What causes texture flashing?

[Boeing or not going 578]

I see some texture flashing on buildings in the distance. I think the technical term is z-fighting What is causing it? I am using 16x AF, 8sQ AA. 2x SG SS. Do I need to use 4x SGSS?

[Jim Young 2,356]

Do you have AA/AF turned on within FSX? Sometimes, when you have your settings set so high, FSX and your hardware cannot render textures fast enough. Is it autogen buildings. Try the normal setting. You can turn on FSX and watch the z-fighting going on and, at the same time, have NI software running and you can change the settings on the fly, so to speak. So right there in front of you, as you're watching the flashing textures, you can make changes to your display settings. See what it does and does not. But, I think the most important setting is setting AA/AF inside FSX.

 

A lot of this so-called z-fighting is caused by the DX10 Preview setting. If you have DX10 Preview turned on and you did not install the fix as described in the DX10 forum, then you will see flashing textures and really ugly stuff as you fly around. But Steve's fix for DX10 works well.

 

Some people have fixed this flashing textures issue by upgrading their display drivers or upgrading their video card.

 

It's really hard for anyone to give you some good advice when you do not post your system specs. If you have a sub-par computer system, then that will definitely cause z-fighting if you turn the settings up too high. Just a suggestion. But, most importantly, you must have the AA/AF setting turned on in FSX. You should also let us know where you are having this problem. Everywhere? Is it default scenery? Or is it payware?

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[LHookins 3,102]

There is one autogen building in particular where I've always seen z-order fighting, even when I was still running SP1. It's a barn with three cupolas on the roof, and the texture problems are on the sides of the barn.

 

I'm guessing that the model is actually two models in the same spot, which will cause the z-order fighting.

 

I've seen other instances of this, but that's one that is always repeatable.

 

Hook

[N60JBravo 27]

If you have "ground scenery casts shadows" checked in the scenery options try removing the check and test.

 

This setting can cause me troubles with flashing. If there is a fix for it, I would like to know.

 

regards,

Joe

[LHookins 3,102]

I just went looking for flashing textures. I couldn't find my barn, but I found one of the cylindrical tanks that had the shadows flashing badly. Obviously, turning ground shadows off fixed this one, but as far as I can remember that's the only object with that problem.

 

I also found a house that was made up of a normal house and a flat brick building which was partially inside the house, partially outside. It was lined up with the side of the house and the textures flashed at that point. Shadows off didn't help, filtering set to none and anti-aliasing off didn't help either. Pic attached.

 

Hook

[Boeing or not going 578]

I'm using DX9, tried only the game setting Anistrophic, tried the game set to Trilinear and Nvidia Enhancer to AF 16x. Tried various combinations of 4x sgss and 8sq and 8s anti aliasing. Nothing worked! I do have ground scenery casts shadows on, I really can't live without it. If that's a negative of that setting, oh well. Guess i'll have to live with it then. It isn't autogen that is flashing, it's regular buildings, like on approach to Las Vegas, the hotels on the strip have some flashing textures, and it does look like it's something with the shadows.