Textures not showing in FSX

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Guys

I have a very strange problem. Some aircraft I select show in sim but with no textures, this happens to some AI and flyable versions. They used to work OK but not anymore. The do show perfectly in AI Aircraft Editor which confuses me.


TIA

[Jorgen]

John,

When you look at the non-showing textures, are they in .bmp or .dds format?

Jorgen

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Jorgan

I'll check

[Firebird]

John,
There are three types of texture issues with FSX, I believe. One has the aircraft invisible, one has them untextured and one has them appear black.
Which problem do you have?

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Steve

Untextured on some and some invisible with interior details texturedm almost like it has glass exterior.

[Firebird]

OK untextured is normally the simplest to fix. Invariably it is either the name of the actual texture is not correct or the texture entry in the cfg file does not match the actual folder name.
That is the easiest to check for and fix.

Now can you give some details on one of the problem invisible aircraft, i.e. the model and the texture and whether it is an add-on texture or one that came with the model. Also how many of that model have the issue and how many are fine.

Quite often if you fix the problem on one aircraft you will have the answer to fix them all.

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Steve

I've got some payware add-ons that have the see thru effect, these show the shadow of the aircarft on the ground. The others are fine. Changing the textures to DDS made no difference.

The VRS Superbug FA-18 has that problem with all the textures that came with the model which is a shame as thats my favourite combat aircraft. This has has the shadow outline on the erunway.The strange thing is that worked until recently. VC cockpit is visible as is the HUD.

[pslinger]

When I've had similar issues, I check the texture alpha channel.

[John Young]

Be aware that FSX textures do not load in the same order each time you launch the sim. The process will load the textures until it hits a problematic one, after which the process halts and that and subsequent textures usually appear black. What was previously black on one launch, may be OK on the next, if the sim encounters the faulty one, very late. You can use a process of divide and conquer to find the problem.

John

[Firebird]

I have something in my mind that says that switching off ground shadows cures the invisible aircraft. Try that to see if it changes anything. I think as well that there is something to do with the DX9/DX10. Try switching to the other one.

[Jorgen]

Firebird,

I remember something about those ground shadows also.

And you are correct, if VulcanDriver is using the DX10 preview, he should try to turn that off.

Jorgen

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Guys

I've turned off all shadows and the DX10 preview. All seem OK except the VRS F18. I'm going reinstall that and see if that cures the problem. The strange thing is the cocpit and pilot shows perfectly. Must be the stealth version

[Firebird]

If that is the only one with the issue, and it is a supplied texture, then have a look on the VRS forums. Somebody else must have had this.

[VulcanDriver]

I've found out today why. I switched on DX10 Preview as an experiment and VRS Textures show up.

[Firebird]

That is good that you have found that cause, so was it just the ground shadows that caused that issue in the first place or does switching DX10 on bring back some of the issues you fixed?

[VulcanDriver]

Hi Steve

The Shadows don't make a difference, but preview DX10 does. The only aircaft that show textures are the default ones that come with FSX (and the VRS F-18) with DXT10 turned on, but with it turned off the VRS F-18 AND the default Bell 206 don't show any textures?. AI aircraft don't show textures either when in the sim. Strangely the only non-MS add-on aircraft that show textures with or without DX10 turned on are the Nazi "Whatif bombers" from a German designer. I was updated by MS to DX12 in June / July, which is about when the the problems started.

I'm confused now.

[Firebird]

So you have issues, depending upon your settings, with different planes.

Now I never use my FSX - only ever used it for testing - so I checked my settings. I didn't have the DX10 on but I did have ground shadows on. All the aircraft I have in sim (AI) were all OK.
I tried with DX10 on and again they were OK. As my system is up to date I have DX12 as well. I don't think I have any more knowledge here with the possible exception of trying to re-install DX12. Maybe something got corrupted as all versions are supposed to be backward compatible.

What you have doesn't sound right.

[Jorgen]

VulcanDriver, FSX still uses DX9c. It cannot use DX12, because it was never programmed to use that.

If you feel that your DX9 has been corrupted, then search for and download the "DirectX redistributables" from Microsoft, which will download DX from the beginning up to DX10 and update if necessary. After that, run Windows Update.

Jorgen

[Firebird]

Jorgen,
I think what John is talking about is that Windows 11 installs DX12, rather than FSX using it. That is what makes me think that they are backward compatible. If they weren't then any game relying on an older DX would not run. I happily run FS9 with DX12.

You are absolutely right though that I think that there may be a corruption and therefore a reinstall might be a good idea. If there is a bad corruption then dxdiag will show it.
My experience of it though is that it should only be trusted if it shows that there is a problem, in the past it did not show a problem when I had one.

[Jorgen]

Actually, I also have DX12, even though I am on Windows 10.

I am not sure what DX version FS9 was programmed to use, but FSX uses DX9c. When FSX was programmed way back when, DX9 was all there was, and DX10 was in beta - that's why DX10 in FSX is a "preview only". Whatever DX version the sim uses, it is hard-coded into the sim, and the sim will/can only use that version - same as the C++ libraries and .NET Framework.

Sometimes in the P3D forums I see issues with add-ons also hard-coded to use certain versions of the C++ libraries and .NET Framework, and installing older versions fixes it.

In John's example, his VRS F-18 and Bell 206 were probably hard-coded to use DX10.

Jorgen