Just recently, I'd say within the last couple weeks, I've noticed that a once smooth running FSX is suffering from bouts of extremely low frame rates. I first noticed it last week when taxiing through a stock airport ... an agonizing task achieving less than 5 fps. I chalked it up to a fluke and assured myself things would improve next time around. Last evening I flew, in the darkness of night, with minor cloud cover below me, only the cockpit of my FeelThere Embraer 175 illuminated. Averaged 12-15 fps, but had many lengthy periods of less than 3, sometimes 1 fps. Other times I would max at around 33-35. I've been problem free running much more respectable frames, mind you, heavily congested scenery and cloud layers would studder on occassion.

 

I have not changed my system by any means, nor added any software prior that might factor into this new problem. In fact, I've only made adjustments to my system to reflect the tweaking advice of many respectable members here.

 

When I first encountered thes problems, I immediately proceeded to close any running applications and processes that I could. No significant difference. Feeling a bit distraught and disappointed over the apparent poor quality of performance in what I think to be a pretty respectable system, I turned to the forums here looking for some tweaking advice.

 

1st thing I had done was optimized Windows 7, turning off many bells and whistles the contributor felt may affect performance. I removed all unnecessary applications and processes from the startup routine. I used Bojote's online FSX tweaking application, and in fact, this unfortunately seemed to weaken the performance even more. (I reverted back to my backup since). I've adjusted sliders from all max (which was never an issue) to about 1/4. I am using optimized Nvidia settings for FSX via Nvidia Inspector, for which I have the frame rates locked there to 30FPS. (Not sure if it's working though as I noticed frame rates jumping beyond 30 in FSX display).

 

I had been using the previous ActiveSky before updating to ActiveSky 2012 just recently. Whether I use it or not, there are no changes in performance.

 

I am using the latest available release drivers for my Nvidia cards, and just last night, on more than one occassion, the display blacked out briefly, and came back, accompanied by a message along the line that the "Nvidia driver failed and recovered". Has anyone encountered this before? This driver is the latest to best support desired features of a surround based display (I have 3 monitors).

 

Can anyone suggest the best way to go about troubleshooting this? Surely I should see better performance, but I'm sure where to start to look for the potential bottlenecks. There may be some things worth investigating that I would never have imagined unless coming from those with knowledge or from having similar experiences.

 

I appreciate everyone's reply and patience.

Defragged lately? You running FSX in full screen or Windows mode? Rolled back to the pervious driver? The latest aint always the greatest.

I've only made adjustments to my system to reflect the tweaking advice of many respectable members here.

 

I once had this happen. Come to find out I had two identical entries in my FSX cfg for FIBER_Frame_Rates, My fault after tweaking framr rates went to the dickens. I deleted FSX.cfg and started over to resolve the problem. Of course, not insinuating thats your case but may be worth a try.

Thanks folks for the replies....

 

Defrag? Yes. Extensively as per Windows 7 optimization thread in this forum. That's what I spent the days doing between the first encounter with low frame rates and my attempt last evening. It was a tedious task. Flying in windows mode as this seems to be the best option for surround over 3 monitors (if I go full screen, I lose functionality of a fourth monitor I use to host other secondary windows). I may end up having to roll back the drivers ... which would be disappointing as well. This current driver is the only one that addresses the humungous 3 display desktop.

 

Rendi ... I also considered a new FSX.cfg. May try that tonight.

 

As far as Nvidia Inspector goes ... is there a way to know if the settings are actually being applied? I'm not sure how Inspector works. As far as I can see, you make changes and press "apply settings", then close out and you're off to the races. Does inspector have to be running when using FSX with those settings, or does FSX somehow make reference to the Inspector based settings. I know if I reopen Inspection, and choose FSX, I only get the default settings. I would have thought it would come back up with the changes I had made. As mentioned earlier, despite my locking in 30 fps in Inspector, FSX displays (on the odd occassion of course) in excess of 30.

Since you are running FSX in windows mode, check that your taskbar is hidden or at lease not touching the FSX screens, as this will cause a huge FPS impact

Do you experience the same problem with other games as well or only with FSX? What are your processor and card temps the moment FPS drops?

I use Nvidia Inspector, lock my FPS to 30 and set to unlimited in FSX. Yes, mine sometimes only momentarily jumps to slightly more the 30 or at least indicated as such, I think its working fine and just how the display in FSX works.

 

Perhaps if you ran FRAPS it might be more accurate.

 

Anyway, yes set taskbar to auto-hind, this adjustment helps improve performance. AND, I had to roll back my drivers to older version, as they worked much better. I'm using NVidia 296.1 Drivers with my GTX260 1.7Mb card. I tried the NVidia Drivers 301.24 and they were terrible. So consider a rollback of drivers.

I appreciate all the support. Thank you.

 

Just an update folks, no real success with my latest attempts based on the wonderful suggestions offered.

 

I deleted FSX.cfg and started over to resolve the problem

Done. Made some tweaks, and applied Bojote's online tweaks.

Nvidia Inspector settings optimized.

 

check that your taskbar is hidden or at lease not touching the FSX screens

This was new to me, so I was very anxious to see if this was the cause. I'm unable to get my taskbar to hide, despite having that option checked in the Taskbar properties. With experimentation, it was discovered that their was no difference in poor frame rates between windowed and full screen mode.

 

Do you experience the same problem with other games as well or only with FSX? What are your processor and card temps the moment FPS drops?

This is an FSX exclusive machine. I have no other games on this computer. Temperatures ... GPU1 83+/-F, GPU2 95+/-F and GPU3 68F. Unfortunately, I'm unable to determine which GPU is which. Core temperatures on the CPU averaging 147F.

 

Frame rate results, same conditions as last evening clear sky flying ... hold on ... 4.6 FPS ... consistent. LOL Augh!

 

I will continue to consider your opinions, and suggestions. Tommorow, I roll back the drivers.

I use Nvidia Inspector, lock my FPS to 30 and set to unlimited in FSX. Yes, mine sometimes only momentarily jumps to slightly more the 30 or at least indicated as such, I think its working fine and just how the display in FSX works.

 

Perhaps if you ran FRAPS it might be more accurate.

 

Anyway, yes set taskbar to auto-hind, this adjustment helps improve performance. AND, I had to roll back my drivers to older version, as they worked much better. I'm using NVidia 296.1 Drivers with my GTX260 1.7Mb card. I tried the NVidia Drivers 301.24 and they were terrible. So consider a rollback of drivers.

 

is it better to use the fps lock in nvidia inspector and set fsx to unlimited frames, or just use the fsx fps limiter?

1. if you cant' get your task bar to auto hide with that option checked, then you have some windows problem...it always works with a good install or no corruption.

 

2. Have you picked up a virus? Have you done a scan of the drive you FSX is location on?

 

3. I do not want to get into a fight with all those computer guru's who say they know everything or know more than me...all I will say is that I have tried the Word Not Allowed approach, Nicks approach, Boyote's tool. I get my best performance with Nvidia Inspector locked at 30fps and setting FSX to unlimited.

 

Why don't you try a flight with the above and the reset the same flight with Nvidia Inspecter framerate off and FSX locked at 30 and see which is best for your system.

I'd use Word Not Allowed's guide to optimise your system. Should be somewhere on this site still.

 

Second, after a CTD, FSX can write a second scenery.cfg file to the folder where FSX.cfg is located. If this file exists, it can cause FSX to run very slowly and has to be deleted to regain performance. But be careful not to delete the file with same name in the FSX root directory, as this is critical to operation of the sim.

 

Cheers,

 

Noel.

When you downloaded the Nvidia drivers did you delete the old ones first? This happened to me once and was solved by doing a new driver install with old drivers having been completely removed first. The Nvidia install process has an advanced setting which will remove the old drivers first.

Other issues can be an anti-viral program running or the major issue of an actual virus infection being present on your system.

The last time this happened to me was when one of my sticks of RAM died.

OK, it's no use checking out tweaking guides etc or tweaking things that have always been as they are. It's something that is different on your system, a change that has occurred within the past two weeks. For me, the very first thing I would do is a system restore, allowing all the registries and drivers to be rolled back prior to when you had the problem. Second, I would also download and run Malwarebytes. A fantastic little app that will discover all those damaging spywares that can creep onto your system and do great damage to it's performance. I had a similar experience some time go where performance had dropped by about 20% and it was some spyware that had scurried away into my registry and was causing a lot of frustration. Also of course, run your AV, but do so in safe mode, then shut down and run it a second time. So has been suggested, it's probably a virus or some malware that has been installed. Keep us all informed.

 

BTW: Sorry, I don't want to sound patronising, but this is another example of why you should always have a regular backup.

So many great suggestions, a wealth of knowledge here for sure. Again, I appreciate it ...

 

Not at home to test right now, but let me share my thoughts on how I might proceed.

 

. if you cant' get your task bar to auto hide with that option checked, then you have some windows problem...it always works with a good install or no corruption.

I suppose a Windows 7 repair might work, although I've read a lot of internet verbage about similar problems of others in relation to the taskbar not hiding. I don't recall any one solution being offered. Something to do with an open application blah blah blah.

 

2. Have you picked up a virus? Have you done a scan of the drive you FSX is location on?

Did a thorough scan using both my resident AVG scanner and Malwarebytes application. Turned up negative. I did not run the antivirus scan in Safe Mode. Perhaps I should do that.

 

I'd use Word Not Allowed's guide to optimise your system. Should be somewhere on this site still.

I forgot about Word Not Allowed's guide. After I try a default flight (no tweaks, just the bare bones FSX generated cfg) with a newly generated fsx.cfg, benchmark, then tweak first with Nvidia Inspector, benchmark, then tweak with Word Not Allowed's. Hopefully I'll get respectable performance.

 

after a CTD, FSX can write a second scenery.cfg file to the folder where FSX.cfg is located. If this file exists, it can cause FSX to run very slowly and has to be deleted to regain performance. But be careful not to delete the file with same name in the FSX root directory, as this is critical to operation of the sim.

I will check into this. There was a time I was having CTD problems, but was resolved with that dll fix. But that was a long time ago, and only now having poor performance. I will look for a rogue scenery.cfg file in my appdata/roaming/microsoft/fsx folder and delete it, keeping the one in the FSX root directory.

 

When you downloaded the Nvidia drivers did you delete the old ones first?

Not sure. I know last night I re-installed the currently available drivers. I did not uninstall the same version already on my system thinking that files would simply be re-written. Tonight, I will unistall the current drivers, and re-install. I know there are many out their encouraging me to roll back, but looking at that as a last ditch effort. I enjoy the benefits of this curtrent version.

 

Other issues can be an anti-viral program running or the major issue of an actual virus infection being present on your system.

Yes ... AVG is running in the background ... but has since day one. Not quite sure how not to run it. It does have an option to disable AVG protection, but the max is 15 minutes. That tells me that AVG is still active in somne capacity in the background even when "disabled". Actual virus ... anything is possible ... but turned up negative.

 

The last time this happened to me was when one of my sticks of RAM died.

Interesting ... I've already replaced one stick of faulty RAM within the last 3 months. Maybe it happened again. My system information still recognizes 12MB installed, but could that be misleading? I'm assuming that even though FSX doesn't take advantage of that much RAM, a bad stick will affect performance regardless? Whats the best way of testing for bad RAM? It was easy last time as Windows reported 4MB less. It was just a matter of isolating the stick one by one.

 

the very first thing I would do is a system restore, allowing all the registries and drivers to be rolled back prior to when you had the problem

This to is the first thing I will do, but System Restore kinda freaks me out simply because I don't understand it. There have been a lot of changes to my system in the two weeks, some voluntary like the installation of ActiveSky2012, and involuntary ones like Microsoft updates, Java, Divx updates etc. I'm never sure how system restore acknowledges those. Necessary changes that may or may not be a culprit.

 

download and run Malwarebytes.

Done. Nothing unusual found.

 

run your AV, but do so in safe mode, then shut down and run it a second time

Done once, but not in safe mode. Will try that as recommended.

 

Enjoy your day!