degrading performance

[mnmon 0]

Anyone else seen this: over the last few weeks my FS performance has degraded significantly. I've always had reasonable FPS for my system, but they now consistently degraded down into the 10 fps range and even sometimes turns into a slide show. I can still get reasonable rates with a very unsophisticated plane, clear weather and no AI, but I used to be able to do the same with a glass cockpit, heavy overcast and 100% AI. I've checked all the usual places: spyware, virus, I defrag regularly, shutdown services, etc. Basically nothing has changed in the FS configuration or my system. Does the code in FS "wear out"? Meaning that with continuing access and also defraging, maybe some critical bits have been lost. Is a reinstall worth the effort? any ideas? Mike

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Does the code in FS "wear out"? Meaning that with continuing access and also defraging, maybe some critical bits have been lost. Is a reinstall worth the effort? any ideas?"No, meaning the code doesn't wear out. Hard drives do, though (a telltale sign is more and more frequent scenery rebuilds when MSFS is launched when you haven't changed a thing).I've had an untouched FS2004 install since '03 and have never needed to reinstall. There is always a cause for degraded performance--and since you've noted this in the last few weeks, I'd double that time span and look at any changes you might have made either in MSFS or your system. It's not a bad idea to run filemon while MSFS is running--be on the lookout for files not found. MSFS expects files of various types to be in a certain place. If they aren't there, it starts hunting and the "hunting" process can exhaust memory and really degrade performance, even if the files are found elsewhere.Certain changes to Force Feedback controllers can also degrade perfoemance.Also, scan your scenery.cfg for the lines "Remote="There should be nothing after "Remote=" for any entry, such as in this example:>Area.044Area.044

[mnmon 0]

Thanks, John. I'll try some of these. I don't have any force feed back systems, nor do I have any add-on sceneries, except reworked AFCADS for airports. I also never display the GPS, but some glass cockpits are essentially the same material just displayed in a different window. What has happened is some installs/deletes of various planes so maybe the gauges folder has some problems. I'll try a rebuild of the cfg files first. I have filemon, so I also give that a shot.Reinstall is definitely not what I want to do at this point. Mike

[mnmon 0]

I rebuilt the fs9.cfg file and it seemed a bit better, but not much. I then ran filmon and there were no problems with FS not finding files, etc. Then ran FS with AS6 and with filemon and ASG was continuously having "NO SUCCESS" with "FILEbothDirectInfo: trigger.dat" and it also was continuosly running "Options Open Dir Access 0010001" These two itmes were scrolling all the time except when FS needed something else. Guess I'll head over to the AS forum. Mike

[Guest dapas]

Sounds like a hardware problem, most likely caused by overheating CPU. Something similar happened to my rig last year. Having tried every software tweak imaginable to overcome single figure FPS, I followed the advice of a friend and cleaned out the fins of the heatsink above my Prescott 3.0 CPU; they were clogged with dust, and obviously not venting properly. Immmediately I restrated the machine, it performed like new. I tested the CPU temp before the cleaning: during FS9 sessions, tempertaure was up 85C, leading to a CPU slowdown; after, the same situstion, and the CPU was at 50C, and idling at 35C. I perform a clean every month or so now, and my FS experience has been transformed. Hope this helpsDavid

[mnmon 0]

A good suggestion to look at in many cases. However, here I have a temp gauge for my CPU and it was not above 85. After getting some advice from the AS folks I turned off the auto-submit feature for ASG. Re-ran with filemon, and the continous activity I was seeing before was gone and fps was up 5-7. Now why ASG was doing that is another question for AS people, but I guess if any are having similar issues, then go uncheck that option in AS. Mike

[georgetyrrell 7]

Dapas,Was just reading this thread and it directly relates to my experience of the last few weeks, I run the sim with only one add on airport but with the basic add ons of weather, mesh and textures only, I had freshly installed the sim previous to this and it was fantastic but the last few weeks its nosedived and I had done everything to find the problem. Your reply has helped me a lot, I always suspected it was heat and when I checked my CPU temp during flights I could have taken out some bacon and eggs and done an inflight breakfast on it. So although it didn't help the op with his issue, it helped me, nice one.George Tyrrell

[brucek 38]

Hi Mike,There are threads here about re-installing FS9 while keeping your original install intact- I believe it means lots of file copying your existing FS9 to another folder, then maybe changing a registry key to make your PC no longer know that FS9 has been installed, then re-installing it in the original location. This will need lots of HD space, but if it works you could try a "virgin" FS9 install and see how frame rates are. That would either point to your original installation ( corrupt files, etc.), or your system.Good luck, Bruce.