I have a strange problem that has appeared recently with the sim. It has so far happened three times in the past three flights, and is really ticking me off.First time, it was a flight from VHHH to EGLL, and on short final, an out of memory error popped up. Now, I was able to go back to the sim, finish the landing, and taxi off the runway, but all of the AI aircraft and ground scenery textures were gone. Everything was grey, ground tiles were really blurry, taxiways had no texture just grey and a yellow line. As soon as I tried to end the flight, the sim locked up with just a black window. I could still hear the sound, but the sim became unresponsive.Yesterday, I repeated the flight, and the same exact thing happened. Except this time, it was a plain ol' error "FS.9 has encountered a problem and needs to shut down". All the textures, again went blank. When I tried to switch views, the window went black, but after I hit pause, and cycled the window view again, I got the picture back, albeit without textures. After I tried to end the flight, the sim became unresponsive.Last, I did a flight from EGLL to KJFK. This time on the ground, I went to spot view, to check out the plane, the sim AGAIN encountered an error, the screen went black, and after pressing pause and cycling views, I was able to get the picture back. Textures were still there this time.Video driver updates are not an option, since I am one of the unfortunate few with a 7800GT card, that gets texture corruption and flickering with any drivers later than 78.XX.The only changes made before this started happening: installed Cloud9's Amsterdam scenery.Did anyone else have similar issues before?Your help is much appreciated.

Sergey, Posted: 02-03-2006 at 9:56am | IP Logged Quote psolkJust so happened that someone on one of the other forums was having a similar problem so I went through and ran through a checklist with some of my findings. hopefully it will help...I hope I can help, I have been there before and have spent months troubleshooting these issues. I run dual 7800 GTX with 3 monitors and I too am stuck with the 78.05 drivers. I can really feel your pain ;)I have a few questions for you based on my findings...1. What Aircraft are you using? Are you using a SID/STAR2. Is there any add-on scenery involved including modified Afcad files?3. Do you use an add-on traffic program, UT or MT for example?4. Are you using any other add-ons while you fly, including things like ASV, FDC etc...5. How much physical RAM do you use and what is your swap file set to? 6. How much free space is available on the drive with a swap file?7. In the unlikely event it is a hardware memory error, have you run memtest?If you can answer those for me it should help us run down a little checklist. I tore down FS to the default and have been spending months installing add-ons one at a time. I have seen the following cause the memory described...8. Modified terrain.cfg9. Improperly removed scenery from a previous install10. Improper Render to Texture setting in FS9.cfg1. Landclass files improperly placed. There are some rumors going around that a LandClass file should NEVER have a texture folder and that ANY LC file with a texture folder will cause a leak. That is not true. If the LC file specifically calls a texture file in the texture folder it is referencing then there is no problem. If the LC file does not call any texture files and there is a LC file it will still search the texture folder but it will not free up the memory it uses to search. It looks some more, memory never gets released and you have an Out of Memory error. This is when the there should be no texture folder. People assume anytime they see a LC file it needs to be moved and that is not necessarily the case. Incidentally, I found that some of the add-ons for VHHH do have LC issues. 2. Third party programs that when used in conjunction with certain add-ons cause an out of memory. They might be fine alone or with other a/c but there are certain programs that just do not play well with some of the more advanced add-ons.3. AI. This is a killer. If you use an add-on traffic program, open up the AFCAD to an airport like KJFK. Then open up the surrounding files, KEWR, KLGA. In total you will have something like 1000 AI in a 20 mile span. MT for example lists KEWR with something like 15 runways and gives ILS approaches for helicopters. Now you multiply that by 3 airports in the region and your poor simulator is trying to load 45 runways. All of these files get used even if you are not flying into that particular airport. Remove the Afcad entirely or try even removing surrounding Afcads. You can also manually go in and correct the runway usage. KEWR for example should have 4L/22R closed for landings and 4R/22L closed for departure. Personally I disable 11/29 completely as it is very rarely used in real life. In other words, there is a lot of factors that need to be looked at with AI beyond just texture issues. Duplicate AFCADS or AFCADS with conflicting information will also cause a CTD or OOM message.4.A corrupt swap file can cause this error in which case Microsoft.com has a fix for removing and recreating the swap5. If a drive is low on space and can not grow the swap it will produce this message6. Bad Ram or unmatched Ram can cause this error, hence suggesting you run memtest for at least 48-72 hours.One thing I have found for certain is that it is very rarely ONE add-on causing a problem. It is usually another add-on that might have been added at a later date that forces the issue to surface. Sometimes an add-on that has worked for years will be exposed for the issue it had all along by another add-on you added later. Never assume it is just the plane you are flying OR the last thing you added. It could go much much deeper...I sincerely hope this helps,-PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

Psolk himself is trying to help me out!!! I am honored (not at all being sarcastic, I just used a lot of your advice from other posts here and on the OTHER site)...Ok, let me answer in order then. Let's start with the machine specs first:AMD 4400+ X2 processorAsus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo4GB Corsair XMS RAM (I ran memtest from a bootable CDfor 11 hours w/o errors)150Gb Raptor2x200Gb Maxtor drives in RAID0 for other programseVGA 7800GT (518N) 256Mb card (77.79 drivers, nothing over 78.01 works)650W Enermax supplyWater-cooling by AquagateAudigy 4 sound cardI don't think I've missed anything. Now, the rest I will answer one by one.>I have a few questions for you based on my findings...>1. What Aircraft are you using? Are you using a SID/STARIn all 3 of the circumstances I was using PMDGs 744. Two last times I used a SID, but not a STAR (I can't make use of them anyway with the MSFS ATC)>2. Is there any add-on scenery involved including modified>Afcad files?In the first situation, I was flying into a default EGLL. By the second time, I had installed UK2000 scenery. KJFK is default. I also have OSS Gatwick, KPVD scenery and the freeware Boston scenery v.2. They are all nearby, so I don't know if it matters or not.>3. Do you use an add-on traffic program, UT or MT for>example?I use Traffic 2005.>4. Are you using any other add-ons while you fly, including>things like ASV, FDC etc...I use ActiveSky 6 and FSPassengers.>5. How much physical RAM do you use and what is your swap>file set to? I have 4Gb of Corsair XMS RAM. The top and bottom limits of the swap file size is set at 1.5 times that (6144Mb). I have partitioned the Raptor, and the swap file is on a separate partition, which is 6.15 Gb.>6. How much free space is available on the drive with a swap>file?120Mb on top of the swap file size.>7. In the unlikely event it is a hardware memory error, have>you run memtest?Yes. Memory is stable.>8. Modified terrain.cfgI do not know. I don't have any mesh scenery though.>9. Improperly removed scenery from a previous install.Hmmm... Well, here's the thing. From someone's post, I have partitioned the Raptor with 4 partitions. One for the FS, one for the swap file, one for the operating system, and one for the scenery. I had to manually move some of the scenery (specifically I think it was Cloud9 Amsterdam and FlightZone's Rhode Island, but it could have been more)to the partition, which was set aside for it. I left EGLL scenery on the FS partition, since that's what was recommended by the install.>10. Improper Render to Texture setting in FS9.cfgI used the FS Manager (ranainside.com) to turn Render to Texture on. With my drivers, the off setting at times creates additional anomalies (panels disappearing, etc)>11. Landclass files improperly placed. There are some rumors>going around that a LandClass file should NEVER have a texture>folder and that ANY LC file with a texture folder will cause a>leak. That is not true. If the LC file specifically calls a>texture file in the texture folder it is referencing then>there is no problem. If the LC file does not call any texture>files and there is a LC file it will still search the texture>folder but it will not free up the memory it uses to search. >It looks some more, memory never gets released and you have an>Out of Memory error. This is when the there should be no>texture folder. People assume anytime they see a LC file it>needs to be moved and that is not necessarily the case. >Incidentally, I found that some of the add-ons for VHHH do>have LC issues. I have used FSManager to move all of my Landclass files to a separate folder. I don't have any addons for VHHH>12. Third party programs that when used in conjunction with>certain add-ons cause an out of memory. They might be fine>alone or with other a/c but there are certain programs that>just do not play well with some of the more advanced add-ons.Hmmm.... Like FSPassengers and PMDG planes?>13. AI. This is a killer. If you use an add-on traffic>program, open up the AFCAD to an airport like KJFK. Then open>up the surrounding files, KEWR, KLGA. In total you will have>something like 1000 AI in a 20 mile span. MT for example>lists KEWR with something like 15 runways and gives ILS>approaches for helicopters. Now you multiply that by 3>airports in the region and your poor simulator is trying to>load 45 runways. All of these files get used even if you are>not flying into that particular airport. Remove the Afcad>entirely or try even removing surrounding Afcads. You can also>manually go in and correct the runway usage. KEWR for example>should have 4L/22R closed for landings and 4R/22L closed for>departure. Personally I disable 11/29 completely as it is>very rarely used in real life. In other words, there is a lot>of factors that need to be looked at with AI beyond just>texture issues. Duplicate AFCADS or AFCADS with conflicting>information will also cause a CTD or OOM message.I have heard that before, as well. However, how do I identify a potentially problematic AFCAD?>14.A corrupt swap file can cause this error in which case>Microsoft.com has a fix for removing and recreating the swapNot sure if this is the case. I can try to move it to RAID array, and then back.>5. If a drive is low on space and can not grow the swap it>will produce this message>6. Bad Ram or unmatched Ram can cause this error, hence>suggesting you run memtest for at least 48-72 hours.I have 120Mb of free space on top of the swap file on the partition. I ran memtest a number of times, with the longest period being about 11 hours or so. I never had issues with it.I hope this sheds some light on the potential issues. I sincerely appreciate your help Paul, and I am certain that with your help this can be resolved.Sincerely,

Paul--Another thing you said, I think, was duplicate AFCADS. Nowadays every scenery comes with its own. Traffic 2005 supplies all major ones and a lot of mediums size ones. Do you think this conflict can also be a problem. I am singling out all the ones that are duplicated in the Traffic folder, and renaming them to .bak, to see if this cures the problem. It's just crazy that it just started happening over the past several days, where it ran before w/o problems.-----------------------------------------Sergey Kireyevhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg

After leaving the sim to run for about 4 hours while I was at work (Traffic 2005 tower at EGLL), I came back to find an error. Here's what it said:AppName: fs9.exe AppVer: 9.1.0.40901 ModName: ai_playr.dllModVer: 9.1.0.40901 Offset: 0000b61bSo... I am still at square one, since renaming the duplicate AFCADS didn't seem to help.Cheers,>Paul-->Another thing you said, I think, was duplicate AFCADS.>Nowadays every scenery comes with its own. Traffic 2005>supplies all major ones and a lot of mediums size ones. Do you>think this conflict can also be a problem. I am singling out>all the ones that are duplicated in the Traffic folder, and>renaming them to .bak, to see if this cures the problem. It's>just crazy that it just started happening over the past>several days, where it ran before w/o problems.>>----------------------------------------->Sergey Kireyev>>http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg-----------------------------------------Sergey Kireyevhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg

Hey Sergey, I did not want you to think I forgot about you. I just walked in from work 10pm est. and have to prepare for a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. large deal i am trying to close. You have my word that I will take a look at your answers tomorrow and see if we can't get this figured out. I really apologize for leaving oyu in the lurch like this but I promise to get to it around noon tomorrow when my meeting is done and I am back homeSorry again,-PaulThanks for the complement by the way, nice to know someone actually reads the posts from time to time :)Liquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

Paul--I can relate regarding work. I am probably the busiest I have ever been at work, so I don't heckle people with the understanding that this is after all a hobby (granted, I think all of us showed up at work with dark circles under our eyes from that red-eye from time to time). The latest thing I have done is tried to move the sceneries back to the original folder on the same drive, and so far, as a result textures in some airports have turned blank. I messed it up more than it was already, I think.>Hey Sergey, I did not want you to think I forgot about you. >I just walked in from work 10pm est. and have to prepare for a>meeting first thing tomorrow morning. large deal i am trying>to close. You have my word that I will take a look at your>answers tomorrow and see if we can't get this figured out. I>really apologize for leaving oyu in the lurch like this but I>promise to get to it around noon tomorrow when my meeting is>done and I am back home>Sorry again,>-Paul>>Thanks for the complement by the way, nice to know someone>actually reads the posts from time to time :)>>>Liquid Cooled>AMD 4000 San Diego>2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2>Dual 7800 GTX >24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCD>Raid-0>-----------------------------------------Sergey Kireyevhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg

Hey Sergey,Thanks for understanding on the work front. Busy is good right??? I keep telling my self that. I actually spent most of my day on the phone with IBM so I am just wrapping up now. I apologize for getting back to you so late...First off, beautiful system, very similar to mine. Here is my setup http://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.html but I love what you are running. You can try the 78.05 drivers from www.tweaksrus.com That is what I run with the XFX cards and they are very good. I have the same 8x.xx problems as you though... I have heard for a single card the new 83.90 drivers actually work great. Something to consider when we get you back up and running...OK so lets take this one step at a time so we can try and isolate what is going on. First things first. No matter what we do we only do one thing at a time and then check it throougly, otherwise we will never truly know what is going on. That is my only rule ;)So lets start from the ground up with your latest problems...You said you moved some of your scenery files recently and now some of your airports do not have textures. If you moved the entire directory and modified the scenery.cfg to point to the new location this should not be the case. You also said that you used Flightsim Manager, great program by the way to move all of your landclass files. Did you do these two things simultaneously? In other words did you move the landclass files, then go back into FS ensure everything was ok and then go back and move the scenery. I am thinking some of those landclass files might have had associated textures, hence now them being most likely solid grey.Lets start there and see if we can get the textures back and then we can move on. One problem at a time if that is ok.. Looking forward to helping you, (or at least trying)-PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0

Hey Paul--I downloaded and set up 78.05 drivers a few days back, and so far I've had no issues save for what we have discussed. Yes, I have moved the scenery folders into the Addon Scenery folder in FS9. I downloaded some AFCAD checker program from Avsim, but it didn't pick up any sceneries, even after I moved them and update the scenery cfg file. Prior to that, all sceneries were on their own partition. As I recall, that's how someone else has setup their machine and said it performed better that way. So far FlyTampa's KMDW is the only one that lost textures. I haven't seen any other ones, but they may be out there. It's hard to tell whether me moving the scenery caused this, since I haven't used the airport in a while. It had worked before just fine.I let FSM relocated landclass files for me way before this issue, and the airport worked good. That was a result of downloading the FS Mesh from FSGenesis at some point and having a memory leak issue with KMDW. I got rid of the mesh, and the problem went away. I am pretty certain that this is a result of something having to do with my latest installations. The crashes started fairly shortly after I installed Cloud9's Amsterdam. I wonder if that scenery could be the culprit.Regards,-----------------------------------------Sergey Kireyevhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpgPS: Nice system BTW. I should have gotten another monitor instead of 4Gb of RAM. You live--you learn!

Well... I thought maybe putting the addon sceneries back into the FS9 folder would fix the aiplayr.dll crash, but to no avail. It still happens like clockwork, everytime... Now, I have kept the things the way they are, but turned off AI completely. I will update with the results.:(-----------------------------------------Sergey Kireyevhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_pf.jpg

Sergey,Sorry for th edelay in getting back to you. Things are crazy right now. Apologies again.Just from my own findings, FS and most programs in general like to be installed to default directories. With that being said, the only thing I think it is really important to have on seperate partitions is your swap file. That way if you need to you can format that drive and re-create your swap without it ever fragmenting. It is a good use of disk space. The ideal thing to do is to create seperate partitions for different builds of XP, one for FS and one for everything else. With this setup I can play things like the new Codemasters TOCA 3 on my second XP build with the new 83.90 drivers. I then have my FS build of XP with different drivers and settings for XP entirely. Now if you run into the worst cast and want to really start over with FS you can format the entire build of XP and not touch any of your other applications or games or data etc...Now that I am done with that little tangent, back to your problem. First thing I noticed was your swap file drive. I know this isn't the issue but do you really only have 120 megs free on that drive? With a 6 gig swap you would ideally want ~ 1-2 gigs free space on that drive/partition. Good rule of thumb is ~ 20% of the swap available as free space.Second, did you get the texture issue resolved? If it is only the one scenery, can you do a re-install?Let me know what is going on with this AI error. We can troubleshoot that next,-Paul

Hey Paul--I spent the entire weekend troubleshooting till I could get somewhat consistent results. It would take another few days to test my theory out, but so be it. So far, this is what I have done: made my swap file partition bigger (now it has about 25% free space), deleted FlyTampa's KMDW (I rarely fly there nowadays, and it wouldn't make it or break it for me, but crashes into EGLL would), tested extensively at various airports to see if the crash would occur everywhere or just at EGLL. So far, I tested at KBOS, LOWW, EHAM, KJFK, KSEA, EGKK, and EGLL. I would start the system up, load Just Flight's tower (from Traffic 2005), and tune into a Ground frequency, and just let the sim run for a couple of hours. So far, as reliable as my testing can be deemed, the aiplayr.dll error occured only at EGLL about 1h50m to 2h00m into the run time. I want to say that it's probably due to a bad AFCAD, since there can be no duplicates (I renamed the Traffic 2005 ones to .bak files), but this is what baffles me: I have renamed the Traffic 2005 version, and the crash still occurs. Yesterday, at EGLL I saw a 'formation' of 737s flying in for a landing. They were flying in a V like a flock of geese, I kid you not. The same issues I saw when I at one point in time installed freeware VHHH. I removed it the same day, due to AFCAD issues (parking of planes in dirt piles, etc). I searched the forums through google, and saw that someone replaced their dlls with the originals due to the fact that a lot of add-ons alter modules without warning, and cause crashes. The guy claimed he no longer had any crashes caused by aiplayr or any other dll. I want to point fingers at the AI program, but it everything ran smooth up until a few days ago. I only started tinkering with everything due to the Out-of-memory error on my flight from VHHH(default) to EGLL(default).Kind regards,

Sergey,See the LONG new post I just created and see if it applies. I am hoping I am on to something. Especially because you mentioned KJFK...All the best,-PaulLiquid CooledAMD 4000 San Diego2 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2Dual 7800 GTX 24 inch widescreen dual 19 inch LCDRaid-0