Problem 2016 Orbiter Flight Simulator Launch Problem

[Outerspace]

I just downloaded and installed the 2016 version of the Orbiter Flight Simulator software onto my computer.

However, whenever I try to launch the 2016 Orbiter Flight Simulator software program, it always is not able to do it successfully, and it also always displays an error message.

The error message is, "Initialising 3D environment using a hardware device failed. Try again with a software device".

I do not know why I got this particular error message, and I also do not know how to fix it as well.

I would greatly appreciate any timely technical support in resolving this situation as soon as possible.

Thank you.

---------- Post added at 04:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 AM ----------

After performing some troubleshooting steps on my own, I managed to get my 2016 version of the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program launched successfully, and without getting the earlier error message that I had been getting frequently when I tried to launch it previously.

The troubleshooting steps that I took are as follows:

(1) Left mouse clicking on the Orbiter Flight Simulator desktop icon to start the launchpad main control panel;

(2) Left mouse clicking on the "Video" tab on the left hand side of the launchpad main control panel;

(3) Selecting the "Direct 3D T&L HAL" option under the "3D Device" section;

(4) Left mouse clicking on the check tick box of the "Always enumerate devices" option;

(5) Left mouse clicking the "Full Screen" option;

(6) Setting the Screen resolution setting to a particular video resolution setting that works for your own personal computer system.

You might have to try different video resolution settings in order to determine which particular one works for your own personal computer system well, and without experiencing any problems at all.

You can do this by trying a particular video resolution setting and seeing whether it works in helping you to launch the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program successfully.

If a particular video resolution setting does NOT work to start the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program successfully, you just simply have to adjust the video resolution setting to another completely different one, and testing it out to see whether it works or not to help you to launch the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program successfully.

It is merely a process of trial-and-error that you have to follow, in order to eventually find a particular video resolution setting that is suitable for your own personal computer system.

The particular video resolution setting that works is different for different personal computer systems, as each and every single personal computer system has different specifications/ components/ parts installed.

You just have to choose a particular video resolution setting that is most suitable and most appropriate for your own personal computer system.

I hope that by taking action of the above mentioned corrective/ remedial troubleshooting steps, you can also solve the "Initialising 3D environment using a hardware device failed. Try again with a software device" error message problem successfully.

 

[martins]

Good to hear that you managed to get it working. Just for reference, would you mind providing a bit more info about your installation that may help analysing the problem:

- what's the video hardware installed in your computer?
- what is the native screen resolution of your monitor?
- are you using the built-in D3D7 client, or the external D3D9 client?
- what are the Orbiter video settings that worked for you?
- an example of a setting that _didn't_ work?

 

[Outerspace]

Hi Martins,

These are my answers to your questions in your earlier reply to my original post:

- The video hardware installed on my computer is an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card.

Anyone can easily find out what video hardware is installed on their own personal computer system, by specifically using the Windows DirectX Diagnostic Tool feature built in the Windows Operating System.

Just left mouse click on the search magnifying glass icon on the bottom left hand side of the menu bar on the Windows main desktop, and then typing in the search words, "dxdiag", into the search box itself.

Press the Enter key to enable an automatic search in your many different computer files to finally locate and bring up the DirectX Diagnostic Tool windows dialog box.

Left mouse click on the "Display" tab at the top of the DirectX Diagnostic Tool windows dialog box to go to the page that lists your own unique video hardware configuration settings.

All the various different video hardware configuration settings will be displayed under the "Device" section.

- The native screen resolution of my monitor is 3840 X 2160;

- I do not know what is the D3D7 client or the D3D9 client. Maybe you could provide me with a more detailed and in-depth explanation of what the both of them are;

- The Orbiter video settings that worked for me is 2560 X 1440;

- An example of a video setting that did not work is 3840 X 2160.

It turns out that my own personal computer system is not able to start and run the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program at my computer monitor's highest video resolution settings, but it is able to be started and run at a lower video resolution setting.

I'm assuming it is because my own personal computer hardware system does not have very advanced, very sophisticated, and very up-to-date computer hardware components/ parts, to be able to support displaying very high quality high definition video/ audio resolutions in the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program.

To solve this computer hardware issue, all I have to do is to just upgrade my own personal computer system to a newer, more powerful, and more modern one, which has a range of much improved computer hardware components/ parts installed in it.

There is just no way for any old, obsolete, and outdated computer systems to be able to display any high quality high definition video/ audio resolution in any simulation software program effectively and efficiently, as they are just not superior enough in terms of their technological abilities to do so.

 

[ADSWNJ]

Hi Outerspace,

I assume your PC is just fine to run Orbiter. Your resolution is large for a single monitor, not in any way suggesting an old obsolete system.

Regarding D3D7 versus D3D9, D3D7 is the default graphics engine in Orbiter.exe. Martins designed this environment to allow add-on developers to create additional graphics engines, based on later versions of DirectX. If you search for D3D9 or D3D11, you will find many posts in here. Whilst you may think that D3D11 would be the bext place to go (i.e. highest number), you would be wrong, as there is far more development on D3D9.

To use - find and install the D3D9 package, and then use the Orbiter_NG.exe (no graphics) application, and it will then connect to D3D9. Again - expect to have to do some work on the video settings to get it to work nicely for you.

Why bother with D3D9? Answer: gorgeous graphics, at a much higher frame-rate. It's really a stunning difference.

 

[martins]

- I do not know what is the D3D7 client or the D3D9 client. Maybe you could provide me with a more detailed and in-depth explanation of what the both of them are;

D3D7 is the graphics engine built into orbiter.exe. The D3D9 client is an external graphics engine that can be installed for Orbiter and then used by the graphics server version of Orbiter (orbiter_ng.exe). If you don't know what I am talking about, then you are probably running the buit-in D3D7 engine.

Which is interesting, because I thought the resolution limit for D3D7 was 2048x1536. If you managed to make it run at 2560x1440 then this is already better than I would have given D3D7 credit for.

In any case, switching to D3D9 should fix your resolution problems. There is a download link on the Orbiter download page.

 

[Outerspace]

Hi Martins,

I think that I also need to upgrade my own personal computer system to a newer, more advanced, more sophisticated, more powerful one, which has more computing and processing capabilities, more memory, and has much better overall performance.

Any type of video graphics display problem is usually both a computer hardware and a computer software issue occurring at the same time.

Just by downloading, installing, and using a new graphics software mod, while still using an older, obsolete, and outdated computer hardware system will not be able to solve any type of video graphics problem permanently.

I have to change both my computer hardware and computer software all at the same time, in order to solve any type of video graphics problem completely.

 

[GLS]

Hi Martins,

I think that I also need to upgrade my own personal computer system to a newer, more advanced, more sophisticated, more powerful one, which has more computing and processing capabilities, more memory, and has much better overall performance.

Any type of video graphics display problem is usually both a computer hardware and a computer software issue occurring at the same time.

Just by downloading, installing, and using a new graphics software mod, while still using an older, obsolete, and outdated computer hardware system will not be able to solve any type of video graphics problem permanently.

I have to change both my computer hardware and computer software all at the same time, in order to solve any type of video graphics problem completely.

Before spending money, please try the D3D9 addon.

 

[Outerspace]

To GLS,

Did you read my earlier post in this particular thread?

I had already tried to start the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program at the 3840 X 2160 video resolution setting, but it did not work at all.

The HIGHEST MAXIMUM video resolution setting that I can possibly run the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program is at the 2560 X 1440 video resolution setting.

My own personal computer hardware system is not able to effectively display the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program at any video resolution setting that is above 2560 X 1440, mainly because of the restrictive limitations of my own old, obsolete, and outdated personal computer hardware computing and graphics processing capabilities.

That is why your advice of downloading, installing, and using the new D3D9 graphics mod addon is not very useful and very helpful to me at all.

If I really want to display the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program at any type of high definition video resolution settings, I definitely must upgrade all of the many different individual components and parts of my own personal computer hardware system, such as my computer monitor, central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), graphics card, motherboard, hard disk drive, optical disk drive, power supply unit, modem, USB cables, HDMI cables, keyboard, mouse, loudspeakers, headset, etc.

Just by upgrading my computer software without upgrading my computer hardware is virtually useless, as my old, obsolete, and outdated computer hardware is not able to support any new computer software very effectively and very efficiently.

 

[GLS]

My own personal computer hardware system is not able to effectively display the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program at any video resolution setting that is above 2560 X 1440, mainly because of the restrictive limitations of my own old, obsolete, and outdated personal computer hardware computing and graphics processing capabilities

I think you got it backwards. The problem isn't your hardware but actually software limitations in the D3D7 graphics engine, which the default Orbiter installation uses. The D3D9 addon uses a more recent version of DirectX (version 9), which allows you to extract more out of your hardware.

BTW: don't call you computer "old, obsolete, and outdated".... mine is much worse than yours, and runs Orbiter without major issues. :shrug:

 

[4throck]

:hesaid:

Mine is at 1920x1080, that's as high as my monitor goes.
But I have antialiasing set to 4X. That matters much more than absolute resolution

 

[Outerspace]

Hi GLS,

No, I did identify the problem correctly - it lies with my own personal computer hardware system.

My own personal computer system is generally considered to be old, obsolete, and outdated, if I were to compare it to the newest and latest computer technologies that are available right now.

The computer industry is always advancing very rapidly, and any new computer software usually has very demanding system requirements in order to be run successfully without a hitch.

I like to play computer games regularly, and I always encounter problems, such as laggy frame rates, whenever I turn on all of the many different computer graphics effects in any new computer games.

This clearly indicates that my own personal computer hardware system is not advanced, not sophisticated, and not powerful enough to support any new computer software which has very demanding system requirements.

You might be able to run Orbiter Flight Simulator using your "worse off" computer hardware system without major issues, but it does not work for me.

I believe that you must upgrade your computer hardware to be able to run any new computer software very smoothly and very fast.

To believe that any old, obsolete, and outdated computer hardware is able to run any new computer software with very demanding system requirements effectively and efficiently is not very realistic.

I'm very willing to spend money to invest in any type of new computer hardware system that is able to run any type of new computer software very well.

I always want good computer performance, as I do not like to experience any serious problems/ errors running any type of new computer software program.

 

[martins]

Just to reiterate everybody else's advice in this thread: Running Orbiter on a more powerful computer will not solve the problem you are reporting. Don't say we didn't warn you. If you absolutely refuse to use the D3D9 client, then the resolution limitations of Orbiter's graphics engine will not go away. In fact you may be better off running it on a less powerful system that doesn't even offer the option of setting a resolution beyond HD.

 

[Outerspace]

Hi Martins,

I'm not saying that I refuse to use the new D3D9 graphics mod, I'm saying that it probably will not work in my current own personal computer hardware system, which I personally consider to be old, obsolete, and outdated by today's computer technology standards.

In my case, only a newer, more advanced, more sophisticated, and more powerful computer hardware system is able to support displaying high definition graphics in the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program.

I don't believe that a less powerful computer hardware system will be able to display any high definition graphics very well in the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program.

 

[Ripley]

You can believe whatever you want, but have you at least tried D3D9?
Just to make good use of the advice you have been looking for, by posting your problems in this forum?
Advice which, BTW, has been generously given to you by this community, as it usually does?

Because you only write again and again that you absolutely must upgrade your "old, outdated, obsolete" hardware...
You could get a shock by the gorgeous D3D9 results (and save a good share of money too)!

 

[Marijn]

D3D9 will most likely solve your problem. On my old computer DX7 is not working. But I never bothered about that because the first thing I do when installing Orbiter is unzipping the D3D9 zip archive in the main Orbiter folder and activate it like any other add-on.

You asked a question. And you get answers. From some very knowledgeable people. It's not very wise to ignore them. Your assumption that D3D9 will degrade peformance even further is false.

Am I right that you have no idea how to install add-ons? I think you're a bit scared. And there is no reason to be. It's easy. And we will answer any questions you might have. But if you insist on being stubborn, then perhaps it's better not to ask questions.

 

[Donamy]

There is really no comparison.

 

[bcbarnes]

Agree with Ripley - seems a little silly to have a discussion lasting 5 days (so far) when it would take about 10 minutes at most to download and install the D3D9 driver and give it a try.

 

[GLS]

Agree with Ripley - seems a little silly to have a discussion lasting 5 days (so far) when it would take about 10 minutes at most to download and install the D3D9 driver and give it a try.

Still, we got the first hit on google for the expression "old, obsolete, and outdated".

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I've got an "old, obsolete, and outdated" computer next to me running Windows 98 (no longer hooked to the internet). Running Orbiter 2010 using the D3D9 client and it looks great.

 

[Outerspace]

Hi guys,

I'm very thankful and very grateful for all the many different wonderful helpful and useful advice that you have given to me over the past couple of days in attempting to solve the video resolution problems in Orbiter Flight Simulator.

I really appreciate it a lot!

However, I always still think that to be able to achieve the best performance results in any computer software program, including Orbiter Flight Simulator, will be seen in the newest, latest, most advanced, most sophisticated, and most powerful computer hardware systems.

I'm fully aware that the new D3D9 graphics enhancement mod might work well in older computer hardware systems, but they definitely will probably not work as well in newer computer hardware systems.

I'm certainly willing to give the new D3D9 graphics enhancement mod a try, as I'm always interested in any new additional DLC mods for any software program that will make any existing computer software program even better with new product features.

---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 AM ----------

I just downloaded the D3D9 graphics enhancement mod.

How do I install it in the Orbiter Flight Simulator software program?