MGS

Very helpful! I'll try your suggestions regarding POV. Thanks much.

This may be a dumb question, but, I purchased ver 1.20 and would like the new version. How do I get the upgrade without purchasing again? I only see an option to checkout. Also, is there a way to lower the pilot point of view to see out the side window in order to turn base to final and land? I assigned joystick buttons for this in x-plane, but it doesn't work with the 172SP. Thanks

I rate it a 5 out of 10. I've been trying to transition into XP10. The chief hindrances are the unrealistic, squirrely flight models for the default C-172 and Columbia 400, which detract. The barren airports and lack of any landmarks in major cities (US)don't help. Simply adjusting radio and nav frequencies is awkward. Pluses: OSM/autogen are excellent. Outstanding framerates at high scenery settings-I'm impressed. Night flying is just great. Maybe some payware GA will improve on the flight models? The sim has potential, so I tend to look past other minuses that come to mind.

Thanks Pascal. That helps a lot. I'm surprised I missed this when searching. I'll read more of this when I get home from work. Mark

Ok, Thanks for the info. Mark

I'd like to obtain photoreal scenery. I've seen g2xpl mentioned in various threads. However, it's not obvious where to get the program. Does it exist? Thanks Mark

I'm a newbie X-plane. I unzipped the .rar file. Where does the resulting folder go in X-plane? I'm guessing custom scenery? This thread has been a big help. Mark

Richard, your initial "Can't load texture.." has been a common problem with podded globe tiles--I assume you podded. It can very likely be solved by simply expanding the load boundaries for the lower left and upper right of the globe tile. You edit these in the scf file with notepad. Use the example below, which has load parameters which expand the bounds by one additional degree latitude and longitude. As for the second problem you describe concerning bad texture length, my guess is that this is probably unrelated to the first problem. I vaguely recall having that message when something was wrong with the tga file in the output directory of TS. I would start over and regenerate the tga. To be safe, I would make sure nothing from the first attempt at generating the globe time is present in the data directory or scenery directory of Fly2. Sample scf: ==== BEGIN SCENERY FILE ==== ---- scenery set name ---- erie TerraScene Scenery version x.x ---- coverage area lower left ---- 41 07 08.4 N 80 09 58.3 W ---- coverage area upper right ---- 42 11 53.5 N 78 44 24.0 W ---- load lower left ---- 39 07 08.4 N 82 09 58.3 W ---- load upper right ---- 44 11 53.5 N 76 44 24.0 W ---- pod file ---- erie.pod ==== END SCENERY FILE ====

Count me in!

A couple more suggestions:1. Turn off Fastwrites2. Set AGP speed to 4XYou may need to do this in the bios settings, then double check under the ati smartgart tab. I doubt the lower settings will affect the preceived speed. I don't know if the 9600 supports 8x agp.

I don't know if you are using winxp with dx9. I assume so. I also assume you did some routine things, such as check the video card in device manager and run dxdiag from the command line.Maybe I need not mention this, but I am unsure of the answer. I have the tri .dll's dated 4/19 and 5/2 in the system directory, and I think these are the ones in use by Fly2, because I remember not wanting to change them during the updates long ago. I have the 3/19 and 6/18 .dlls in the Fly2 main directory, which I don't believe are being used. Maybe you replaced the wrong .dlls? Someone will need to refresh my memory as to whether the ones in the system directory are the ones Fly2 is actually using.Here are some ideas. At least, I would try them if it were me. You might update the drivers if you are using the ones that came with the card. Maybe the old ones are incompatible with dx9. I don't know anything about this, just a guess.If you already upgraded the video drivers, you might rollback or reinstall the old ones, then reinstall the new ones. This seemed to have worked for me with my ati 9700 pro, but I had reason to believe I botched the update after installing dx9. My problem was an occasional blue-screen followed by an automatic reboot during some long flights. I had no video problems whatsoever until I started messing with dx9 and the driver upgrade.You could download and install the Omega drivers for the ati card. Go to http://www.omegacorner.com for links to these. I haven't tried them, so I can't vouch for them. You should know that these drivers are not supported by ati. I noticed that there were quite a variety of versions of the factory ati drivers also available via this website and its links.

Hi Roger. I've been pretty happy with 128 Meg with the ati 9700 pro. For me, probably the only big change in the render.ini has been to up the 256-565 slots to 81. Framerates haven't been much of an issue--about 75-85 fps in the 172 over default with 60 mi vis, med 12 mi, near 3 mi no ai aircraft. The worst case scenerio I have had is the night approach at Miles Carey's KBFI from the south (forget the runway, probably 36), where I get 28 fps with 4x AA and anis filtering at 4. My system is 2.53 GHz (1GB), latest ati drivers and directx9. Maybe someone has another approach which will bring the latest cards to their knees.

Wayne, thanks for KSBM. I've downloaded and installed most of them, but I especially appreciate those in Wisconsin.

I sure hated to uninstall my AVB FFB joystick driver and going back to the Sidewinder stick. On the other hand, I haven't crashed ever since, and its been just over two weeks now. I can now really appreciate that.

David, sorry to hear the logs were of no help. I guess you didn't get a blue screen with a message either, another possibility I mentioned above. From what you said earlier, you crash to the desktop, whereas in my case, I would completely lockup in a blank blue screen with no message, and there was no choice but to completely power off the system (unless I specified an option to reboot automatically, bypassing the blue screen). In your situation, I would probably roll back the video driver to the last version or even consider going back to a previous restore point when the configuration was reliable. I would exercise caution if doing the latter. Good luck.