Sparklies problem

[TenBlade]

I´ve delved into optimizing and overclocking my new rig. Don´t have the new gpu yet, still on gtx 285. I seem to get sparklies across all three screens after some minutes of flight. Some times it limits itself to FSX, meaning, if I end a flight and look at the rotating aircraft in the menu, the sparklies are only in that picture. Other times they stay across the whole three screens, and won´t go away until I reboot pc.

I suspect it´s a gpu problem. Anyone had that issue, knows what it´s about. My gpu is currently at stock clocks and well cooled.

Bjorn

[Ausiguy]

Yes, I have seen this on my rig. I suspect that it's from pushing the card too hard with settings too high. I also have the GTX285. Try running some of your settings down a little lower. Also make sure that you have plenty of cool air getting to your card.

The last time it happened to me GPU-Z was reporting that the GPU was fairly constant at 90%. I had LOD radius up to 7.5 and was flying around the mountains in PNW with most of the other settings maxed. I also could smell something burning. And then it started snowing on the screen. That's what I call pushing the hardware. 

[TenBlade]

And you didn´t throw a piece of bacon on it while it was hot?!

Strangest thing. I´ve optimized my currently first overclock, and it has gone away. I mainly set the ram to run at it´s spec. capacity. Don´t know how that works out, but it seems to have solved it?!

B

[TenBlade]

Now, they´re back, only took longer to appear

Never had that issue on the old rig, and I haven´t even overclocked the card like on the old rig. Wonder what the bug is. As FSX is closed, the gpu should return to normal if it were a temp. issue, right?! But it won´t go away until reboot?!

The sparkles are fixed to their position. colours are divers. Some blink syncronously, and as some blink on others go off. Top 1/4 of the screen seems to have much less, top 1/8 almost none.

Just tell me it´ll all go away when if I get a new gpu

Bjorn

[jjjallen]

Definitely problems with the core (heat??).  If it was GPU memory you would see spikes.  Could you run OCCT GPU and check 'errors' and see what you get.  It will record the white dots as errors.

I highly recommend a factory OC version of the GTX 460.  Just plug it in and forget about it.  FSX won't be able to keep up no matter what you CPU OC is.

Good Luck

jja

[TenBlade]

Good idea, jja. I'll give it a go tomorrow. But I figure the Gainward Golden Sample 2GB will have to find it's way into the belly of my beast ;-)

Thx!

B

[stiletto2]

I´ve delved into optimizing and overclocking my new rig. Don´t have the new gpu yet, still on gtx 285. I seem to get sparklies across all three screens after some minutes of flight. Some times it limits itself to FSX, meaning, if I end a flight and look at the rotating aircraft in the menu, the sparklies are only in that picture. Other times they stay across the whole three screens, and won´t go away until I reboot pc.

I suspect it´s a gpu problem. Anyone had that issue, knows what it´s about. My gpu is currently at stock clocks and well cooled.

Bjorn

If you use the BufferPools=0 tweak...try it without it.  That soved the same problem for me.

Stiletto2

[Hotspot]

I suspect it´s a gpu problem.

Bjorn

For what it's worth Bjorn, I have been running a GTX280 with a TH2Go for some time, but had some issues like not being able to use "saved" flights, having to delete the red 'stall', 'brake' writing etc. to avoid the screens going black. My solution after a lot of fiddling was to replace the 280 and the TH2Go with two GTX460's in 'surround',

and everything now works perfectly.

[John Lovell]

I had this same thing for a while to the point it was driving me crazy..

I found out it was because of the bufferpool=0 setting.

My GPU was being given to much work with the BP setting

By putting in the RejectThreshold tweak instead completly solved this, with the same performance benifits as the bufferpool tweak

[TenBlade]

I suspect it´s a gpu problem.

Bjorn

For what it's worth Bjorn, I have been running a GTX280 with a TH2Go for some time, but had some issues like not being able to use "saved" flights, having to delete the red 'stall', 'brake' writing etc. to avoid the screens going black. My solution after a lot of fiddling was to replace the 280 and the TH2Go with two GTX460's in 'surround',

and everything now works perfectly.

Definitely worth a thought...If I´m not all happy with performance that could be the way to go.

I had this same thing for a while to the point it was driving me crazy..

I found out it was because of the bufferpool=0 setting.

My GPU was being given to much work with the BP setting

By putting in the RejectThreshold tweak instead completly solved this, with the same performance benifits as the bufferpool tweak

Thanks, I´ll give it a go. Could you post your tweak exactly? Know it may not be perfect for my system, but would be a start.

Cheers, guys.

B

[Ausiguy]

I am using the BufferPools usePools=0 which is the same as PoolSize=0. And yes, that does just open the pipe and send everything down to the GPU. I recently overclocked my i5 to 4Ghz and I know it's loading up the GPU big time. Last night I saw over 90% load on the GPU but no snow. I guess I am getting the most out of the setup and it's perfectly balanced. If I up my detail settings more that's where my GPU can't handle what the CPU is sending it. To me all I need to do is back down my settings just a little. That's probably all you need to do, or get a better card.

[TenBlade]

I´m in the process of waiting for the 1st of next month to get a new card  But I could of course overclock my card again, haven´t come around to that yet after my new build. And thanks for your suggestion. Only, which settings to fiddle with? Now, my last sparkle-attack happened over desert-like, non-frame heavy area. I´ll also look in my BIOS again, make sure the PCIE-thingymajig it set manually to 100.

Bjorn

[jjjallen]

I had this same thing for a while to the point it was driving me crazy..

I found out it was because of the bufferpool=0 setting.

My GPU was being given to much work with the BP setting

By putting in the RejectThreshold tweak instead completly solved this, with the same performance benifits as the bufferpool tweak

Good move!  That is what I did for my 460.  I also removed the AffinityMask=14 and now all 4 cores are running like banshees.  Isn't that the point?

The sim feels really smooth on unlimited.  Ive seen FPS as high as 333 with 8s combined - no blurries and the puter is running cool at 4.15 ghz.

jja

[TenBlade]

Thanks for reminding me to see what my system will do without tweaks as well, never occurred to me not to put in the affinity mask...

I will also re-decorate the interiors, my gpu is in a not too favourable slot due to collision issues (thanks Alain). Perhaps that will reduce the sparlies as well.

B

[John Lovell]

Tenblade, try putting this inplace of your bufferpool=0

[bUFFERPOOLS]

RejectThreshold=126976

Im 100% sure this will cure your sparkly woes and give you all the performance of BP=0

I did write a thread on this subject a while ago.... hope this helps

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=25165.0

[TenBlade]

Thanks a lot, mate. I´ll give it a go!

Bjorn

[TenBlade]

Sparklies gone after switching to PCI-E1, thanks Alain! And artefacts are very few now after the threshold tweak. I´m tempted to acquire a new Crucial SSD instead of a gpu at the moment...

Thanks, guys!

Bjorn

[alainneedle1]

No problem man.....about your artifact...is your card overclocked? If your card is overclocked try it at default speed.... if everything is fine you can try to overclock again by raising the core clock by increment of 5MHz at the time until you get artifact again so you'll know how far you can push your card before you get artifact.......good luck.

[TenBlade]

It´s just occasional black squares on the ground, and when changing views, the lights will start as squares. I´ll get a 460 soon 

By the way, is repeated flashes of "loading complete" on black background related to gpu? If so, all the more reason to get a new card. Seems to differ how often it occurs.

B

[alainneedle1]

It´s just occasional black squares on the ground, and when changing views, the lights will start as squares. I´ll get a 460 soon 

By the way, is repeated flashes of "loading complete" on black background related to gpu? If so, all the more reason to get a new card. Seems to differ how often it occurs.

B

Not sure I understand your last question?

[TenBlade]

You know when you wait for FSX to load flight, you wait eagerly for the blue bar to reach 100% (not you, you´ll have it loading in seconds ), background is black. During flights I experince flashes of this black screen with the blue bar at 100% saying load complete, then flight continues.

B

[alainneedle1]

I've never had this problem.....is your problem with any driver? Try another driver just to see.... the only flashes I see is when I get slaped in the back of the head by my wife cause I did something wrong.....

[TenBlade]

I've never had this problem.....is your problem with any driver? Try another driver just to see.... the only flashes I see is when I get slaped in the back of the head by my wife cause I did something wrong.....

Well, as long as you don´t see sparkles, you should be ok I´ll look further into it tomorrow, it´s almost 3.30 am, still in night-shift mode, or Australian time-zone if you will , I´ll try to get some shut-eye.

B

[Hotspot]

You know when you wait for FSX to load flight, you wait eagerly for the blue bar to reach 100% (not you, you´ll have it loading in seconds ), background is black. During flights I experince flashes of this black screen with the blue bar at 100% saying load complete, then flight continues.

B

G'day Bjorn,

I associated that problem with some incompatibility between nVidia and Matrox TH2Go drivers; and on junking the TH2Go, and fitting two GTX460's with 'Surround' that problem disappeared, which seemed to confirm my suspicion.

[TenBlade]

Strange, never had it before. Not until I got the new processor, and it´s probably force feeding my gpu. So, yes, probably a memory issue. Should go away with a new 260 2GB. I could try and see how much gpu memory is being used.

Thanks for giving me a push in the right direction.

Bjorn

[GrahamP]

By the way, is repeated flashes of "loading complete" on black background related to gpu? If so, all the more reason to get a new card. Seems to differ how often it occurs.

B

I found this was being caused by having anti-aliasing checked in FSX,only when using TH2GO and W7.  I was getting the black loading screen when using keyboard functions using the shift key.  This happened with a GTX 285 and also with the GTX 480.

I fixed it by using NVIDIA Inspector to set up the anti-aliaising. 

I set Antialiasing - Mode: AA_MODE_SELECTOR_OVERRIDE and unticked AA in FSX.  No more black loading screens.

See this thread  http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=26481.0 and links in it.

[TenBlade]

Hi Graham. Thaks a lot, gives me something to work with. Oddly enough I didn´t have issues like that on my old rig , and I´m using nHancer and the same 197-driver (oldie but goldie . Previously trid the 200-driver, but it was not as good. Well, I´ll give it a whirl.

Thanks!

B