FS9 Windows 7 x64 Graphics Problems...

[geoffco 0]

Hi folks,

 

Please can somebody help me with these issues... I just finished reinstalling my whole FS9 setup in Windows 7 x64 and almost everything is working as it should. However, there are a couple of problems that I have not been able to solve.

 

1) When I switch views, the time for all textures to load up is really slow. I have set the FS9.cfg variable to TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400 but this seems to make no difference.

 

2) My 2D panel is riddled with flickering problems. Seems to be only on XML gauges or overlays, but there are plenty of those in my setup so it's really annoying. I have checked, and the flicker is also present in the default FS9 GPS gauge.

 

3) The mouse cursor turns black. I see that this is a known problem but I have yet to see a fix for it anywhere?

 

4) When pressing ALT to view a menu, the screen goes black for a second or so before actually showing the menu.

 

Of these, the second two are not really that important, but the texture loading and the flicker are really annoying and I need to get them fixed before I can start flying again! I am running a 3840x1200 resolution through a TripleHead2Go and only in fullscreen mode.

 

My system is in the Avsim profile and all drivers are the latest, freshly downloaded from the vendors etc. I have a feeling that the problem is something to do with the DirectX settings, but I don't know how I can check that. Dxdiag says everything is fine but that's the integrated DX11...

 

In terms of things I've already tried, the UAC is turned off, the errors are present even with only default planes / scenery etc, the sim is installed in it's own drive. I have tried reinstalling DirectX from the June2010 redistributable and this always seems to find files to update, but there is no difference to the problems!

 

Thanks for any help or advice.

 

Geoff

[Jim Young 2,356]

Please can somebody help me with these issues... I just finished reinstalling my whole FS9 setup in Windows 7 x64

 

The mouse cursor turning black is supposedly a known problem with FS9 and Windows 7 but I read it can be fixed if you right click then left click the mouse.

 

The texture_bandwidth_mult=400 seems to be excessive to me as I heard the default is 40 and, the creators of FSX (couldn't find anything for fs9) do not recommend it as it increases the texture load on your graphics card by 10 times - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ptaylor/archive/2007/06/01/fsx-tweak-of-the-week-or-2.aspx. I know you said you just finished reinstalling your whole fs9 setup but have you tried renaming your fs9.cfg to fs9.old then restarting fs9 and letting the sim rebuild it? You may have a tweak or a line in there that is not compatible.

 

To check to see if you have the latest version of DirectX installed OR see if there are any problems with DirectX on your system, go to the Run command and type dxdiag in the box.

 

The fact you are using TripleHead2Go may be a factor in your flickering and other display issues. I would go to the AVSIM video card/monitor forum and post your question about your flickering problem with TripleHead2Go.

 

If you would like, I can also move this to the fs9 forum or you can post about your 2d panel and issue with the XML gauges.

 

Sorry I cannot be of more assistance. I've been away from fs9 for a long time!

 

Best regards,

Jim

[RWFeldman 159]

Everything you have described is exactly what I see using FS9 and Win 7. I have never found a fix for any of it. Including the Black mouse pointer in fullscreen mode. I believe its probably just FS9 graphics engine and Nvidia drivers. 2nd monitors are a strange issue also with FS9. Ive also noticed that FS9 likes windowed better than fullscreen mode.

 

FSX behaves much better, for what thats worth.

.

[geoffco 0]

 

 

The mouse cursor turning black is supposedly a known problem with FS9 and Windows 7 but I read it can be fixed if you right click then left click the mouse.

 

The texture_bandwidth_mult=400 seems to be excessive to me as I heard the default is 40 and, the creators of FSX (couldn't find anything for fs9) do not recommend it as it increases the texture load on your graphics card by 10 times - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ptaylor/archive/2007/06/01/fsx-tweak-of-the-week-or-2.aspx. I know you said you just finished reinstalling your whole fs9 setup but have you tried renaming your fs9.cfg to fs9.old then restarting fs9 and letting the sim rebuild it? You may have a tweak or a line in there that is not compatible.

 

To check to see if you have the latest version of DirectX installed OR see if there are any problems with DirectX on your system, go to the Run command and type dxdiag in the box.

 

The fact you are using TripleHead2Go may be a factor in your flickering and other display issues. I would go to the AVSIM video card/monitor forum and post your question about your flickering problem with TripleHead2Go.

 

If you would like, I can also move this to the fs9 forum or you can post about your 2d panel and issue with the XML gauges.

 

Sorry I cannot be of more assistance. I've been away from fs9 for a long time!

 

Best regards,

Jim

 

Everything you have described is exactly what I see using FS9 and Win 7. I have never found a fix for any of it. Including the Black mouse pointer in fullscreen mode. I believe its probably just FS9 graphics engine and Nvidia drivers. 2nd monitors are a strange issue also with FS9. Ive also noticed that FS9 likes windowed better than fullscreen mode.

 

FSX behaves much better, for what thats worth.

.

 

Well, it's been a journey the last few days getting this fixed, but I think I have it now.

 

For the mouse cursor, yes I have read (and observed) that a right click and then left click somewhere that those clicks have no function will solve the problem temporarily. It's not a big deal and I think I'll just get used to it.

 

For the fs9.cfg setting of texture bandwidth, the 'lore' for fs9 has always been to set either 200-400 or set around 80-100 with a locked framerate and a texturemaxload variable of 6-8 - there was a blog about it from one of the FS developers a long while ago. Anyway, the bottom line is that this part is very different from the way FSX handles things.

I also rebuilt the cfg and all the scenery.dat files etc etc as well as checking all drivs and DirectX were as they should be...

 

In the end, I just got £300 worth of pi$$ed off and bought myself an AMD Radeon HD 7970 card. That eliminated the flickering panel and the poor performance very rapidly and by using eyefinity I can also remove the TripleHead2Go from the equation (which may, in the end, have been the real villain here).

That seemed all good but then I kept having random freezes with the latest drivers in non 3D applications and in FS9 the ATC and ATIS sounds were completely screwed up. I have totally reinstalled the ASUS sound drivers and then the latest beta drivers from AMD for the graphics card and now it's good to go.

 

One remaining bug is that the ATC voice has a funny echo sometimes, like it is being played slightly too fast, but this does not seem to happen much when I run FS9 with an aggressive AlacrityPC profile to kill off services etc.

 

Hopefully now I change actually get on and fly the damn thing - it's been about two weeks of installing and tweaking so far! Probably it will just CTD or freeze mid flight next. Fun...

 

PS. Yes, if someone with the relevant powers thinks this would do better in the FS9 forum then by all means move it. Otherwise, I will post any further specific questions there or on the hardware board.

 

Geoff

[mortenha69 7]

I have totally reinstalled the ASUS sound drivers and then the latest beta drivers from AMD for the graphics card and now it's good to go.

 

I'm just speculating here, and someone else has to confirm this. But does FS9 detect audio devices each time it loads? I know the graphics card(s) is(are) detected. If not, updating the [sOUND] section in Fs9.cfg might work. Long shot really...

 

Morten

[geoffco 0]

 

 

I'm just speculating here, and someone else has to confirm this. But does FS9 detect audio devices each time it loads? I know the graphics card(s) is(are) detected. If not, updating the [sOUND] section in Fs9.cfg might work. Long shot really...

 

Morten

 

Yeah, I did wonder about that, but as far as I can tell, the only data stored in the sound section is the positions of the faders (volumes for the different sound types), the sound quality level, and a master 'on or off' value...

I think the issue has something to do with the fact that in modern systems on Windows 7 the directsound is software emulated and therefore prone to interference... At least that would explain why it sounds like hell when run with all the rest of Windows still active, but works better when the extra services etc are all shut down.

 

Geoff