FS9 H*LL -- Still

[SteveLewis 0]

Tried FS9 again tonight. New 45.23 drivers for my Ti4200. New a/c - FFX MD82 TWA flight OMA-STL.Once more, I can't get closer than 14 miles to any airport before the screen freezes -- I mean 1 frame per MINUTE if that. :-mad :-mad :-mad :-mad (And it isn't heat in my box. I took off the cover for this flight).I thought that maybe the 45.23 driver would help and for most of the flight it seemed to. Throughout the flight I had {1.6 19.6 36.4} or similar frames on the average frame counter. I still had the hesitations for sure but these frames were much higher than before.However comma as I decended below 4,000 ft at just around 14 miles to touchdown, the screen went from those nice frame rates instantlyto the slowest slide show on earth. I had to bail out AGAIN. I just give up with FS9. Apparently, in order to even run this thing I need a new $200+ video card and probably a new sound card and operating system. I already spent over $1,000 on this rig and that would put me up to over $1,500. Just can't afford it right now so it's back to FS2002. At least my PC ran it very well. I never saw any frame rates below around 8 and that was at SimFlyers Newark airport.....If only I could install those 30.82 drivers as easily as the 45.23 and 43.45 before. Just do not understand why I can install those and not the only one that may help me out. :-hang Steve

[Donstim 109]

Steve,I don't know what is causing the problems, but you have a more capable computer than I have and I'm not having those problems. I have a Celeron 1.4 GHz coupled with the GeForce4 Ti 4200 (45.23 drivers) and am pretty satisfied with the performance I've seen so far. I do have a Soundblaster Audigy sound card; sounds like you may be using an integrated sound card on your motherboard?No doubt you've tried different FS9 settings, lowering your sound card acceleration in DX9, etc. Sorry I can't be of more help, but just wanted you to know it isn't necessary to spend gobs of money to get satisfaction from this sim.Don S.

[KERNEL32 500]

Drivers wont get you too many FPS increase, but how much system RAM do you have? Is the hard drive always on/loading? Also are you running XP or Win98? Some details would help diagnose the situation as in comparison I am running a GeForce 3 P4 2.2 Ghz and getting consistent 20FPS locked WITHOUT 3-d clouds (and varying between 10-20 depending on clouds for 3-d but like the consistent 20).. no matter where I go.Try reading the readme post above too that helped me alot, and I am sure some others can hopefully help too as FS2004 seems really good & you should be able to run a lot better than I am.EDIT- OOps just saw your computer profile info below sig- sorry!Sys: 2.2Ghz P4Win XP homeGeForce 3 -for 3 more days :)

[SteveLewis 0]

Don, I have a Soundblaster Live! 5.1 Card. I've lowered all the settings on my FS9.cfg per all the tweeks applicable to Win98Se. I've lowered the sound setting to basic in DirectX9.0b. Maybe it's the o/s. I don't know. All I do know is I don't have any problems with FS2002 at all.

[Guest SoarPics]

OK Steve, you mention that you have removed the side cover of the computer. Did you stick a small house fan in there to move air? If not, do so... and then go fly. Please report back here after flying in FS2004.

[Guest kilo_sierra17]

Steve, what happens to you when you try to install the 30.82 drivers?

[SteveLewis 0]

I'll try that tomorrow. Also, I'm going to delete my FS9.cfg file and start over. (making a copy of it first, of course). I may have tweeked once too often! The first three times I flew in FS9 I didn't have this landing problem. Could be that I did something strange to the .cfg file. I'll report back tomorrow night.Steve

[Guest luhiss]

Dude, you are using Win98... five years old. That is 500 million years in computer time. It is only 2 steps past Win3.1.Upgrade upgrade upgrade...Luhiss

[Guest whites]

Your specs are fine, I have 64mb 4200 card and was running an AMD 1.8ghz and only went down to really low framerates using a third party aircraft. The fact that fs2002 is ok means that it is more than likely nothing to do with hardware so that leaves software. Either FS2004 is using new features that are not working for your card (though I have the same chipset) or they may be a corruption in either FS2002 or your drivers somewhere.Here are a couple of things to report back if you can:1. Have you tried another airport2. If this is on approach then you were able to take off (is it possible to start in mid air!?)? Can you land at that same airport without the problem?3. Whe nthe slideshow occurs, does anything else happen? Sound stop? I take it CPU usage is 100%, confirm?4. If the problem occurs with a particular airport when is its ICAO?

[SteveLewis 0]

Last night, just before I headed off to bed, I deleted the FS9.cfg file and re-booted. Upon restarting FS9 I had to reset the basic settings; i.e., 1024 X 768 X 32 and fps target to 30. I exited FS9 and edited the FS9.cfg file only to add {oldmodules} fssound.dll=1. Then I went back. Using Nick Botamer's ERJ & Bill Grabowski's ERJ panel sitting at St. Louis, my frame rates were 29+ (upper limit=30) in all views. That was with the "stock" weather - some clouds, etc.Now, all my problems haven't been with 3rd party aircraft: Nick's FSDSv2 ERJ, PMDG 737NG, and FFX MD82. It (stutters) also occurred with the default Lear Jet. I have not attempted to land in the Lear Jet as yet.The problem has occurred at KCLE, KIAH, KLNK, and KSTL. As I said earlier, this problem started during my 4th FS9 flight. I think I tweeked something incorrectly. Since I have re-set the FS9.cfg file, I will try it again tonight and report back.Steve

[SteveLewis 0]

The set up gets to a certain point and says: Setup was unable to locate a detected device's PCI ID in NVAML.inf. The installation will be terminated.The other two driver installs (43.45 & 45.23) didn't do that. I got both of them from nVidia.com. The 30.82s I got from guru3d.com.:-hmmm Is there another place to get the 30.82s from?Steve

[SteveLewis 0]

Just read another post indicating that disabling my Sound Blaster 5.1 Live! card and reverting to the onboard sound chip might eliminate the stuttering problem. Worth a try?

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

OK.. back to basics.. first of all a Ti4200 will run FS9 just fine..just need to get it installed properly.. BTW, the onboard sound will also work just fine, but, using a Soundblaster should get you some additional fps, since it uses less processor cycles (try with onboard only.. why not.. just to make sure..)Back to video card install:Assuming your Ti4200 is a regular model, the 30.82 drivers should support it. If it is one of the newer, 8xAGP models, it may not be recognised / supported by the older 30.82 drivers (!) In that case, the newer drivers will have to do..If a regular Ti4200: First of all, uninstall the current video drivers using the Control Panel / uninstall programs function. Re-boot. Select standard VGA video adapter from the list. Now you are running in 640x480 mode. Re-boot.If you like, run detonator destroyer, or at least search for nvidia and nv*.* files in the windows/system and /inf directories and delete them.Run the 30.82 exe file, if it is a Nvidia install program (which the XP version I downloaded from guru3d was..) it should complete.If it does not include the installer, go to the video adapter properties page and chose "update driver" and install from there, selecting the file folder where the nvidia driver files are located.If the installer fails to find your video card, I can only recommend deleting your video adapter from the Control Panel / System / Device manager list and re-install the video adapter after a re-boot.. that should hopefully get your registry entry re-set..

[SteveLewis 0]

Thanks. It is one of the new 8X AGP models. That explains the driver installation not recognizing it. Guess the 45.23s will have to do for now. If the sound card isn't causing a problem, maybe it was something I tweeked earlier. Hopefully, I'll find out tonight. (Deleted the .cfg and re-did it late last night). Like I said earlier, my first 3 flights in FS9 went well except for stutters on final. Didn't have the freezes.

[vgbaron 3,615]

Steve - If it happens again drop your framerate lock to 20 and try again.vgb