Degenerating Textures! Help!

[rhodges 6]

Over the past weeks, my textures in FSX have decayed badly as flights progressed. When I started a flight, everything was sharp and beautiful, but as the flight continued, road textures did not keep up and scenery in general became worse and worse. Also, eventually when I switched to spot view, either it took a prohibitive amount of time to load aircraft textures, or they never kicked in and the aircraft was essentially a dark shadow of itself with no markings or color at all. It finally got so bad that on my final flight from KLWB to KCVG, by the time I arrived at KCVG I had almost no textures at all. The airport only displayed bright green runways which looked something like the first flightsim scenery of years past.Options: 1. Forget FSX at least for the time being and go back to FS9 which displayed none of these problems. 2. Continue searching for the culprit. 3. Start over. With an investment in the latest third party addons, I chose to start over.On a virgin installation of FSX plus SP1, I began to add things one by one, then fly and see what it looked like after each step (Which has taken quite a bit of time.)1. Ultimate Terrain2. Ultimate Traffic3. FSUIPC4. Tweaks: a. Edited "transition=no" to lock the spot view. b. Edited for the "GEAR UP" and "GEAR DOWN" Button functions. c. Edited for the Hat Switch Pan View functions for 2d Cockpit d. Edited for the average frame rate display e. Edited for "MipBias=6". f. Setup the Video with NHancer to "Clamp" the Neg. Load Bias.5. Installed Quickgoto6. Installed aircraft: a. Eaglesoft Citation CJ1-1.5 b. Eaglesoft Citation II SP2 1.5 c. Flight One Cessna 421 Golden Eagle d. LDS 7677. Recovered Aircraft from my backup "Airplane" Folder a. Capt. Sim 757 b. Maam Briefing Time B25 c. Maam R4d6/DC3's e. Coranado V35B f. Bill Lyons J3 Cubs g. Milton Shupe's Beechcraft D18SVC h. Milton Shupe's Howard 500 i. Premier's Turbobeaver j. Stephen Grant's DH2AV2 Beaver Amphibians k. Eric Dante's Twin Bonanza l. Dreamfleet 177/177RG m. FSD Porter Pilatus n. FSD Piper Cheyenne 400 o. FSD Piper Navajo Panther p. PMDG Beechcraft 1900D q. FSDZigns Lockheed L049A Constellation8. Recovered Aircraft from my backup "Aircraft" Folder a. PSS A319, A320, A320 Package b. PSS A330, A340 Package c. PSS Concord d. PSS Dash 89. Recovered from my backup folder a. FSSound.dll b. FSD License Info Text c. RwyInfo d. Text-O-MaticOn SHORT hops that were within range of where I had seen my prior texture problems BEGIN, everything looked acceptable on each attempt after each step of recovery. Spot view textures took a few seconds to load particularly on something like the Capt. Sim 757 (up to 5 seconds), Proportional to speed, roads were not perfect (Ultimate Terrain), but as expected relative to complexity. Certainly was an improvement and acceptable. I thought I was at least approaching where one would want to be with FSX.So, I set up a flight, implementing ProFlight 2000 and PFE (Note, these programs are outside of FSX). Also note that my texture problems existed long before these programs became available relative to FSX. The flight was from KLWB to KBOSA little over an hour into my flight out of KLWB, I got a beep and had an error message window pop up which best I remember said,

[Guest danny68]

A lot of information to take in here buddy. It's not for mere mortals to decode in any sure way.You've put a lot of stuff on FSX and it's the old case of change more than one thing at a time and your right hand won't know what the left is doing any more.You may like to try Michael from FSG who can almost certainly help you sort things out.Logically, if it was all working just fine a while back you can only attempt to fix things yourself by going back to a default set-up and adding one thing at a time then doing the in-depth tests you outline at each new install stage. This will take an insance amount of time with all the add-ons you have.One thing that comes to mind is a memory leak and I was getting something similar over time with ground textures getting more blurred over time. However, this was happening on a basic default install. I fixed it by hadding more RAM to my MB (from 2GB to 3GB) but experts tell me this should not have worked? No idea why it worked for me but it worked. It could be though other factors that I'm not awear of?One thing to watch out for is RAM useage during flight. If it gets much beyond around 85% it will slow the texture refresh rate down and you'll get the stutters and blurries. By adding more memory you may delay the amount of time it takes to get to 85% and even stop it getting this high completely.I'm sorry I can't be more helpful and I'm no expert in this area.Good luck and I hope you find a solution soonDan

[Guest Robin R.]

I'm having pretty much the same problem as you -- can't tell you how many times I've re-installed FSX. Working with FSX for as long as I have I often wonder why I'm spending so many hours trying to make it work at an acceptable level. Perhaps it's those occasional moments where it does actually look good that keeps driving me onwards -- not really sure why I punish myself with FSX, but I continue to do so. Just when I think I getting it working reasonably well (minimal blurries and acceptable frame rates) -- it'll stay that way for a few days but then progressively seems to get worse.At first I thought perhaps this was a file fragmentation issue, so I purchased the pro version fo Disk Keeper (same company MS use to defrag) -- didn't help any.Toss in the fact that some 3rd party developers (MyTrafficX in particular) are blaming Microsoft for aircraft texture problems (in the distance) and then having to rework all their aircraft textures and charge more on top of that -- the game starts getting OLD fast which just deters the entire FSX experience even more.And I'm so so so very sick of all those that chime in with "there's no problem, it's you" responses -- I've monitored various FS forums long enough to know that existing problems with FSX are not specific to my setup.I even went to the trouble to borrow a hardware RAM drive and load FSX on that to see if that helped at all -- it didn't!! So whatever the FSX scenery engine is doing it has problems doing it.I've gone thru endless articles online and tried 1000's of combinations of settings and Phil's suggestions -- the bottom line seems to be -- this is the way it is, take it or leave. Hence, now I'm mostly flying FS9 with 100's of add-ons everything maxed out without any issues (on the very same computer). Occassionally I'll find a new thread of information about possible solutions for FSX and will try them out, most don't help or may fix one issue but has nasty side affects.Anyway, good luck with finding a solution. I have yet to find any solution that really works consistantly and all the time. FSX seems to be VERY fragile to any 3rd party add-ons, even those touted as taking advantage of new FSX features.But Phil Taylor and Aces keep moving forward with DX10 version for Vista with no word on how to fix the scenery engine nor the host of other issues. Most likely because they don't feel there is a problem with the scenery engine. Anyway, back to FS9 it looks better than FSX and seems to have fewer bugs -- perhaps FSX would look better if one could actually increase the sliders and retain > 2 fps. Setup some weather with rain and prepare to be horrified at the frame rates -- it's so bad that I never use "Real world weather" just in case it is raining. Yet another feature I can't use.Robin

[Mace 1,909]

If it were me, I would wipe it all, defrag with a quality defragger, install the latest vid driver, install FSX, run FSX, then install SP1, then defrag again with a quality defragger.You sort of did that, but it appears you started installing add-ons pretty soon after.If it were me I would not be installing all of those add-ons right away. I would leave it bone stock for a while, and test things that way.I did not notice you doing the multi-core tweaks, etc. but I might have missed something in your post.I don't know how up-to-date your BIOS is, or if you have installed the Intel microcode update(s) for Core2's.It seems to me that if I were having a bad blurry problem over time, then I would want to keep it simple without all of those add-ons in the mix.I have seen what you have experienced...increasing blurries over the length of a flight, where at the end on final things are blurry. Not quite as bad as you (with the green runways, etc.) but I have seen that too a few times. What I did was a few single-core tweaks (such as FIBER_FRAME to 0.40), BufferPools to 8 million, **and moved some sliders left.** In my case ultimately I had to start tweaking with a bone stock FSX by moving some sliders a littler further left and testing, then going from there.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (nVidia 162.18), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[rhodges 6]

Hello Robin:Thanks for the input. Sounds pretty similar to what I am seeing.I'm with you on fragmentation. I defrag every night with Diskkeeper. That isn't the problem.I also regress back into FS9 and ask myself why I fight the battle, but I guess I do really think that the textures in FSX are far superior to those in FS9, particularly now with what Ultimate Terrain and FSGenesis offer. However, I have not been able to find a way to retain them throughout a long flight most of the time. I know it is not UT as I and many others thought when it first arrived. I went back and examined the default MSFSX roads and they do the same thing, and in fact disappear completely some of the time. It is just that the UT streets and roads are so sharp at first that it is a dramatic change and shows up much more as they decay.About the only thing with which I differ, is that by far in large I have little to no framerate problem. With the exception of somewhere like KJFK and the Manhatten area, I have everything maxed out and maintain a pretty steady rate with a max setting of 20. Sometimes raise it to 30, but don't really see any difference. Framerates hold pretty close to those settings and flights are reasonably smooth.With Phil's statement implying that there is no fix possible for Type 3 blurries, this disturbs me. If this is so, Vista and DX10 will also offer no solution to this problem and frankly would be a waste of money FOR ME IMHO.We can keep searching and I hope that a solution is found by some kind soul.Thanks again:RTH

[rhodges 6]

Thanks for the reply Rhett:If you wouldn't mind, please clarify specifically what "multi-core tweaks" and "Intel microcode(s) for Core2's" to which you refer. I probably am missing something there.I believe my BIOS on everything is up to date as near as I can tell from manufacturer's sites.Thanks again:

[Guest Robin R.]

My framerates are for the most part pretty good -- set at 25 fps and will retain that in most areas. The fps problems starts when I run into rain and then the fps was all over the place making any landing impossible.I can get some nice textures some of the time at just the right altitude and in a banked turn, but for the duration of a flight in any Jet and it slowly but surely turns into blurries. I can minimize how long before I hit the blurries by never changing views and always stay in Virtual cockpit view. But as soon as I start to change views the blurries rapidly overtake and even going back to my original view they remain and the process snowballs from there.But I'm of the same thought as you, if the scenery engine (aka texture loading) doesn't change I'll not be moving to DX10 and Vista -- just not worth it.There is a solution (we have the necessary hardware today) -- just hasn't been coded yet. It will be interesting to see who provides the solution first -- my money is a company not related to Microsoft at all.Robin.

[Mace 1,909]

>Thanks for the reply Rhett:>>If you wouldn't mind, please clarify specifically what>"multi-core tweaks" and "Intel microcode(s) for Core2's" to>which you refer. I probably am missing something there.>I believe Intel or Microsoft recently released some sort of update for the Windows OS for Core2/C2Q machines. I think so anyway. Since I do not have a multi core box I am not on the forefront of that information, but I saw a thread on it recently.My goal was to get you to search for the term "microcode" and possibly "Core2 fix" or something along those lines, here in the AVSIM forum, because I think there was a thread on the topic fairly recently.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[rhodges 6]

Hello again:I was afraid of that. I have already updated to what I think you are talking about, but would have to search this old brain among a few other sites to remember and find it again. Best I remember it was from MS or at least an MS approved site with a link that installed it online, not from a download. I will see if I can find it again, plus anything else that might be related. I believe the initial link was posted on this site.Thanks for the try.RTH

[Mace 1,909]

If that's the case then, you need to start from square one as I detailed in my long post. Probably your sliders are too far right for all of the add-ons you are running, too.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian