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SolRayz

Cursed visualfx.dll

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Soooo.....I spent the last few days reinstalling everything...bleh. I think we all know the routine. It burns the arse thinking of the time it takes to prepare your system, prepare fsx, tweaks, addons, configurations and setups, for it to get tossed. And since my system is purely used for FSX, I did a full OS reinstall, with Nick N tweaks  and defrags and blah blah. :wacko2:

 

I think I have reinstalled FSX so many times it has become routine. But this last FSX debacle involved the cursed visualfx.dll CTD. No matter what I tried, FSX would crash at the instant of loading a flight.

 

Searching for answers will prove futile for those who experience this issue. Info online is spotty, and it seams that everyone afflicted ended up reinstalling.
 

Trying the following did nothing:

-reboot

-restore visualfx.dll

-restore effects folder

-recycle fsx.cfg

-disc repair fsx

 

Someone repeatedly posted everywhere that this caused by a corrupt default flight and to delete the respective entry in FSX.cfg...sorry, but no workie.

 

The general concensus is an effects file has become corrupted during a previous adddon install. So, why does a disk repair not fix this???

The odd thing is that a couple of weeks ago,  I bagan noticing my smoke effect became big black boxes so I found those fx and replaced those. Then a few days ago I noticed some peculiar lines on the touchdownfx smoke. Didn't think much of it since it was late. The next day...pow, FSX will no longer load flights, CTD visualfx.dll

 

Had to get it off my chest....  :sorry:

And for the next poor victim, you can read this and know that you are not alone.


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This is an automatic message.

 

This topic has been moved from "MS FSX Forum" to "Crash To Desktop (CTD) Forum". This move has been done for a number of possible reasons.

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Please ensure that your posts are "on topic" and contain illustrative images or videos as appropriate. Do not post videos or images just for entertainment purposes anywhere but in the screen shot or video forums.

 

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I bagan noticing my smoke effect became big black boxes so I found those fx and replaced those. Then a few days ago I noticed some peculiar lines on the touchdownfx smoke. Didn't think much of it since it was late. The next day...pow, FSX will no longer load flights, CTD visualfx.dll

 

I do not know where you got the replacement fx files w/o a reinstall or repair of FSX (maybe from a backup?), but these files were replaced or updated via SP1 and SP2.  Black boxes are indications your fsx/display driver settings are set way too high and fsx is having a hard time rendering these effects.  I do know it requires a lot of RAM and virtual memory to run effects, especially smoke effects.  More so than other textures.   

 

You indicate in your profile that you only have FSX installed.  Did you also install SP1 and SP2?  If you did you might try uninstalling SP2 and running FSX once then reinstall SP2.

 

Best regards,

Jim


Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

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Sorry completely forgot that there was a CTD forum.

 

I have a complete backup of my FSX folder in hand for these situations, so I grabbed the fx files from there. I got the idea from another thread discussing the same issue with black boxes in the smoke effects. As soon as I replaced those, that issue was resolved. Not even sure its related at all to the CTD that happend a week or so later.

 

I am pretty sure I corrupted my effects folder some how. Just not sure when or how. I did not try your suggestion about simply uninstalling SP2, running FSX, and then reinstall. It is noted for the future. For the record I am running FSX with Accel. What i did was a repair of FSX and then a repair of Accel. and then ran it. Not sure if that was correct. In any case it did not  fix the visualfx.dll CTD.

 

As for now I have everything back up in running better than before so I can't really complain. Thanks for your help.


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For the record I am running FSX with Accel. What i did was a repair of FSX and then a repair of Accel. and then ran it. Not sure if that was correct. In any case it did not fix the visualfx.dll CTD.

 

You did the right thing regarding the repair of fsx/acceleration.  Just to make sure you know that you cannot install SP2 if you have Acceleration installed.  It will corrupt everything.  Just wanted to make sure you know this.  SP2 contains special coding in it so that you cannot use Acceleration products.

 

My experience with visualfx.dll crashes indicates something in your fsx.cfg, your display settings, or your computer is taking up too many resources to handle the effects.  It could be a bad tweak, a bad overclock, wrong memory frequency, timings, and voltages in the BIOS, or too high/low CPU voltages.  I do not think it's a corruption of the effects.

 

Best regards,

Jim


Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

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Important other links: Basic FSX Configuration Guide | AVSIM CTD Guide | AVSIM Prepar3D Guide | Help with AVSIM Site | Signature Rules | Screen Shot Rule | AVSIM Terms of Service (ToS)

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Good to know in regards to SP2.

 

You know it is interesting that you mentioned a bad overclock, because right before all this happened, I was trying to rectify my Sleep/Wake issue with my OC. Which I never did, and ended up flashing my bios and resetting my OC config. Hmmm, mystery thickens. Appreciate the support!


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I had a couple of months of the visualfx.DLL CTD. After lots of tweaking and searching forums I

discovered that it was down to a bad overclock well I had been pushing it too much. I backed off I think from 4.7 GHZ to 4.6 GHz and the dreaded ctd disappeared.

 

That would be my guess.

 

Hope it helps.

 

 

Hamish.:)

 

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD

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I thought I would update my findings with regards to the visualfx.dll

 

So after reinstalling everything and running smoothly for a month, out of the blue, FSX began this visualfx nightmare once again!!! As fear and panic quickly began to overcome me, I decided once in for all to figure this one out. Long story short, either a .dds or .bmp file either corrupted or disappeared entirely from the main texture folder. What is causing this is still a mystery. I replaced all the default files in that folder, from a  backup, and the visualfx.dll crash miraculously stopped.

 

I have a suspicion that either REX, or Orbx Aero may be responsible. More investigation will be required....surely this will happen again, so reluctantly waiting at this point. :rolleyes: 


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Thanks for coming back and giving us a possible solution. I have had changes to my main texture folder as late as 3/26/2013 and it could have been a change made by AS2012 when I changed or added a theme. REX does something likewise.  Perhaps one of your programs is looking for a certain version of the texture, can't find it so visualfx.dll crashes.  In any case, I will keep this as a possible solution for others.

 

Best regards,

Jim


Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

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Important other links: Basic FSX Configuration Guide | AVSIM CTD Guide | AVSIM Prepar3D Guide | Help with AVSIM Site | Signature Rules | Screen Shot Rule | AVSIM Terms of Service (ToS)

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I had this exact same thing happen to me.  After lot and lots of experimenting I found that mine were being cause by REX OD textures.  Specifically the dawn/day/dusk textures.  I suspect it was the dusk texture but I am not completely sure about that.  Had this happen like 6 months ago.  Fixed it (isntalled AS2012 sky textures), forgot how I fixed it, installed REX sky textures again, then had the problem return.  After I remembered how I fixed it the last time I reinstalled the AS2012 sky textures and my visualfx.dll crashes disappeared once again.  I use REX textures for everything else.

 

As a side note REX 4 Direct sky textures seem to cause the same problem for me.  Or at least the ones I have tried do.

 

Hope this helps someone someday.,

Dave

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Dave, you are genius.  That post just saved me a from a whole load of hassle, I owe you a beer.

 

Thanks


Rob Prest

 

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Dave's solution worked for me as well. The sky textures got corrupted for some unknown reason (I haven't touched the textures for many months) and FSX crashed as soon as the "free flight" menu appeared on startup, with Visualfx.dll as the culprit.

 

I confirmed it with Process Monitor as I noticed the sky textures were the last to load before the Windows error reporting stuff appeared. I fixed it with a sky textures mod available in the library.

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Where did you get these textures as I too have a similar problem.


Stephen Simpson

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I'm glad I stumbled across this topic.  I have been considering changing from AS2012 Texture to REX.

 

I think I will give it a miss however as a side note, has this been reported to REX?

 

If they send out an update/fix I might reconsider changing over.

 

Hirdy.

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