To begin with I want to thank the creators of this wonderful aircraft and acknowledge how much I(and I,m sure most who downloaded it)appreciate their efforts and generous gift to the flightsim community! At the risk of sounding like I,m complaining I have noticed a possible aircraft/terrain conflict issue on my computer. After flying for about five minutes I suddenly lose my terrain textures(terrain becomes blurry with no resolution and textures never reload!) All my other aircraft I have no problems with at all. I have tried all kinds of settings in a vain attempt to resolve this issue, but it always happens! My computer (P/4 3.06 gig with 1024 RAMBUS,9700 PRO ATI)runs the sim with no other major problems(only stutters which I,m sure most of us have!) Any one with a similar problem OR possible solution I would gladly like to hear from you! Thank you, RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!!

Hi,I'm not having the problem that you describe. I have been having occasional problems with FS2004 crashing in a few different .dll's lately though. But the crashes have had nothing to do with the Howard 500 as they happen with any plane. I am seriously considering going back to what I believe to be the most stable version of ATI drivers for FS2004, the Catalyst 4.2's. I am currently using 4.6's. Just curious, what version of ATI drivers are you using?Regards,JimSystem Specs:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB Muskin '222' Special PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard with v4.6 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 250 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDD, WinXP Pro SP1

Jim, I actually should know better but I,m useing Beta 4.7s!(OUCH) You know, I never considered that until now that you mention it!(I just slapped myself!) But the Howard is the only plane that I notice this issue with, but of course I have only tried a few others in the same basic senario.I also read the other thread about the GPS conflict and I pulled that and all refs. to that from the panel conf. file also in a vain attempt thinking that might be it,but nada! Actually I liked the 4.6s ! Seems like I,m always chaseing F/Rs!LOL Could it be my driver??? Thanks Jim, RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!!

Rick,First, I do not have an answer for you. We've had about 30 beta testers on this for months without the issues you described except when we were running a mixed bag of test textures.I personally am running a lowly 2Gig box with an MX shared memory card and do not experience that.I will say, however, this model has a lot of textures and it will really challenge mid to low level computers, but certainly should not yours.Beta testers with equipment like yours have seen no impacts or issues in the released version from spot, 2D, or VC modes.Let us know what you find, and good luck.

Rick,I don't know for certain if it could be your driver or not. I just went back to the 4.2's. I set up the driver in the 3D Display settings. I have always had my card at the 4X AGP. I left it at 8X AGP this time. I fired up FS2004 and about 2 seconds after the default C172 finished loading at KCOS my system made a clunk! sound, rebooted, and then then when Windows XP came up I got a message that the system had 'Just recovered from a serious error'. It's not the first time it's ever happened to me. But now it's my turn to say OUCH![/font size]. :-grrI have turned the AGP back to 4X and decided I should uncheck 'Enable Write Combining' just to try and make sure! I'm going to cross my fingers fire the sim up now. :-rollJim

Hi Milton, First of all I want to say you guys build absolutley beautiful aircraft and I,ve spent a lot of enjoyable hours flying them! I feel bad about even bringing up this issue at all and I bet when all is said and done it will most likely be on me!I have added so many mods and "tweaks" that I more than likely screwed something up! Anyway, I will continue to find a solution(and I,m sure I will)because I want to FLY that baby! I will let you know!!! I think i,ll start by scrapping those Beta 4.7s!(for sure)! Thanks again! RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!! P.S. How about a B-17 for your next project??? LOL

Jim, On my control panel all I can crank it up to is 4X AGP with my 9700 PRO! Interesting! This is really wierd;just checked my fast writes option and its ON again although I had it checked off!(I did,nt change it back at any time)!Maybe thats part of my problem? By the way try "fast writes off"! I picked up a lot of F/Rs with that option! I,m trying to think of a way to help you but I,m stumped! Let me know how it works for you! RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!!

Hi Again Rick,I read a little while back on the Rage3D forum that's it's best to have Fast Writes off. They explained it was really made for older stuff and actually just causes stability issues. So I have been unchecking that option for a little while now.Anyway, I seem to have my FS2004 running stable with the 4.2's, finally! At first I thought the 4.6's were getting along on my system pretty good. But, as I said earlier with the 4.6's my sim was crashing in a few different .dll's every now and then. And there's something else I didn't mention. With every release that has come out since the 4.2's(4.3's on up), I would lose my Anti-Aliasing(at 4x) very easily. I had to take steps to recover it without restarting the sim. Steps that are kind of pain to have to deal with. With the 4.2's I almost never lose AA. If I do, the step needed to recover it is easy. I simply press 'ESC', wait a couple seconds, then press 'Continue Flying', and wallah, my AA is back. I don't know what ATI has done starting with the 4.3's, but as far as I'm concerned it hasn't been good for my ATI 9700 Pro and FS2004. So... I am sticking with the 4.2's for a while! Perhaps I'll try the 4.8's when they come out.Good Luck to you Rick,Jim

JIM, Thanks again for the info and I just might retro to the 4.2s! Glad to here your back in the left seat and keep the blue side up! Thanks again! RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!!

I'm having a brain ####. What's the command to enter in start/run to get all your Direct X info? I can't believe I'm this tired and can't remember correctly.Thanks,RobertPIV 3.2 ghz, 1024 DDR ram, 128 mg Radeon 9700 Pro graphic card, Intel D865GBF 800 FSB mobo,two 80 gig Western 7200 hard drives,Win XP Home Edition, 19" ViewSonic E 90f + SB monitor

Hello Robert,It's dxdiag.Cheers,Jim

Hi,First of all THANKS to Milton and all the group for this extraordinary airplane!I have a reasonable powerful system and yesterday I got a similar crash on my computer. I got the same message - "Windows XP came up I got a message that the system had 'Just recovered from a serious error'"! Never had it before and it happened on the Howard test flight. It can be a coincidence of course but it crossed my mind that could be something related to the Howard. Of course it may have other causes - for example, overheating of the CPU and I am checking this possibility.ThksEdmundoPIV 3.2 GHz, 1 GB RAM, GeForce4 Ti4600

Just to mention, I have had the same problem with textures taking an age to load at times, while flying the Howard 500. I have not experienced this before with any other add on.Best RegardsBoone,[email protected]"Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle. It's just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes."

HiLove the Howard, ... thanks Milton & Co..However, I have also experienced the 'blurred' textures a couple of times, ... and only with the Howard.Seems intermittent ... can't always get it to occur.I used the 'TAB' key to reload textures, and all seemed fine again.Also experiencing the slow loading of textures when switching screens between 'spot' '2D' 'VC' screens.Going to try the Non-VC Howard later on.I'm using a Nvidia FX 5950 with Forceware 61.36CheersTomP4 3.2, 2 Gb RAM, GeForce FX 5950

Tom, I am almost glad to hear someone else has the "bluring" texture problem with the Howard 500! At least I know i,m "not the lone ranger" with this issue!LOL Man, I have tried everything I can think of to solve this texture bluring with the Howard but I,m at a loss!(shame) The thing that really jumpstarts the bluring is when I turn on the landing lights with exterier view!(happens every time) I even tried pulling all the textures out of the aircraft folder and adding two at a time and running test flights!(I,m talking hours here)I loaded all the exterier textures and no texture bluring,BUT when I added the "GRAY"BGL. the blurries returned. I,m not a programer by any means, but I think its some sort of interier BGL.texture! I have BLUESPHERE terrain textures. Maybe they conflict somehow? I love this aircraft but I,m at a loss! Only problem I have ever had like this! I somehow think it could be related to the landing/exterier lightingor interier textures! What are your thoughts? Frustraited in Arizona, RickB "Someday I will fly in a real B-17"!!!