Fs9 Freezes

[Guest Derrick Muller]

Hi everyone,So I finally have my new rig up and running, and with great expectations I take my first long-distance flight in the PMDG 747-400. About 6 hours into a planned 9 hours flight, and with EVERYTHING running 100% perfectly up to that point, I routinely switch to the spot view and suddenly the aircraft textures are messed up and missing, FS9 starts to stutter and then totally freezes up with only the engine sounds running. No CTD, no error messages of any kind or even the infamous BSD! The only way to stop FS9 is via "End Task" in the Windows Task Manager (after repeated attempts mind you). After that the PC seems to be normal.My systems specs are as follows:Intel DP45SG Extreme Series motherboardIntel E8400 Core Duo 3.0GHz CPU4GB DDR3 RAM (Dual channel)Nvidia 9800GT 512MB GPU (With latest 180.48 WHQL drivers)Seagate 300G + 160GB SATA II hard drivesCooler Master Cosmos Tower with 1000W PSUWindows XP Professional with SP3 (with latest updates)System managed swap fileFS9.1PMDG 747-400 (with latest updates)FS Global 2008 global terrain meshFS Scene global texturesMyTraffic 2004 (with latest updates)No Anti-virus of Firewall loaded (Not connected to Internet with this PC)And running on the client pc via WideFSActiveSky 6.5Radar Contact 4FlightSim Commander 4I have ALL sliders maxed out with an average frame rate in all views of at least 55fps.I was making a flight from Cape Town (FACT) to Dubai (OMDB) and everything was running normal until I was about 50 miles from crossing the coast at Djibouti (East Africa) when this happened. Does this point to a scenery problem? (I have never used FS Scene before). Not much AI traffic or major airports in this part of the world so I don't think the CPU was overloading.The strange thing is that I had a couple of shorter test flights when testing out the new rig flying from Los Angelas to Seattle, or Heathrow to Paris, with no problems whatsoever from takeoff to landing and everything maxed out.The only dodgy thing in the whole setup is the Intel onboard sound. In my opinion the drivers and software are not up to scratch and the engine sounds in the 2-D cockpit never did sound as "clean" as I am used to (rather choppy at some times). Maybe a memory leak from the sound driver, but should it last 6 hours into a flight before crashing?Is there an easy way to check for errors in scenery files. What else should I troubleshoot? I really don't want to take another 6 hour journey before it crashes if this is hardware related. Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated!!!ThanksDerrick

[bobbyjack 61]

Could be video drivers. I have to use 178 drivers because of a similar problem.Bob

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

Hi Derrick,If you didn't see any FS produced messages it's likely the problem is related to either graphics drivers or possibly the on-board sound.Do you have an old sound card you can install? Even with powerful PCs it's best to have a separate sound card as on-board sound takes cycles away from the CPU.As a quick test you could just disable on-board sound in the BIOS and try that flight again. If that doesn't cure it then try different video drivers.

[Guest Derrick Muller]

Hi guys,Thanks for the responses. In the mean time I've tested everything that I could think off, changing drivers, disabling sound, and even checking CPU and GPU temperatures (we have an exceptionally hot summer in South Africa this year). In my own stupidity I tested most things except for the obvious - the scenery! So this morning I loaded major airports from all over the world, no problem. Then I tried to load an airport from Djibouti (East Africa) where everything went haywire, and voila! FS9 freezes! It tries to load the scenery but never gets beyond the 1% mark. So this is definitely the problem. Where do I go from here? Is there any utility to test for errors in scenery and textures? The only scenery changes I've made from the default FS9 scenery is:FSGlobal 2008 terrain meshFS Scene global texturesNMG Cape Town International 2008 (shouldn't be a problem though)FlyTampa Dubai International (Ditto)Has anyone else experienced problems with either FSGlobal or FS Scene of this nature?Thanks for the help.Derrick

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

Hi Derrick,If you've disabled the Djibouti scenery and didn't get the problem then you should report the problem to the author. I'm guessing this is freeware, not payware scenery?You'll be fine with FSGlobal and FlyTampa. If FSScene is payware that is probably okay too.If you can get as far as the initial FS9 screen where you have access to Scenery Library then uncheck the Djibouti scenery and everything should be okay. If that scenery came with uninstall instructions follow those but usually it's just a case of deleting the Djibouti main folder.

[HoratioWondersocks 4]

Hi guys,Thanks for the responses. In the mean time I've tested everything that I could think off, changing drivers, disabling sound, and even checking CPU and GPU temperatures (we have an exceptionally hot summer in South Africa this year). In my own stupidity I tested most things except for the obvious - the scenery! So this morning I loaded major airports from all over the world, no problem. Then I tried to load an airport from Djibouti (East Africa) where everything went haywire, and voila! FS9 freezes! It tries to load the scenery but never gets beyond the 1% mark. So this is definitely the problem. Where do I go from here? Is there any utility to test for errors in scenery and textures? The only scenery changes I've made from the default FS9 scenery is:FSGlobal 2008 terrain meshFS Scene global texturesNMG Cape Town International 2008 (shouldn't be a problem though)FlyTampa Dubai International (Ditto)Has anyone else experienced problems with either FSGlobal or FS Scene of this nature?Thanks for the help.I have used FSGlobal for years with no problems.ADerrick

[Guest Derrick Muller]

Hi everyone,After spending the past two days browsing countless of websites and forums and testing everything I could think of, in the end it all pointed to a corrupt/misplaced texture or scenery file. Short of installing everything from scratch I decided on a shortcut method (crossing my fingers mind you) and copied the scenery and texture directories one by one from my old pc until I found the culprit. Luckily for me this worked and I finally got it running again. I only had to reinstall MyTraffic again (seems I'd overwritten some crucial aircraft textures files). I hope this will be the end of it and I don't have waste another 6 hour flight to "find" another problem.Thanks again for all the help.Merry Xmas to you all and happy flying in 2009!CheersDerrick

[Ray Proudfoot 8,919]

Well done Derrick! Good detective work. :( A Happy Christmas and 2009 to you and yours. :(