More Tests -- No Joy with FS9

[SteveLewis 0]

Well, my testing and tweeking continued today. I purchased a 256 Mb stick of DDR333 to go with my 512 Mb stick. With the tweeks required in the system.ini file for having 768Mb of RAM the install went well. So, off to try FS9 with more RAM! ;( Unfortunately, I am right where I left off with stutters on take off. Now, this is with real-world weather enabled. So, I try the default 737 with clear skies and now wind. It worked perfectly. No stutters, no pauses, just great! Now, add the clouds and ... Pause, run, pause, run, pause, etc. The clouds are tearing me up. I have 40 mile vis 60 mile cloud range and 70% 3D clouds. I guess that if I want to fly with FS9 I'll have to be a VFR pilot. x( Maybe I'll try the "fake" clouds. I really think I have a problem with my video card. It's a MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4200 with 8X AGP. It's running at 4X because my mother board only supports 4X AGP and that may be a problem.Anyway, I don't see installing Win XP to be any help here. What good does a 8X AGP card running no AA and no anistropic filtering do me? So, I'm so stressed out over this that I'm going to go back and fly in FS2002 just to relax. Any ideas would be helpful. You've all been really supportive.Steve

[Guest SoarPics]

"So, I'm so stressed out over this that I'm going to go back and fly in FS2002 just to relax."Probably not a bad idea at this point in time. When you return, please give us more info on how you set up the test rig. Specifically, what are you using for sound and what video drivers (did you get the 30.82's to load)?Hang in there,

[Hornit 3]

I am starting to think its something to do with your card Steve, when I was using my GF4 it would usually give good frames but stutter due to the scenery issues others have discussed, It had NO problems with the clouds, even the default it would do ok with. It did take a hit, but not the pauses you are seeing. Mine was only 4X agp also here, same card i think too, gf4 ti4200 128mb ram. I honestly dont think the drivers for the GF4 matter a whole lot, I tried several versions and it didnt make a whole lot of difference here.Hornit

[SteveLewis 0]

Never got the 30.82s to load. Seems they don't like my 8X AGP Gef4200Ti or something. I can load up any of the 4x.xxs. Currently using the 45.23 driver. Also, using Soundblaster Live.Normally for my test I set up a FFX MD82 (TWA) on the default runway at Seattle in the daylight. Using the newest updated Paul Golding MD80 panel for FS2002. (I also have used, and get the same exact results) using the default 737 with its default panel. :( I bring up the FS9 weather and take off. When I used the clear and calm weather theme I didn't have the pauses. When I used the rainy and cloudy (if that's the name), the stutters were even worse than with the "real" weather.I really can't afford to go out and buy a ATI 9700 or 9800 right now. And, what if they're not the problem? I'm at an impass right now. I'm holding up on upgrading to Win XP, again for fear that the o/s may not be the problem.....When I first started trying to use FS9, I was using Bill Grabowski's ERJ panel with one of Nick Botamer's FSDSv2 ERJs. I don't remember the pauses I'm getting now on take off. I couldn't land due to the slide show upon arrival at my destination but the early part of the flight was just fine.

[SteveLewis 0]

The drivers didn't make any difference. The default that came with the card (don't know the driver), the 43.45 or the 45.23. I also tried AGP apertures of 128 and 32 -- my default in my bios is 64Mb.DirectX Diag doesn't show any problems with my video except my drivers arent WHQL certified..... :-hmmm At this juncture, I don't think that Windows XP will help. And if I change my o/s I can't go back... (May not be a bad thing to do anyway, but it may not help)..

[Guest Philip Olson]

Hey Steve, I live just south of you in Cuyahoga Falls. I can vouch for Windows XP improving performance a little bit but I do not know if it will solve your problems. Over the weekend I upgraded a clients PC to XP from 98SE, it was a PIII 500, 256 mb ram, and a GF3 card. I doubted that you would see any improvement on that system but across the board things seem to be faster and smoother. I wish that I could tell you for sure whether or not XP will cure what ailes you, but I think that it is 98 SE or some goofy hardware problem. If you need any help I can drive up there and see what I can do for you, free of charge of course, I do not charge simmers. You can email me at polson@neo.rr.com if you need anything. Good luck! Philip

[SteveLewis 0]

Thanks for the offer, Phillip. May just take you up on the offer.We head down to Cuyahoga Falls to go to Chapel Hill Mall every once in a while.So, the million $$ question is: Should I go ahead and buy WinXP Home? I think it's probably the right thing to do now. Nothing else I've tried worked so it's the next step. I can't go the upgrade route because the guy who built my PC put Win98Se on my system from his disk instead of Win98 from the disk I gave him from my old PC.... I can get WinXP Home from newegg.com for under $100 shipped by FedEx. I've printed out all the "how to" articles I can find so I think I can do it myself. I'll e-mail you seperately from our 2nd PC if I need help. Thanks, again! :-wave

[Guest Philip Olson]

My answer is yes, I would buy XP. My opinion is that since you can not tell for sure what the cause of your problems is and by upgrading you should get a performance boost even if it is not the cause, it is going to be sort of a win, win scenario. If it is the problem you are done, if it is not you get the increase in performance plus you can strike one more thing off the list of possible offenders. I know if money is a real concern this may not be the best way to go but this is just my opinion. Don't you sometimes wish that computers would just either work or not, none of this well it works fine here but does not if I do this? Life would be so much easier. If you need me I'll be here.Philip

[Vulcan 14]

STeve,Did you try the sound card tip I suggested herehttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...d=138657&page=5Or just try switching sound off with the 'Q' key, that works with my on-board sound.Also you mention using real weather and clouds, have you tried Chris Willis' replacement 3D clouds?I am also beginning to wonder if you are expecting too much out of FS9, display wise, with your system. AA is known to eat fps.I don't think XP will give you the boost you are hoping for but it is better than 98SE.Best of luck.

[Guest tgabriel]

I just looked at the newegg site for that xp home program. Make darn sure you don't mistakenly order the upgrade edition. They are listed fairly close together. Also, the install of the full edition is very easy. Just make sure you back up whatever you want to keep on your existing hard drive.

[Donstim 109]

He has Windows 98SE; therefore, he qualifies for the upgrade edition. He will be able to do a full install with the upgrade edition. It will only need information that proves he qualifies for that edition (e.g., proof of ownership of W98), and then he will be able to use the upgrade edition to do a full install.Steve, I've been following your travails, and hope you get things sorted out eventually (sooner rather than later). I have my doubts that WinXP will be the magic bullet, but it's an improved operating system over W98. Hopefully, you will get more value out of it than just its performance with FS2004, so that the expenditure is worth it.It's always a pain to do a clean install of an operating system. You will need to back up all of your data files, documents, email, Internet favorites, etc. etc. The WinXP installation program will allow you to do a complete re-formatting of the hard disk, erasing everything. You will want to use the NTFS file system. Then you get to reinstall all of your programs, update drivers, etc. Be sure to use Windows Update to install all of the security patches, too.In all of your experimenting, have you used any of the W98 performance monitoring features to see what the load is on your CPU and memory when you get the pausing/stuttering? Have you tried lower display resolutions, like 800x600, and resetting to FS 2004 default settings, just to see what it would do? Are your motherboard/chipset drivers up to date?Good luck,Don S.

[SteveLewis 0]

I bought the one that said "Must be purchased with hardware" so I doubt if the OEM edition is an upgrade. ;-)

[SteveLewis 0]

Don, I've tried just about everything I can think of. The performance monitoring stuff on my Win98Se and Win98 (other machine) aren't there. Used to be a thing that would go down in your tray that showed the RAM usage. This is another reason for me to go to WinXP and do the full install. I have 4 brand new hard drives in my computer stock. Two 20G and two 13.6G. I'm going to remove my current HD and install a 20G. Then I will install XP on it. I'll do the Windows updates, etc., then install FS9. I will then run my "tests" with the default 737 to see what I've got. BTW, I will also install the 2nd 512Mb DDR333 stick at the same time so I will have 1G of DDR333. I'll upgrade DirectX to 9.0b and install my CH USB Flight Yoke also. Hopefully, I can do all of that this Saturday afternoon during the Missouri-Illinois football game (I'm a MIZ-ZOU Alum....:7 ). If all that goes well, I'll go with reformatting my 80G main HD.... (I'll back up everything on CDs first, of course). I will report back to the Forum on my results. If I am still having problems with pauses it would have to be my video card and I can't upgrade that until after Christmas sometime. Thanks for the information and support. :-wave

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Steve, if you have several hard drives, I would strongly recommend installing FS9 on a separate harddrive. Attach this drive to the second IDE interface on the motherboard, shared with the CD drive is fine..This allows the operating system to access the FS9 files (on the new drive) and the swapfile (on the c drive) simultaneously.. one less reason for stutters (!)I run FS9 on a separate 7200 rpm drive with good results..

[SteveLewis 0]

I'll try that. Thanks.