Problems with 2.0 Alpha 8.5

[Exxon]

I don't know if this is where I should be posting or not. I just finished downloading viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5255&p=17790

After install I start it up and for some reason the graphics are jittery. When I got into the graphics options and turn off textures it works like it should be some of the extra aircraft are plain white.

Another issue is when I try to calibrate my controller with the program all I get is #7 & #8 are rudder and elevator. Throttle and aileron isn't even showing up. I've tried to calibrate via the Game Controllers through control panel but this problem still exists. Weird thing is when I go to Control > Joystick interface > ressources. It's showing that Joystick 2 is working like it should but I still can't get it to work.

I'm running on Windows Vista 64bit, NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS, 4 gigs ram, Esky simulator controller via USB, with a FPS of 60. Fully updated drivers, etc.

Any thoughts on how I can fix these problems?

[ggunners]

I believe other people are having the same problem too. The solution seems to be to either delete the bottom picture in the scenery file or to resize the bottom picture to be 2 pixels less than it currently is. There is an interaction between the bottom picture of the scenery and the rest of the scene. -- ggunners

[Exxon]

I'll try that, any thoughts on why I can't calibrate the controller?

When I try to calibrate it only shows # 7 & 8 as rudder and elevator. It's not even showing throttle and aileron on the calibrate screen. Weird thing is when I go into the Ressources it's showing both Joysticks 1 & 2 but only 2 is working correctly and don't know how to change it. I've tried on my work computer and it works like it should with Vista 64bit Pro. I just can't actually fly on that computer. I've tried to reinstalled it several times to no avail.

Thank you for the help

[TreeHugger]

[ggunners]

Thanks Treehugger, I did not know about the "urban myth" although I do recall you posting about using a 1x1 pixel or deleted polygon.

Do you know why exactly the "flashing" is happening? I have not seen this myself so do not know what the best way to resolve the problem would be.

-- ggunners

[TreeHugger]

I believe it's one of those cases where someone just tried around until something worked, but didn't really get his head around the whole thing. I don't have a definite solution as I've never experienced the flickering problem.

But If you look at it analytically, you'll notice that only panoramic sceneries are affected, and the deletion of the bottom tile will help, while changing any of the other cube faces will not. What's so special about the bottom tile of a pano, as compared to all other textured polygons? Well, it's the only one that gets viewed through the transparent ground plane at all times. That would suggest to me the problem is related to transparency, more precisely to how transparent and opaque polygons fight for visibility within the Z-Buffer. I can't change how the driver works, but I can feed it the data in many different ways:

The usual way to create a transparent ground plane is to reverse the vertex order so it's viewed from "behind" and removed from visibility during backface culling. But there are other ways to acchieve the same effect: you could use a transparent texture on a visible polygon or introduce the "classic" ground command and fill the ground with a series of transparent tiles. Some 3d-engines are sensitive towards the order of geometry definitions in a source file. You could try to put the ground definition before or after the pano tiles within a .scn file . And you can "fool" the Z-Buffer, too: Try to put a small additional polygon on top of or below the ground and see whether this "new order" changes things.

That's how I would attempt to nail the problem, if I had it.

Regards,
Frank

[ggunners]

Hmmmm....

Treehugger, the more you discuss this topic the more it sounds like a video driver issue for the 3D defaults of a specific graphics card and the lack of FMS demanding a specific setting as it would not even be aware of some of the newer settings. I believe DirectX 7 was used in the last FMS code update.

I will do some research on the options added between DirectX versions, Microsoft might have such a table somewhere.

There are a lot of people running FMS without issue though and I wonder whether we can find what setting is causing the problem. I am running FMS on 5 different computers with different graphics cards. The only real thing in common is all but one have old graphics cards. The other is an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GS.

-- ggunners

[TreeHugger]