Texture issues -- OOM?

[SkylarMacMinn 0]

So I was getting Out of Memory errors with the Queen and Vista 32bit, so I downgraded to XP32bit (well really, it's an upgrade!) to see if it fixes the issue. I do not get "Your System is Out of Memory" errors anymore, however I get this issue with the Queen's textures.I load into KSEA Gate S16 with the queen, load cold and dark cockpit settings, then start up FSINN. There is not an airplane in site. I start setting up my FMC and load manager, get her ready, and then start to push back. At this point I had only switched to the Outside view once. I have this issue where I go to an outside view, and for a few seconds I see a "Skeleton" of sorts of the plane -- the seats, just no outer shell and my BAW textures. I wait a few seconds, and all is good.I call for clearance, and start my pushback. I get off the blocks, and then switch to an external view. My winds and engines are gray, and I have this "Skeleton" issue again -- however it will NOT go away.At this point, my Textures will not fix -- so I exit FSX and start over again -- loe and behold, my background picture has magically vanished to a default BLUE background.Now I restart my computer, boot her up and try again. Same issue -- every time.I do NOT get this issue with the PMDG MD-11, and have always had issues with the Queen (usually minor, consisting of flying into FSDT JFK at night in the queen).I have the latest drivers, everything is up to date -- I even re-installed the NVIDIA XP Drivers for my GTS 1GB edition 250 OC just to verify.Is there something I am missing that needs to be fixed? I also run NHANCER, and on the computer I mostly run FSX, ACARS, and FSINN. Nothing else was up and running when I got this issue.Any and all help is appreciated :)EDIT: To whomever moved this -- it IS a 747-8I issue, sorry if I didn't specify --- THIS HAPPENS WITH THE 747-8I

[Guest Burkhard27]

Hello, good to know that other people have this problem too. I already reinstalled the complete FSX with all addons, but I have still this problem with the 747-8i. At the beginning of a flight, everything seems to be ok (for about ten minutes). After switching from the 2d-panel to the outside view, there is no plane, just this skeleton. Sometimes it helps to save or interrupt (escape button, continue flight) the flight. I think this problem has something to do with nvidia. Everytime I read about this issue in forums, people tell they have nvidia graphic cards, especially the 8800GTS 512, like me ... Hope we get a solution soon. Best regards from germany. Burkhard

[Guest ashwath]

Ok guys, a lot of you seem to experience the corrupted textures or missing textures with the 747-8 just LIKE ME. The culprit behind this is the Hi-Def external textures that PMDG has used. They have used 4096x4096 textures where as the 747-400 uses 1024x1024 textures. 4096 textures require you to have a graphics card with atleast 1 to 2 GB of video memory; and people like us with 512 MB cards will definitely experience this issue, especially while flying into scenery dense areas. The only solution to this as of now is to convert the 4096 textures into 1024 textures along with the alpha channel (alpha is needed for transparent windows) and then fly the bird with no problem (of course if you were able to fly the 747-400 with no problems then you should be able to fly the 747-8 as well after the conversion). The loss in image quality is very negligible. I did this and have never had the blank textures after that. Note: File Size of the 747-8 with 4096 textures is 16MB and after converting to 1024 textures, the size is only 1.33 MB. What a difference this can make. Cheers!!!

[brucek 38]

Ok guys, a lot of you seem to experience the corrupted textures or missing textures with the 747-8 just LIKE ME. The culprit behind this is the Hi-Def external textures that PMDG has used. They have used 4096x4096 textures where as the 747-400 uses 1024x1024 textures. 4096 textures require you to have a graphics card with atleast 1 to 2 GB of video memory; and people like us with 512 MB cards will definitely experience this issue, especially while flying into scenery dense areas. The only solution to this as of now is to convert the 4096 textures into 1024 textures along with the alpha channel (alpha is needed for transparent windows) and then fly the bird with no problem (of course if you were able to fly the 747-400 with no problems then you should be able to fly the 747-8 as well after the conversion). The loss in image quality is very negligible. I did this and have never had the blank textures after that. Note: File Size of the 747-8 with 4096 textures is 16MB and after converting to 1024 textures, the size is only 1.33 MB. What a difference this can make. Cheers!!!

How do you change the texture sizes? What app do you need- and which textures?Thanks, Bruce.

[Guest ashwath]

How do you change the texture sizes? What app do you need- and which textures?Thanks, Bruce.

Step 1: Download DxtBmp software and Paint.net software (this is what I used) and install them. Just google it for the download link. Both are free.Step 2: Open DxtBmp. In the right hand pane, you will see a small square icon. Click that and set Paint.net to be your default editor (browse to find where you installed paint.net).Step 3: Now go to your \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400 folder and open the texture folder of any 747-8 aircraft. There will be a file called PMDG_748i (for intercontinental version). Make a backup of this first.Step 4: Open the file in DxtBmp and click on Alpha->Export alpha channel. Save the file to your desktop and name it as alpha or something.Step 5: Click on Image->Send To Editor. The image will open in Paint.net.Step 6: Once the image has opened in Paint.net click on Image->Resize. Change the width and height to 1024 pixels and click OK.Step 7: Click File->Save As. Save the image as a DDS file with the name PMDG_748i. Make sure you save it in \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400\whatever texture folder you opened in step 3. Overwrite the file. (Hope you made a back up).Step 8: Click Ok and select DXT5 (interpolated alpha) under file format and save it. Don't change any other options.Step 9: Open this new file with DxtBmp and select Alpha->Import alpha channel, and select the alpha file you saved on your desktop.Step 10: Now save this file in the same folder, i.e. \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400\whatever texture folder you opened in step 3.Voila!!! you've got 1024 textures now with transparent windows and hopefully no more messed up textures. You have to do this for each livery separately. If you feel 1024 is also too much, resize it to 512x512. Experiment. That's it.

[brucek 38]

Step 1: Download DxtBmp software and Paint.net software (this is what I used) and install them. Just google it for the download link. Both are free.Step 2: Open DxtBmp. In the right hand pane, you will see a small square icon. Click that and set Paint.net to be your default editor (browse to find where you installed paint.net).Step 3: Now go to your \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400 folder and open the texture folder of any 747-8 aircraft. There will be a file called PMDG_748i (for intercontinental version). Make a backup of this first.Step 4: Open the file in DxtBmp and click on Alpha->Export alpha channel. Save the file to your desktop and name it as alpha or something.Step 5: Click on Image->Send To Editor. The image will open in Paint.net.Step 6: Once the image has opened in Paint.net click on Image->Resize. Change the width and height to 1024 pixels and click OK.Step 7: Click File->Save As. Save the image as a DDS file with the name PMDG_748i. Make sure you save it in \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400\whatever texture folder you opened in step 3. Overwrite the file. (Hope you made a back up).Step 8: Click Ok and select DXT5 (interpolated alpha) under file format and save it. Don't change any other options.Step 9: Open this new file with DxtBmp and select Alpha->Import alpha channel, and select the alpha file you saved on your desktop.Step 10: Now save this file in the same folder, i.e. \simobjects\airplanes\PMDG 747-400\whatever texture folder you opened in step 3.Voila!!! you've got 1024 textures now with transparent windows and hopefully no more messed up textures. You have to do this for each livery separately. If you feel 1024 is also too much, resize it to 512x512. Experiment. That's it.

Thanks.

[Guest ashwath]

Update : reducing texture size to 1024 helps mitigate the problem only to a certain extent. I just tried a flight with the 747-8 and 1024 textures over Australia with FTX textures and got the corrupted textures again. The same problem however does not happen with the 747-400. So, there seems to be a flaw in the model itself. The only workaround to this is to switch to window mode and then back to full screen mode. Seems like the 747-8 visual model only reappears when the screen is redrawn. So, we need a fix for this.

[jordanal 70]

I got my first ever "out of Graphics memory" late last week when landing the 748i at FSDT's Las Vegas Intl. The same flight with the MD-11 has no issues (retested yesterday).It makes me wonder, why PMDG used 4096 textures when the default max_texture_load variable in the FSX.cfg file is 1024? Even if upi manually over-drive it, the FSX UI will set it back to 1024 the next time you make change in the graphics setting. I don't even know where to begin troubleshooting this.

[Guest Burkhard27]

Hello!I reduced the Autogen settings in FSX and the Traffic in UT2. It

[downscc 1,327]

The skeleton still appears after switching to the outside view, but after 2-3 seconds it looks normal.

That is normal unless you go for a very large VRAM.

[singaporeairlines 0]

Update : reducing texture size to 1024 helps mitigate the problem only to a certain extent. I just tried a flight with the 747-8 and 1024 textures over Australia with FTX textures and got the corrupted textures again. The same problem however does not happen with the 747-400. So, there seems to be a flaw in the model itself. The only workaround to this is to switch to window mode and then back to full screen mode. Seems like the 747-8 visual model only reappears when the screen is redrawn. So, we need a fix for this.

hi ashwath,thanks for showing how to reduce the 4096 textures to 1024. when i converted only the livery texture to 1024, the missing textures issue did not go away. however, when i resized the 16mb dds files in both the texture.8inormal and texture.8ipmdg folders too, the corrupted textures issue seemed to be solved. changing views or going into the menu screens did not trigger the corrupted textures. and i'm using only a nvidia gts250 512mb gpu (195.62 driver). perhaps you can try it too.Edmund Lim

[Guest ashwath]

hi ashwath,thanks for showing how to reduce the 4096 textures to 1024. when i converted only the livery texture to 1024, the missing textures issue did not go away. however, when i resized the 16mb dds files in both the texture.8inormal and texture.8ipmdg folders too, the corrupted textures issue seemed to be solved. changing views or going into the menu screens did not trigger the corrupted textures. and i'm using only a nvidia gts250 512mb gpu (195.62 driver). perhaps you can try it too.Edmund Lim

Hi Edmund,I tried what you told and definitely it did help in reducing those corrupted textures. I didn't realize that the liveries were accessing the texture.8i normal file which uses 4096 textures for bump map. However, a small change in opinion. It is not necessary to convert texture.8ipmdg, because that by itself is a livery. So if you want to convert it you can. But, as you said the texture.8i livery and texture.8i normal are the key here to prevent corrupted textures. Gr8 work!!! Cheers!!!Regards,