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WinchX and Effects loading


Glennc

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I have a problem that I've traced to WinchX being installed. I began a Free Flight with a Huey at Rabaul in the Papua New Guinea package. I had not loaded the Discus in that session. I immediately saw that the smoke effects were not loading beyond swirling white squares. Then, I found that the beacon on the chopper was just a flashing black box, then the water at the beach was nothing but white boxes. I took off and flew around for a while to see if the effects would settle down. They never did. I could not find a way to keep WinchX from loaded unless the Discus loaded. I finally uninstalled the Discus and manually removed the WinchX folder from the Modules folder, rebooted, and returned to that location. Everything was back to normal. The PC has an E6400 processor running 4 Gig under Vista 32, on a GTX250 graphics card with 896 meg of video memory.

Suggestions?

Glenn

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I could not find a way to keep WinchX from loaded unless the Discus loaded.

Suggestions?

Glenn

Hi Glenn,

If I understand the question correctly then an easy way to do this rather than uninstalling everything is :- Prior to starting your FSX session go to the exe.dll file and rename it. Start FSX and you will not get WinchX etcetera loading. When you need to use it rename the file back to exe.dll and away you go.

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James,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll do that. I actually thought about re-installing the Discus then deleting the WinchX folder. The FSX tow plane is as good a way as any to get airborne and get more altitude in the process. Your suggestion has the benefit of giving me the option of using it when I want it. I'll see what happens tonight.

Many thanks.

Glenn

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Hi Glenn,

WinchX! doesn't change anything in your effects configuration. It comes with two own model folders:

SimObjects\Misc\WinchXParachute

SimObjects\Misc\WinchXWinch

If you want to exclude susptected influence from WinchX! completely, delete these two folders in addition.

But there isn't any mechanism in WinchX! that could have an influence on effect production in FSX.

regards,

Peter

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nah, I don't think it's WinchX... there are *lots* of graphics issues that can cause your graphics card to choke and start rendering incremental objects/textures as black or white squares. The card is dynamically loading textures etc all the time and e.g. if something goes wrong and it runs out of memory, *something* on screen starts drawing as colored blocks - with FSX it always seems to be the effects (and clouds) that get knackered first. I have no idea what's caused the issue on your PC (what graphics card do you have?) but the symptoms just don't sound like WinchX. This is going to sound counter-intuitive but sometimes you can fix that problem by defragging your hard drive.

B21

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I may add some help here.

It is actually a Bug by FSX itself!

Has nothing to do with WinchX, The Discus, CumulusX nor your Graphic card drivers or DX10 or such.

I face this error once in a while and have not been able to fix it. Only way to get rid of it is to switch drom windowed mode to full screen for about 20 times. maybe it's gone after that. If not restarting FSX works everytime!

I have saome screenshots to show to you. Those are taken from a vanilla FSX installation without the discus nor the addons by Peter!

It is a CERA SIM Bell 412 EP payware addon chopper.

2009-8-11_17-15-6-955.jpg

2009-8-11_17-31-40-223.jpg

2009-8-21_14-19-18-167.jpg

It simply is the way, Microsoft says "Thank you" for purchasing just another of their fine products. You may life with it or switch back to FS9.

Sorry, for the bad news, but it a matter of fact.

Mario.

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It simply is the way, Microsoft says "Thank you" for purchasing just another of their fine products. You may life with it or switch back to FS9.

lol,

I copuld show you some developement screenshots I made. They are at least as funny as yours :D

But you're right.

FSX has its own special way to draw things.

If you graphics card is "overloaded" some bad things appear.

It CAN happen, if a model is not compiled correctly, too.

(see the nasty rotor in the last screen) But these sctreens seems to be a "overload"

Bsts Joachim

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lol,

I copuld show you some developement screenshots I made. They are at least as funny as yours :D

But you're right.

FSX has its own special way to draw things.

If you graphics card is "overloaded" some bad things appear.

It CAN happen, if a model is not compiled correctly, too.

(see the nasty rotor in the last screen) But these sctreens seems to be a "overload"

Bsts Joachim

I am about to believe you, Joachim.

It's a ZOTAK GeForce GTX285 AMP! mit 1024MB Vram und 702MHz Takt.

How can this card be overloaded, as it should be the super heavy SUPER UBER graphics card available?!

How do i work around this?

Which nasty rotor are you speaking of?

This one?

2009-8-21_14-19-50-248.jpg

Or this one?

2009-8-21_16-39-51-343.jpg

First is the CERA SIM Bell 412 EP

Second the DODOSIM Bell 206 FSX

both are payware

This happens from time to time and restarting FSX solves the problem like i stated above.

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In fact, FSX does not like good graphics cards.

Mathijs can tell you more here.

I am no hardwareguy, nor I am a coder, but it can also be your system RAM.

On my system this problem CAN occur, if I run some one or more instances of my designtool and FSX. Both are hungry programs.

I will show Mathijs this thread tomorrow. Maybe cen can explain more about this.

I can only say, I have it, too, sometimes, and I can prevent it running not so much applications.

Bests Joachim

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In fact, FSX does not like good graphics cards.

Mathijs can tell you more here.

I am no hardwareguy, nor I am a coder, but it can also be your system RAM.

On my system this problem CAN occur, if I run some one or more instances of my designtool and FSX. Both are hungry programs.

I will show Mathijs this thread tomorrow. Maybe cen can explain more about this.

I can only say, I have it, too, sometimes, and I can prevent it running not so much applications.

Bests Joachim

Ah i see.

Actually i have severall applications running along FSX

Active Sky Advanced

Firefox

FSE - FSX-Client

CumulusX

WinchX

Flight Commander X

nDAC

Vodafone-Internet-software

Norton inet security

Soundmixer for X-FI card

well, see these are my most needed programms

So, if it's too much, i have to life with the issue of deplaced textures. Othervise i could simply stop using FSX... :rolleyes:

i am thinking on moving some applications to my laptop running him along side with SimConnect.

Maybe that would help a bit.

Thank you for the help, anyway.

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  • Aerosoft

Ah i see.

Actually i have severall applications running along FSX

Active Sky Advanced

Firefox

FSE - FSX-Client

CumulusX

WinchX

Flight Commander X

nDAC

Vodafone-Internet-software

Norton inet security

Soundmixer for X-FI card

well, see these are my most needed programms

So, if it's too much, i have to life with the issue of deplaced textures. Othervise i could simply stop using FSX... :rolleyes:

i am thinking on moving some applications to my laptop running him along side with SimConnect.

Maybe that would help a bit.

Thank you for the help, anyway.

Mwahhh, those applications should not matter a lot. I know many users think they should close everything before starting FSX, but these days a modern OS (Vista, W7 and to a point XP) will handle memory so smoothly that all that FSX needs is available. I normally have half the MS Office suite open, Photoshop and some more things and it does not affect FSX at all. Using some apps on your laptop DOES make sense as it is much cooler!

What I think is more the problem... the high end graphics card. I got the same as you and I find it a disaster for FSX. It is just a whopping lot slower then the 4650 ($65) I also use and has all kinds of artifacts when things are pushed. This leads to me swapping the GPU almost daily (and that disables the Windows OS, archhh) because I need the high end card for the other things I need to do (like play games). I got to say it all works a lot better under Windows 7 then it did in Vista (and XP) but it's still problematic. If you use the card in SLI mode things get even slower. The reason for this is that the high end cards needs a larger set of data for each frame then a simple card (might seem opposite bit it's not). And in FSX there is a timing issue when the time frame it has for this transmission is not large enough. That why FSX behaves so weird it's fine up to certain point and then it cuts fps in half.

Now, without too much negative comments on others, it's not the complexity of the aircraft that matters most, it is the way it is made. The Catalina is more complex then the examples you got, but I am pretty sure you won't have these problems.

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Mwahhh, those applications should not matter a lot. I know many users think they should close everything before starting FSX, but these days a modern OS (Vista, W7 and to a point XP) will handle memory so smoothly that all that FSX needs is available. I normally have half the MS Office suite open, Photoshop and some more things and it does not affect FSX at all. Using some apps on your laptop DOES make sense as it is much cooler!

What I think is more the problem... the high end graphics card. I got the same as you and I find it a disaster for FSX. It is just a whopping lot slower then the 4650 ($65) I also use and has all kinds of artifacts when things are pushed. This leads to me swapping the GPU almost daily (and that disables the Windows OS, archhh) because I need the high end card for the other things I need to do (like play games). I got to say it all works a lot better under Windows 7 then it did in Vista (and XP) but it's still problematic. If you use the card in SLI mode things get even slower. The reason for this is that the high end cards needs a larger set of data for each frame then a simple card (might seem opposite bit it's not). And in FSX there is a timing issue when the time frame it has for this transmission is not large enough. That why FSX behaves so weird it's fine up to certain point and then it cuts fps in half.

Now, without too much negative comments on others, it's not the complexity of the aircraft that matters most, it is the way it is made. The Catalina is more complex then the examples you got, but I am pretty sure you won't have these problems.

Actually i have two Sapphire Radeon HD 4780 Vapor-x laying around...yes, iam a geek... :rolleyes:

Some games run better on GeForce and some run better on Crossfire-X radeons.

So, i will check on the radeon eventually doing a better job.

I already know, that two cards are not supported by FSX as one card always sleeps while the other is burning at 100% in FSX.

And weired too, FSX is the only application, not using the other card.

Rivatuner shows very nice the usage of the GPUs!

Games like DivinityII or Empire: Total war use both card to 100%...very weired!

I will check this and report back.

But not today, we will be visitied by family next few minutes...man i am SOOO much looking forward to this..... -_-

Thank you, Mathijs

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Well, interesting. I have re-installed the Discus, then moved the WinchX folder in Effects to another drive. The Discus is fine and I can fly the BM. I know I can use the tow plane for the base glider so I'm happy. The discussion about having too much of a grapics card is interesting and may in fact be a factor. All I know is all is well now - all effects are fine and I can fly the glider and it looks good. I don't have any VC issues there. I'll get the stuff in Symobjects\misc.

The screen shots show something much worse than I was seeing. I guess too much graphics could be a factor but I have to wonder about the statements from several places right after FSX came out that it was made for computers expected to be released two years later. We're here. My machine is two and a half years old but it has had memory, sound, and graphics upgrades. In fact, its one its fourth graphics card, not because there was anything really wrong with any of them. I just kept raising the quality.

Glenn

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FSX WAS made for "future PCs" but there will never be THIS future.

They thought the progress of CPU developement will go into very strong single cores.

But it went to multicores.

FSX has NO native multicoresupport. Even after the servicepack only some parts of it are handled by the secondary cores.

Same at the graphics sector. There is NO SLI or crossfiresupport as you all know.

These are big problems.

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