Hi,I confess Active Sky X has been installed on my system for quite some time, but has not been used with FSX (SP2) until today. My main sim is still FS9 but gradually, as I have been quietly customizing the sim and working out most of the performance problems, FSX is slowly drawing me away. I have ASX fully updated with SP3 (Build 1160)and currently I'm using the default settings.The program itself seems to be running fine and connects successfully with FSX, but I was somewhat taken aback this evening to find that FSX was running a slideshow between 1.7 and 2fps!I am at a loss to explain this. FSX runs well without ASX and frames are locked at 20 with the sim, in the main, managing to maintain this level of performance with superb image quality away from dense urban areas.I tried removing FSUIPC.dll in case there was a conflict with simconnect but saw no difference.I changed the affinity for ASX to CPU 1 but, again, no change. Also, it doesn't seem to matter whether textures from X Graphics or Flight Environment are installed. The sim runs fine when the recent 4096x4096 SHD cumulus clouds from FE are installed but, again, performance drops like a stone while ASX is running.I though I would post here in the hope that this was a known issue with, hopefully, a quick fix.Thanks.MikeASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (AM2CPU Board), AMD Athlon 64X2 6400+ (BE,3200MHz,Windsor), Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro, 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12(1T) (Dual Channel), (PCI-E)Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB (Catalyst 7.10 WHQL), SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum (Drivers version 5.12.0001.1196 WHQL),Antec NeoHE 650W PSU, Windows XP Home Edition (SP2), DirectX 9.0c

Hi Mike,A strange situation. It may be hard to track down, but let's see.In ASX try with High Priority Processes set both ways.What anti-virus are you using?When ASX is running, what CPU percent is it using?Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Hi Jim,Thanks for offering to help out :)Strange indeed!In ASX try with High Priority Processes set both ways.No change whether each set high or low and in all combinations of the two settings when applied to fsx.exe and XEngine.exeWhat anti-virus are you using?AVG Free 8.0.101 (LinkScanner, Resident Shield and Update Manager all disabled). I update manually every day.When ASX is running, what CPU percent is it using?Mostly 0% or sub 10%Here are a couple of images which may (or may not) help:ASX + FSXhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190026.jpgFSX only (I have exited ASX)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190027.jpgRegards,MikeEdit: Paint Shop Pro Photo XI is running merely for the purposes of grabbing and compressing those images. The problem still exists when it's not in the equation.

Hi Jim,I think I may have found the answer :)It appears that the 2 open windows (ASX and FSX) cannot coexist without this performance penalty being evident. They don't have to overlap for this to occur.If I minimize ASX to the taskbar then FSX's frame rates are immediately restored. If I restore the ASX window then FSX's performance plummets as before.The same result can be seen if I switch FSX from windowed mode to full screen. Performance is restored in full screen mode.I wonder whether it's got anything to do with the way ASX's GUI has been coded? I noted while trying to get screen captures using PSP Photo XI that I was unable to capture an image of ASX. All I got instead was the underlying detail covered by ASX of my desktop. Looks like you clever chaps have somehow managed to protect the overlay used by ASX ;)What do you think, Jim?Regards,Mike

Hi Mike,I know you found tha answer for your set-up, but I cannot reproduce this. I can run in any combination and my FPS are the same.Windowed FSX and ASX minimized.Windowed FSX and ASX running behind FSX.Full Screen FSX and ASX minimized.Full Screen FSX and ASX running behind FSX.And I know I have a much older system than you!Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Hi Jim,Hmm, that's odd :-hmmmI have since verified that this behaviour is not seen on my setup with ASv6.5 (Build 552) and FS9.I love a puzzle but, for the moment, this one sure has me beat.I wonder if anyone else feels able to chip in here?Any theories anybody?Could it have anything to do with the GPU in use?MikeEdit: I find I am also unable to capture an image of the X Graphics GUI.

I am running an older 9800 XT but with the 8.50 divers. I noticed that you are using 7.10, which are quite old.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Hi Jim,"I noticed that you are using 7.10, which are quite old"They may be 'old' but they work great with everything (ranging from various Flight sims, Space sims, Oblivion, Live for Speed, Half Life 2 series, Video capture and editing... the list goes on) installed on my rig. I could be wrong, but my understanding was that this driver set was the last to be optimised fully for the X1950 Pro GPUs.I checked the dates on the original setup files for ASX and my 7.10's. ASX precedes the latter by 5 months. There is, of course, the possibility that something may have been changed in SP2 and SP3 for ASX in the way the GUI is displayed on screen. Also, as my original post indicated, I have not used ASX with FSX until a few days ago - there didn't seem to be much point until I had sorted out all the performance issues with FSX - still not perfect (I doubt whether it will ever be) but now very flyable and beautiful to behold.In the good old days I used to chop and change drivers with hardly a second thought, but these 7.10's do deliver well and seem to be very stable. At the moment, it will require more than this minor irritation to persuade me to change - if it ain't broke... ;)Doubtless the day will come when I have to make the change, but I suspect most of the driver optimizations are currently being directed at the DX10 capable cards to ensure compatibility with the more recent software titles. Again I could be wrong and would welcome any input from others far more knowledgeable than yours truly.I do agree these symptoms suggest a graphic display conflict of some sort and it would be interesting to learn more about why this happens. However, it has to be said that I have not been aware of this behaviour in the past since the 7.10s were installed. As a quick experiment, I fired up FSX and ASv6.5:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190043.jpgAs you can see, there is no similar performance problem.So, for my money, it comes back to the way the ASX GUI has been coded and how this is interacting, presumably, with my current drivers. Whether this would change with a driver update, well I suppose, in the end, that's down to me :)Regards,MikeEdit: And, as you can see, I managed to capture an image of the ASv6.5 window - something I'm not able to do with ASX.