Befuddled !!!

[Mick]

Yesterday I took some time off from setting up FS9 in my not-so-new computer and took a flight. I encountered a problem I never saw or heard of before and I'm completely mystified. I'm posting this in the hope that someone might be able to offer a clue about what happened.

I flew Bill Lyon's Piper Cub floatplane from the pond near my home to the fictional seaplane base on a reservoir not far away. After maybe five or ten minutes in the air, as I was flying in Virtual Cockpit view, suddenly the VC disappeared. I didn't do anything that might have precipitated this. I was just flying along, looking straight ahead, when suddenly :pop4: there was no VC and I was flying in the old "invisible cockpit" view that we get when we fly a plane without a VC. I cycled the views and the VC remained absent.

I changed planes, to the stock FS9 Cub, and it had no VC either! So I switched back to the Lyons Cub on floats. Again, the VC was missing.

After a few minutes the VC returned, but after another few ninutes it disappeared again. A few minutes later it partially returned. If I looked to my left or down, I saw the VC, but if I looked straight ahead, to my right or up, there was no VC, only the "invisible cockpit" view of the world around me. Then the VC disappeared completely again. At one point as I cycled the views the 2D panel disappeared, but it came back the next time through the view cycle.

By then I was approaching my destination. As I was on final I cycled through the views and now not only the VC was missing - there was no plane visible in Spot view either! As I watched in wonderment I touched down, and I could see the splashes of the floats hitting the water and the wake they left as the plane coasted to a stop, but I still couldn't see the plane.

Has anyone else ever had anything like this happen? Does anyone have any idea what might have caused it?

I am totally befuddled! :dizzy:

[airnorth]

check your video card, could be bad or over heating

[Blackbird686]

Yep, it does sound like a bad video card. I had experienced a similar problem a few years back with an older PC. Not only did parts of the display disappear and re-appear intermittently, but in the spot plane view, the sim stuttered horribly. It usually ran pretty smooth. Not only did I have a bad video card, but a corrupted Direct X.

Luckily there are ways to get the old Direct X off and a new one installed without having to do an "IMPL", (Windows Reload).

BB686:US-flag:

[Dangerousdave26]

If that is the case I have a slightly used AGP nVidia (don't have model handy) video card that ran FS9 pretty well until the old computer Mobo blew a gasket.

If your video card is AGP send me a PM so we can negotiate.

[Mick]

Thanks to all who replied.

I think you hit on it - the video card is probably the answer. Or I should say, replacing it is probably the answer. My confuter has subsequently shown a couple other glitches that also suggest an ailing video card. That made me wonder if it might be the case in FS too, but I've been fortunate enough to have never learned how a video card problem might affect FS.

DirectX diagnostics finds no problems of any kind, so that also seems to point to the video card. But thanks for suggesting that - otherwise I wouldn't have thought to run DirectX diagnostics.

Dave, thanks for the offer, but if I need a new card I'll buy a brandy new one, complete with warranty.

I have a friend who is a confuter tech and has a business fixing them, and he's going to come by and prowl through my system's error logs, run some tests, and determine for sure what the problem is. Alas, he won't let friends pay him for his work, which is great, but it means that work for friends has to fit it in between paid gigs. (I offered to pay the regular rate, but he said no.) So unless my rig crashes completely, I may have to wait a bit for a fix. On the plus side, I can get a new card, if that's what's needed, for the wholesale price. And I have lots and lots and lots of setting up to do with FS, as I'm just getting back into the hobby after a two-year layoff and a no longer new confuter, a so it doesn't matter if I don't fly for a while. I don't really have time for that anyway right now.

Since I'd already begun to suspect that the video card was becoming glitchy, it's a relief to find that it could cause my FS trouble as well. Better one multi-faceted problem than two unrelated ones. And best of all, a problem that can be fixed by bolting in a new piece of hardware. I like that kind of simplicity!

Thanks again! :encouragement: