G4-> G45 upgrade -> Doesn't work

If the downloaded file was corrupt that would be true. I suspect the problem occurred after download, though, while the downloaded file was being decompressed and copied to its final location. That's why I was interested in seeing the files in the cache; it would have helped to determine exactly where the problem lay.
 
Responds back from me on Graphics settings.
It seems that the feature effecting VideoPerformance the most is the
new "Depth Of Field" feature. Engaging this immediately drops the framerate by 40 to 50 FPS (and my computer system isn't that crappy, specs listed further down in the thread)

Pitty as this feature was the main reason for me jumping on the G45 upgrade.

For me the principal aim with the simulator is learning how to handle the helicopter.
I have found a good solution, switch off "most" surroundings features except:
o Particles (Need the smoke trail in order to orient the helicopter)
o Shadow (Back again to using Shadow as a guide to gage distance to ground when landing)
o Then spend the resources on full screen resultion and color depth

This gives me VidFrame rate of 60-90FPS which is fine.
The flying is now smooth and realistic (I still crash though)
----
Ryan (you work for Realflight/KnifeEdge right?):
Thanks for a great tool. Realflight is truely a great simulator.
My pennies worth of advice to the development team:
o When launching an (extreme) graphics demanding upgrade like G45, please attach some advice and guidlines on how to rig the PC/Graphics system for us mortals not running the latest kiddie gizzmo on computer HW
o Please also consider my thoughts on providing a benchmark tool (see separate thread) allowing us simulator pilots to analyse the delay in the "control loop" and make adjustments for maximum closeness to reality (i.e. never mind photorealism, instead look at how realistic does the simulator replicate the model <-> pilot interaction)

Cheers/
Knut
 
Last edited:
kesundt said:
Responds back from me on Graphics settings.
It seems that the feature effecting VideoPerformance the most is the
new "Depth Of Field" feature. Engaging this immediately drops the framerate by 40 to 50 FPS (and my computer system isn't that crappy, specs listed further down in the thread)
Click to expand...

The Quadro FX you have is a fairly low end "Entry level" card.... however it is FAR BETTER than Integrated graphic adapters, BUT...

You are getting a big frame rate hit because the depth of field is not being handled by the hardware. On other GPU's it is, and there is almost NO difference in FPS.

Given that the card is for laptops, you are likely running G4.5 on a laptop, which also tends to introduce other cost and size reductions that further imped performance.

Couple the latter with the former and you get a bigger performance hit than you may have expected.
 
Hi opjose,
Thanks for this analysis. You are right: I'm running on a Dell Lap.
How do I/you know what processes are running on HW (GPU). I.e. you state that the "depth of field" is not running on the GPU. You are very likely to be correct.
But how do I know this and is there a way to force certain processes onto the GPU?

Also, the lap is running a Dual Core 2,5GHz Intel. Is there a way to force the simulation to utilise both of the CPU's? My CPU load stats indicate that only one of the CPU's are used.
 
I've worked with Quadro's before.

While they are functionally similiar to the mainstream boards, the orientation is towards 3D design and cad type applications.

Usually the Quadro firmware/driver combo takes away some of the features handled by the GPU, that may be beneficial to game programs, in order to favor the real time elements of 3D design and cad applications.

On other forums I ran accross many references to things which did not work well ( normally game programs ) on the Quadro, that worked far better on the consumer cards.

The strange thing is that the chipsets used are otherwise functionally identical to the consumer level cards, but the firmware/driver combo is significantly different.

The 3DStudio forums went into detail about all of this... but the bottom line is that the Quadro did not do certain things in hardware which the games expected done in hardware, in exchange for speed in 3D design application. "Focus" was one of those things.

---

Re: Dual Core.

KE could better answer that.

Details have not been posted about how they are handling multiple program threads...

I would like to know more as well.
 
I'd like to know more on the SMP aspects as well. Remember our thread many months back exploring whether or not RF was SMP aware? Back then my system was showing the (expected) single-threaded execution of RF. Now with the update to 4.5 I'm seeing SMP distribution across both cores. Weird.

Also, yes, workstation cards are identical to the gaming cards from which their PCBs are derived, only drivers and card BIOS changes are made to accelerate accuracy in 3D apps while other (gaming) optimizations are intentionally crippled. Can't have Joe home Power User building a $1000 workstation now can we? Actually yes you can. You just need to know how to void a couple of warranties.

C
 
Tree loading/unloading and the like is done an a seperate thread as well as low-level networking (multiplayer) and voice chat.

I would suspect that it really depends on when you're are looking at your dual-core activity i.e. what the sim is doing as to when you will see both cores being used or not.
 
Joe Teibel said:
Tree loading/unloading and the like is done an a seperate thread as well as low-level networking (multiplayer) and voice chat.

I would suspect that it really depends on when you're are looking at your dual-core activity i.e. what the sim is doing as to when you will see both cores being used or not.
Click to expand...
I show two cores equally loaded, but looking at task manager, it looks like one is running RealFlight.exe and the other is running services.exe. Is this what I should expect to see?

I'm assuming that since there is equal loading that RealFlight may be calling something that is causing services.exe to run. Is this possible or do I have something else going on in my system?

Thanks.
 
Haole said:
Also, yes, workstation cards are identical to the gaming cards from which their PCBs are derived, only drivers and card BIOS changes are made to accelerate accuracy in 3D apps while other (gaming) optimizations are intentionally crippled. Can't have Joe home Power User building a $1000 workstation now can we? Actually yes you can. You just need to know how to void a couple of warranties.
Click to expand...

The issue of firmware differences between workstation and gaming graphics cards is more nuanced than that. It's true that you could flash a firmware to a gaming graphics card and essentially have the workstation graphics card. However, that card would perform worse on 3D gaming.

Workstation graphics card firmware is optimized for complete accuracy of the rendering at the expense of high frame rates. Gaming graphics card firmware is optimized for high frame rates at the expense of some rendering accuracy. Essentially, a gaming card will choose to throw out a certain amount of detail if it would result in an unacceptable frame rate, whereas a workstation card always includes EVERY detail, no matter what the frame rate would be.

In a 3D game, the accuracy isn't especially important, as rendering omissions do not affect anybody's professional output. However, those who are using workstations need to see everything at the highest level of detail, and do not need a smooth frame rate because they are not trying to fly a model aircraft or shoot somebody in the head in real time. Missed details in high-end computer modeling work costs money due to the expense of having to redo work that was not done correctly.

It's not that workstation graphics cards are more powerful; it's that they sacrifice no detail for the sake of high frame rates.
 
G4.5 Error message

I did the online upgrade from G4 to G4.5 it took at least a week to download on dial-up. The launcher says it's compleat with a new icon on the desktop, excitedly I keyed the launcher and it was trying to load evergreen airport when I get an error message [Error:D3DERR_INVALIDCALL File: .\DXEffect.cpp Line:836] from this point the error message stays there with no way to get rid of it unless I shut the pc down.
Now I have nothing and RF don't work no more. I am very dissapointed to say the least. Anyone have any idea what's going on here? I restored defaults but that made no difference. I have vista home preimium 2.8Gs dual core if you need more info let me know. Thank You---Vernski
 
David Robert Wright said:
The issue of firmware differences between workstation and gaming graphics cards is more nuanced than that. It's true that you could flash a firmware to a gaming graphics card and essentially have the workstation graphics card. However, that card would perform worse on 3D gaming.

Workstation graphics card firmware is optimized for complete accuracy of the rendering at the expense of high frame rates. Gaming graphics card firmware is optimized for high frame rates at the expense of some rendering accuracy. Essentially, a gaming card will choose to throw out a certain amount of detail if it would result in an unacceptable frame rate, whereas a workstation card always includes EVERY detail, no matter what the frame rate would be.

In a 3D game, the accuracy isn't especially important, as rendering omissions do not affect anybody's professional output. However, those who are using workstations need to see everything at the highest level of detail, and do not need a smooth frame rate because they are not trying to fly a model aircraft or shoot somebody in the head in real time. Missed details in high-end computer modeling work costs money due to the expense of having to redo work that was not done correctly.

It's not that workstation graphics cards are more powerful; it's that they sacrifice no detail for the sake of high frame rates.
Click to expand...

Thanks for articulating that better than I did. It's good to clarify that going from a workstation class card and flashing it into a gaming card would be pretty silly since in most cases that workstation card cost more than an entire high-end gaming computer would run you.

You only gain (certified) accuracy in 3D rendering going the other way as you said--making a workstation card from a gaming card (and at no guarantee of success PLUS voiding warranties in the process). My post was nebulous on that point.

C
 
vernski, I have a feeling you have an integrated video card. Intel 945GM, perhaps? Not supported in G4.5. I think I heard they're working on that.
 
I'm having similar issues with 4.5 I recently updated with out any problems whatsoever during the update process. I went to start the sim and my logo 600 starts bouncing on the ground until it destroys itself. I try another custom model and the same thing happens. It appears that the only working models are the ones that came with 4.5.

So I noticed there was ANOTHER update after the initial 4.5 update. It claimed that the update fixed some crashing issues.

I have the most current version of 4.5 right now and it crashes more than this sim has ever crashed before. I literally can only run this program for about 30 seconds before it crashes out.

Any suggestions?


XP SP3
AMD 6000+ x2 3.3ghz
4GB of Ram
Nvidia 8800GTX
1000w Ultra X3 PSU

I've got a pretty decent rig that can run the most demanding games that are out on the market so I doubt this is happening because I have a hardware issue.
 
Vernski said:
I did the online upgrade from G4 to G4.5 it took at least a week to download on dial-up. The launcher says it's compleat with a new icon on the desktop, excitedly I keyed the launcher and it was trying to load evergreen airport when I get an error message [Error:D3DERR_INVALIDCALL File: .\DXEffect.cpp Line:836] from this point the error message stays there with no way to get rid of it unless I shut the pc down.
Now I have nothing and RF don't work no more. I am very dissapointed to say the least. Anyone have any idea what's going on here? I restored defaults but that made no difference. I have vista home preimium 2.8Gs dual core if you need more info let me know. Thank You---Vernski
Click to expand...

Wow a WEEK!

Even for dialup that's pretty slow...

---

The error you are seeing is talked about on this thread...

Click me!

Make sure that you "reset" G4.5 to it's defaults before you attempt to start it via the launcher panel.

Some people have also reported that after doing this, they have launced G4.5 a couple of times and the error disappears.

A user created plane in your config files may also cause this problem.

In some cases re-installing DirectX via the Microsoft redistributable has cured the problem.
 
opjose said:
Wow a WEEK!

Even for dialup that's pretty slow...

---

The error you are seeing is talked about on this thread...

Click me!

Make sure that you "reset" G4.5 to it's defaults before you attempt to start it via the launcher panel.

Some people have also reported that after doing this, they have launced G4.5 a couple of times and the error disappears.

A user created plane in your config files may also cause this problem.

In some cases re-installing DirectX via the Microsoft redistributable has cured the problem.
Click to expand...
Well it may seem slow if you have hi speed but what you don't know is I had to fight with my wife for the use of the phone line. I would leave it downloading at night just to find it had kicked off-line for some reason and I would have to start over at the beginning of a 80,000MB dck ! And so it took a bloody week!

You have to go into options first to re-set defaults so I don't know what your point is there?

The error on the thread is not the same albeit similar to it. The error I experienced
is ie: Error D3DERR_INVALIDCALL File:.\DXEffect.cpp Line:836

I have dir-x10 do I need to refresh that? this pc is less than a year old is there a better dir-x out there?

Thanx all for there help!---Vernski
 
I believe this is what he was referring too.

Old 11-02-2008, 01:40 AM
Lonz's Avatar
Lonz Lonz is offline
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4
Reply from RF Tech Support to Lonz yesterday
We regret the problems you have been experiencing.

We are currently having issues with the Intel Integrated graphics cards. We have informed our software developers of the issues and are awaiting word of a fix for the issues. I would recommend waiting a week or two before checking back for the fix. We are sorry for an inconvenience this may have caused you.

Here are some instructions for returning to previous version of RealFlight G4:

1. Make sure that RealFlight itself is not running.

2. Make sure you have an active Internet connection available on your PC. You do not need to visit any specific website.

3. Open the G4 Launcher Window.

4. Select the "Additional Options" button on the Launcher Window.

5. From the Additional Options, select the "Registration/Updates" button. This should open the "Online Updating" window.

6. From Online Updating window, you should see a button for "Update to Specific Version". You will need to complete the Online Registration first before you can Update to the Specific Version.

7. Click on Update to Specific Version, that will bring up the Available Versions box.

8. There should be a Select Version window with a list of available versions to pick from. Click on the version(4.00.054) you want to go back to to highlight it. Also be sure to check the Completely Refresh checkbox and then click OK.

We are asking all of our customers to evaluate our service. Please tell us how we did on your most recent contact with Product Support. Please take a minute and click on the link to complete a brief survey. This information will be used to improve our customer service. Thank you. http://www.hobbico.com/surveys/prod...port-survey.php Only one customer feedback survey may be submitted per day. Please submit your survey within seven days.

PLEASE REMEMBER to attach all previous correspondence (and dxdiag information if previously requested) with our responses to any follow up e-mail you may send. This will allow us to better track our attempts to troubleshoot your problem. Unfortunately, due to the volume of e-mail we receive, WE ARE UNABLE TO SAVE OR REMEMBER E-MAIL MESSAGES ONCE WE HAVE SENT A RESPONSE.

You can also reach our product support technical team at 217-398-8970 during our regular business hours Monday through Friday 8am to 7pm Central time. Be sure to have your computer specifications and serial number for your software available at the time of your call.
Last edited by Lonz : 11-02-2008 at 01:47 AM.
Reply With Quote
 
Vernski said:
I had to fight with my wife for the use of the phone line.
Click to expand...

That will certainly kill the transfer rate! :D

Vernski said:
You have to go into options first to re-set defaults so I don't know what your point is there?
Click to expand...

No, you do this from the launcher itself. Not from within G4.5.

It resets all of G4.5 back to it's defaults, and tends to fix issues when changing graphics adapters ( which I KNOW you have not done )..

Vernski said:
The error on the thread is not the same albeit similar to it. The error I experienced
is ie: Error D3DERR_INVALIDCALL File:.\DXEffect.cpp Line:836
Click to expand...

Both problems are related.

DX10 is erroring out because it is getting invalid parameters from the code that handles one of the "effects".

Normally G4.5 has been told that your video card can create these effects, by the drivers... but there is a problem somewhere in the chain of command so to speak.

Re-installing DX10 sometimes will fix this... and sometimes this may be due to G4.5 trying to utilize video settings which your card cannot handle.

Resetting G4.5 to it's defaults may fix the latter.


Vernski said:
I have dir-x10 do I need to refresh that?
Click to expand...

Yes it will not hurt anything...

Go here to pick up DX 10.1...

Click me for DirectX 10

Vernski said:
this pc is less than a year old is there a better dir-x out there?

Thanx all for there help!---Vernski
Click to expand...

The above link will download the latest version most appropriate for your computer.
 
Thanx

Thank you guys in the forum for the help and to the RF techs at Hobbico! I now have
the G4 back and up & running so I'm a happy camper so it's no problem waiting for
them to resolve the issues with the Intel graphic cards. Life is good again! Thanx
everyone.----Vernski :)
 
I updated without any issues, but my brother upgraded on his system and the map loads but no aircraft shows up for him to fly. Anyone have this issue?
 
I'm having similar issues with 4.5 I recently updated with out any problems whatsoever during the update process. I went to start the sim and my logo 600 starts bouncing on the ground until it destroys itself. I try another custom model and the same thing happens. It appears that the only working models are the ones that came with 4.5.

So I noticed there was ANOTHER update after the initial 4.5 update. It claimed that the update fixed some crashing issues.

I have the most current version of 4.5 right now and it crashes more than this sim has ever crashed before. I literally can only run this program for about 30 seconds before it crashes out.

Any suggestions?


XP SP3
AMD 6000+ x2 3.3ghz
4GB of Ram
Nvidia 8800GTX
1000w Ultra X3 PSU

I've got a pretty decent rig that can run the most demanding games that are out on the market so I doubt this is happening because I have a hardware issue.

Does anyone have any ideas about what I can do besides reverting to a previous version?
 
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