For the second time this has happened. Im flying, then all of the sudden trees, and buildings if im in a place with buildings will join me in the air. Then a couple seconds later the path between the buildings and the ground turns into a giant stick extending from the ground several thousand feet up. after about a minute I get a crash to desktopit is in situations my computer can normally easily handle, the second time in a vfr flight with nothing but a few mountains aroundI would take a screenshot but every time i took a screenshot it gave me an error messagedoes anyone understand whats going on?

Whenever I have seen those weird vertical anomolies that means I am pushing my system's memory too much. I have dialed back the sliders and the problem went away.

What are your system specs?

normally indicates an out of memory situation, at least in my experience. Sometimes driver settings can cause this as well, maybe try different drivers....

Video card overheating,Ready to die?

my specs areWindows XP Service pack 3Intel Core 2 quadQ9400 @ 2.66 Ghz3 GB of ramis there any other specs you need?

Yes. What video card and driver?Bob

If you press 'Print Scrn' key (up top, near F12) you can do a screen 'save' to the default 'Clipboard'. You can then open IrFanview or other graphic program and 'Paste' clipboard contents there so you can save as jpg or bmp (so you can show the world what you're talking about). Sure would like to see THIS.You must do it before graphics 'go away' due to CTD. But even if you do get a CTD your clipboard will retain the screen shot. You can use this when you can't seem to highlight text in web pages (so as to 'copy' text) then save 'text' as jpg or bmp so you can read later. You can even save THIS (forum) screen and paste it into IrFanview by hitting 'Print Scrn' key. I don't know what I would do without my 'PrntScrn' key.Chuck BNapamule

You've never seen this before?!? wow... this is a pretty common occurrence mainly for users with lower-end systems like myselfI would try turning down settings. Just to test a theory, try flying out of Istanbul if you have Acceleration and maxing the autogen (the red bull air race location has tons more autogen than normal)You should get a CTD with max settings

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTat least i think thats the video card... if not how do you find what your video card is?as well I flew the istanbul with acceleration like u said and it ran fine, actually had normal fps and everything

Yes this is very common to see in the sim when the rig is overtaxed, I am surprised some of you haven't seen it before. I've seen those called autogen spikes.If you have done the BufferPools tweak, turn it down or remove it, at least temporarily.If you have not done the BufferPools tweak, then lower some sliders as was suggested. (I'd start with Autogen down a notch and go from there).You don't say what driver version you are running, either. That can make a difference with the spikey McSpikes.

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTat least i think thats the video card... if not how do you find what your video card is?as well I flew the istanbul with acceleration like u said and it ran fine, actually had normal fps and everything

If you want hit the "Windows" key on the keyboard + "R" or you can hit "Start" then go to "Run" if its there and type in "dxdiag" ignore the WHQL thing, just hit yes. dxdiag Will run the DirectXDIAGnostics for the PC, and the main page will have your PC hardware info on it. If you want hit "Alt" + "Prt Scn" and then open Windows Paint and paste the image. After that you can upload it to AVSIM so others can see your PC specifications.The problem you're describing sounds like its most likely your PC being stressed to its limit, but looking at some of the specs you posted I don't see why. After you run dxdiag we will be able to tell if you are running the 32-bit version or 64-bit version of Windows which can help us further. I think the main culprit might be that the bufferpools is too high or low for your graphics card depending on which version of the 8800GT you have, or it might be heat problems. Good Luck! :(

this is what u were talking about right?

A likely cause is that FSX is running out of virtual memory - typically happens with some addon aircraft toward the end of your flight, as you descend into more detail scenery.If you haven't done so already, try changing the virtual memory allocation so that applications get more and XP less. Look in the "boot.ini" file in C:\, you should see something like this:[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectWith 512MB of graphics memory you should change it to[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /3GB /userva=2816Reboot your system and try again, see if the scenery spikes occur now.TomPS: Some details on Windows memory management and FSX here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...ress-space.aspx

With XP and a 8800 card you will have to use the 169.21 driver. I would see the spikes with any drver later than that, with UNLIMITED frames. You can use any of the later drivers and not see the spikes if you use FPS LIMITER and lock the frames at 30.DaveNew System:Intel Core I7 920 Quadcore 2.66Ghz @ 3.6GhzAsus P6T DLX V2 X58 1366, BD Combo Plextor B310SA6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3 1866C7GTHIS ATI 4890 1GB, Samsung 24", Saitek X-52 PROLogitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G15 Keyboard, G5 MouseThermaltake Element S Case, Corsair 850TX PSUC: Intel 80GB SSD w/Vista Home 64D: WD 300GB Velocity Raptor w/FSX, F4AFE: WD 1TB Caviar Black w/DataOld System:Dell XPS 720 H2CIntel Quad Core Extreme QX6800 2.93 @ 3.73GHz4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator EPP 8500C5D FSB 800MHz @ 1066MHz2x160GB WD SATA Raptors, Sound Blaster X-FiNvidia 2x8800GTX 768MB SLI, Dell 2407WFP PanelXP driver: 169.21, Vista driver: 169.25Logitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G5 Mouse, Saitek X52C: WinXP Media Edition SP3 (SATA 0) w/ Internet/AV/Office/FS9/F4AFD: Vista SP2 (SATA 1) (Dual Boot) w/FSX3DMark06: 17,018/6992/7123/5667