FS9 Grinds to a hault with major stuttering and freezing

[Jetman67 517]

Hi AllWhen I am flying FS9 my system completely melts down, will be flying beautifully at 30 FPS in the CJ1 from eaglesoft, then ATC will broadcast or usually on short finals when the system is really number crunching (But not always) then major stuttering will occur then the simulator freezes and I hear really bad static, reminds me a bit of a record when it gets stuck very weird, this usually occurs for 60 seconds and the sim in unusable then is ok for a little while but then comes back often, I have tried everything including fresh re build, turning off hard ware acceleration lowering sound quality. Its really annoying and cant put my finger on it, getting to the point where I will no longer use FS9 or just buy another PC but that may not fix it Seems to be at times when AI are landing and ATC is active and particularly when on final and the PC is working hard, voice slows down to the point where you can see the computer struggling big time (You can hear the voice getting slower and slower until FS dies), could be the onboard sound I am not sure, PC runs fine with everything else and is running fairly cool with a monster case with several fans, happens with no addons running, more troubleshooting to do but hoping some one has the answer. Thanks all for any adviceASUS P4P800E3.2 800 MHZ3 GIGS RamRadeon 9600 XT 256Windows XP SP2200 GIGS SATALatest DriversCPU temp runs around 54 MaxMB temp runs at around 35VOZUltimate TrafficActive SKYEaglesoft Aircraft

[dolph98 24]

Suchw,Yours is about the nineteenth post I've seen lately with similar problems. I had a similar problem myself last week or so. I reloaded FS9 two days ago, added back my planes, ai files and a few other things, and things are pretty good again for now.Similar specs between our computers, my HD is smaller/slower and I only have 1GB of RAM. I use Diskkeeper so fragmentation is not a problem here.I don't notice the problem as much being related to ATC or traffic, it seems more like scenery related. AI traffic seems to have little impact on my framerates. I have a lot of AI traffic too.Let me pose a question:Does everyone who reads this thread, and has similar problems, do automatic updates or manual updates, and have done so just lately? I did see an automatic update happen on my machine during Thanksgiving week and that's about the time my FS9 turned from sweet to sour. I want to consider every possibility before jumping to any conclusions. This particular auto-update I remember well because it caused my machine to not shutdown. That is, the next morning it was still hung on the update screen and when rebooted had the error about sending a report to microsoft. The machine was fine on the next reboot and a manual update check says I'm up to date. Renaming mt fs9.cfg and allowing it to make a new one did not help me.I can't quite put my finger on it. But I am searching for the answer.dolph

[Jetman67 517]

HiYes it has auto updated lately and I have rebuild this weekend but no joy, I am over it to be honestRegardsWayne

[dolph98 24]

You are over it? You mean the stutters are no longer happening or you are over the sim being unuseable?

[Jetman67 517]

Sorry, I am over not being able to find the solution, so frustrating when you just want to fly the dam think, totally left FSX as it is too painfulRegardsWayne

[Guest PARADISE]

Have you tried a "Sytem Restore" to a date before your problems occured? I too remember the latest MS auto updates. There were three of them if I remember correctly. My FS has not been effected by them. I'm wondering if those of you that are having problems have the same type hardware, ie-graphic cards,sound cards etc. Or, you may have identical add-ons of which one was effected. Strange that only certain people have been effected. Wish I could be of more assistance.John M

[Jetman67 517]

HiI have had the problem for ages now but it has been getting progressively worse, I am stumped, thisnk it is time for a new systemRegardsWayne

[dolph98 24]

FSX is off mine too. Too many tweaks for me. And my addons would be worthless more or less.I wish I could be more help to you. If a reinstall won't fix it, it must be something else. I know, that's a duh, but you need to look further. dolph

[Jetman67 517]

thanks, I think there is a possibility of an over heat at some point that has degraded the CPU or some other component, i probably have not noticed it because i only use FS4 on my PC and it works the components very hard at times I was having heat issues before I upgraded to a larger case (CPU was sometimes hitting 60C, time to bite the bullet and fork out for a new PC to run FS9, I am dissapointed with FSX and am much happier with FS9 and all its addons.RegardsWayne

[pan pan pan 55]

Yeah you might be onto it Wayne.I had similar problems a while back, i was stumped for quite a while.Ended up downloading a program called "speedfan" which gives you the temperatures of various components of your computer without going thru the BIOS.Ended up my fan wasnt performing as expected.New fan, hey presto, FS9 back to its best.

[Jetman67 517]

Hello AgainThink I have found the issue, when I turn sound off in FS all is well so it must be an issue with the onboard AC97 sound chip, next step is to turn it off and buy an external card, that has to be it surelyRegardsWayne

[old_doggie 0]

Hey,Glad you narrowed it down to the sound. Sound cards are very cheap these days and very easy to install. Since the auto update did you check the sound drivers? XP may have overwritten the old ones or just changed to a different set.On the topic of system performance.I just about drool when I see some of the systems you guys are running but drool stops when these higher end systems, like yours and others here, seem to run FS worst than my spring driven hamster creaking 1.6 Your System My Ham-Spring RigV V V V V V V V V V V V V >ASUS P4P800E Gigabyte 80mdL>3.2 800 MHZ P4 1.6 >3 GIGS Ram 512 Ram>Radeon 9600 XT 256 ATI 9200SE 128>Windows XP SP2 Win2K>200 GIGS SATA 2 Maxtor 20Gig IDE HD>Latest Drivers SP4 DirectX 9c old versionI apply evey tweak I read about some work but some don't. With this sys the sliders cannot all be hard right so I trade off a little here and there but overall It works fine.Regards,Douglas

[Jetman67 517]

HiYes i did try some later sound drivers, i had FS9 running sweet with all sliders maxed and heaps of addons until this issue struck, RegardsWayne

[Guest hopsing88]

The suggestions I've seen here about using the System Restore/Rollback, to when things were going well, sounds mighty good to me. And if there is no such rollback point to use, drop a brick on it and start over. I've had to reinstall FS quite a number of times, and cannot say it ever failed to fix a pesky problem. Only trouble is, that is a lot of work, not doubt. But it is known to work.I wouldn't let my FS partition go within 50,000 lightyears of the Internet, for the very reasons which has given rise to the original post. I've see way too many ''patches'' that turned out to be many times worse than the original condition. PC World just a few months ago had yet another article exposing Microsoft CRITICAL UPDATES that caused considerable trouble. That's about all I could offer for suggestions.

[Jetman67 517]

HiFinallsy sorted, nit the bullet and brought another sound card and disabled the onboard sound, all is good and I am happily flying RegardsWayne