Random, intermittent video freezes--still not sure where they come from ;o(

[Noel 716]

I thought they were gone, but the come and go, and it seems like much more so around high-end 3rd party airports managed by Virtuali Addon Manager. They seem very much like competing processes, but they are so random I can't seem to get a handle on their cause. One flight will have them, then next not, sometimes 5 secs apart for part of a flight, then they disappear. I never had these, if I remember correctly, prior to installing some of these airports, but it's so hard to be sure.

 

Ideas on where to look? There will be a brief pause (<1sec) where frame rate drops from 25 to 3, then right back up to 25 seconds.

 

Noel

[Ps762 0]

Hi!

 

Sorry I don't have too much experience with detailed airport addons really but two things I might try (you've probably tried them already!):

 

1. Playing with the framerate setting in "settings". From my experience sometimes bringing this down can reduce stuttering problems which was the case with my old graphcs card.

 

2. Trying different graphics card drivers. Remember to uninstall before installing a new one and to keep a backup. From my experience the newest drivers aren't always the best for every system

 

3. Moving the Fsx.cfg file to a backup folder and letting Fsx build a new one and resetting all your settings. It can be a pain but sometimes it helps. Also some people have got smoother performance by using this guy's idea to put the Fs9.cfg writing as Fsx.cfg! Here's the thread if interested (sorry in French but you don't really need to read anything just copy the Fs9.cfg text by the thread starter)

 

http://www.libertysim.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7780&start=0

 

If you try it just remember to replace the [Display device...] section with what's appropriate for your video card from the FsX.cfg you have. This process really improved my FPS with my old video card but pretty much did nothing with my current onboard graphics so I can't promise anything if you decide to try.

 

Anyway hope it might help.

 

Many thanks.

 

P.

[Bert Pieke 3,236]

Sorry, no disrespect, but these suggestions seem to be pretty far off the mark...

 

Airports tend to have traffic and gateways that deploy, all CPU intensive processes...

 

Try to fly with traffic at zero a couple of times as a test and see if you still get these pauses.

 

If you do, run Procmon concurrently with FSX and pause FSX as soon as you get a hickup...

Reading the Procmon trace will show you what processes or file accesses interfered with FSX's

operation.

[CharliesP51 0]

Studders of the type and length you describe are (according to what I've read) indictative of CPU bottlenecks and the associated wait time to catch-up. Basically micro-studders are GPU related while longer , plain old regular studders, indicate a CPU lag in processing. Even boxes supposedly 'bullt for FSX' with top-shelf hardware and tweaked for FSX and then subsequently reviewed on sim sites STILL suffer from major cpu studders at large facilites likle Kennedy Intl. and Heathrow.

CPU overclocking sems to be quite popular and a sort of 'badge of honor' who clocks fastest..however benchmarks show a meager 10-15% FSX performance increase with CPU's (usually i7's) clocked upwards towards 5Ghz which can't be done on air alone. Moreover OC'd cpus can be a seriously negative issue if OC'd during operating system installs and upgrades due to timing issues..it can render your box unbootable. SO..is it worth it for 10-15% increase? UT2 offers a frame limiter that activates during aircraft spawning and that might be worth looking at.

[Noel 716]

Thanks all. I can try procmon again and see if I can tell anything. I had used this technique, found some suspicious looking I/O operations but they didn't pan out as the cause. Kinda wonder if it isn't a disk read operation. Would procmon show something about CPU demand and what's doing it?

 

Of note, Charlies & Bert are suggesting the CPU isn't keeping up with what it is being asked to do. The puzzle though is how come all is well at 25+ fps, then all of a sudden the hitch hits, which to me implies a BIG demand was just placed on processing over and above the constant demand that the system copes with the tune of a steady 25fps (locked at 30, but at KPHX it is running 22-25, ORBX's KJAC (Sooo beautiful!) about 25 in the QW757. Does this suggest the way these airports are rendered are in large chunks all at once? Why else would the system be suddenly overwhelmed, then fully catch up less than a second later. Do high end machines handle this to the point they never see these pauses? This IS NOT stutters--it's a hard freeze n release. The only thing I can say seems pretty predictable is that one of these add on terminals is involved. It's not the addon manager as the ORBX KJAC doesn't use that I don't believe. I also can say in the past prior to add on airports for me I never had these. Right about the time the NGX came out was about the time I started loading up on add on airports.

 

Thanks again. I'll first try Bert's suggestion to get rid of competing tasks, like air traffic, etc. Problem is, and I mean it, I can take off from one of these airports in the same bird and have NO pauses. I wish I could make more effective use of procmon or another similar monitoring app called filemon.

[Ps762 0]

Hi!

 

I think I kinda see what you're thinking. Are you saying the pause happens when the sim has to load a big chunk of detailed scenery from an addon airport you're approaching when you get in "range" for that scenery to appear? That might make sense. Scenery designers like Gary Summons from Uk2000 have made some great framerate friendly complex packages by playing with these kinda settings of when objects appear and dissappear in Fs.

 

One thing I thought was have you tried adjusting the "Video aperture size" setting (I forget the real name) in the computer's bios if you have one. I don't even know if PC's have this any more as my old PC uses AGP video but maybe it might help. Or maybe texture_bandwidth_multiplier in Fsx.cfg?

 

Apologies if you've tried these already or they are bad ideas!

 

Many thanks,

 

Pierre

 

P.S. Also maybe a hard drive defrag? Although I'm pretty sure you've done that already (sorry).

[Noel 716]

Hi!

 

I think I kinda see what you're thinking. Are you saying the pause happens when the sim has to load a big chunk of detailed scenery from an addon airport you're approaching when you get in "range" for that scenery to appear? That might make sense. Scenery designers like Gary Summons from Uk2000 have made some great framerate friendly complex packages by playing with these kinda settings of when objects appear and dissappear in Fs.

 

One thing I thought was have you tried adjusting the "Video aperture size" setting (I forget the real name) in the computer's bios if you have one. I don't even know if PC's have this any more as my old PC uses AGP video but maybe it might help. Or maybe texture_bandwidth_multiplier in Fsx.cfg?

 

Apologies if you've tried these already or they are bad ideas!

 

Many thanks,

 

Pierre

 

P.S. Also maybe a hard drive defrag? Although I'm pretty sure you've done that already (sorry).

 

Thank you Pierre. I don't think the video aperture size is relevant in non-AGP systems. I haven't really gone back into FSX.cfg and played around w/ the various texture loading controls but it's a thought once again. I think I may first learn a little more about procmon and another program to see if I can trap this error. It's also possible BUFFERPOOLS = 0 may be a culprit. That's easy to test. I got on to that modification, once again, around the same time I picked up some new airports etc, so difficult to say what is happening to what. It really does seem to be so random. Truthfully, and this is obvious by now, I haven't really done the due diligence to get to the bottom of this, as in exhausting a quality troubleshooting effort.

 

Cheers,

 

Noel