I've started to get some crashes in FSX...the Event Viewer lists the faulting module as visualfx.dll. I know it resides in the main FSX folder, but numerous Google searches fail to show much information about it, excepting for simmers trying to determine why their FSX crashed. I'm hoping that perhaps someone familiar with the inner workings of FSX or the SDK can explain exactly what it's purpose is. If I knew that, I might be able to troubleshoot my installation.In my case, about 50% of the times that I try to open FSX, it crashes with the error I mention above....the other times, it starts with no problems, and works like a charm. If it crashes on start-up, I wait a few seconds, resart the sim and it's off and running just fine! Thanks for any assistance,Terry

Are you overclocking your processor by any chance?H.

Thanks for responding....have a liquid cooled i7-860, stock with turbo boost enabled....it never overheats; 8GB ram (also with a cooling kit)in an NZXT Lexa S with 3 cooler, and 1 exhaust fans. GPU is a 5770; after a simming session, I have seen it as high as 53 C. I use FSX Accel. Don't think heat is a problem as I'm not getting artifacting or other graphic problems once FSX starts and runs. After posting yesterday, I started the sim, got the visualfx.dll faulting module error....shut down and restarted, got the same crash....shut down, restarted the third time and it worked as good as always. I can't even hazard a guess at the problem, because I don't know what that dll actually does.This is a clean install last Monday, and that after four .cfg rebuilds, I still can't chase this bug away.All the best,Terry

Do you have Aerosoft's MyTraffic installed? Because I'd get crashes half the time I started FSX because of that. The one remedy that I have found that works is updating the SHADER_CACHE_VERSION number.

Sorry the reason I asked was I have had this problem before with both FS2004 and FSX and I have my rig i5 overclocked to 4.1 Ghz. I was experiencing the same visual fx ctd and found a forum where it was mentioned that the sim can throw this problem if the overclock is slightly too high. I readjusted the chip to 4.0Ghz and the ctd went away. Maybe you should try to disable turbo boost to see if this makes a difference......H.