RESOLVED Something Broke

[low-n-slow]

I installed FTX plus the freeware airports and have enjoyed several enjoyable days flying around Tasmania and Victoria visiting all the new airports.  I very much enjoy the challenge of finding the airports using just VFR dead reckoning.  FTX is very much like real VFR flying into grass and gravel strips in real life.  You have hit a winner with this program.  Good frame rates, excellent scenery, and very lifelike airports.  I can't wait for the next installments.

I followed instructions to unload the older VSX software and installed the newer freeware fix for FTX.  I tweaked my FSX.cfg as suggested.  Everything worked great for several days.

Unfortunately, I broke my FTX program.  I used the FTX Mode program to unload FTX so I could fly around my home area in the Pacific Northwest, and FTX has not been the same since.

Now, when I reload FTX, frame rates have dropped to 1-3 plus my video is corrupted.  I get numerous strange vertical stripes across the scenery, my plane has corrupted surfaces, and the program has become unusable.

I tried reloading FTX on the hope that somehow reloading FTX with the mode changer had not reloaded the textures correctly.  Reloading did not work and now, I have reintroduced the missing scenery bug I had originally from the freeware package.

Fortunately, the problem seems to be isolated to FTX.  When I unload it and fly in the Pacific Northwest around Holger's Victoria BC and Bella Coola, everything works fine. 

Please help - there are still many more airports in FTX I haven't found yet and I am looking forward to getting back to it.

JADY

[low-n-slow]

No answer?

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi JADY,

that's a tricky one. What you decsribe (fps drop and vertical distortions) sounds like a video card overload; there's been a number of threads on this in various forums. It's odd though that this issue would be limited to the FTX coverage area. What happens if you fly in the BLUE area with FTX mode off and the FTX scenery library menues deactivated?

Your best appraoch is probably to start from scratch with FTX. Keep FTX Mode OFF, uninstall FTX and double-check that all traces of it are gone: no more scenery library menu entries, terrain.cfg without the FTX header, no more \ORBX folder. Then do a couple of flights in the BLUE coverage area to check that you're only seeing default landscape and scenery and that the fsp issues and visual distortions are gone.

Then re-install FTX with the hotfixes and download the GA airfields package v1.01 and install that as well.

Good luck with getting FTX back on board!

Cheers, Holger

[low-n-slow]

Hi Holger,

Thanks for the response.

I agree, it acts like a video card overload. 

The problem appears to be fixed at this point.  I unloaded and deleted all FTX and Freeware files and reloaded from scratch.  So far, I have been able to turn FTX mode on and off several times without seeing the video problems I had with the original installation. I think my original installation of FTX may have had a problem with the mode selection inadvertantly corrupting some texture file.

Hopefully, the fresh installation has corrected the problem.

Great package.  I'm looking forward to the next installment.

JADY