How do you begin your FS2002 flight?

[Guest Dean]

At the active runway or at the gate and taxi to the active? I ask this because I have had a problem I just can't resolve. I begin most of my flights at the terminal and request progressive taxi to the active. It starts out smooth enough with FPS in the 25-30 range but within a minute of taxiing the sim will start to stutter worse and worse until it locks up. If I do make it to the active runway the entire take off roll is like a slide show. The second I rotate and break contact with the ground the sim becomes absolutely fluid and smooth with great frame rates. If I begin at the active runway the takeoff roll is normal, I assume this is because I am only on the ground for 20-30 seconds, and the flight is very fluid until landing. I have changed video drivers, re-installed the sim, removed the S/B Live card & drivers, removed the MSFF joystick & driver and probably a dozen other things I can't remember all to no avail. I also tried all the suggestions made in Rob Young's recent thread about locking up with no success in curing this unusual problem. All FS settings are at default except resolution which is 1024/768 32 bit. What could make this sim perform so well as soon as contact with the ground breaks but so miserably while on the ground after a minute or two? Athlon 1800+, Gigabyte GA7VRXP512 meg. PC2700 Corsair CAS2, Win 98SE Visiontek G3 64 meg. Nvidia 30.82Soundblaster Live, MSFF joystick

[Guest]

Is this all airports or just one?Paulhttp://www.advdigitalmedia.com/sig.jpg

[Guest Dean]

Paul,I have had it at O'hare, DAL, DFW and EWR, all FS default. I can't really say I've tried too many different ones although I don't remember it happening at SFO or Miami. The last 2 weeks I have only been flying out of at Simflyer's DFW which is where I have been trying to fix the problem since I felt my hardware was up to running this scenery. I finally deleted it and reinstall FS2K2 to start clean. This is when I noticed the problem at the default DAL, DFW and EWR.

[Guest Dean]

Well after posting the above I realized the only thing I haven't tried was re-installing Direct X. Unfortunately, that didn't work either so I started to think about what I could be doing that might be creating this problem. I use a MSFF1 joystick connected through a gameport. The centering forces on this joystick do not work at startup with 2K2 but the feedback does resulting in a floppy stick. I found that by entering the joystick calibration page from within 2K2 and clicking on properties, it would activate the centering forces but kill the FF effects. I preferred this as I could feel the effects of trim on the centering forces which I felt was more inportant then the FF effects. By not entering the calibration routine at the beginning of the flight the sim runs fluid and smooth throughout. An incredible difference. Now though I have a floppy joystick.*:-*

[Guest]

"How do you begin your FS2002 flight?" With a beer.:-beerchug http://www3.telus.net/dport1/dansig.jpg