Fly!2K, 98se, "Directx6 3D driver error"

[Guest angels355]

Hello,Hate to bother you guys. I just installed Fly!2K on my pIII 933 mhz computer w/ 512 mb ecc rdram, 128 mb vram (nvidia) Gainward FX5200, DirectX9.0c and DX9 is functioning perfectly fine, and got WMP9. This computer runs MS FS9 really well with fairly high settings no problemo. But with this arrangement, and in the graphics section selecting DirectX 6 compatible with AGP, usually after about 20 to 30 seconds I'll get this error:Directx6 3D driver error, D3DERR_Elifino: an unknown D3d Error Occured.So when I press "OK" then Fly!2K crashes to the desktop.Should I select "Software only" in the graphics section? I'll try that out. HMMM, that only allows me to have 640 x resolution.What do you think this could be caused by? I reinstalled it again and same results. Do you think it will go away when I upgrade it to V88?

[Guest angels355]

As an experiment I installed fly2k on my twin computer, same specs as above only 384 mb's ecc rdram, and 32 mb vram tnt2 video card, and only 17 gb hdd w/ 12 gb's free space. No errors at all. That Gainward (nvidia) fx5200 128 mb vram video card gave me problems w/ 98se and fs2002 also, the aircraft textures would be black. However on the other twin computer w/ the fx5200 and 98se it is running FS9 perfectly well, high settings and excellent frame rates. Also that computer has a 40 gb hdd which would have been better.Don't have any idea why that computer is giving me dx errors, when I go to the outside view and try to use the top hat on the joystick to rotate around the aircraft I'll instantly get that error, or if I go to the outside view of the aircraft and wait it will also give me that error code.The 2nd twin computer w/ tnt2 works perfectly fine, good frame rates, images look good, and interestingly by default fly!2k loaded up the graphics settings at 1024 x resolution and 32 bit color whereas the fx5200 computer loaded it up by default at 640 x res and 16 bit color, weird. The second tnt2 computer runs fly2k very well, except for one problem, there's a big null zone on the external view. If I look upwards and especially to the left the plane will partially or fully disappear. On the fly by view in replay the plane will entirely disappear on the left, reappear right in front of me, then as it flies past it will disappear again. I had a problem like this on my first fly2k computer, it only had a 350 mhz amd k6-2 processor, onboard 5mb ati video card, and 96 mb of ram. In that configuration there was a square null zone in the middle of the screen where the middle of the plane in the square zone would disappear. When I brought the ram up to 256 mb it disappeared.On this 2nd twin w/ tnt2 card, it might be some time before I can up the ram due to budget, plus I'd have to search for cheap used ram online as ecc rdram is ridiculously expensive if new.FS9 runs well w/ the fx5200 video card plus 98se, won't run well w/ the tnt2 card. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to fix this problem, the null zone problem, or the dx error? Fly!2k runs very well w/ xp plus the fx5200 card, and very well also w/ the tnt2 card and xp on my 333 mhz computer. But I want to use 98se on the 2nd Fly2k installation (have two licenses want to run both fly2k's).Thanks in advance.

[KenWood 5]

For the DX error, about the only thing you can do is reinstall DX. For Fly! II there were a couple of updated TRI DX dll files - check in the developer or patch library sections on AVSIM. When using Fly!2K (and even Fly! II) - try using the nVidia 29.42 video drivers for your tnt card. Still available at the nVidia website in product support. Most of us had the best performance with those drivers. Double check your VCF files in Fly!2K and your render.ini file in Fly! II to ensure you have allocated enough slots for each type of texture base. (ie - you are using the same vcf and render.ini files on each setup).Hope this helps!Cheers,Ken Wood :-sun1Gateway 700X; Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; NVIDIA Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Guest angels355]

Thank you very much Ken, I appreciate it. I was thinking of trying to reinstall dx9, I have the full redistributable, it was a pain in the neck to download using dialup, but now having it is great.I'll get to work on this and see if I can make it work. Have a great day!

[Guest angels355]

Ken,Thanks very much for your suggestion to reinstall DX9, I did that, and it worked, my bigger faster twin computer is running fly2k very well, very high frame rates, nice textures and resolution, and no null zones at any angle.I have ground control on my other fly2k install on the 333 mhz computer, but I think I'm going to keep this install in stock terrain except for addon scenery, as I flew so many hours on my first install that was very basic, it brings back a lot of good memories.Next I'm going to uninstall fly2k from the weaker twin computer, then install v88 on this better twin and add in a bunch of planes and scenery.Also I'm going to try out Kubuntu for 32 bit computers just using the live disk. That's a nice way to try it out, as I haven't figured out where I'd install it any way.You gave me some great suggestions so I bookmarked this for future reference. I really appreciate the help from more experienced fly pro's like you.

[KenWood 5]

Glad to hear the suggestions worked for you! I guess its good to stick with the old as well as the newer stuff. A lot of people are amazed how well I remember basic DOS commands. Because of how I handle (d) my HDD woes, I always resorted to FDisk and FORMAT to reset 'em - until NTFS file system came along, that is.. ;-)One wonderful thing I enjoy is using Marc Stoering's Fly! Rhein-Rhur scenery on Fly!2K... It was payware, but I still enjoy fly!ing over that are. My latest current woe is I lost some scenery backup CDs (won't read any longer) that had my PMDG Greece on it - so am quite upset over that now. Lefteris and crew did a terrific job on that scenery, and I miss fly!ing it. Of course, PMDG no longer supports it... :-(Hope the week goes well!Cheers,Ken Wood :-sun1Gateway 700X; Intel P4 2.4GHz; 512MB RAM; NVIDIA Ti4200 4X AGP 128MB; SB Audigy; Thrustmaster TopGun Fox 2 Pro Shock

[Guest angels355]

Hi Ken,Sorry to hear about your cd reading problem. We had a discussion about such issues on the other forum. Here's what I know (I know everything heehee), a physics person announced not long ago that home burned cd's and I presume dvd's also, are composed of thermal plastic, the laser prints on thermal plastic which is unstable over 2 to 5 years as the plastic can move over that time ruining the disk. It's not permanent storage, only a shelf life of 2 to 5 years depending on the quality of the disk, and if there is any heat exposure.Also, we found some agreement that cdrw's (dvdrw's also?), do not travel well, a cdrw burned on one optical drive may or may not run on another optical drive! But don't give up on trying, I have disks that some cd drives interpret as one big wav file and opens up media player. Other cd drives believe the disk is blank. But a few of my optical drives will read those disks as if there were never a problem. So, EXPERIMENT! See if your other drives will read those disks, and if they do make new copies that your new drives can read!Good to hear from you. My new Fly!2K installation looks really nice, it's almost spooky to have high frame rates and good resolution. I was told that the command prompt within xp is actually dos itself, I've tried it out a little, I've done a few command prompt defrags and perhaps a few other things. I think there's a website called bootdisk.com or .org, which features all the bootdisks for many OS's, I haven't checked it out yet, I wonder if there is one for xp? It seems to me that, if you have a bootdisk for xp that you should still be able to do fdisk and format type of things!? That's the way i handle everything, first sign of trouble nuke it w/ fdisk and format! Well, that's what they get when gamers got control of the computer!! Rootkit? I'll give you rootkit! Fdisk and format! How do you like that for a good method of handling a rootkit?Problem now is that you have to have a retail version of xp, if you want to be able to nuke it at the drop of the hat. I tried out the live disk for kubuntu 7.04 feisty fawn, it's really nice, beautiful graphics, and lots of cool stuff. I could use it for some non flight simulator stuff. Try out that suggestion, try reading those pmdg cd's with your other optical drives, one of them might be able to open it up just fine. Have a nice weekPS: Possibly the best archiving method is on an external (or internal) hdd dedicated to long term storage, magnetic media is supposed to be good also, but myself I'm not 100% supportive of magnetic media, I think possibly a storage dedicated hdd would be better.

[RandallR 446]

Ken,Check in with me - I believe you have my e-mail?

[Guest angels355]

Thanks for helping Randall, Ken is a great guy.