So I've been struggling with my graphics for ages, and I've finally had enough.  I've upgraded the motherboard, CPU, GPU, HDD's,with the same result.  My graphics almost always go haywire whenever I change screens to adjust settings, or minimize fullscreen and return.  Usually my aircraft is totally gone, the scenery half missing, or the graphics literally look like they're hallucinating.  I initially thought this was due to heavy airport scenery and addons, but I've just had it.  I haven't been able to finish a flight in what seems like years.  I am leaning towards lack of memory, because really that's all that's left to change.  Any help out there?!

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

I'm no expert, but is six gig of RAM enough? I've got 12.

Yeah, I really don't think it is, but I've dumped enough money lately that I need to make sure this isn't a problem that can be fixed without hardware.  But i'm really leaning towards not enough memory, especially with all the add-on's I'm running.

Try deactivating scenery you're not using when flying. Try deleting aircraft you don't ever fly. These all have an impact, so I have heard.

Personally i never switch screens or minimise etc during flight as its inevitably causes the problems you get. I do not even switch to external view at all. I found the best way is to have any external program running on a networked PC so you never have to touch anything on the main FSX PC in flight

 

Best of luck

 

Ceri

It is a good idea to leave FSX in either fullscreen or windowed mode while running. Especially with loads of add-ons. Changing between the two modes or resizing the FSX window seems to upset the simulator when done too often.

 

It can cause graphical glitches and crashes. 6 GB of memory is plenty, since FSX can only use a maximum of  4 GB. Software like ASN or PFPX has a rather low memory footprint so you should be fine. I only have 4 GB and the sim rarely runs of memory.

 

From your description it seems like the many add-ons you are using concurrently are to blame. The famouse VAS usage being the most likely culprit here (do a forum search and google). With todays sceneries and aircraft it is barely possible anymore to have them all active at the same time without running out of VAS. Especially in densely populated areas like western Europe. Add together several mega-airports in close proximity, photo scenery, AI traffic and severe IMC conditions and you are bound for disaster. Especially using highly demanding aircraft like the PMDG B77L/B77W, with its 800 MB of memory footprint, will deal the killing blow to an already struggeling simulator.

The sad reality is, that third party products have outgrown the limits of FSX somewhat and this will not improve in the short term. Some people switched to P3D, but IMHO this is more or less a placebo.

Well my problem is I'll come back to a flight only to find that some pop-up in windows minimized FSX, or the kids got on the computer, etc...anyway, I need to look more into the VAS situation and figure out how to turn off sceneries.

Turning off can be done by deselecting them in the scenery library.

 

There is a freeware tool around that can do this from outside FSX, so you can prep your sim before each flight. It's mentioned in the 777 introduction manual:

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/

 

One solution for kids, pop-ups etc. could be using the "fullscreen window" mode, so just the title bar is visible on the top of the screen. Almost fullscreen and still able to switch tasks easily, despite a little drop in performance. With your machine it should be a non issue though.

I'm downloading the tool now.  That might help because I do have a lot of scenery installed,  I've entered the "highmemfix=1" coding in my fsx.cfg file.  Does this bypass the 4GB memory limit?  I guess memory isn't terribly expensive, and it definitely don't think it will hurt.  Maybe I'm just chasing the never ending "perfect FSX rig" dream!

I'm downloading the tool now.  That might help because I do have a lot of scenery installed,  I've entered the "highmemfix=1" coding in my fsx.cfg file.  Does this bypass the 4GB memory limit?  I guess memory isn't terribly expensive, and it definitely don't think it will hurt.  Maybe I'm just chasing the never ending "perfect FSX rig" dream!

 

NO, "HIGHMEMFIX=1" does NOT bypass the 4Gb limit; that is a fixed limit by virtue of FSX being 32-bit software. The HIGHMEMFIX=1 merely ensures that FSX does use the full 4Gb, and not 3Gb as it was originally coded to use (fixed in Sp2 / Acceleration as far as I am aware).

 

Please also make sure the HIGHMEMFIX entry in your FSX.cfg is capitalised, not as you have it in your quote above.

 

Rob

Well I've done all of the above and am still experiencing the same problem, even if I never minimize anything.  It happens with all add-on planes, all sceneries disabled, 20 FPM constant, super smooth, and the graphics still wig out.  Something has to be corrupting it!  Or is this the VAS limit?  If that's the case, I have everything turned off, so what's the point?!

I was playing with FSX.CFG tweaking it a while back and ended up having graphics corruption issues whilst flying.

Undoing changes one by one ended up showing that I had to comment out this

 

[bufferPools]
//UsePools=0

 

Perhaps try this.

If you do a search about UsePools, there is a lot of comment about instability, and some other options to try, such as combining with RejectThreshold=98304 and various other values.

I might have a further experiment with RejectThreshold at some stage.

 

Cheers

Could you maybe post a few screenshots of what you are experiencing? It would help to narrow down what is really happening. "Hallucinating" graphics is not exactly a definitve term.

 

To summarize:

Add HIGHMEMFIX=1 to fsx.cfg

DON'T use graphical "enhancement" API hooks like the ENB Series

Turn off "bloom" in the graphics option inside FSX

If you are running FSX in DirectX 10 preview mode, switch to DirectX 9 or use DirectX10 fixer tool

Don't install your FSX in the default Program Files (x86) folder
Run the sim as administrator

Exclude the FSX folder from your security software

Make sure you are using correct drivers, especially after a hardware change

Could you maybe post a few screenshots of what you are experiencing? It would help to narrow down what is really happening. "Hallucinating" graphics is not exactly a definitve term.

 

To summarize:

Add HIGHMEMFIX=1 to fsx.cfg

DON'T use graphical "enhancement" API hooks like the ENB Series

Turn off "bloom" in the graphics option inside FSX

If you are running FSX in DirectX 10 preview mode, switch to DirectX 9 or use DirectX10 fixer tool

Don't install your FSX in the default Program Files (x86) folder

Run the sim as administrator

Exclude the FSX folder from your security software

Make sure you are using correct drivers, especially after a hardware change

All good sound advice there. 

Could you maybe post a few screenshots of what you are experiencing? It would help to narrow down what is really happening. "Hallucinating" graphics is not exactly a definitve term.

 

To summarize:

Add HIGHMEMFIX=1 to fsx.cfg

DON'T use graphical "enhancement" API hooks like the ENB Series

Turn off "bloom" in the graphics option inside FSX

If you are running FSX in DirectX 10 preview mode, switch to DirectX 9 or use DirectX10 fixer tool

Don't install your FSX in the default Program Files (x86) folder

Run the sim as administrator

Exclude the FSX folder from your security software

Make sure you are using correct drivers, especially after a hardware change

 

I've done all of this.  FSX runs super stable until all of a sudden the graphics just go crazy.  I will definitely post pictures and maybe a video later.  I just got back from work!! Thanks for the help, guys.  Keep the advice coming!!