textures disappearing (onwship, cockpit, AI airliners, FollowMe car)

[hariseldon]

Hello, I'm returning to FSX after a while and I've rediscovered an annoying issue that appears frequently when flying airliners and locating in very detailed airports:

 

- textures start missing, sometimes in AI airliners, sometimes in my external airframe views, sometimes in virtual cockpit, sometimes in detailed airports buildings;

- sometimes it happens quite soon (before taxiing), sometimes after landing

 

I have an enough powerful system, so my specs should not be an issue, although my gfx settings are "high" (scenery is almost to max, save for autogen=dense)

I fly with directX9

 

I'm sorry if I missed it: I did not find any resourceful explanation searching this forum

 

thanks for any suggestion

[OldMaintChief]

Try locking your frames to 30, external or internal.

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

For a quad core running HT off, this should be 14.

 

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1

[hariseldon]

Try locking your frames to 30, external or internal.

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

For a quad core running HT off, this should be 14.

 

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

thanks, I'll try as soon as possible....shouldn't it be in my case (i7-950 / 8 cores):

affinitymask=254 ?

[OldMaintChief]

No, real cores only. HT should be off.

 

Dave

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- textures start missing, sometimes in AI airliners, sometimes in my external airframe views, sometimes in virtual cockpit, sometimes in detailed airports buildings;

 

Probably your problem is caused by overloaded FSX main thread doing "scene synthesis".

 

For first, it is highly recomended to disable HT in BIOS. FSX works better with only physical cores working, without splitting each core into two logical thread. Most important reason to do that is allocation of FSX main thread "scene synthesis" to full physical core (core0) instead logical thread (thread0). Thread0 is working less efficent due its coexistency with thread1 on the same physical core0.

 

For diagnosis time set the [JOBSCHEDULER] AffinityMask=15. After disabling HT, run program manager and check to be sure you see only four cores working. Then run FSX in the same condition you have noticed problems ealier - look at workload of core0. If it is reaching 100% that is source of Your problem.

 

To lower core0 workload you may, for first, set the "frame per second" limitation in external program. Use Nvidia Inspector to do that. Try 30 FPS first. Run FSX and look at core0 workload in program manager. It should be significantly lower.

Notice: setting FPS internaly in FSX also improves FSX work but has significantly less influence on lowering core0 workload than external limitation in Nvidia inspector.

 

If that isn't enough, you may split workload of main FSX thread between two cores (core0 and core1) by setting [JOBSCHEDULER] AffinityMask=14. This moves main computional work at core1 and left some work (fibers) at core0. Side effect of that is lowering quantity of cores working over terrain (mesh and textures) and autogen from 3 to 2 (core2 and core3).

[hariseldon]

the issue, in the same conditions, has not shown again, yet ...................

[OldMaintChief]

They are "must have" fixes and should be installed anyway.

 

Dave

[duckbilled]

I agree. Applying these fixes permanently fixed these problems for me. I think I applied them almost 2 years ago and I have not had a problem since.

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[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

Using AffinityMask=14 without important reasons to do that is just wasting computational power of 1/4 CPU. It should be used only when core0 thread is overloaded (100% workload nearly all time) and any other method of lowering workload of core0 (as using ONLY external FPS limitation) doesn't help.

 

Notice: to succsessfully lowering core0 (or core1 in case of AffinityMask=15) workload you have to use ONLY external FPS limitation in Nvida Inspector - internal limitation MUST be set to "unlimited")

 

It is easy to notice, by running program manager - performance tab, that after using AffinityMask=14 workload of core0 is low or very low, and if workload of core1 isn't reaching 80% workload, it is better to join these on one core by applaying AffinityMask=15. In case of using AffinityMask=14 and having high level of core1 workload is good idea to try lower that by ONLY external FPS limitation and if that will help returning to AffinityMask=15 then.

[hariseldon]

Using AffinityMask=14 without important reasons to do that is just wasting computational power of 1/4 CPU. It should be used only when core0 thread is overloaded (100% workload nearly all time) and any other method of lowering workload of core0 (as using ONLY external FPS limitation) doesn't help.

 

Notice: to succsessfully lowering core0 (or core1 in case of AffinityMask=15) workload you have to use ONLY external FPS limitation in Nvida Inspector - internal limitation MUST be set to "unlimited")

 

It is easy to notice, by running program manager - performance tab, that after using AffinityMask=14 workload of core0 is low or very low, and if workload of core1 isn't reaching 80% workload, it is better to join these on one core by applaying AffinityMask=15. In case of using AffinityMask=14 and having high level of core1 workload is good idea to try lower that by ONLY external FPS limitation and if that will help returning to AffinityMask=15 then.

 

 

yet http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html is telling me that I have (14) optimal value set

 

nonetheless, it's no effort to try your suggestion too

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yet http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html is telling me that I have (14) optimal value set

nonetheless, it's no effort to try your suggestion too

 

It is good idea to test it :-)

 

Bojote's Tweaking and Tunig Tool (aka Venetubo generator) is helpful tool but due to endless possiblities of computers configuration, computers real performance, internal settings in FSX, prefered type of scenery (landclass type, photoscenery only, photoscenery with autogen), scenery complexity (there is a big difference between 2.4m and 0.6 m photoscenery) it can't closely match to every particular situation.

 

I gave you advice together with a bit of background explanation and description how to test it. You have two cases easy to check by looking at CPU cores workload and in practical flying test.

 

If you prefere flying over good quality photoscenery (2m, 1m or better), as I do, that setting I described makes significant difference reducing "bluriness" caused by too slow ground textures processing. With AffinityMask=14 only two cores are doing that job, after switching to AffinityMask=15 there are three cores working over that - it is 50% more.