apologies if this has been said before in this post - but have you tried the old moving the DirectSound Acceleration slider full left in DxDiag?Pretty nice specs there - wouldn't have though it'd be a problem although wierd conflicts sometimes happen - ATI video card and Creative Sound card - not a combo I've tried - but not unusual I would have thought- anyway worth a try maybe - if all other suggestions (which I haven't read in this very long post) are exhausted - solved my similar problems with FS2002Comanche 4's pretty good

Hi Joe,I want my patch too!I got FS9 in Sept 03, and I loved it instantly. Shortly afterwards I upgraded my graphics card to a ATI Radeon 9200, and I brought up my memory up to 512 MB (from 256). For awhile I was on cloud 9, that was until I started adding on scenery files in December. One day, disaster struck, crash to desktop (I didn't know anything about that issue at that point). Trying to restart the game for a while but nothing would do. I then decided to uninstall and reinstall the game... I have been trying to reinstall ever since (about three weeks). The installation starts copying files and then hangs (unable to open the first .cab file it finds on CD1). I have been in touch with MS tech support by email. Since then I have tried reconfiguring my system without the new memory... without the old... with my old video card... disabling everything at startup in msconfig... reinstalled WinXP pro twice... tried different Hard drives... tried changing BIOS settings... tried on a clean HD on wich I installed Win98 SE... I know the disks are good cause I can install on my son's computer... The only things I haven't changed are my MB (Soyo K7V Dragon plus) or my CPU (Athlon 1700+) and I very much doubt that there is any problem with them, my system is up and running with no sign of trouble, no problem installing any other software, I'm running EA Superbike without a glitch, no hardware conflicts are being detected anywhere.OK, I agree there has got to be something in the system that is causing the problem, And I definitely suspect memory (my next step is to find a memory check program -any suggestions?-) the way I see this, is there might be a few bad memory locations in the hardware wich is causincg all this. But at the same time I believe that FS9 is to say the least "ticklish". But, hey there might be a few bugs to iron out of FS9, yes it is a very large and complex piece of software, and it is quite a chalenge to get this thing to run on a million different machines, but were paying Microsoft good money for that, and DAMN, I WANT MY PATCH, AND TELL ROD MACHADO TO GO TAKE A HIKE.RG

What a coincidence...I've spent about the last 5 days troubleshooting this problem, and then I find this thread. If nothing else, y'all have saved me from a reformat/reinstall, because it's obvious that that does not fix the problem. I'd even considered buying a new motherboard, but again that is clearly not the issue.I'm getting tired of all the posts saying these CTD problems are user-caused. I've added nothing to my FS9 installation. No add-on aircraft, airports, textures. Nothing. Lately I've not been able to complete a single flight without a hard crash/reboot.Someone mentioned running with a single stick of RAM. I've also done this, and it made no difference. I've got two sticks of 512 Mb PC2700 RAM. I tested each stick individually with memtest86. Each stick ran all night without a single error. I've run FS9 with each stick individually, and with both sticks. No change.I've also used different ATI drivers, VIA chipset drivers, latest motherboard BIOS, AGP fast writes enabled/disabled, different AGP aperture settings, and different DDR voltages and memory timings. Again, no difference.DanSoyo KT400 Dragon LiteAthlon XP 2800+/333 FSB/Volcano 9Radeon 9500Pro2 x Corsair 512 Mb CMX512-2700C2 Western Digital Special Edition 120GbLiteon CDRW 48XToshiba DVD-ROM 16x/48xAntec 350w Windows XP home

DanTwo questions(really three I suppose) - Has this just started happening or has it always happened since you first installed FS9- if it has only just started have you added anything in the way of hardware. When you say" without a hard crash/reboot."Do you mean that the PC has locked solid and has to be restarted,does it crash to a reboot itself or does FS9 just die in an instant leaving you with the desktop ?With a CTD you can often restart FS9 without reboot . If the PC locks solid requiring reboot,have you checked the CPU/system temps and also the voltages- could be PSU related.The reason I ask about the CPU temps and PSU- I suffered months of crash/reboot when I first had FS2002 and the cause turned out to be a combination of underachieving PSU and the CPU temps going up after running FS for more than a few minutes.A new PSU and extra cooling solved that one.Good luckDave

Dave,This has happened occasionally in the past, but much more frequently over the last month. I did replace my Athlon XP processor with a newer, Barton XP2800+ a month ago, which allowed me to increase the FSB from 133 to 166 Mhz. All benchmarks and applications I use indicate that the processor/RAM/motherboard are working fine. The problem is, I replaced the processor about the same time that the seasonal textures changed to winter in FS9, so I can't say which change, if any, caused the problem.I don't believe I've seen a CTD. My machine freezes solid, sometimes with the FS9 display still visible and sometimes with a blank screen. Either way, it requires a reset or power-off. Alt-tab or three-fingered salute have no effect.I'm confident it's not heat or power supply. I've used MBM for several years, and in the winter months my processor runs about 39-40c at idle, and never more than around 48c at 100% load. My power supply is an Antec 350W with a +5/+3.3 combined output of 230W.The recurring themes in this thread are mountainous terrain and winter daytime textures. All the flights I've started in the last month have been in the western USA, with plenty of mountains. I'll try to set up some flights tonight with different terrain and seasonal parameters and see what happens.Dan

OK DanIt was worth a thought anyway- but with a CPU at 39-40 - even under heavy load it's still going to be under the 50c mark- MBMs text log will confirm that I'm sure. The PSU at 230w combined should be more than adequate.These were exactly my symptoms but obviously here the cause is something else.Good luckDavef

OK DanIt was worth a thought anyway- but with a CPU at 39-40 - even under heavy load it's still going to be under the 50c mark- MBMs text log will confirm that I'm sure. The PSU at 230w combined should be more than adequate.These were exactly my symptoms but obviously here the cause is something else.Good luckDave

Just a thought. Drop the FSB back to 133 and see if the problems persist.--qnh