Texture bugs... does anyone know what is happening????

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

I recently installed a NVIDIA 8500GT on my computer. Everything has been great until yesterday I started having some problems with the textures in the sim. Has anyone had this kind of trouble before?

 

Here are some pics...

 

 

 

Hope someone can help me...

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

have you updated your drivers?

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

Yes, I installed the most recent drivers from nvidia.com...

[bernard tremblay]

I was having a problem that may be slightly related. (see my "FSX weirdness ... artifacts? corrupt data?")

 

2 things at once: 1) weirdness like that "Air Emerald" poster, kind of ... I had trees in mid-air, and 2) weird geometrical shapes ... diff from yours, and not often, but still.

 

I just had 2 long flights today w/no problems. I cut my scenaries back to the minimum. It's the only thing I could think of, in the end.

Was it a fix? I dunno.

 

But I couldn't put up with a sky-forest on final, that's for sure.

 

good luck!

[Tony Vienonen 1136602]

Here is my graphics glitch. I switched from windowed mode to full screen. It looks like a iceberg, of sorts, impaled my plane. Ironically, I was over the North Atlantic near where the Titanic sunk.

 

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s148/tvieno/fs%20stuff/iceberg.jpg

[bernard tremblay]

That's hilarious.

But it looks like we're chasing 2 different bugs. Or perhaps 2 bugs in the same weakly designed area of FS.

heh ... geez that looks funny.

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

I think they're both different....

 

I'm guessing it's some kind of issue with memory...but not sure...??

[bernard tremblay]

I think they're both different....

Okay ...

... but what you showed there was 2 different things. And what I was was 2 different things.

1) the weird geometrical shapes (which I had, different but the same) and then

2) a piece of scenery in the wrong place.

That sign in your screenshot, that was an error, right? And I had trees. Not messed up tress, perfectly fine trees ... just in the wrong place.

I'm guessing it's some kind of issue with memory...but not sure...??

I can't see why it would be.

Two things everybody guesses: bad drivers (or GPU meltdown) and memory.

My XP is using 3 of my 6 Gig of DDR3. I can't see why it would be a memory problem.

 

You have plenty of RAM?

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

Well I´m using a Pentium Dual-Core with 1GB DDR2 on Windows XP. My CPU load during the game is kinda 30% to 40 %. The frame rate is locked on 24fps and working nicely. I was thinking of getting more memory but not sure if this could solve the problem....

[bernard tremblay]

Well I´m using a Pentium Dual-Core with 1GB DDR2 on Windows XP. My CPU load during the game is kinda 30% to 40 %. The frame rate is locked on 24fps and working nicely. I was thinking of getting more memory but not sure if this could solve the problem....

Ok ... just a guess: something like 2.4GHz?

I bet more memory would make /everything/ work better. And likely you can find some cheap/used if you know of that sort of bulletin board near you. Even 1 more stick ... 2 would give you all XP can use.

 

But know what? I'm not sure that's the fix. I'm really glad to hear you're getting decent results, that's key, but as for the glitch ... I haven't seen anybody do a real diagnosis.

 

Did you add anything, like maybe scenery? Did you make changes in your configuration?

Computers and sofware aren't supposed to go nuts unless / until we poke them with an electric stick.

 

Is the problem recurring?

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

All right first I made a full installation, I added Real Environment Extreme 2004, some Wilco add-ons, also Ground Enviroment Pro. My first though was that maybe one of these programs corrupted my FS9 files. So I uninstalled everything and reinstalled FS9 again without any add-ons this time. The problem persisted.

 

I guess something is missing here... Some ideas:

 

-Update video card drivers. Check

-Update the sim. Check

-Update DirectX??? Don't know if this could solve my problem.

-Get some memory. I'm on it, but I really don't think this could help too much.

 

Any other ideas?

[bernard tremblay]

... The problem persisted.

Meh.

 

I guess something is missing here... Some ideas:

...

Get some memory. I'm on it, but I really don't think this could help too much.

Can't hoit, but I don't see reason to think that's the problem.

Any other ideas?

Back realism and graphics down as much as you can?

Just trolling here, trying to get something diagnostic ... swinging at ghosts with my favorite rubber chicken. (That's the software equivalent of voodoo.)

Even with screwy software, effects still have causes.

So: remove the cause and HeyPresto ... is the plan.

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

Lol... I guess I should use FS2002...

 

I've noticed that this problem occurs when I'm forcing the Video Card a lot. For example, yesterday I had settings at maximum, with 30fps and the textures crashed a lot. Then I lowered some texture settings and limited the fps and everything came up smoothly well. From that, the only two possible things are the video card or lack of memory, -that's were my initial ideas came from... but after all I'm not sure what's happening. I'll buy some memory today and make some test to see how everything goes on...

[bernard tremblay]

Lol... I guess I should use FS2002...

heh ... last night I looked at all the nice planes I have in FS9 and my mouth watered. (I'm sure FSX is the way to go for airlines, FMC and all that, but boy -9 rocks for freewar bushplanes.)

 

I've noticed that this problem occurs when I'm forcing the Video Card a lot. For example, yesterday I had settings at maximum, with 30fps and the textures crashed a lot. Then I lowered some texture settings and limited the fps and everything came up smoothly well. From that, the only two possible things are the video card or lack of memory, -that's were my initial ideas came from... but after all I'm not sure what's happening. I'll buy some memory today and make some test to see how everything goes on...

I don't know.

When I can find something really causal ... you know, turn it on and get probs, turn it off and all good ... then I'll feel a bit more sane.

 

But if you don't have 3Gig (I'm [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming XP here.) then yaa, for sure do.

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

I'll give it a try and let you know. By the way, does your sim crash when the wrong textures appear? Cause mine keeps going on until if automatically fixes at some time -maybe 10 minutes or so-.

[bernard tremblay]

Cause mine keeps going on until if automatically fixes at some time -maybe 10 minutes or so-.

No crash here. Sometimes Alt-Enter clears it, sometimes Alt-Tab to another app ... I can't make sense of it.

[Garry Morris 920567]

Shot in the dark - heat issue maybe?

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

does it only happen with FS or any other games aswell?

 

if its with all. check to make sure the card is set correctly in place on the motherboard. that can cause it to act weird. push down on it too much while setting it in place can do it too. try setting it again and not be too rough doin it, like i did just had to take it out and put it back in gently.

[bernard tremblay]

Shot in the dark - heat issue maybe?

That's always a good thing to check.

Thing is, and I know this from experience in the field, if it's a subtle hardware breakage heat cycles (expansion/contraction) will cause this to be intermittent. Drives the best folks nutz tracking that.

 

My suspect: AutoGen. see the result I finally got. Slam.dunk finished. Closed. Fixed.

May all sentient beings find their problems so clearly resolved!

:-)

[Garry Morris 920567]

Definitely Bernard. The main reason I suggested it was that he indicated alt-tabbing out and in sometimes fixed it, etc. That made it sound to me like maybe a heat spike knocked it out of whack, and alt-tabbing caused it to reload textures, etc. Again, just a shot in the dark.

[bernard tremblay]

maybe a heat spike knocked it out of whack, and alt-tabbing caused it to reload textures, etc. Again, just a shot in the dark.

Oh, hey, I'm there with you.

Alt-tabbing to another app releases the load on GPU, for sure ... so that would point at a heat issue, quite. (I've watched to see how long it takes mine to drop from it's high, usually low 60s, to something more ambient. Mere moment, really, for a drop of more than 10C.

But toggling window mode often clears issues and of course that releases the GPU load for only a fraction of a second.

 

Heat was the suspect in my problem when it turned out to be auto-gen.

[Carlos Pereira 1156112]

All right guys, some news.

 

I installed nHancer for my videocard and checked some guides for using it. I changed the perfomance-mode for one monitor which was for multiple monitors by default. Also changed the vertical sync option to Force on. Since those changes, the texture problem almost disappeared. In two days it happened just a couple of times. Also as Bernard said, its easy to fix: just resize the window -if you're playing in windowed mode- or Alt+Tab.

 

I posted this question on another forum and many people suggested that there were missing textures. After having this game installed on other computers -with good results-, I discarded the idea of a corrupt installation file or missing textures on the cd.

 

Now my theory is this: When you load your game, every texture needed by the scenery is loaded into the RAM memory. For an extended period of time -if the memory size is small, as my case- it collapses. This produces a lack of textures because the memory can't keep loading new ones. And then you got all the LSD effect on textures, which is cool if you're listening Pink Floyd hehe... This could happen also if you're using a very detailed scenery.

 

Now, this is in my case. I have just 1gb of memory, but in the case of Bernard -he has 6gb- so I don't think my theory fits there.

[bernard tremblay]

Lemme flip things around here, last point first:

Now, this is in my case. I have just 1gb of memory, but in the case of Bernard -he has 6gb- so I don't think my theory fits there. :roll:

heh ... smart-guy. ;-p

Ok, of 6GB, only 3 is in use ... XP.

But anyhow, more important: setting stuff up for rendering is a complex chain ... so you and I could be seeing similar things as effects of the chain breaking at different spots.

 

I installed nHancer for my videocard

/That/, I think, is a.big.deal ... lots stuff written about using that to optimse.

 

and checked some guides for using it. ...

... Also changed the vertical sync option to Force on.

I have read a lot about /that/, too. But I don't think it applies to my system.

It seems real important.

 

as Bernard said, its easy to fix: just resize the window -if you're playing in windowed mode- or Alt+Tab.

But that's not really a fix ... it's a work-around, at best. Last thing I want to have to do on final, with a sky full of forest, is to be muckin' with toggling windowed.

 

... many people suggested that there were missing textures. After having this game installed on other computers -with good results-, I discarded the idea of a corrupt installation file or missing textures on the cd.

Folk recall what they've heard most often.

*shrug*

 

if the memory size is small, as my case- it collapses. This produces a lack of textures because the memory can't ...

huh huh

Sure ... any ploblem in that area is bound to be doom.

 

p.s. the reason I have 6 DDR3 even though I'm only running XP: my plan is to use the top-most 3 as a RAM disk for textures. ok, not in FS ... in ArmA ... and that's why I built this box. but background project I'm going to see if it's possible to push textures up into RAM for folk who have slow CPU: upgrading with more RAM is cheaper/easier than almost anything else.