Fixing FS2004 stutters

[Guest]

Bruce, get the powerleap and a 2.6 gig P4. All in all, should be under $300. It installs on a Dell 8100 in like 5 minutes.Marc

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Sorry Chris,You are correct, MemMax is a commercial program. I switched from a simple freeware program to MemMax because of its enhanced features. My mistake for mixing that up in the message.Bruce

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Tony,I'm in the same situation. Too many programs and configurations on WinME to reformat and install XP Pro. I've been hesitatant to undertake that big step forward. But now it appears I have a reason to do so. Or I can try plan B and get a new system and let my wife keep the WinME machine. That will avoid the reformat and get me a faster system! :-beerchug Bruce

[Guest otter55]

i am running fs2004 on the same system as fs2002 with exactly the same fps.no stutters, no issuesi have the fancy clouds on, autogen set on dense and most other settings 75% or sofps lock set on 20, never varies (so far)love the weather (reminds me of fu3 weather which was great)terrain textures are sharp and possibly better quality(?)overall feel (immersion factor)is better than fs2002 and i had zero issues with 2002 and loved it. will be removing 2002 tonite. donp4-3.061 gig ramti-4600

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Bruce....I'll add myself to the chorus--more memory... The good news, is just going from 256 to 384 megs solved my problems, and I've been running stutter (meaning "pause") free since gold was released to our team. The suggestion for leaving Win ME behind is sound, but you can layer your approach by first going after the memory. I'm running 98SE, which has a very similar memory management model to ME, and my stutters were gone after the upgrade to 384 megs...but (and this is a big "but), I limit my vcache so the 98 O/S doesn't run away and grab RAM for that purpose. With FS2004 and FS2002 the result is the same--if you run out of RAM, you'll get stutters.If you install XP, then 384 megs won't do--bigger memory footprint in XP. I'd say 512 megs at least.FS2004 uses on average about 50-70 megs more RAM than FS2002. And memory usage is fairly consistent--I haven't spotted any "leaks". I've flown as long as twenty hours in one session, and RAM usage didn't fluctuate more than +/- 10 megs. Same was true when I flew FS2002 with 256 megs--that's why 256 megs served you so well--you were right on the edge, so to speak, but you had enough.You may hit another issue, and the good news is it isn't your system--it's in the scenery detail. FS2004 had a lot of extra detail in its "max" settings vs. FS2002. If you fly an approach into any city with buildings (outside of autogen, that is), you may see your fps fall a bit if you've been flying over fairly generic scenery during the course of your flight. This is especially true of the cities that seem to have major sports facilities modelled, like Houston or Phoenix. Microsoft went to town in this release, and I am still finding some amazing additions added to the city skylines...Edit:This link is fairly interesting on an issue with ME, however:http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,10816,00.aspI don't know the validity of the link, but it adds an interesting spin on what I said above...Regards,

[Krister 51]

Chris,you said that "You will get more stutters with the Ati 9800 Pro than the Gforce4 TI, we have tested this in depht." I have today a Gainward GF4 4200 128 MB Ultra card that I was about to get rid of and get a 9800 Pro 256 MB instead. But when you said that... Have you found any explanation to that? I figured the 9800 Pro would kick ******* with FS2004! Makes me think wether I should get the FX5900 ultra instead./Krister

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi Bruce, ok thanks, I was only wondering if I got the same program name, that's you are talking about.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi Krister, you may wait a little about this, it's probably a temp ati driver issue, If I was you , just wait a little to see what's will happend on various others reports and after get your card, there is no rush..ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Good information John... Thanks!By the way, as I mentioned, I ran a test between my 1.4ghz WinME system with 256mb and a P3-800 with 256mb and WinXP Pro. Even with the bigger OS footprint, the P3 runs smoother at the exact same configuration settings in FS9 and I don't have to disable the sound acceleration in DX9.More memory is always the preferred way to go, but the test proves to me that WinXP Pro has a substantial improvement itself, even without adding memory.Bruce

[Guest frankcubillos]

Suggestion, get more ram and upgrade to XP. SP handles memory much better than 98/Me and is much more stable. FS preforms much better with at least 512 Ram and XP as the OS. It's a proven fact that we saw in testing 04.Again it's just my humble opinion.FS04 rocks!:-wavehttp://fsgateway.com/frank/fs9paibeta.jpg

[Guest]

256MB RAM isn't enough. I have 256MB RAM currently (had to rebuild system awhile back and all I could afford). I'd recommend just doubling it.Win98 and WinME is *NOT* recommended... seriously.WinXP is preferred OS.

[Guest]

>I added MemoryMax (freeware tool) to the WinME system and>while FS is running, I've recovered the used memory from the>heap. The sim again runs smoothly after the memory is>recovered.Where can I get this "MemoryMax" freeware? The only one I can find is a payware tool.

[Orlaam 306]

I have a 486DX2/66 with 32 MB of Ram and 16 MB of shared video. Also running windows 3.1, should I upgrade? :-newbie Seriously, my system is a Pentium 4 - 1.8 GHz Northwood, 1 gig of RDRAM, and a GeForce 3 Ti 500 64 MB, which I plan to upgrade. I just need to wait on the reports before I get a new card, however, I was looking at the MSI VTDR128 FX5600 for 170.00 since it looked the best per reviews and my funds. I can't afford to really upgrade anything else, so I hope it works :-) Also have XP pro and run 2002 with everything maxed and get 30 FPS.What do you experts who've tested it think?

[Guest]

BruceI believe I have memory problems also. Sometimes my sound will quit,then I change it to medium or low and it comes back on. Also if I change aircraft without exiting Flight Simulator, after awhile I lose the textures on all aircraft, they just turn grey. When I look at my memory it is usually down to 15% or lower. My question is does MemMax help? Thanks.MontyDell 82002.53 Ghz CPU1024 Mb RD800 RamGf4 Ti 4600 VideoViewsonic 21" VP211b Flat Panel MonitorAudigy SoundSeagate X15 15000 RPM 37 Gb SCSI Hard Drive (Dedicated to FS9)Windows XP Pro

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Monty,I used the memory utility to test if the studders were due to low mismanaged memory. It's a kludgy way of getting around the problem and I don't advise using it to eliminate the studders or memory problems. I happened to have the utility when I tested, but I would never go out and buy it as a fix.You have a decent machine and plenty of RAM. I'd look more closely into the drivers you are using for both the video and the audio. You should experiment with some of the different nVidia driver versions that are out there, or get some feedback from other users running the 4600 as to which version runs best with FS2004.I installed DX9b last night and I saw an improvement in my sound issues. Realize that FS2004 is going to grab as much ram as possible, so running down to 15% available isn't necessarily a bad thing. :)Bruce