:Some users have this error over Europe with a certain payware airport, when this airport is removed, no more error; some users have this error flying in Seattle area along with PNW scenery; then again, when this scenery is disabled, no more error.I for one have this problem of G3D.dll error with FTX/PNW , along with missing GUIDS that I managed to fix by re-installing FSX and all my addons EXCEPT Vaschon freeware (this scenery install 2 airports so just disabling 2S1 is not enough, you need to remove also another one, sorry I'm at work and do not recall the ICAO) but unfortunately, G3D.dll errors are still there so I can conclude that missing GUIDS are not the sole responsible....What i want from this tread is not to Know if FS-GS is good, bad etc, I want to find a SOLUTION to G3D.dll error ! so please, leave these sterile posts out ? We already KNOW it is a developper issue but since there is no help (yet) from them...In my test flight (KORS direct to KPDX) I noticed yesterday that FSX vas usage was steadily climbing near Seattle from 2.3 to 3.4-5 befor it crashed; (J van E, I tried the Autosaver program for the heck of it and FSX unfortunately still crashed) BUT when I used a saved portion to resume the flight, the vas was back down to 2.3 and climb no more than 2.8 ??And Mad Dog, your right: I like tweaking LOLAlain from Montreal

Mad, you are right, I would much rather fly than tweak. I take my 172 to the A and P when it needs work, I take my SUV to the garage when it needs attention, and I take my FSX to FS-GS when something new comes along and it needs updating. I know my own limitations, as others should.I am actually sitting on the hold short line as I type this, waiting for the rest of the pilots to join.

I want to find a SOLUTION to G3D.dll error ! so please, leave these sterile posts out ? We already KNOW it is a developper issue but since there is no help (yet) from them...

It has already been posted a few times, disable PNW until the developer fixes it.

It has already been posted a few times, disable PNW until the developer fixes it.

That is very simple to do but it is not the point of this tread...any constructive ideas ?Alain from Montreal

That is very simple to do but it is not the point of this tread...any constructive ideas ?Alain from Montreal

Unfortunatly that is the solution until its fixed, or dont fly in a PNW area.

To Maddog, Word Not Allowed, DJJose and all the other doubters...as a long time customer of FS-GS, (and you arent) let me enlighten you a bit....First, I remember MD stating in another thread he was going to try the FS-GS service, and obviously he hasn't. Word Not Allowed survived a whole HOUR out of a 8-10 hour service and quit, and others have never even checked into FS-GS other than to voice uneducated opinions, so their credibility is out the window.I started using FS-GS back in FS9, and have had 4 'setups' with Mike, so I do have a bit of credibility with posting some actual facts instead of unending speculation.Without going into great detail, there is no one here who has the knowledge he has and the experiance to setup a computer for FS, period. This thread is a prime example, 12 pages of never ending hope that a tweak, fix, or hammer will fix a certain problem.I can't address any of the problems with the g3d issues in Europe since I dont fly there, but I can certainly talk about the ones in the US. They are caused by PNW, plain and simple. Turn it off, no error, turn it on and fly over a faulty scenery and POOF, you are on the desktop.How do I know this you ask? It's painfully simple. I DONT use PNW and I have never had a g3d.dll error, ever, anywhere, period. So how do I know its causing the problem then? Again it's simple. I fly in multiplayer with a group that DOES use PNW. On many occasions when they have it running I happily fly on while those running PNW get the error and crash out. Let me say that again......We are over the SAME scenery, with the SAME plane, using all the SAME settings, and those running PNW crash out, those that dont run PNW do NOT crash out, end of story.FS-GS set up all the machines, found the issue, notified Orbx, and was ignored, so who ya gonna blame now? I don't use NickN's tweaks, I dont use *******'s tweaks, and I do not have a single problem with FSX with most sliders maxxed out. While some folks spend their time wandering through threads like this in hopes of finding the 'Holy Grail', others of us are happily flying FSX with zero issues.My goal is to fly, not spend countless hours wading through speculative 'fixes' hoping for a 'magic bullet' to fix a problem caused by a developer who refuses to fix it. The bottom line is, for me and 1000's of other satisified user's, 100% satisfaction with the service Mike and FS-GS provides. I have never been one to let pride get in the way of common sense, as some others here seem to.

You just now insulted us all in one brief swipe. Thanks. How about you just delete your account here and go along happily simming along?Did you even read this thread in it's detail?Did you even read that we basically discovered the same thing? We did suspect (and also knew) that in the beginning! But we were trying to find out WHY - something that your beloved FSGS service apparently didn't even try to. Your solution is just throw it away... if we don't do anything, apparently, noone will...What's the use of notifying ORBX that it's scenery crashes when they don't know the background, the real background, maybe some info on it etc?I find your answer pretty insulting to this thread, me and other users. Like we are a bunch of nothing-knows.And above all, I hate that pretentious attitude of MB, first saying that he prevented g3d.dlls, fine, and now we know even why... uninstall ORBX and sceneries that cause it... WOW -> A SOLUTION!Man... come on, get serious...

Being a client of fs-gs for more than 3 years now and having used their service numerous times I can't help but only wonder about the attitude directed at that company by both people who have never used their sevice and people who didn't let them finish because in the process they see something they don't like or don't agree with, wether they think they know better or they read about it in a forum by some so called experts. Asking questions to understand something is one thing, second-guessing solutions that are the result of hours and hours of testing and second-guessing expertise that comes from years of experience in a specific field and - not to forget - also from a qualification as a professional computer engineer is another thing. Most of their clients don't have time to come in here and post or complain because they are flying their sims. Why don't you take your sim-experience to the next level and use their service - if you really wanna do something do it right.Thanks Malteby the way: it's called a g3d.dll error and not gd3.dll as the topic states

You misunderstood a little. What I (can't say for others) don't respect is the attitude.I respect that there are people who don't want to fiddle, tweak, set-up, who have no time, and just want to fly. I get that! And for that, it's great.I can't stand though "I am better than everyone else, I have solutions-attitude" (check what he wrote in the first post in this thread). There is more than a subtle difference here.

HelloThe difference between yourself and the folks here is you have no interest in hardware and software preferring instead to just get on and use your sim, more power to you if that is what you want, not knocking that at all.After four setups with FS-GS do you now know how to do this for yourself or will you need their services again ?.In other words have you learnt anything.

It's something we are doing in the store (I'm a store manager in my real life) - we don't tell customers how to repair their stuff, be that computers or anything else, I'm not crazy. Instead we fix it for them and charge.I'm pretty happy that I can pull out more and more money out of my customers! Makes me really happy! And I hope it makes them happy - because they keep on coming for money-milking! Long live the capitalism!Isn't that pretty much the same thing FSGS is doing?But how do you feel when I put it that way for you?As mad dog said, I agree to all his points, you haven't learned a single thing and it's like a car which you don't repair on your own.But on my car, what I can fix by myself, I'll do it myself (I'll never give my car to the garage for twice-per-year tire change, and we have two cars). Same with computers. I'm not lazy to learn even if it takes time, whatever it might be.And yeah, we actually do like tweaking

Ok, now let's recapitulate what we know:Some users have this error over Europe with a certain payware airport, when this airport is removed, no more error; some users have this error flying in Seattle area along with PNW scenery; then again, when this scenery is disabled, no more error.I for one have this problem of G3D.dll error with FTX/PNW , along with missing GUIDS that I managed to fix by re-installing FSX and all my addons EXCEPT Vaschon freeware (this scenery install 2 airports so just disabling 2S1 is not enough, you need to remove also another one, sorry I'm at work and do not recall the ICAO) but unfortunately, G3D.dll errors are still there so I can conclude that missing GUIDS are not the sole responsible....What i want from this tread is not to Know if FS-GS is good, bad etc, I want to find a SOLUTION to G3D.dll error ! so please, leave these sterile posts out ? We already KNOW it is a developper issue but since there is no help (yet) from them...In my test flight (KORS direct to KPDX) I noticed yesterday that FSX vas usage was steadily climbing near Seattle from 2.3 to 3.4-5 befor it crashed; (J van E, I tried the Autosaver program for the heck of it and FSX unfortunately still crashed) BUT when I used a saved portion to resume the flight, the vas was back down to 2.3 and climb no more than 2.8 ??And Mad Dog, your right: I like tweaking LOLAlain from Montreal

I agree, this topic is not about FSGS, I also got a bit carried away with that company I forgot long time ago and hoped never to be reminded of it.Let's come back OT:It's with some airports, but they don't have to be european. I believe it comes down to what one developer told me, at least it has been true with sceneries until now - huge number of single small-sized textures, instead of bigger ones. I don't know how some developers manage only 150 textures, and some need 1100 for a smaller airport...But what I do know now - if the airport has lots of textures, more chance it's gonna crash. I guess ORBX also has lots of textures and objects and is not as optimized as it could be. Thus causing same problem in overflowing the sim.This is something he wrote (I'll keep the name, as I don't know if he wants to "present himself"):"To optimize you need to lower the number of drawcall that the engine need to calculate to show you object on the screen, FSX hate when they are too much on the same area thats why it's better to map on a 4048*4048 texture the entire airport instead of use 20x 512*512 or at list use a 1024*1024 for an area with only a bunch of MDL.The majority of developer they make the mistake in bring FS8 and FS9 code in FSX and it kills FSX even 2K ground poly is not a good Idea but it work as long as you play fair, my self for future project i will change method and remouve the old code."That makes perfect sense.Missing GUIDs - they have no impact on the g3d.dll by itself. You can have 10 guid errors and still not crash or have as many and still crash even before they come. They only help in the way they pause the sim. If you resolve the errors, you will still get a crash if you got it before without MLA. I checked that couple of times in more than only one scenario.VAS is climbing when texture usage is rapidly going up - apparently either airport or scenery dependant. I'm not scenery developer so I'm guessing here, but look at how much the usage goes up when you enable 4096 textures on NGX, or 4096 clouds, or even UTX - texture usage goes rapidly up due to more landclass, roads, autogen... and with more single files you bombard the engine, the more chance it's going to stall. That is why is my theory with a little help that if you optimize textures, you are gonna get rid of g3d.dlls... not something you can do though.

That is very simple to do but it is not the point of this tread...any constructive ideas ?

Let him go...

They are caused by PNW, plain and simple. Turn it off, no error, turn it on and fly over a faulty scenery and POOF, you are on the desktop.How do I know this you ask? It's painfully simple. I DONT use PNW and I have never had a g3d.dll error, ever, anywhere, period. So how do I know its causing the problem then? Again it's simple. I fly in multiplayer with a group that DOES use PNW. On many occasions when they have it running I happily fly on while those running PNW get the error and crash out. Let me say that again......We are over the SAME scenery, with the SAME plane, using all the SAME settings, and those running PNW crash out, those that dont run PNW do NOT crash out, end of story.

You are aware Jay that G3D is NOT just limited to PNW!!!!! Yes disabling it 'cures' FSX but you are only hiding the errors under the mat, G3D is primarily caused by addon scenery and its effects on the Virtual Address Space. After hundreds of crashes in PNW and struggling to think it was my whole hardware and software system causing me problems I gave up flying in that area and removed it but errors still occured when using similar packages in different parts of the world. Using very high settings and flying over Aerosofts VFR Germany it would also eventually CTD with G3D error which was nothing to do with FTX/ORBXSure we can all remove our add-on scenery to get a more stable environment but the sim would look like crap like it did when it first came out. We are all perfectly aware that disabling the offending scenery helps matters but as FSX is meant to be open to allow developers products then we are at their mercy. The fact that the exact same scenery/aircraft/settings can crash one pc but not another leads the developers down a path that they cannot cure it if they possibly do not experience it.

What bothers me and will always bother me is how forums lead users down paths that can cause total confusion with guesses about factors that confuse and obscurate issues which can in turn lead to often costly and ineffective resultsMichael Greenblatt

Isn't this called research? What else can individuals do to tell everyone they have CTD issues with a program similar to others and the various testing they conducted to try to alleviate the problem? And conduct successful and unsuccessful research and testing to try to fix the problem? An analogy would be research scientists trying to find a cause for cancer and maybe find a solution to get rid of it. That research can get convoluted too! Where else can we discuss our issues and look for solutions to OUR problems. Just sit back and close our eyes real tight and hope the next flight won't crash? Unbelievable post! Best regards,Jim

Isn't this called research? What else can individuals do to tell everyone they have CTD issues with a program similar to others and the various testing they conducted to try to alleviate the problem? And conduct successful and unsuccessful research and testing to try to fix the problem? An analogy would be research scientists trying to find a cause for cancer and maybe find a solution to get rid of it. That research can get convoluted too! Where else can we discuss our issues and look for solutions to OUR problems. Just sit back and close our eyes real tight and hope the next flight won't crash? Unbelievable post!Best regards,Jim

Hello JimMichael would rather we all stopped this researching and tweaking and just threw $100 bills at FS-GS instead.It is rumoured that he has in his possession knowledge of hardware and FSX that is simply unobtainable to normal folk....

Running on single core, nothing changed, except that I wasn't even able running NGX and high demanding areas. VAS didn't even have a chance to grow.

Can you pause an let the scenery complete loading when paused? (If scenery won't load while paused, can you fly really slow at minimum GWT?)

If it doesn't, there is no crash. I tried with AM=1, that also yieled a crash, same as running 4 cores (AM=14).

OK, that means the thread sync problem (if it exists!) is not between FSX threads but between an FSX thread an driver/system thread.

In the meantime I am happy with FSX at very high graphic settings and no CTD's thanks to my AutoSaver....

OK, more proof that allowing FSX to catch-up with scenery loading mitigates GD3 CTDs.

...A simple solution for me now is just to remove sceneries that cause it (I know exactly which right now)...

OK, we now know ORBX ONW is one of the scenerues that cause the GD3 CTD. If a prudent time has lapsed since you notified the developper of the airports you are using (for a chance to post fixes), you might want to name those sceneries as well. Then we can compile a list of those sceneries (Mr. FS-GS's input would also be helpful!) so we can start to analyse what those sceneries have in common.

...I'm still looking for a guy offering a small tool that shows the 'close to the limit' value of your current installation and settings. Are the VAS related things a hint or even a vital value there?

As we zero-in on the culprits, perhaps there is a serious programmer amongst us with a debugger that can load FSX under the debugger and cause a GD3 CTD fault for analysis.

...A developer pointed me into right direction, and I have maybe found a connection. I have compared the EBBR and EDDF sceneries with some other sceneries, and found out that they have way more smaller textures in the texture folder than some other sceneries, even bigger or comparative airports, which have only half or less textures.The developer said it's better to optimize with larger textures but less in number to optimize the drawcall on the engine. It makes sense in this case. Both sceneries have around 900 textures, while for instance vienna or heathrow have around 300. It makes a lot of sense to me that if you make 900 textures and they all are loaded at the same moment, if you have a VAS usage that engine can't handle them.Moreover, AS LOWI, the well know around the community for crashes at OEV, has over 1100 textures!It is also probably a reason why ORBX is crashing so often, and also why some sceneries with more smaller textures crash when you load high VAS usage.

This is good headway! We should definitely do comparisons between your problem airports and PNW to see what the common design points are.

See my note above, high scenery setting and high LOD make FSX call for more objects, if objects are missing or corrupted could this cause FSX to generate a g3d error rather than overload of the VAS? Can it be possible to get a g3d with high VAS but with both autogen or scenery complex at low or none? surely this will show which is triggering it?

So here's another easy thing to try: Turn autogen completely off and see if you still get the GD3 CTD.

...I can't address any of the problems with the g3d issues in Europe since I dont fly there, but I can certainly talk about the ones in the US. They are caused by PNW, plain and simple. Turn it off, no error, turn it on and fly over a faulty scenery and POOF, you are on the desktop.How do I know this you ask? It's painfully simple. I DONT use PNW and I have never had a g3d.dll error, ever, anywhere, period. So how do I know its causing the problem then? Again it's simple. I fly in multiplayer with a group that DOES use PNW. On many occasions when they have it running I happily fly on while those running PNW get the error and crash out. Let me say that again......We are over the SAME scenery, with the SAME plane, using all the SAME settings, and those running PNW crash out, those that dont run PNW do NOT crash out, end of story.

This is hard evidence! Again, we need to compare PNW to the problem airport sceneries where Word Not Allowed is having his GD3 CTDs.Cheers,- jahman

The sad part is that one unknown by many and known by some would come here and try to disparage a Commercial Member with an impeccable support team that has tried to rectify the situation,. Some have been successful, because of the type of flying that they do, but many are still experiencing d3d.dll CTDs. To try to put the blame on one developer is ludicrous.I'm appalled by anyone who has the temerity to talk about someone else and not mention their name. Micheal, we all known who you're talking about and all I can say is, you're part of the minority. Good luck! Please take it somewhere else. We are not here to ridicule your customers. We are here, to rectify issues that will make our FSX experience more favorable. Did I mention, for free.

Jahman dude, please take a real keyboard or a spell checker

...It's with some airports, but they don't have to be european. I believe it comes down to what one developer told me, at least it has been true with sceneries until now - huge number of single small-sized textures, instead of bigger ones. I don't know how some developers manage only 150 textures, and some need 1100 for a smaller airport...

So we need to compare PNW and your trouble airports...

...Missing GUIDs - they have no impact on the g3d.dll by itself. You can have 10 guid errors and still not crash or have as many and still crash even before they come. They only help in the way they pause the sim. If you resolve the errors, you will still get a crash if you got it before without MLA. I checked that couple of times in more than only one scenario.

But MLA's, like Flight Autosave, seem to induce a pause in the scenery engine that lets FSX avoid the GD3 CTD.

VAS is climbing when texture usage is rapidly going up - apparently either airport or scenery dependant. I'm not scenery developer so I'm guessing here, but look at how much the usage goes up when you enable 4096 textures on NGX, or 4096 clouds, or even UTX - texture usage goes rapidly up due to more landclass, roads, autogen... and with more single files you bombard the engine, the more chance it's going to stall. That is why is my theory with a little help that if you optimize textures, you are gonna get rid of g3d.dlls... not something you can do though.

Just a thought: Could windows be running out of file handles? (or threads?) I assume FSX spawns threads to read the scenery files in parallel, so if FSX attempts to open too many files at once at some point a file open request is going to be denied, and since the module reuesting the file open is GD3.dll, then there we have our GD3 CTD. Now OTOH if FSX pauses due to MLAs or AutoSaves, then FSX can speed processing of scenery file load requests. As a file read request is completed, the system resources allocated to that fle read request are freed and can be recycled for the next file to be read and thus the file resources system resources are not exhausted. Perhaps there is an FSX congig variable for scnery file I/O resurces that can be increased?Cheers,- jahman.

Isn't this called research? What else can individuals do to tell everyone they have CTD issues with a program similar to others and the various testing they conducted to try to alleviate the problem? And conduct successful and unsuccessful research and testing to try to fix the problem? An analogy would be research scientists trying to find a cause for cancer and maybe find a solution to get rid of it. That research can get convoluted too! Where else can we discuss our issues and look for solutions to OUR problems. Just sit back and close our eyes real tight and hope the next flight won't crash? Unbelievable post!Best regards,Jim

Jim,I think you missed his point. We the user shouldnt have to pay to be a beta tester for faulty software, but unfortunatly we end up in that roll. When a problem is identified, it is up to the developer to isolate the issue and fix it. We can assist them to a certain point if we desire, but the ultimate responsibility is theirs, not ours.Now having said that, some here simply love to spend their time experimenting, tweaking, etc, and that is fine if thats what they like. For me, I bought FS to fly, not spend untold hours trying to fix it. I have many addons and zero problems, others arent so lucky and I do feel bad for them. Unfortunatly there are many like me who just want a working trouble free FS experiance, and when they do have an issue and dont have the knowledge to fix it, they come to these forums. And what do they see? Self proclaimed experts that direct them to try any and all 'fixes' without any knowledge of whether it will work or not. What usually happens is they end up screwing up their FSX worse than when they started, and get frustrated.I know everyone who posts are trying to help, well most of them. Some just like to see how many posts they can create and try to sound like an 'expert', when in fact they have no clue what they are talking about, and they do more damage than help. New users, and even some experianced ones are clueless as to who actually knows what they are talking about and those who dont, so they try everything posted. I know this because I was one of them, years ago.I, like many here, dont care about spending hours trying to fix a problem, I would rather just fly. My time is way too valuable to spend it poking around in areas I know nothing about. I treat my computer like a car, I want to 'turn the key' and have it work. I wouldn't expect a bricklayer to help find a cure for cancer, and I don't think you would either.Now in this case, PNW causes a problem and up to this point has not fixed it. Solution #1, disable PNW ( I did NOT say remove it).. Solution #2, dont fly in that area....Solution #3, dont buy a faulty product until it's working correctly (my choice). Everything else is just taking up time that could be spent flying and enjoying what this sim has to offer. I have many many addon sceneries and none create the issues PNW has caused, so it's simple for me, I just dont buy the software, no matter how great it is in other aspects.To each his own, but I will continue to use the tools available to me, and the folks at FS-GS are one of the best tools I know of if a users goal is to fly and not have problems, regardless of Maddogs, Kostas, or anyone elses uninformed opinions.