Flashing polygons / areas on screen - advice to solve ?

[WilloW_737 5]

Greetings:

 

Recently I noticed that polygons/areas begin to flash on the screen. As an example, when you take off part of the scenery will flash quickly.

 

I thought it maybe related to flashing clouds and made the swamcloud.fx fix and deleted the FXheaderHILC MISC folders, but the issue is still there.

 

Any ideas?

 

I am using ORBX scenery. Thank you, Iain

[MrBenevolent 0]

"Usepools=0" in your .cfg can cause this, especially if you are running unlimited framerates...

 

 

Try limiting FPS to 30 or so if you haven't done already and experiment with the pool settings.

 

...it could also be GPU overheating? Have you checked the temps?

[WilloW_737 5]

T

"Usepools=0" in your .cfg can cause this, especially if you are running unlimited framerates...

 

 

Try limiting FPS to 30 or so if you haven't done already and experiment with the pool settings.

 

...it could also be GPU overheating? Have you checked the temps?

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Frames are set to 25. I don't beleive the GPU is not overheating (new high end PC), but how do you check this?

 

Will change "usepools" later tonight.

 

Cheers, Iain

[MrBenevolent 0]

Of course, the bufferpools thing is only relevant if you have already added this tweak to your FSX.cfg - it isn't a default setting!

 

You can use CPUID HW Monitor to check temps or something like MSI Afterburner or NVIDIA Inspector - plenty of free apps around to help you with this.

 

Depending on your card, anything up to around 85C is Ok...more than that and you may get issues.

 

Presume your GPU drivers are all current? Have you made any tweaks to the AA etc with NVIDIA Inspector? If so, try turning these off and if that helps, then re-enabling them by degrees until the problem returns.

 

What is your water setting? Max settings cause flashes - maybe try lowering this a notch or two.

[WilloW_737 5]

Of course, the bufferpools thing is only relevant if you have already added this tweak to your FSX.cfg - it isn't a default setting!

 

Water is turned to low, PC is 3 months old so drivers are up to date (but will check)

 

Regading the bufferpools.

 

Just add the line to cfg? Ant paricular place to add it? Thanks, Iain

[MrBenevolent 0]

Water is turned to low, PC is 3 months old so drivers are up to date (but will check)

 

Regading the bufferpools.

 

Just add the line to cfg? Ant paricular place to add it? Thanks, Iain

 

If you haven't begun tweaking your .cfg file yet, then you should probably start at the beginning by going through Word Not Allowed's tweaking/performance guide here.

 

...and of course, if you haven't tweaked your .cfg, then your problem isn;t likely to be buffer-pools related as you won't have anything relating to this in your .cfg!

 

Now of course, that said, your problem could be related to other .cfg issues, so that guide is likely as good a place as any to start if your temps are fine, your drivers are up to date etc.

 

For the water, I would turn that to "2x High" as a sweet spot for a decent machine that should also avoid flashing.

[WilloW_737 5]

Thanks again.

 

No I have not really tweaking anything. Everytime I seem to tweek a cfg file I have issues, but.....this flashing I have to solve. Cheers, Iain

[JonRD463 146]

In my experience, polygons would flash with Direct X 10 turned on. Try turning it off and see if that clears up the problem. Direct X 10 support in FSX really amounts to just a tech demo, and I felt personally that whatever benefits it added were outweighed by the annoyance of the bugs.

[ad_verbum 0]

There are three kinds of "flashing" polygons. Maybe someone is able to add more.

 

First is connected with using of DX10 preview mode and flashing occurs on flat, parallel to ground, surfaces filled with such airport scenery elements as runways, taxiways and parking areas. It is problem with transparency of overlapping textures. Only known solution is disabling DX10 preview mode.

 

Second is caused by high level of autogen objects, too high for GPU or CPU, flashing may occur anywhere inside FSX scene or even in screen plane. It appears if GPU load or CPU core0 (or core1, if somebody is using AffinityMask) load reaches up to 100%. It is easy to check that with Task Manager > Performance tab for CPU and GPU-Z application > Sensors tab > GPU load for GPU.

Next you may make small test, disable completly autogen (set it to 0), close the FSX, run again and test with the same scenery as ealier. If problem disappeared you know the source. Read this text below for one of the possibilities to eliminate problem:

 

"[bUFFERPOOLS]

Poolsize=0 / Usepools=0 (all the same) - referenced as BP=0

(...)

Water Effects must be High 2.x or higher, otherwise you will get flashes.

(...)

If you get flashing and artifacts with BP=0 tweak, it would be a good idea to check what the GPU is doing - running a GPU at 100% is a source of artifacts, flashes, driver crashes and BSODs. As the CPU sends the data directly to the GPU, and GPU is not able to handle the incoming data, you will get flashing and artifacts, as already mentioned. The only way is to lower the settings, cloud resolutions, or anything basically that is going to give the GPU more headroom, including buying a faster GPU."

Source: http://forum.avsim.n...-guide-for-fsx/

 

Second option may be removing [bUFFERPOOLS] Usepools=0 parameter from fsx.cfg. But it isn't always helping. Raising Water settings to High 2.x works better but makes higher GPU workload as side effect.

 

Third option in case if your CPU core0 is reaching 100% and if you own Nvidia graphics card is to get Nvidia Inspector application and use it for FPS limitation. It is far more efficient than Internal FSX limiter. Make test, run FSX and Task manager and notice core0 workload and exit FSX. Next set "Frame Rate Limiter" in Nvidia inspector FSX's profile to 25FPS, be sure you set internal limitation to "unlimited", run FSX with the same scenery as earlier and check core0 workload in Task manager - it should be significantly lower, removing or lowering frequency of apperance of flashing polygons.

 

Third type of flashing polygons affects clouds. You need to remember that clouds are also 3D objects, like autogen, mapped with partially transparent texture. This kind of errors appears as flashing or non flashing big deformed polygon(s) in sky area often covered with deformed cloud's texture. Source of this problem is similar to previous one, it is CPU or GPU overloading. It is much more often caused by CPU core0 overloading than GPU. Most efficient solution is third option described in previous case.

[WilloW_737 5]

Thank you for everyone's assistance.

 

It seemed the only settings I needed to alter where the scenery settings. I pulled back the settings a tad and made the water high 2.x (it was set to low). The flashing appears to have disappeared now (only have done 4 take offs with same conditions set) but so far so good. It seems that the water texture may have been the culprit.

 

Thanks, Iain

[Kosta 122]

"Usepools=0" in your .cfg can cause this, especially if you are running unlimited framerates...

 

Sorry, but this isn't quite correct. BP=0 isn't per se causing the flashing (it was not defined what kind of flashing). Running unlimited framerates is a bad idea anyway...

 

BP=0 can cause one type of flashing though, it's when the GPU gets overloaded (easily measurable with GPU-Z) and isn't able to cope with the data CPU is sending it, since there is no buffer.

 

The question for me here is what kind of flashing. Is it a definitive scenery flashing, like polygons on the ground, buildings, or are you seeing random polygons in the air?

 

You could try my guide, but be sure not to skip any sections. Many are interconnected.

[MrBenevolent 0]

I stand corrected again!

 

Cheers Word Not Allowed.

 

:)

[WilloW_737 5]

The question for me here is what kind of flashing. Is it a definitive scenery flashing, like polygons on the ground, buildings, or are you seeing random polygons in the air?

 

Hello Word Not Allowed

 

For reference, I was observing flashing polygons on the ground and in the sky. I thought it was sheet lightning at first...

 

But, after turning water to high 2.0x the polygons have disappeared (so far).

 

I am NOT running full frame rates - I am running 25 fpm and I do not have the bufferpools entry in my cfg file. Best Regards, Iain