Aerosoft F-14/Gulf of Aden Texture Strangeness

[piperarcherpilot]

Has anyone else experienced this? I get strange desert textures appearing around and directly under the aircraft in the Gulf of Aden flight. I've also done a free flight in that area with the default C172 (carrier is still there) and see the same thing, so it's not Tomcat related. I do not see this in any of the other included Tomcat/Carrier flights I've tested thus far. I'm running the Aerosoft F-14X V1.10.

I have a relatively fast computer: i7-4800MQ Processor, GTX 870M 3G GDDR5, 128GB SSD + 1TB 7200 HDD, 20GB DDR3L 1600MHz, and can run pretty much all sliders full right (except for a few, like water and ground shadows) in complex aircraft at 25-30 fps. Nvidia Driver is the latest: 347.09 WHQL

The tweaks I have in my fsx.cfg are as follows (I"ve tried removing most of them and it has no effect in changing the visual glitches):

[BufferPools]
UsePools=1
Poolsize=8388608
RejectThreshold=126976

HIGHMEMFIX=1

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40
TextureMaxLoad=12

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30

WideViewAspect=True

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=14

LENSFLARE=1

MAX_ASYNC_BATCHING_JOBS=2
SmallPartRejectRadius=4.0

Other than that, it's stock FSX as far as the CFG is concerned (though I am using ENB Series). Never experienced anything like this - as it gets worse with time (the sand area grows). I have no 3rd party scenery in the middle east region, but do have several FTX NA packages. I have not yet gone poking around if these are to blame. I suspect it's related to the carrier (or some interference in that region) because the sand starts with an edge perfectly parallel to the ship's direction of travel. Ideas?

 

[DaveB]

I've seen this when using AI Carriers with warships and carriers in formation. I put it down to my graphics card running out of steam (1.2gb Palit GTX560Ti). It only ever happens using AI Carriers with a number of ships in formation. I don't have the Aerosoft F14 so it's definitely not that

ATB
DaveB

 

[piperarcherpilot]

Thanks, Dave. I suppose it might have something to do with it - but I've never experienced anything like that before (and the other included F-14/carrier flights in different locations dont seem to cause this problem). And I've had numerous ships in formation in areas of scenery that are very dense with autogen and other objects - and the Gulf of Aden is pretty much barren of anything. So I'm not sure if that's the problem in this case. It's strange....

 

[ejoiner]

Has anyone else experienced this? I get strange desert textures appearing around and directly under the aircraft in the Gulf of Aden flight. I've also done a free flight in that area with the default C172 (carrier is still there) and see the same thing, so it's not Tomcat related. I do not see this in any of the other included Tomcat/Carrier flights I've tested thus far. I'm running the Aerosoft F-14X V1.10.

I have a relatively fast computer: i7-4800MQ Processor, GTX 870M 3G GDDR5, 128GB SSD + 1TB 7200 HDD, 20GB DDR3L 1600MHz, and can run pretty much all sliders full right (except for a few, like water and ground shadows) in complex aircraft at 25-30 fps. Nvidia Driver is the latest: 347.09 WHQL

The tweaks I have in my fsx.cfg are as follows (I"ve tried removing most of them and it has no effect in changing the visual glitches):

[BufferPools]
UsePools=1
Poolsize=8388608
RejectThreshold=126976

HIGHMEMFIX=1

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40
TextureMaxLoad=12

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30

WideViewAspect=True

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=14

LENSFLARE=1

MAX_ASYNC_BATCHING_JOBS=2
SmallPartRejectRadius=4.0

Other than that, it's stock FSX as far as the CFG is concerned (though I am using ENB Series). Never experienced anything like this - as it gets worse with time (the sand area grows). I have no 3rd party scenery in the middle east region, but do have several FTX NA packages. I have not yet gone poking around if these are to blame. I suspect it's related to the carrier (or some interference in that region) because the sand starts with an edge perfectly parallel to the ship's direction of travel. Ideas?

are you using FTX Global base? If so, when flying in regions other than Orbx regional sceneries you have that selected. Otherwise you can get issues. Also you need to exit the sim then retry the same location. Sometimes it takes one or two flights after changing regions for the cache to catch up. I've seen this before in Europe when changing between the Americas and Europe.

 

[DaveB]

To follow on from what Eric said.. I don't have any ORBX scenery installed.. just GenX. I use REX E+OD for sky and sea textures and that's it. My startup situation is always RNAS Culdrose (close proximity to the sea) and I usually load the carriers and ships up in the bay somewhere off Predannack in a southerly direction. I'll have to try it again as I don't have EarthSims Isles of Scilly loaded at the moment and this may have something to do with it (being a frame monster). Oddly.. it has only ever happened when I've been on or around a carrier. All can be well.. I've landed on and sat for a while goofing when suddenly.. that 'sand like' texture starts creeping around the carrier. Flying around and/or landing on doesn't usually have an effect.. only if I've been sat on the carrier for a while.

ATB
DaveB

 

[piperarcherpilot]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help. I'm suspecting ORBX but I havent had a chance to test the theory. I should have time tonight!

 

[piperarcherpilot]

Well, FTX is not causing the problems - even with everything disabled it still shows up. I've also tried reloading the scenery several times and closing FSX and reopening and no change. And it's only in this one location...

Only other thing I can think of is it might have to do with the latest video driver, but I havent heard of any other problems or had any other problems, and I really dont want to roll back to the previous one because I've not had great fun with that process in the past.

So I guess it will remain a mystery. Gotta love it! Thanks for your help, though.

 

[DaveB]

I tried and tried to get it to happen again off the Cornwall coast until eventually.. I got the sea textures going black (and coming back again) but not turning to sand. I still don't have ES Isle of Scilly loaded (this is a reasonably recent install) and I can't be certain the drivers I'm using now are the same ones I was using before reinstalling Win7. Pity the cause can't be nailed.

ATB
DaveB

 

[piperarcherpilot]

I tried and tried to get it to happen again off the Cornwall coast until eventually.. I got the sea textures going black (and coming back again) but not turning to sand. I still don't have ES Isle of Scilly loaded (this is a reasonably recent install) and I can't be certain the drivers I'm using now are the same ones I was using before reinstalling Win7. Pity the cause can't be nailed.

ATB
DaveB

Yes, it's a shame but at least it's only affecting one particular region so far, and not others. And it appears it's not directly related to the Aerosoft F-14 X Product. So those are all clues.

According to the Manual, the coordinates of the area in question are roughly: 12.056106, 45.715655 for anyone else wanting to see if they experience similar results with or without the F-14 package.

 

[Meshman]

If you want to try a wild hunch, try the flight with mesh at 38m and textures at 1m in your settings and see if it clears up the land.

 

[ak416]

I've experienced this issue before and the issue seemed to be due to a corrupt terrain.cfg file, following these instructions posted by Holger on the Orbx forums fixed it for me. Not sure we're having the exact same problem but it seems to be same basic issue.

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/79004-resolving-rapid-ground-texture-morphing/

If you don't have a verified account I'll send you the instructions via pm if you want to give it a go.

 

[piperarcherpilot]

If you want to try a wild hunch, try the flight with mesh at 38m and textures at 1m in your settings and see if it clears up the land.

That, my friend, was brilliant! You figured it out. As soon as you said mesh, I had a lightbulb go on. Because right before you said something, I was doing more investigating. If I pulled further away from it, this is what you see:

Which looked like terrain interference of some kind (AKA a hill).

Here's what it looks like at 2 meter mesh and 1 meter textures:

When I turned my mesh down from 2 meters to 38 meters, I get this:

So, it appears this is just a crazy coincidence. The Aerosoft carrier and mission were started right at this [default?] scenery glitch that only shows up if the terrain is maxed out.

Meshman, kudos on figuring that out!

 

[piperarcherpilot]

I've experienced this issue before and the issue seemed to be due to a corrupt terrain.cfg file, following these instructions posted by Holger on the Orbx forums fixed it for me. Not sure we're having the exact same problem but it seems to be same basic issue.

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/79004-resolving-rapid-ground-texture-morphing/

If you don't have a verified account I'll send you the instructions via pm if you want to give it a go.

I do have an account and was able to view it - this might be something else to investigate. I'm going to see if this resolves the problem at 2m mesh resolution.

EDIT/UPDATE: This was not the issue in this case. With a rebuilt terrain.cfg, the original issue still exists. Both the old and the rebuilt files are identical as far as I can tell. That was a good idea though - seemed plausible. Thanks!

 

[DaveB]

Thanks for that. Mesh res is something I'd not or would ever have considered. By coincidence.. the area I saw this happening was close to the aforementioned EarthSims Isle of Scilly and recommendations for that are 5m. While I've been trying to duplicate the previous error on this new install.. I'd not got the IoS installed and as such, had not upped the terrain mesh. Should I see it happen again (I installed the IoS last night).. I'll know where to look to get rid of it.. hopefully

ATB
DaveB