The chicken and the egg. Some experiences. (Or: How I solved my weird trees)

[Guest]

I've been doing a lot of testing today (I just can't help myself ^_^ ) and I discovered two things. After discovering this, I had to smile... because it turns out I was wrong about a few things. When you change something in P3D and something bad happens, you usually think it has to do with the latest change you made. Well, turns out that it doesn't have to be so. The cause of the bad may have something to do with something you did without thinking about it. Or something you did before. It's like with the chicken and the egg: which comes first? What causes what?

 

1. I found a solution for my weird tree textures!

At first I blamed FTXG for this. Later on I blamed it on the A2A C172. After installing that one, I used to get those weird trees which either looked like black boards or weird houses. After a complete reinstall of P3D the trees were okay again, after a reinstall of FTXG the trees were still okay, and after an install of the A2A C172 the trees were wrong again! So who should I blame? A2A? Wrong... Without giving it too much thought or attention I had also installed some Norway freeware... Now the thing is that that freeware doesn't give me any problems until... I quit the sim and restart. And I only found this out this evening. By accident.

 

What did I do wrong? In installed P3D, all okay, FTXG, all okay, the Norway freeware (using the Scenery Library) and after noting it looked great, I quit P3D, installed the A2A C172 and... WRONG TREES!

 

What I should have done? I should have installed the Norway freeware, quit the sim and restart it to see if things were STILL okay before installing the A2A! Regular addons are installed when the sim is not running but freeware scenery that has to be added to the Scenery Library is added while the sim is running. And apparently you have to restart the sim in order to check if it is really okay! I discovered this because I had an OOM yesterday and was thinking that maybe the new version of the Norway freeware was the cause of it, because it is much 'heavier'. So I installed every part of that freeware one by one to check VAS and I also restarted the sim after adding everything. And that's when I noticed I had black trees even with a default plane! After that I removed the freeware entries one by one and finally found the one that made my trees look bad. I solved the problem by simply removing that one entry!

 

After that I installed the A2A C172... and the trees are still perfectly fine. So I solved my weird tree textures! No more changing of resolution to 'fix' it anymore! Now you may of course say that this STILL is a problem of FTXG (chicken and the egg!) and that this may not happen with default trees but 1. I haven't tested that and 2. if removing that freeware solves it, I rather remove that freeware than FTXG! So I am happy with this!

 

2. I found the cause of my OOMs from yesterday!

As I just said I tested the Norway freeware because I thought it could be the cause of my OOM which I had yesterday during my first longer flight with P3D, FTXG, Norway freeware and A2A C172. During the tests I mentioned above, I came to the conclusion that the new Norway freeware is indeed quite heavy on the system, a lot heavier than the previous version, but also, as I said, that a specific part gave me those odd trees, so I decided to not use all that freeware anymore but ONLY the freeware landclass. Without all the other freeware but with FTXG and the A2A C172 and the landclass VAS was a reasonable low 2000 to 2200 MB. So I was happily flying along until... OOM. Shoot! WIthin 5 minutes!

 

And then suddenly I remembered what I had just done and two things I had read on the forum a few days ago and it all came together. The first things I read was that someone was missing waters in Norway. So during my flight I switched to the overhead view. I could see water so I didn't have problems in that regard. Great. Twenty seconds later I had an OOM. Then I suddenly thought about a topic that stated the overhead view makes your VAS go high very quickly. And that was what had happened! So I restarted P3D, restarted the flight, took off, went to the overhead view, zoomed in and out and in and... OOM!

Then I also remembered that I used the overhead view yesterday to check out the landclass... so that OOM was NOT due to FTXG, the A2A C172 or the freeware (although of course they contributed by making VAS a bit higher already) but to the overhead view! But at that time I just didn't think about it at all!

 

Lesson learned

If something goes wrong, you have to dig deeper and remember everything you did before things went wrong. Don't go for the most obvious or logical answer! It might well be the wrong answer!

[dannybobmusic 0]

Well I just tested your theory Jeroen and I have confirmed that you are correct about the weird trees issue.  I had some airport scenery that I had made with ADE, SbuilderX, and Instant scenery and I have been getting the weird trees ever since I installed it.  I never thought for a second that the scenery could be causing the problem.  It's just in my addon folder and it worked fine in FSX.  I tried removing it and now the trees are fine.  I put it back in and they are screwed up again.  I haven't yet narrowed down which aspect of the scenery is causing the problem but I will test each part one by one.  Thanks for all your work in testing and discovering this, as the tree issue was driving me nuts. 

[Guest]

Interesting! Thanks for testing! And glad to be of help! I am beginning to wonder if the tree problem is related to scenery we have to put in the Addon Scenery folder? Would be nice if others who have weird trees could check if stuff in the addon scenery folder is causing this...

 

Oh, btw, dannybobmusic: quite important: do you have FTX Global installed? I'd like to find out if this problem only occurs with FTXG or also with default trees.

 

Funny thing is that I didn't post all this because I wanted to solve the tree texture problem but only because I wanted to show that you have to dig deeper en look further before you can blame a certain addon. But it would of course be great if we can somehow solve this. ^_^ Removing addons we'd like to use isn't a real solution, of course, but maybe this may lead to a real solution, who knows.

 

EDIT

BTW My problem was related to airport scenery and so is yours. So maybe others should focus on those kind of addons first?

[dannybobmusic 0]

I do have FTX global installed.  I reinstalled each aspect of my personally made scenery one at a time. When I reinstalled the object file that I made with Instant scenery in FSX, the trees became messed up again.  I was able to install the ADE file, the CVX files, and the photo real.  It is clearly the object file.  I don't know why but it causing the problem in some way.  However, it's only if I load the flight in the detail radius of the object file.  If I load the flight at KACV, which is the airport I made, the trees load wrong.  If I load a flight say at KSFO, the trees load fine even with the object file installed.  I haven't yet tested this without FTX Global.   

[Guest]

I'll see tomorrow what happens if I start a flight far away from the scenery that gave me problems (while it is activated, of course). It sounds logical: when it is far away the scenery isn't loaded. Maybe this has something to do with filenames being identical: I read something about that in the LM Facebook page. Somehow the wrong files are placed in the wrong location.

[hesynergy 67]

What I should have done? ...

Lesson learned

If something goes wrong, you have to dig deeper and remember everything you did before things went wrong. Don't go for the most obvious or logical answer! It might well be the wrong answer!

Wrong!

 

There are too many variables involved in the troubleshooting process I learned this is a network engineer consultant to the fortune 500 and New York city.

 

So, it was common to find companies and support organizations where engineer types in New York decided the way to keep their job was not to document anything.

 

That way, they were the only ones that have the knowledge.

 

Forget that!

 

document!

 

document!

 

document!... everything you do and every change ...put it into a database that can be consulted next time problems arise

 

You make searchable, your efforts, and avoid duplicating what and when you tried and what happened when you tried it!

 

Absolutely critical to any complicated troubleshooting situation....AND,

 

...you will of built up a huge wealth of knowledge that can help Not only you but those that come after you.

 

... But as with all things taking those steps takes discipline... it's much easier to speak of them than to carry out.

 

Chas

[Dean_EGTC 57]

To get rid of the wrong tree textures, I just unticked 'Use Orbx trees' in FTX Central.  That's all and they were gone for good.

 

@Jereon.  We have identical systems (my OC is 4.6),  I have Global, Scotland and England installed and have yet to experience an OOM.

 

I know it doesn't help you but maybe it's just because my settings are a little bit more conservative than yours?

[Guest]

To get rid of the wrong tree textures, I just unticked 'Use Orbx trees' in FTX Central.  That's all and they were gone for good.

 

@Jereon.  We have identical systems (my OC is 4.6),  I have Global, Scotland and England installed and have yet to experience an OOM.

 

I know it doesn't help you but maybe it's just because my settings are a little bit more conservative than yours?

 

Yes, I know about the Orbx trees but I like them. ^_^

 

The OOM was mainly due to some freeware I used, it seems: I just did a 1 hour 40 minute flight above FTX Global with the A2A C172 without that freeware and I didn't even get near an OOM. I also now know that the weird trees were caused by freeware that may be the cause again of OOMs so I don't really mind not using that freeware anymore which enables me to use the Orbx trees.

[carlito777 712]

I solved the tree issue by installing the newest orbxlibs which you can download in the Orbx forum. For whatever reason, neither FTX Global 1.1 (full install file) nor FTX Global 1.2 (update patch) does include the newest version of the orbxlibs. Unbelievable! You can check in FTX Central which version is installed. Mine was an outdated version from 2010...

[Guest]

Hm, interesting... All I know is that Orbx said they will create a specific P3D 2.0 Orbxlibs: the latest one you can download right now is only meant for FSX and P3D 1.#.

[vonduck 99]

Hm, interesting... All I know is that Orbx said they will create a specific P3D 2.0 Orbxlibs: the latest one you can download right now is only meant for FSX and P3D 1.#.

 

That was my understanding too J... I have a question which i cant recall seeing online and don't want in any way to inflame things, but you seem to know a lot about this stuff JVE... if ORBX had a copy of P3Dv2 long before it was released to test it, i was just wondering how come the incompatibilities with libraries etc weren't discovered then in that testing phase and not now..I.e white boxes etc? Its not meant to be a bad question just thought you might know....?

 

Cheers

[spirit_66 2]

I solved the tree issue by installing the newest orbxlibs which you can download in the Orbx forum. .......

Just tried this too! I don't have FTX Global only the ORBX Ieland Demo Off. Anyway I installed with ETM the latest ORBX libs 131215 and after the first test flight I couldn't see any strange objects anymore. Maybe this was really a solution?

Spirit

 

PS: After more testing with other locations I had to realize strange looking houses again. The latest ORBX libs didn't solve this problem. 

[spirit_66 2]

Well, during some more testing I found something accidentally what causes the weird houses which should be trees on my PC and P3D v2.

 

OK, let me explain.

 

• I've a few German freeware airstrips installed and one of them is my default flight setup. The code is EDOG.
• Because using always a helicopter I only do some shorter flights around this area especially testing some adjustments etc. Everything looked fine but I had sometimes flying houses or unknown objects somewhere in this area. After installing the latest ORBX libs I couldn't see any abnormality on my first flight.
• Well, so I switched randomly to another default P3D location and it was TFFJ (St Barth) and there they were these weird houses all around instead of trees.
• My next action was to deactivate all my freeware airstrips (only a few) and started P3D v2 again now with default EDOG scenery. I switched to TFFJ and the trees were fine.
• So I reactivated them one by one and when I came to EDOG again and switched to TFFJ the weird houses appeared. Ok, now it seemed to be clear what was the culprit but I detected something more.
• I made TFFJ to my setup point, started P3D and everything was fine. I switched to EDOG and after a short while back to TFFJ and it was still fine. Wow - that was a surprise.
• I made EDOG to my default setup flight again, fired up P3D and switched to TFFJ after a short while and the trees were corrupted again.
• So I started P3D now from another freeware airstrip named EDAH and switched to TJJF and the trees were still ok.
• Finally I can say that if I start my P3D v2 at EDOG and switch to TFFJ or any other scenery the trees there are changed to weird houses. I'll try to explain this to the designer of this pretty nice scenery.

Spirit

[B7X7-900 10]

After installing the ORX Grand Canyon Photoreal package I found some of the tree textures had turned to building textures. After scratching my head for a bit I remembered that when I first opened the sim after install, a message came up mentioning that there might be graphics anomalies on start up but that a restart should clear them up. So I restarted the sim and the trees were back to normal. Hope this helps.

[Guest]

 

 

I've a few German freeware airstrips installed

 

Hm, seems that a lot of people with this problem have freeware installed. Are there people here that have this tree problem and who do NOT have freeware installed? Apparently some addons don't play well together...

 

 

 

... if ORBX had a copy of P3Dv2 long before it was released to test it, i was just wondering how come the incompatibilities with libraries etc weren't discovered then in that testing phase and not now..I.e white boxes etc?

 

Well, I also wondered about that. Orbx said that P3D was changing a lot in the end and when the beta ended the final version was already a bit different from the beta they had been using and so they never really tested with the released version.

But well, in all honesty, I find it very hard to believe that things have changed so much in the end that suddenly all kinds of problems showed up. I mean, even when things have changed a little, the beta WAS DX11 already and a lot of the problems are due to DX11 being different. I simply think they didn't beta test very well.

For instance those white boxes: they won't show with Volumetric fog on so, supposing they have nice PC's to test with, they had Volumetric fog on and never thought about turning it off. And the problem with trees shows up. so it seems, when you have other scenery installed and so I suppose they didn't test that either: they only tested Orbx scenery. So all in all they didn't beta test as good as we would... B) ^_^