Strange selecting objects behaviour in FS5?

Hi,
Have just installed v5 (.04), and have some strange behaviour when I try to select objects:

1) Place an object into model using drag drop, 3d view
2) Slowly move towards with mouse
3) object highlights yellow when I hit border, great
4) as I move further towards centre of object, selection goes off again. Then on again, then off again - like there were little square selectable zones????

Also, when i try to pan across the model, by left dragging a piece of empty "floor", it usually works, but sometimes it just doesn't (no obvious logic as to when it does doesn't...)

Thanks - apologies if covered elsewhere, just getting back into FS after 18months off thus haven't really been paying much attention to whats going on here...

Paul,

I tested it and I can’t reproduce it. For me it looks like that the whole object highlights (yellow) it. I tested different zooms and had the same result, which means it is working for me.
I also can’t remember having problems when pan across the model.

I really wonder what can be the source of your issue. It is just a guess, but it sound a bit that there might be a graphic problem on your machine. But if you can see the objects, connections, etc. it does not sound like the onboard graphic problem.
But what you could try is to switch in the graphic configuration to ”compatible mode” just to test if your behavior changes. But I doubt it will.

And before I forget it: Welcome back ...

Hi,
I am on compatible mode and I couldn't reproduce ur kind of observations.

Which object is it Paul? Can you produce a screen capture of the angle or even a movie of this (say using Fraps) ?

I can't reproduce what you are describing. I also tried at various zoom levels and also at different view angles from perpendicular to negative perpendicular (from below). Many different objects in the model and once an object is highlighted by the cursor it stays highlighted as long as the cursor is still over it.

Can you select the object by clicking on it when the cusor is over the object but it is not highlighted?

Thankyou all for your responses and attempts to reproduce - cheers Tom, good to be back...

Video attached - Basically:

- No prob not just videocard, whether it highlights or not DOES correspond to whether I can click select it or not
- Basically any direction I move the mouse over the object (L-R, R-L, up-down, diagonal) the object causes it to highlight off and on - basically as i mve the mouse across an object it becomes a flashing yellow light
- Same thing for all tested objects (eg source, queue, processor, combiner)
- Obviously only occurs in 3d view
- The "selectable zones" seem to be more defined by screen pixels (roughly) than than actual zones on an object - eg when I zoom right in there's a lot more little "zones" on the object

Thanks

Paul

Paul,

I had a look into your video, and I see what you mean. I tried it on my computer again, but can’t reproduce it. Very strange behavior!
Sorry, but I can’t give you any help or hints. I never heard or saw this problem before. I guess that one of the developers should have a look and might have an idea or heard about it.

Paul,

Have you tried the compatible mode? Because I can't tell from your answer if you have tried it or not. To me it does look like graphics card problems. But if compatible mode doesn't solve it than it is very strange.

It looks from the video like you can't even move the mouse smoothly across an object - the mouse appears to jump from one position to another. Whereas when you reposition the view angle the movement seems smooth.

I assume it's not on a remote desktop and that the graphics settings are default? What system/ graphics card is it?

Compatibility mode DID actually do the trick, cheers (should have read your reply more carefully Tom, and had guessed not video card because the selecting was effected...). Graphics not so smooth now but at least I can reliably select (BTW, the jumpiness is just fraps).

For whats its worth, my setup is (reading straight from device manager)

- 2 x Intel Core 2 T7400 @ 2.16 GHz
- 2 GB Ram
- ATI Mobility fireGL V5200 running the notebook + external monitor

Thanks all - Just to clarify, are there any steps that I can take here before I go buy a new video card? (I can only imagine what compatibility mode will be like when the model gets big...). Don't have the time to spend days stuffing around with driver versions, but happy check and uncheck a few tick boxes...

Maybe this can help:
http://www.flexsim.com/community/for...ead.php?t=1399
If not it would be nice to gain knowledge about actual hardware on market.

Are you sure you have the last driver version, either from the laptop vendor or from the graphics card manufacturer? Because that usually helps a lot!

When graphics are accelerated (i.e. you're not in compatibility mode), Flexsim uses an OpenGL extension called occlusion queries to determine what is under the mouse when you click/move. If you're having problems in accelerated mode, it's either a bad implementation of occlusion queries on the graphics driver, which means you might want to either update or rollback your graphics driver to see if different versions fix the issue, or maybe there's some settings in your graphics driver that need to be adjusted. So if you see anything in your graphics card settings console that has to do with occlusion queries, try changing it around. That's a long shot, though, because I've never seen anything like that before. But you never know.

Problem solved (I think) with a driver update. Thanks all

Sadly have to update this - cannot drag select in 3d view. Specifically, when i shift drag around a group of items in the 3d view no red boxes appear (although the same process works fine for the tree edit window and the planar views).

Video card again?

Check again with compatibility mode again. I know that with ATI it might take a few drivers before everything works as it should (at least that is my experience)
So try if you can find a driver from ATI if you updated the driver from the laptop manufacturer

Thanks Steven,

Think I finally understand the principle if you have UI problems, try compatibility mode - yes that fixed it. Wasn't aware how big a role the video card played...

Hi all,

I just want to let you know that I can confirm the strange behaviour related with an ATI graphics adapter. My PC had an ATI Radeon X1650 and after upgrading from FS4 to FS5 the problem with selecting objects appeared. The Radeon driver was quite old (from 2008), so I updated that one and installed Catalyst 10.2. After that the flickering when moving the mouse over an object stopped and clicking on objects worked fine. With the old driver clicking and selecting object did not work in around 50% of all clicks. I also found it difficult to drag objects from the library into the model. They seemed to disappear but where infact just positioned very far away from the actual point where I wanted to place them.
I can confirm Pauls issue with the drag select function. It simply doesnt work even with the new driver. There are no red boxes at all.
The compatibility mode worked like a charm as it doesnt use the ATI driver (right?).
The solution was quite simple. My IT administrator installed a new NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT and now everything works fine.

But I would like to point out that this problem is NOT a big issue. I seldom use "drag select" (in fact not at all) and after installing the new Catalyst driver I had no worries with Flexsim. So installing the latest driver should be the first thing to do when facing issues with the UI. And most ATI cards work fine with Flexsim. I also have a notebook with a ATI FireGL card where everything is running fine and drag select works well.

Cheers,
Stephan