Transparent textures problem

[Shessi]

Hi Folks,
Yes, no doubt some people are saying that ol' chestnut again, BUT I just can't find anything on SOH or trawling the net to cure it.....

As you can see all the main texs are transparent. The only way to correct this is to remove the alpha channel, which then causes poor textures. I've tried removing from just the main texs or bump map or specular texs, but I have to remove the alphas from all to show.

I've tried the anisotropic setting in FSX (plus bi-linear and tri), AA on and off, combos of all those, still no go.
I'm running XP Home with 4Gb RAM, obviously with Dx 9.0c, E8600 at 3.2GHz, an ATi 4890 1Gb with latest drivers.
It's a vanilla FSX De-luxe without any add-ons or SP/Acceleration packs. I'm getting 30+ FRs most places with no stutters and no ground texture blurries.

As you can see on pic 2 the cockpit and pilots (who don't have any maps or alphas) are standard texs and look great, but the rest of the ac texs looks poor due to having to remove the alphas to see them.

Is it purely an Ati/driver issue or??

Any suggestions to save my sanity please...

Many thanks

Cheers Shessi

[Bjoern]

Happens when planes made to the SP2/Acceleration standard are used on SP1 level installations.

[Shessi]

Ahh, so there is a simple answer, thank you!

So then installing SP1, running FSX, then SP2, should be the answer?

Cheers

Shessi

[Shessi]

Many thanks Bjoern,

That did it!

I don't know why there's not that simple answer, easy to find, on the net? oh well......

Cheers

Shessi

[fsafranek]

Many thanks Bjoern,

That did it!

I don't know why there's not that simple answer, easy to find, on the net? oh well......

Cheers

Shessi

There is now.
:ernae:

[icarus]

probably you could also have resolution creating a new alpha channel.

[Bjoern]

I don't know why there's not that simple answer, easy to find, on the net? oh well......

Finding an answer to your inquiry would have been a bit tricky in terms of keywords, but doable.

After all, every post about a FSX issue is just a repost of a repost of a repost of a repost of a post about an issue made on day one of FSX/service pack availability.

[Shessi]

fsafranek,
Ha ha, that's exactly what I thought! Hope it will be useful to someone.

Bjoern,
Surprised me, but if you Google FSX and "transparent textures", there are a lot of answers about making transparent textures for FSX, SP2 'breaking' DXT1/3 transparent textures, porting over Fs9 ac to FSX that have transparent texs, and some old pre-SP1 posts of transparent texs problems. Even here at the SOH (I suppose we lost a lot in the last crash), the only suggestion is to 'drop the alpha'.
BUT no one as you did just giving that simple answer?!! ho hum, but guess what there is now.

Again thanks for the help, and as my FSX looks good, I won't be installing SP2 (Multiplayer compatibility and DirectX® 10 preview not needed)

Cheers Shessi