Serious issue with ATI and Steves DX10 fix? Tears and Spikes everywhere

[wizardwiz 0]

OK, My two cents on this issue

 

I have encountered the same dreadful issue with my XFX 7850.

To my understanding it's a driver issue and not DX10 or Steve's shaders.

 

I have installed the latest Beta drivers a few days ago (13.11 Beta 9.2) and I had a lot of these artifacts and spikes.

Save the same flight which caused me these issues and uninstalled the drivers all together.

I am running windows 8.1 so DX9 unfortunately isn't an option for me.

Right now I am running with the same fsx.cfg file that caused me the artifacts and spikes, with the windows 8.1 driver and so far it's all good and smooth.

I'll run some few more flights to make sure it's gone and if that's the price then I'll stick to these drivers until a better ones will emerge.

 

P.S

 

My Driver version 13.152.1.1000

 

Ziv 

[cvearl 60]

I started at PANT and flew to PAKW with the AI traffic "general" slider (on the settings main page) maxxed. That puts the individual sliders at airlines=20,GA= 20, medium, road=20, ships=40, and boats=40. Time of day is dawn, current date.

 

No glitches or spikes since I updated my video card driver. I believe they've addressed the problem and fixed it. I think the trick was in completely removing my previous driver. COMPLETELY!!! And reboot twice before installing the new drivers. Then reboot twice after installing. Well, I did it twice because of my Triplehead2Go. Then go flying, and check it out. I hope it is fixed, . . . so far, so good. Maybe now I can fly in DX10 all the time! Yay!

 

I have all my settings maxxed as I said above, and AI traffic, and the sim is looking good. Frames are very low though. It is alot of work, so now I think I'll turn down some things to make it run better.

Thanks for the heads-up on the new driver.

 

TH2G? Why not use Eyefinity? Just curious.

 

BTW - I have turned off cars on the roads and dropped water to 2xLow and I have not seen a single spike yet in all scenarios. Pretty happy.

 

C.

[jeff3163 0]

I saw other people with the TH2Go, so I got one.  I thought it would be a convenient way to tie three monitors together.  No technical reasons, for sure.  I am not overly impressed by it's performance or features, or lack of, as the case may be.  I've pondered eyefinity, and hydravision.  I may yet try them.  I don't know.

 

Yep, the traffic idea was a red herring.  I think the driver was broken, and now is fixed.  I've had no spikes since the new driver was installed.  Fingers crossed.

[cvearl 60]

I saw other people with the TH2Go, so I got one.  I thought it would be a convenient way to tie three monitors together.  No technical reasons, for sure.  I am not overly impressed by it's performance or features, or lack of, as the case may be.  I've pondered eyefinity, and hydravision.  I may yet try them.  I don't know.

 

Yep, the traffic idea was a red herring.  I think the driver was broken, and now is fixed.  I've had no spikes since the new driver was installed.  Fingers crossed.

 

Reason I ask is because I am pondering a TH2G and have the eyefinity option built in as do you. I have heard others say eyefinity is easier to enable and set up. That said. If you ever got to try it, let us know if it is better one way or the other! Would love to hear about it. The 7970 is all about eyefinity. Especially with a 3GB framebuffer.

 

As for "spikes", I was on a longer flight last night in the Aerosoft Twin Otter Extended with Opus weather generating some heavy real world IFR weather. About 30 min in, I saw a small spike form on my right. Quickly went into settings and dropped the Cloud density to High (I always use 70 miles). It still looked roughly overcast weather but the spikes disappeared. Never saw another one. Had AI planes and cars and great.

 

While I believe the driver did help, it's like Paul has said in the guide. Spikes are often a product of settings and I think I found my happy setting for IFR. Knock the clouds down a tick. Leave water at 2xLow and I will never see spikes ever again.

 

Charles.

[cvearl 60]

Confirmed.

 

With ATI cards at least, you must disable Cloud Shader in DX10 Fixer and set water to low 2x. Both are the cause of the spikes with ATI.

 

I have been flying with the Cloud Shader unchecked now for weeks with water at low 2x and not 1 spike anywhere and locked solid at 30 fps. Last flight was tonight in Overcast weather for 2 hours around PNW ORBX region scenery in the Carenado C340II and it was fine. 

 

Charles.

[yorgosGK 7]

i tested this....my results where any flight over 5 hours I would get spikes on final :( my clouds where set to 512x512 as well ......

[KSATRoadWarrior 91]

With ATI cards at least, you must disable Cloud Shader in DX10 Fixer and set water to low 2x. Both are the cause of the spikes with ATI.

Charles, I agree, that seem to have eliminated any spikes for me on long (over 3 hours) for me. Thanks

[wingclip 2]

Confirmed.

 

With ATI cards at least, you must disable Cloud Shader in DX10 Fixer and set water to low 2x. Both are the cause of the spikes with ATI.

 

I have been flying with the Cloud Shader unchecked now for weeks with water at low 2x and not 1 spike anywhere and locked solid at 30 fps. Last flight was tonight in Overcast weather for 2 hours around PNW ORBX region scenery in the Carenado C340II and it was fine. 

 

Charles.

Unfortunately, I have a number of Water surface enhancers that I'm pretty sure would be all but useless at a Low 2X setting.

 

That said, I'll give it a try and see how big the difference is, (re; the water surface). So far, it seems I'm having to give up too much for the little I gain in DX10.

 

The main problem is the external lights don't show up on many of the aircraft, (sometimes they do if the POV angle is just right), and the scenery lights below flash and behave the same.

 

But I'm interested in seeing just what that 'spike fix' setting would look like.

Thanks, Rich

[michaelray 236]

Hi All

 

First off I wanted to thank everyone for for the great information in this trhead. Secondly thankyou to all the regular contributors who make it possible for people like me to enjoy this hobby. Just recently I have decided to try and dedicate more time to flight simming.

 

It was actually this DX10 forum and the positive attitude of Paul J that got me going down the DX10 track to get back into FSX. Paul J you have the patience of a Saint and you contribution to this hobby is huge. That is not to take anything away from all the other great posters on this forum.

 

Anyway to get back on topic. I have great interest in this thread as I have gone to the dark side and just purchased a R9 290X after moving away from my GTX680. I am using DX10 with the fixer by Steve. The R9 290X experiences the same issues as reported here by others. I am currently struggling with spikes and artifacts. Wish I had of read this thread before purchasing.

 

Thanks to all the good information out there I am making adjustmets and testing and hopefully getting somewhere. Flying longer before the spikes occur but still not perfect. I have my MultiSamplesPerPixel=8 setting as I find this reduces the shimmering to an acceptable level. So maybe I am pushing it a bit.

 

Although now I am not sure the Radeon was the correct way to go I must say I have not seen visuals and performance like this. It is impressive and DX10 has a stunning look.

 

However a new  problem has arisen (apart from spikes & artifacts) is that I do not have full screen Vsync. I have tried Radeonpro but and the FSX Config but nothing makes this happen. I am use to the smoothness provided by 1/2 refresh rate on the GTX680. Radeonpro offers "Double Vsync" to offer the same but as previously stated I can't get this to take.

 

I would appreciate it if someone could look at my FSX config and let me know if you think there are any glaring issues that may be causing the spikes. Also if anyone could shed some light on my Vsync issues that would be great.

 

Many thanks

Michael

Mike_fsx_cfg.txt

[Paul J 349]

Hi Michael! Welcome to the DX10'ers Club!    :Party:

 

Yes - glaring issues - traffic! UT2 and MTX will allow higher than prudent levels, but the default traffic won't. Here's a list of Frame Killers for future reference. Roll back your AI and turn off GA (or vice-versa, depending upon flight type) - to about a max of 35, with road traffic between 10 and twenty, and airport at one.

Airport and road traffic are major killers, and with these levels I would expect artifacts with the subject ATI gpu's mentioned earlier in these posts, with this issue probably being also apparent in the new series GPU's.  

Artifacting can be predictably easily forced with the GTX 580 and probably with the GTX 780 - but I haven't tested that one. This is a buffer overload issue, and the trick is to push - and optimize - all of the fsx settings to their individual maximums, so that the graphics pipeline is continuously full, and on the very edge of producing a spike. The sign that one is close, is when the frame rate is holding pretty steady at 30, with very small excursions to 27 - 28 in heavy weather and heavy scenery, and any change in road traffic - say from 30 to 40 - immediately results in spiking. 

 

That being said, Michael - all of my experience in optimizing and controlling artifacting is based on DX10 and the Nvidia GPU's, and (if you've read this thread from the beginning) you will see that my experience may not apply to the ATI architecture. Charles Earl is very much the expert in that field, and so I've sent him an email pointing to your post.

 

I hope this helps,

 

All the Best,

 

pj

[WotanUK 289]

I am having awful issues with DX10 and an ATI 7970GHz edition.  Basically the same "tears and spikes" as seen with other users.  I am going to try the settings in Paul's document, but i am not sure that there is a solution to this at the resolution i run.  I may run crying back to DX9

[jimtownirish 0]

Hello all.  I'm new to this site.  I found it while searching for an issue I am having.  I am having a problem with DirectX10 as well.  I am using an Asus PC with an Nvidia GeForce GT 630.  My system has ZERO trouble running FSX with every slider maxed and every option checked.  I am also using AS2012 with no performance issues. 

 

Okay, so here is what I am experiencing.  Every now and then my display begins to go into a kaleidoscope effect DEPENDING ON THE ANGLE I am looking.  I can go outside the aircraft and do a full visual loop around the craft and everything is fine, but when I hit a specific (always random) point, I get this weird effect.  It literally takes over the entire screen.  The problem is that the angle sometimes occurs on a final approach where I need to look at the runway.  UGHHHH!!  I have installed the fix for DirectX10, which I love btw.  The fix took care of the runway flickering issues but now this???  I have searched high and low and cannot find another situation like it.

 

I have everything up-to-date as far as drivers and patches - SP2.  I have tweaked and re-tweaked my graphics options (in game and with Nvidia) attempting to localize the problem with no success.  Oddly enough, it seems to happen when the sun is directly behind me, but I am not positive on this. 

 

Does anyone have ANY ideas what may be causing this?

 

Chris - Elkhart, IN

[Paul J 349]

It sounds as if you are getting artifacts, Chris. If that is the case - check on post 310 above, and read the doc on frame killers: twiddle the traffic back, and see what happens: It may not be traffic - I'm using that as an example - but if you are getting artifacts you are overloading your GPU.

 

 

 

Does anyone have ANY ideas what may be causing this?

 

Welcome to the site, Chris: I just want to request you do a couple of things: what would help - is for you to go into your User Profile and add your system's components into it: they will then show under your Avatar on the left side. Secondly - using the "More Reply Options" at bottom-right - copy your fsx.cfg file, renaming the copied file as "Chris_fsx.txt", and then attach it to your next reply. This way I, and anyone else reading this, can give you an "educated" answer to your quoted question, instead of just guessing - ok!

 

Mucho thanks! 

 

All the best,  :wink:

 

pj

[jimtownirish 0]

I attempted to attach the file but received this warning: (You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file)

 

I am updating my system information now.  Thanks for the help.

 

 

 

 

 

[jimtownirish 0]

Paul, thank you for your help.  I was unable to attach my specs (I don't have site permission) but I went back and made the adjustments to my .cfg files as stated.  It seems to have worked.  I will let you know if I see any other problems.  Thanks again!!