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FSX Not really a developer problem but I'm desparate

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Tomt478 said:
I may have discovered the problem. I've been just driving around some of the 'old' areas of the project and found that the exclusions are working there, these are areas that were not modified any. Then I started riding around in a couple of places where I did do some editing, mainly just changing the type of LC and straightening up vertices and such. Well in those areas is where the exclusions are NOT working. Now in those areas I had some of the exclusions showing on top of my LC so I just used the 'Move to Back' in ADE to get my LC on top. Now, does ADE compile layers? does it matter what layer order you have backgrounds and LC? If so, then that could be my problem. I know ADE saves your layer order, but does it actually compile things layered in certain orders? I know it didn't used to even save the layer orders, but suddenly started doing it. Is there some setting in ADE that prevents ADE from saving layer order or compiling layer order?

Oh and yes, this is a fairly old machine, it's about 15 years old, but has had some major upgrades to make it compatible with Win11. Here are my specs to bring you up to speed.

Type:Dell Optiplex 980
RAM:4GB (Max)
CPU:i7 quad core with HT 3.2GHZ (not the stock CPU, was upgraded to allow win11 to install)
GPU:Nvidia GTX980i 4GB RAM (Up from a GTX960i)
Main DRIVE:250GB SSD (Did have a 120GB SSD but was too small for win11)
4 EXT. HDD using two docks
Monitors:1 32" Dell Curved 75hz Monitor with 3D Capabilities 1 22" Dell Monitor used as a second screen for minor display of other objects and editing


This rig may not be the best, but it has been running FSX for years with only minor FPS problems that were fixed with the release of the .CFG tweaks, never gave me any problems for years. the upgrades kinda helped some, but lately with all these 'bad' win11 updates that MS has been putting out causing people all sorts of problems, things haven't worked so well lately. I see on the 'tech news' on my phone every day about some recent win11 update messing things up. Heck MS don't even support win10 anymore, but their updates are even affecting win10 users. I wish they would leave things alone, quit trying to fix things that ain't broke.
Click to expand...

If you're trying to run FSX in Windows 11 on a computer with 4Gb of RAM, I'm surprised anything works! Gary's post suggests you may have detailed your specs incorrectly. If he's right and you have 12Gb RAM and a 980i, that should be fine to run FSX as long as your Windows 11 installation is as lightweight as possible. There are plenty of websites that'll help you achieve that.

As the others have said, ADE doesn't export layers except where Don's Custom Ground Polys are involved, where you have the facility to determine the layers manually. If you're using Custom Ground Polys, that's a whole different subject and one which has been much written about here. However, if your ADE project crashed Gary's FSX installation then there is definitely something wrong somewhere!
 
It's true that crashing my system is not easily done.

But we must acknowledge that all software- and hardware- has limits on what it tolerates for various periods of time before problems occur.


Last week I over-loaded Windows by running way too many applications with (very) large data files that filled up my 128 GB RAM and 1 TB PagingFile.

Eventually I 'froze' the system clock, and discovered I was late for an appointment, when I confirmed the 'correct' time via my mobile phone.

I have only seen that 2 or 3 times in ~ 40 years of working on PCs.

So, even Windows- and hardware- can freeze under certain conditions (mine was forgetting to set my case, CPU, and GPU fans at MAX RPMs before-hand).


My FSX crash was fixed via a re-install , so no problem; I traced it to the orphaned parking spaces (which ADE's 'Fault Finder' had already warned of).

My second P3Dv4 crash while re-loading an ADE file with orphaned parking spaces, turned out to be more quickly and satisfactorily fixable via a restored backup P3D.Cfg file, so no P3D re-install was actually needed that time.


Considering the fact that even I can crash my own PC by overloading it, I submit that you still must segment your airport projects extremely long AFD objects by converting 'vehicle' type taxi-paths to CVX Vector Roads.

FSX' rendering engine will crash- sooner- or later- if you do not feed it AFD and/or CVX data in bite-sized segments of MAX QMID-11 and QMID-15 extent quads.

And any amount (...but 'many' =trouble) of mis-aligned vertices for co-planar CVX Vectors, will also crash FSX' rendering engine sooner or later.

I have previously run my ASUS motherboards AI Suite III fan control software in automatic mode, so that it boosts fan RPM in response to increased heat produced by system processing in CPU / GPU / RAM.

In FSX and P3D during flights in high complexity scenery when I have not manually set my system fans to MAX, I hear my AI Suite fan control software boost the fan speed audibly in response to increased processing load.

This is less often the situation when I conduct such flights in MSFS, presumably due to greater efficiency of the MSFS rendering engine compared to FS2Kx rendering engines in FSX and P3D (in spite of my preference for also using higher MSFS scenery complexity settings).

I had progressive micro-stutters and pauses with audible fan boosting occurring ...while flying the above cited airport scenery project in question leading up to the sudden crash of FSX.

In the case of the (different) airport scenery with orphaned parking spaces, it crashed P3D immediately while loading the flight at the airport in question.


I have backups and security mechanisms in place that protect my systems, and which can mislead would-be hackers into believing in an 'alternate reality'.

So, "I ain't afraid of no ghost"; send me a ADE ZIP backup, and I may be able to successfully convert the "Roads" to un-burden your system. ;)

GaryGB
 
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That I might just do. However I found a problem that was keeping my exclusions from working. I have been using the 'Flatten Exclude Autogen Mask Class' to remove vegetation from the roads, well that was working fine, but now, that selection does not work anymore. I have gone in and just for the heck of it, changed all of those to 'Flatten Exclude Autogen' and that seems to be working. I don't know if something has messed up my ADE or what, but the affore mentioned selection will no longer work.

I would like to convert all of my 'vehicle links' to Road Vectors. But you can't link Vectors to Parking spots in ADE. I could just remove all the parking spots and use only one main spot to start at, then just move my vehicle to where I want to start from, but that is a real P.I.T.A. I am taking out some areas and merging them with others to eliminate some of the parking spots and even a few of the roads. It is slowly decreasing in size, eventually I should be able to completely scale down the entire project. At least that is what I am hoping for anyway.

Now, I have one question, I was considering moving the project to a whole new location, preferably somewhere near my own state, this is so the Real World Weather would work better. The Utah weather stations aren't too accurate and are down more than up so I don't get 'Real' weather that actually matches what is reported. I use FXReal World Weather, it has always worked for me. It will cause an occassional FSX crash on startup, but I can deal with it. Usually the second startup works like a charm. It's usually pretty accurate, but Utah has the worst weather stations I've ever seen. So how much trouble is it to move the project from a 5000ft ASL location to a lower Ground Level such as Georgia? Would I have to go in and re-adjust all of my models and scenery objects to match the new altitude of the new location?
 
I need to do some minor repairs on the project before I zip it and send it out to you. There are some minor things that are causing some minor issues, nothing I can't fix though, I know where the trouble spots are and how to deal with them, just some missaligned vertices causing some issues in a few spots.

Also, is there a way to make vehicle links, follow the elevation of the terrain? I know Vectors will, I'm using a road vector right now to drive up the 100ft. mountain I created. But vectors are really hard to see at night, and you can't place lights on them. I tried using apron lights, but they don't follow elevation. For now I used some home made light models that float above the vector road so I can at least follow the path up the mountain at night. I have a lot of my missions at night and I need to see where I am going. Me and a friend have been going back and forth making missions for each other to complete in a certain amount of time. Just having a bit of fun to kinda unwind and relax. That's why I was frustrated with the exclusion thing, it wan't much fun when you kept running over trees and bushes. It's just a little decerning when you are going down the runway in a 747 at B1 speed and all of a sudden this big ass oak tree pops up in front of you, thank goodness for the 'ignore crashes' function in FSX. I'd never get anywhere without it.
 
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There are ways to fix and customize just about anything you refer to in regard to your project.


Many of these things I have already discussed or alluded to in our prior discussions.


Proceeding gradually with a more focused approach to learning less at one point in time may help with retention and innovation.


Whenever you do not understand / recall something, do a focused Google query to get answers; you can even focus just on our discussions at FSDEV:

Tomt478 said:
That I might just do. However I found a problem that was keeping my exclusions from working. I have been using the 'Flatten Exclude Autogen Mask Class' to remove vegetation from the roads, well that was working fine, but now, that selection does not work anymore. I have gone in and just for the heck of it, changed all of those to 'Flatten Exclude Autogen' and that seems to be working. I don't know if something has messed up my ADE or what, but the affore mentioned selection will no longer work.
Click to expand...

These are the available CVX Vector GUIDs for Airport Boundary / Background Polygon (aka "ABP") objects in FSX:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/p...msdn.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN#the-shp2vec-tool

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/microsoft-esp/cc526968(v=msdn.10)


Note that the available CVX Vector GUIDs for Airport Boundary / Background Polygon (aka "ABP") objects is even more extensive in P3D:

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv5/sdk/world/terrain/vector_shape_properties_guids.html

Most airports use the 3-component GUID; we can use any of the 1, 2, or 3-component GUIDs as needed (explore the pick-lists in ADE and SBuilderX).


Note that the MaskClassMap function maps a locally-compatible Land Class terrain texture for the airport "background"; without it we actually have none.

Thus if we do not use the MaskClassMap function to map a locally-compatible Land Class terrain texture for the airport "background", underlying local Land Class terrain textures will display instead.


That mechanism usually works acceptably; but if / when you are interested, fall-back Land Class texture choices that will be 'mapped' are documented:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/grass-as-autogen-on-airport-backgrounds.442214/post-802068


If we use custom PR LC, the 3-component GUID MaskClassMap locally-compatible Land Class terrain texture for the airport "background" does not display.

However, the other (2) the 2-components of the 3-component GUID will continue to work from underneath the custom PR photo-real imagery layer.


FS2Kx Pecking order of display priorities Top-To-Bottom: AFD Infrastructure Objects > Misc. Airport Apron Textures > custom PR LC > CVX Vectors


Note that CVX Vector Exclude Autogen feature from the 3-component GUID is intended to exclude default and custom Land Class terrain texture Autogen.

ExclusionRectangle objects compiled by BGLComp can only exclude default Land Class terrain texture Autogen, and not custom PR photo-real Autogen.

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/grass-as-autogen-on-airport-backgrounds.442214/post-802068


Tomt478 said:
I would like to convert all of my 'vehicle links' to Road Vectors. But you can't link Vectors to Parking spots in ADE. I could just remove all the parking spots and use only one main spot to start at, then just move my vehicle to where I want to start from, but that is a real P.I.T.A. I am taking out some areas and merging them with others to eliminate some of the parking spots and even a few of the roads. It is slowly decreasing in size, eventually I should be able to completely scale down the entire project. At least that is what I am hoping for anyway.
Click to expand...

You do not necessarily need to scale down the entire project; rather, you just need to 'segment' into MAX QMID-11 sized chunks so FSX stops choking.

You can convert (1) airport package into multiple airport packages, with each RWY and AFD infrastructure group divided under different ICAOs.


Ground Vehicles you drive in are user-controllable SimObjects; these can Save *.FLT flight scenario files at misc. start locations loaded from FS pick lists.


You can easily 'jump' to other Airport AFD infrastructure groups in the project once it is divided into different ICAOs with smaller Test Radii sizes.

Tomt478 said:
Now, I have one question, I was considering moving the project to a whole new location, preferably somewhere near my own state, this is so the Real World Weather would work better. The Utah weather stations aren't too accurate and are down more than up so I don't get 'Real' weather that actually matches what is reported. I use FXReal World Weather, it has always worked for me. It will cause an occasional FSX crash on startup, but I can deal with it. Usually the second startup works like a charm. It's usually pretty accurate, but Utah has the worst weather stations I've ever seen. So how much trouble is it to move the project from a 5000ft ASL location to a lower Ground Level such as Georgia? Would I have to go in and re-adjust all of my models and scenery objects to match the new altitude of the new location?
Click to expand...

Normally, objects are placed at '0' Meters AGL ("AltitudeIsAGL"), which means no matter the local terrain mesh elevation, objects are mesh-clinging.

If objects are placed at AMSL ("AboveMeanSeaLevel"), it means no matter the local terrain mesh elevation, objects are placed at 'X' Meters above MSL.


When an Airport is moved via ADE / FSXPlanner, or edited in de-compiled XML code, values can always be changed as needed ...by one means or another.

Typically when airport(s) are moved in a copy of the original project *.AD4, the only thing that needs to be changed is coordinates and local ARP Altitude.

Tomt478 said:
Also, is there a way to make vehicle links, follow the elevation of the terrain?

I know Vectors will, I'm using a road vector right now to drive up the 100ft. mountain I created. But vectors are really hard to see at night, and you can't place lights on them. I tried using apron lights, but they don't follow elevation. For now I used some home made light models that float above the vector road so I can at least follow the path up the mountain at night. I have a lot of my missions at night and I need to see where I am going.
Click to expand...

IIRC, vehicle links follow the elevation of the ARP, and not the terrain.

However, after the Modified Terrain. Cfg is installed, you can (very carefully) add a custom entry to Terrain.Cfg that essentially creates CVX Roads with accompanying, automatically-placed vector objects at assigned interval just like the lights you may use with AFD "Vehicle" Taxi-links ...only better. ;)

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/path-where-cvx-textures-are-placed.458064/post-921298


You may wish to review this thread (and the "Fun With Lines" tutorial by Luis Feliz-Tirado attached therein):

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17999

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/autogen-exclusion-problem.17999/post-117755


NOTE: Because of your current computer performance FPS issues, you may wish to ID "LightBalls" to use rather than using 3D LightPoles to support them

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:+www.fsdeveloper.com+GaryGB+"FSX"+Light+Balls&sca_esv=e4563a69b0135ef4&biw=1088&bih=504&ei=wOKraY6wNo_9ptQP--CHoQE&ved=0ahUKEwiOkO-lsI2TAxWPvokEHXvwIRQQ4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=site:+www.fsdeveloper.com+GaryGB+"FSX"+Light+Balls&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiMnNpdGU6IHd3dy5mc2RldmVsb3Blci5jb20gR2FyeUdCICJGU1giIExpZ2h0IEJhbGxzMgUQABjvBTIFEAAY7wUyBRAAGO8FMgUQABjvBUiNLVCbC1iCJHABeACQAQCYAakBoAGRAqoBAzAuMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCA6ACwgLCAggQABiwAxjvBZgDAIgGAZAGBJIHAzEuMqAH0geyBwMwLjK4B6oCwgcDMy0zyAclgAgA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

GaryGB
 
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Actually I created my own custom "lightballs" and they seem to work very well compared to the default lightpoles. Being smaller objects ,they don't seem to affect FPS as much as the standard default lightpoles do. I noticed that when I drive by a lightpole, I get little micro-stutters, when I drive by the custom made lightvalls, no stutter. I saw somewhere that mentioned something about modifying the terrain.cfg and actually turning vehicle links into vectors that would follow terrain elevation, I just can't seem to find that information anymore. I'm figuring out more and more things to do with this. I was considering at one time doing exactly as you said about making individual 'airports' for each location and just bassically keep them all in the same general area and link them with roads, but, it wound up being too complicated having to figure out the coordinants for each 'port' and then figuring out how to link each one, because you can't display all of them at one time, and trying to 'line-up' raods with things you can't see is a bit too challenging. I abandoned that idea the last time you mentioned it. Maybe if I were starting the project from scratch, I would do that, but since the project is so far along, I just can't seem to do that. I figured it was better to just scale it down to a smaller area, which is what I am doing at this point.

I know what all of the exclusion backgrounds do, I've studdied up on that. Using the "Flatten Exclude Autogen MaskClass" used to work fine, I've been using that for years, it's just recently that it quit working as it is supposed to. That selection no longer even flattens the area you put it in, it's as if that selection has been deactivated or something. I am now using the one above that, "Flatten Exclude Autogen" or in areas where I don't want the terrain flat, I just use the "Exclude Autogen". It appears that ADE got confused somehow. Looking at things as I drive over or by them, it actually looks as if the "Flatten Exclude Autogen" is acting just like the "Flatten Exclude AutoGen MaskClass" , so somehow ADE has been "corrupted" somewhere. I need to completely remove it from the system and re-install it to see if it gets fixed. For now though, as long as it's working with these work-arrounds, I can deal with it for a while, if things start going haywire, then I will just replace ADE. For now I can live with it. I don't really use the 'Flatten Exclude Autogen MaskClass' function much, I only used it to remove vegetation from my roads. but if the 'Flatten Exclude AutoGen' works, then so be it, I can use that.
 
Just an update, I found the problem with both my textures and terrain and the exclusions. It appears that when I installed GSX it had inadvertantly corrupted some of my ORBX terrain and library files, after re-installing ORBX, everything returned to normal. I'm not at all sure what GSX did to corrupt my ORBX files, I use ORBX for some of my free addon aircraft. ORBX used to not work, but I guess they fixed whatever problems there were, because it seems to work fine now. I've been looking all over the ORBX website trying to find the sound effect packages that they are supposed to offer, but I can't find them, does anyone know where I find those packages? I would like to purchase them if I can find them.
 
Yeah, I looked through that section and couldn't find them. I will try inquiring at ORBX and see if they can help. I like the new textures they put in, they look a bit more realistic and their addons work perfectly with no issues. I'm willing to invest into them, at least they work.

Now, this really is a developer problem. I have several versions of the Lexus430 land vehicle, they are all different colors that I use for different scenarios, What I want to do is create some static models for each one, but when I convert one to say a blue color, MCX loads it fine as blue, but when I put it into the project using ADE and placing it as a model, it always comes out as the default color of cream. I created the blue one in its own folder and everything, even changed the GUID and the NAME, but still FSX loads it as the CREAM color and not the BLUE color. I used the correct textures for it, and like I said, when I load it into MCX, it shows as blue, just when it shows in FSX, it's cream, what did I do wrong? Do I need to change the names of everything including the texture file names?
 
Never Mind,FIXED IT. Had to rename all textures, assign new GUID, change model name, remove all animations and attached objects, save as model and as .BGL, add folder to scenery library, and finally add to ADE library. All works well, height is a bit off, but I just set them to 2ft alt and everything is fine.
 
Is there a 'bug' in FSX that prevents the HOD (Hour Of Day) parameter from working with special effects? I can get the effects to work normally, but when I set the Parameter for the Hour Of Day I want them to appear, they never do, for example, if I set a lighting effect for say 6:00pm to 1:00am (that would be HOD=18,01) it should show at 6pm and continue until 1am, but the effect never turns on. If I don't set a time parameter and use the effect normally, it works fine. Is this a bug just like the same bug that I found out about that prevents the DAY/NIGHT parameter from working or the DUSK/DAWN parameter from working. The HOD seems to work randomly, but most of the time it don't, and does the HOD use the location of the aircraft or does it use the time of the system?
 
Closing this rambling thread. You need to have separate posts for separate inquires.
 
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