I've done something wrong but I don't know what!

[fognozzle]

After years of FS 9 and VOZ, I've upgraded to FSX and I've downloaded the free Tassie FTX for a little taste of what is to come.

I've done the recommended test of flying with and without the FTX activated and this is what I get:

* Launceston airport has water on three sides

* I cant tell the difference between with and without FTX

* I can play with my scenery settings all day and nothing appears to change, except the dreaded frame rate.

Can anyone tell me what I've done wrong?

FOGnozzle

PS: 2.4 GHz Core 2 duo with 2 G RAM and ATI Radeon 2400 XT (runs nice!)

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi FOGnozzle,

welcome to FSX!

The water around any photoreal area like Launceston indicates that you haven't upgraded FSX to SP1/SP2 status. See http://www.microsoft.com/Products/Games/FSInsider/downloads/Pages/default.aspx

Once you're done with that and got rid of the water we can talk about the other issues, if they still remain.

Cheers, Holger

[fognozzle]

Holger,

Thanks for that. I upgraded to SP 1 and the .Net thing and it made all the difference. No more water and the difference between the default Launceston and the FTX version is remarkable.

I was unsure about SP2, as it warned that I would only be able to multiplay with others having the same SP. I frequently use FSInn/FSCopilot to participate in VATPAC VFR events, so I wouldn't want to lose that.

And now to the inevitable question: How do I fine tune the frame rate/scenery tradeoff for my particular setup? I know that I can wind back the sliders for a frame rate increase, and I reckon smooth flight requires about 11 or 12 fps for me, but what are the best things to sacrifice?

I am keen to play around with this and get it understood before I go out and buy the full FTX Australia. As a VFR fan, I am also interested in many of the airports too.

[normandean]

Holger,

I was unsure about SP2, as it warned that I would only be able to multiplay with others having the same SP. I frequently use FSInn/FSCopilot to participate in VATPAC VFR events, so I wouldn't want to lose that.

Where on earth did you get that idea from. I have used SP2 since it came out and have no problem with any of the mulitplyer groups that I fly with, nor VATSIM.

Norman

[Ian Routley]

If you are using FSInn / FSCopilot you'll need to get the version that works adequately with FSX SP2.

The issue with Multiplayer games related more to Microsofts own Multiplayer server.

I haven't heard anyone complain about that for quite a while ..

[fognozzle]

Excellent,

Thanks for the clarification. I will do SP2 immediately. I think that the misapprehension came from the notice on the Microsoft site warning about multiplayer/SP2, which is now quite old and apparently irrelevant.

And now to the interesting part:

I decided to work from a position of knowledge, and that meant knowing the characteristics of every global graphics display setting and every scenery setting. That meant 49 flights over Launceston!

But, it was great fun. I learnt how to use the "nav" setting in the auto pilot, and I found the control for setting a fixed spot view too.

More importantly, I found that:

*  all of the minimal and low scenery settings were pretty useless as they didn't show any if the add-on scenery at all.

* all of the ultra high settings were useless as they resulted in frame rates around 3 fps over the airport, even though they gave the best cliffs and mountains.

* the minimal display setting, based on 10 fps was globally unpleasant

* the remainder need to be played with a bit more, in order to find the nicest one.

* currently, I've settled on the high/medium high combination which results in very good fps between airports, reasonable fps for landing, and only some jerks when taxiing.

A few questions arise:

Why are the cars and trucks not on roads, but running across the paddocks?

Why are there shimmering lines like illuminated power poles?

This is fun, why didn't I do it before?

Fognozzle

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi there,

can you post screenshots of the cars running amok and those shimmering lines, please?

Also, a screenshot of what you "did before" would be great 

Cheers, Holger

[fognozzle]

Here's a screen shot of the cars going across the paddocks instead of down the roads

[fognozzle]

Here's a photo of flickering lamp posts that appear as three narrow vertical lines above the left engine in this shot

[Holger Sandmann]

Hello Fognozzle,

apologies for overlooking your response along with the screenshots.

It looks to me as if the custom terrain.cfg entries required for FTX AU didn't get installed, which would explain the absence of road and other textures. With FTXCentral set to Australia, if you open terrain.cfg in Notepad (it resides in the main FSX directory), do a search for entries named "ORBX FTX-AU ..." and let me know if you find any.

Also, both screenshots show that your system still isn't set up properly because the ground textures are very blurry, indicating that the textures don't get to load their highest mipmaps. Does FSX look that blurry for you everywhere?

Shimmering of some autogen objects, like telephone poles or lamp masts, can be related to general graphics settings but can also be caused by unoptimized drivers or by using the DX10 preview setting in FSX.

Can you provide a bit more information about your hardware as well as the graphics drivers and settings you're using, please?

Cheers, Holger

[fognozzle]

Hi,

Lots of questions.

Firstly I found in the cfg file:

ORBX FTX-AU Outback Fencing

ORBX FTX-AU Road Treeline Left (Round Gums)

ORBX FTX-AU Road Treeline Right (Large Gums)

ORBX FTX-AU Road Streetlights

ORBX FTX-AU FTX Telephone Lines

ORBX FTX-AU custom textures 1 of 78

ORBX FTX-AU custom textures 78 of 78

My graphics card is called ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT .0

There are no references to DX10 preview, and I cannot find any reference to any Directx on the machine, so I am currently downloading it to see what happens.

My scenery on FSX has been generally very poor compared with FS9. In fact it appear that I am always flying through a light mist. I thought this may have been additional reality?!?

More soon, once the downloads are finished.

Fognozzle

[fognozzle]

I'm currently doing a Launceston - Hobart leg in the Baron at 5500 and it is sensational!

I downloaded direct x and it has made all the difference.

Now I know

I think

Fognozzle

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Fognozzle,

thanks for the information and I'm happy to hear that things appear to have improved somewhat.

Interesting that the terrain.cfg entries appear to be correct yet the road textures don't seem to show up. Have you seen any locations in Tasmania where traffic runs on visible roads?

What I meant by DX10 preview was the option within the FSX Settings - Display menu; there's a checkbox that allows you to turn the preview option on and off. Some users report higher framerates with that preview active but the FSX DX10 code wasn't fully implemented so there are downsides to using it like flickering textures and transparency issues. Sounds like you installed a Microsoft DX10 update, which won't hurt but probably doesn't help much at least not in terms of flickering textures.

Your graphics card is DX10 capable but it only has 256MB of RAM, which is very low for running FSX in either DX9 or DX10 mode. That probably explains why you have those issues with blurry textures. Make sure to have Global texture resolution set to very high (maximum) but keep the Level of Detail radius to medium or even small and autogen to about Normal. Mesh resolution can be set to 10m and texture res to 15cm or7cm.

Cheers, Holger

[fognozzle]

I think that we've cracked it. My vehicles are on roads, my scenery is better and my average frame rates are more acceptable. There is the occasional freeze and the occasional bright flash but these are probably due to the limitations of my video card, and I will investigate alternatives.

Everything changed after I downloaded DirectX. I don't know why, but who cares.

I've looked through all of the settings in my FSX but I cannot find any tick box for DX10 preview. Perhaps someone could tell me where to look, as I don't know if it is ticked or not.

I think that I now have sufficient confidence to buy Australia at last and get rid of the desert around Sydney.

Thanks

Fognozzle

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi there,

the DX10 preview checkbox is on the Settings - Graphics page. If you look in the PNW Demo User Guide on page 16 you'll see a screenshot that shows the checkbox just below the Global texture resolution slider. If you don't have it on your setup page it means that FSX determined that your graphics card isn't DX10 compatible.

Cheers, Holger