P3Dv4 Fatal flashing around terminal buildings

[Morten]

What the heck is going on here?
Known issue?

Cheers,
Morten

[virtuali]

Nobody ever reported it before.

[Morten]

Well, nevertheless...

[virtuali]

If nobody ever reported it before, it's likely an issue with your graphic settings. I tried it now, just to be sure, and there are flashes of any kind.

[Morten]

Hmmmm.. can't be graphic settings, since it's the only airport that acts that way.

But since the original installer is a FSX setup file back from 2013 (undergoing FSDTs own P3Dv4 transformation) I rather tend to believe that something during some of the many FSDT Live Updates has gone wrong here.
I'll try and do a reinstall with FSDT's newest installer and report back... 

[virtuali]

Hmmmm.. can't be graphic settings, since it's the only airport that acts that way.

No, it's not. It might be the only one of they ones you have.

Such issues are usually caused by your graphic settings / tweaks, which are not appropriate for your system, but they appears ONLY if the scenery use SOME specific kind of materials that, although entirely 100% compliant, might not work if there are tweaks that shouldn't apply to your system.

Note that, I'm based this by assuming your description of "fatal flashing", really means what it seems to mean: something random that looks entirely out of place, such as random flashes of colored triangles on screen. This is SURELY a graphic setting issue.

If, instead, you are referring to something else, like objects disappearing too soon (which hardly qualifies as "fatal flashing"), than it might just be an issue that Zurich has been designed for a different time (it's 11 years old), when PC power was very different, so objects were designed using very conservative LOD settings, and they usually appear later in view compared to a newer scenery.

[Morten]

No not light flashing - I've had that kind of "fireworks" that you are referring to which was caused by some optional crab graphic driver update.
My current AMD Radeon driver is a WHQL driver version working alright!

It's rather a "flicker" than a "flashing" issue to be more specific...
Flickering facades and "artifacts" up in the air around the flickering buildings.     

[virtuali]

No not light flashing - I've had that kind of "fireworks" that you are referring to which was caused by some optional crab graphic driver update.My current AMD Radeon driver is a WHQL driver version working alright!

Then you can be sure it's a driver issue, or a video settings/tweaks issue. Have you set the Affinity mask in the sim ?

We noticed that, when using the "suggested" settings on some websites, it results in textures being loaded more slowly and black textures. This on nVidia cards, maybe it might cause a different issues on AMD cards. If you change the Affinity mask, remove the setting, which is the default.

If that's not the issue, I'm afraid it's difficult to help you, since I cannot replicate the issue, so it must be related to your combination of video card+drivers. Zurich is something of an unusual scenery, since it uses a mixup of old FS8 code for the ground, and fully native (FSX) code with advanced materials on the buildings. Not that this should be a problem, since most of our earlier sceneries, like KORD and KJFK are also made like this, but it might be more sensitive to even small issues with video drivers, compared to more recent sceneries, that don't have any old FS8 code anymore.

[Morten]

Umberto, I have now analyzed my setup, step by step, through 2 hours! disabling affinity mask + any other mods in the P3D4.cfg, also putting back my video cards to standard settings - but the "flicker" issue is still present!
BTW, when looking from outside the aircraft and zooming out, I noticed that the "flicker" doesn't actually appear from the buildings, but rather from the ground texture, flickering 2-3 meters up from the ground.

On my side, because of my 8 monitor fullscreen setup, I'm forced to use AMD cards because nVidia as a mainstream concept, unfortunately not offering support for this kind of relatively advanced multimonitor setup.   

I'm sure that my AMD cards worked okay with Zurich 1 year ago with old AMD whql drivers. But honestly, when you're telling me that your Zurich addon is mixed up with some old FS8, I would say maybe then it's about time for you to update your airport and get rid of all this antique garbage in order to meet current standards - the problem is obviously on your side, not mine! As it is, I currently have 134 P3Dv4 compatible airports installed and Zurich is the ONLY one having this issue!

Cheers,
Morten         

[virtuali]

I'm sure that my AMD cards worked okay with Zurich 1 year ago with old AMD whql drivers.

Which clearly confirmed what I was saying all along, which it's a driver issue.

These things are way more common that you can imagine. Yesterday, I lost hours of work, because the very latest WHQL drivers from nVidia, resulted in a crash in Substance Painter (a program we use for texturing that fully use the GPU) when opening any existing file, and the only fix that worked, was to restore the previous version of the driver.

But honestly, when you're telling me that your Zurich addon is mixed up with some old FS8, I would say maybe then it's about time for you to update your airport and get rid of all this antique garbage in order to meet current standards - the problem is obviously on your side, not mine! As it is, I currently have 134 P3Dv4 compatible airports installed and Zurich is the ONLY one having this issue!

Of those 134 "compatible" airports, I'm sure most of them still use FS8 code, which IS supported with P3D 4 (not all of it, we obviously use only the code we *know* are still supported), but we cannot rush to update Zurich now, just because it has issue only with a specific version of a driver of a certain video card.

How are we supposed to explain to, for example, KORD users that are waiting for a MORE pressing update (the whole airport is outdated), that it has been delayed, because we need to patch Zurich for a specific version of a driver of card which is not even the most widely used one ?

So yes, in a perfect world, it would be nice to redo all sceneries natively at one, but we simply don't have the resources to do all of that, at the same time, which means we must prioritize and, right now, the topmost priority is to updated outdated sceneries that have their real world airport changed, like KORD and KFJFK.

[Morten]

Most of the time I end up agreeing with you Umberto.
This time however I don't agree with you at all - what I see is a lot of excuses for doing nothing to solve problems to a completely outdated product.

My guess is, that if there wasn't another well known dealer with the exact same airport in an updated version then you would be more than willing to invest in an update.

Although, as always a freely outspoken, temperamental and interesting debate here, I will quit the discussion for now - uninstall my FSDT Zurich version and get myself an updated version from the other dealer.     

Cheers,
Morten 
 

[virtuali]

This time however I don't agree with you at all - what I see is a lot of excuses for doing nothing to solve problems to a completely outdated product.

You haven't got any "excuses".

You only got the honest truth, which we have limited resources (the author of the scenery it's the same person that made KORD and KJFK), and we have other sceneries that are more in demand of an upgrade, compared to this minor issue that seems to happen only with a very peculiar configuration (a specific version of driver of a specific card, used with 8 monitors).

It's a matter of priorities. I want to respectfully add that, you bought the scenery 7 years ago, when the only supported simulators were FS9 and FSX.

We had P3D 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 and FSX:SE in the meantime, and while we always updated our installers and the scenery (when required) to support all these new sim, at no time you were ever asked to pay a cent to keep using your original FS9/FSX purchase into these new simulators. And it DOES work, per your own report, with a different version of a driver.

My guess is, that if there wasn't another well known dealer with the exact same airport in an updated version then you would be more than willing to invest in an update.

It's exactly the opposite: Zurich is not in top priority for an update, because that other version doesn't seem to be that great, and surely not clearly better, if not worse:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/498039-which-zurich-fsdt-or-aerosoft/

[Morten]

at no time you were ever asked to pay a cent to keep using your original FS9/FSX purchase into these new simulators

I would much rather pay my fair cheer for your updates instead of all this recycling FS8 garbage...
Noticed now that KORD also starts to flicker.    

[virtuali]

I would much rather pay my fair cheer for your updates instead of all this recycling FS8 garbage...

Each and every scenery out there which is not P3D native, is full of FS8 code. Even if you are willing to pay, it takes A LOT of time to redo a scenery for P3D4, especially if the airport has changed in the meantime.

Noticed now that KORD also starts to flicker.  

On your system only. KORD works perfectly fine for everybody, it's only dramatically out of date, which is why it will be the first one to get a complete P3D4 remake.

[Bob Savo]

Im sure ,but i remember having a flashing issue with the terminal six years ago when i used to have FSX. I think i reduced the FPS from unlimited to 25 to 30 and that solved it for me.