Gray Texture Loading - very annoying - help!

[argenttowers]

Hi,

I joined this forum specifically to ask about this. I've been playing FSX for 2 months or so and have enjoyed it a lot. I have a Geforce 7600 GT and 2 gigs of RAM, kind of an obsolete system but it works for me, graphics wise. I have a lot of the settings in FSX turned up, though autogen is at normal and airline traffic, road vehicles, etc are set low. Generally everything looks great and runs smooth, despite my system being pretty outdated by today's standards. I had problems with blurries but used this tweak at http://iblueyonder.wordpress.com/2007/0 ... -blurries/ and it worked remarkably well. So for the most part everything is great. Somtimes the FPS suffers a bit in city areas, but I prefer flying in remote rural places anyway. Overall everything is good.

There is ONE problem that has been annoying the heck out of me. When I switch views after a long period of time in one view, the next view takes a second to load the textures and the model is just gray, as if it was painted in primer or something. So say I'm in VC view for 2 minutes or so, then switch to spot view - the plane's exterior will be gray for a second, then the textures will load. If I'm in spot view for a minute or so and then switch to VC view, the virtual cockpit will be gray for a second and then load. It only happens when there's a short period of time between the view switch - if I switch 10 or 20 seconds apart, there's no gray texture-loading. It's only a split second that the model appears gray, really like 1/6 of a second, but it's still enough to take me "out of the moment."

What can I do about this? It's quite annoying. Any help would be REALLY appreciated. Thanks!

[mudduk]

Hello Argent,   and welcome to Simv.   It looks like you have a similar system to mine I run a 7600 GT with only one Gig of ram.
my processor is AMD x2 running 2.6g  I built my system last year and started to set up for SLI but put it on the back shelf to wait for DX10.  I only have your problem in major cities.  I did not use the same tweak as you.  I did use the tweaks on FSinsider and installed sp1.  Some things to try(if you don't already) Update all of your drivers Religiously I constantely look for new drivers for my Video card, chipset, sound card, and so on.  Before I fly I use clean disk, and defrag utilities, and then I reboot. I have put my hard drive on a diet, If I don't need I don't have it on my hard drive. Other than that all I can say to help is welcome to fs I have been at this since cfs1 and you will never be completely happy, you will always be one step behind. Though to me that keeps it fun.
there is also a good page on nvidias website that tells you the exact setting for fsx10 on your video card.  Use that as a baseline, and then add on from there what is imporant to you.  

[argenttowers]

Thanks for the advice. I will try those settings on the page you mentioned. As for defragging, I have 2 hard drives - one is 80 GB and has all my important stuff on it. The other is 320 GB and has almost nothing on it except FSX. I did run registry cleaner and I think it may have helped a little, but I'll try that other thing you mentioned.

[argenttowers]

Bumping this because it's so frustrating. I looked on the nVidia page for those settings you mentioned, mudduk, but couldn't find it. I turned down all the terrain settings to medium and turned the aircraft detail to medium, and the gray problem still happens. I'm currently running Clean Disk, hopefully that will help but I'm not sure what there is to clean on my C drive since the only program installed on it is FSX and there are only like 12 documents in my documents folder. I have the latest Geforce Forceware driver, and I've got the latest service-pack for FSX installed. Gray textures persist.

Gahhh! You have the same system as mine but I have this problem EVERYWHERE, from the most major airports to the most remote countryside.

[NickN]

bottom line

the gray textures that take so much time to reload...

your system is overtaxed and the driver setting may also be affecting this


All I can do is point you to some threads you should take note of:

Assuming you are running WindowsXP

2 posts starting here: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... ;start=0#5

follow up on that in one post here: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 2347/30#33

driver change, how to do it and how to set it up here: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 2347/45#50

Last, work the FSX sliders and config file tweaks as posted here:

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 3998514/60

and here:

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 8514/60#71



and you assume the responsibility for making such changes.. but, if you do it right and follow directions, you should have the same results posted here: http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2 ... 2347/60#68


Your Windows startup may also be infested with garbage programs that are unneeded and booting with Windows, or the system full of spyware. I would download, install, update and run Spybots search and destroy and have it get rid of anything it finds. The Windows startup programs may be over the top. Typically, 23-30 processes is all you should be running. Check that by bringing up the task manager and clicking the 'processes" tab. If you are running 40+ I would bet the system is bogged down with that too.


also, any AV programs do not run well with FSX. Avast and AVG are both known for causing background problems with FSX. Make sure to disable them before booting the sim.

[argenttowers]

Thanks for the info, Nick! I will give those tweaks a shot after I get some sleep. I've only got 31 processes running, so I think I'm probably OK there but I'll try to trim it down even more. I have Symantec down in the toolbar "tray" but I don't know if it's actually running or not. If it is, what would be its name in the Task Manager so I could shut it down?