Is FSX inherently unstable

[LHookins 3,113]

The sim's "default flight" saves twenty-two additional parameters that regular flight files do not.

 

Oh jeez. Do you have a link to documentation on that?

 

I have a vanilla copy of FSX + Acceleration which I use solely for development. It's never crashed - except when I've done something wrong!.

 

I can get a crash pretty consistently by flying at some altitude and pushing the control forward. Oh wait...

 

If you're never getting a crash doing development work in FSX, you're in pretty good shape! What kind of work are you doing?

 

Hook

[Noel 4,563]

Au contraire, FSX is inherently very stable else it couldn't cope with what we do with it--as i! There are no hidden secret bugs--a bug is something tied to a whole set of contingencies in order to manifest itself. Put vanilla FSX into XP 32bit w/ no addons, no oveclocking, and tell me how unstable or bug-ridden it is. It is the fact we put so much into it (lo, 20 or 30 addons involving different aircraft and their associated modules, gauges, etc, scenery, utilities, etc), stress our hardware beyond its normal operating specs, use an OS a few iterations beyond the one FSX was designed for, ad infinitum. I dare say we really have no other environment to even compare this to!

[LHookins 3,113]

Put vanilla FSX into XP 32bit w/ no addons, no oveclocking, and tell me how unstable or bug-ridden it is.

 

XP 32bit, no addons, no overclocking, after SP2 it crashed every third flight.

 

Some people don't have the problem and believe that it has to be what the user did if he's having problems. People who never had a crash don't research several years worth of crash reports, so they don't know just how bad it can get.

 

As one user put it, after trying every possible combination of fixes, "The only thing common to all these crashes is FSX."

 

Hook

[FloG 148]

I sometimes I can fly without any crashes for a few days in a row, and then there are days, when FSX crashes almost immediately after startup every other time I start it. Nevertheless, I regard it the best sim there is, probably even the best computer game I have.

[Noel 4,563]

XP 32bit, no addons, no overclocking, after SP2 it crashed every third flight.

 

As one user put it, after trying every possible combination of fixes, "The only thing common to all these crashes is FSX."

 

Yes, this is my (and your) conjecture, as neither of us is producing any hard data.

 

This means very little really--certainly no more in the inverse than my personal positive experience w/ 5 different installations of FSX on different systems where no problems developed, despite lots of addons and overclocking. First of all, having to apply 'every possible combination of fixes' in itself is telling. You do a fresh install of XP 32bit, update DX if needed, a WHQL nV driver in place, install FSX w/ SP2. What 'combination of fixes' can you possibly apply to vanilla? I would bet money the scenario you describe rarely if ever is truly plain vanilla, and increases w/ the square of the number of addons involved. That a hugely robust array of user and 3rd party developers lives on to this day, 6.5y after its initial release, is testimony in itself of how stable the software has been. If a majority (the rule) suffered from your example of 'it crashed every 3rd flight' the product would have died a lonely death many years ago. I will concede one aspect though: FSX is so demanding that if there are holes in your OS/hardware, they will likely manifest. So which is it, unstable FSX?, unstable OS? Again, the behavior you describe I'll bet is the exception not the rule.

[mgh 89]

If you're never getting a crash doing development work in FSX, you're in pretty good shape! What kind of work are you doing?

 

I did say it crashes when I do something wrong!

 

At present I'm working on a hover package using SimConnect. I can now hover but haven't cracked full control yet - especially transitions

[Rations 102]

To the original poster: Welcome to AVSIM!

 

To everyone experiencing crashes: Have you tried downloading UIAutomationCore.dll from a reliable source such as Word Not Allowed's Guide and inserting it into the FSX main folder? It's supposed to prevent memory usage errors. I rarely experience crashes (e.g., permanent memory insufficiency freezes after leaving the simulator running for a long time or opening menus frequently), but it could just be that my hardware is satisfactory enough.

[wims80 121]

 

 

XP 32bit,

...

There you go. FSX is not really inherently unstable, but windows XP is. It was not that good of an OS in my opinion, even tho conservative people might disagree. It's sub-par particularly when it comes to stability and memory managment. The fact that you are using a 32 bit os does not really help either, certainly not if youre using a bunch of modern addons. Modern addons use a lot of memory, so you'll easily exhaust your virtual address space, and on top of that Win XPs way of dealing with memory leaves a lot to be desired anyways.

 

As another poster mentioned, the only times I get issues is FSX is when I have done something wrong. Other than that it's really stable in my experience

[Gazzareth 824]

 

Even on my last machine, which was XP on quite poor hardware, I rarely had FSX crash. When I did, normally I suspect an add-on was to blame.

 

On a new machine W7-64 it is pretty much crash free. I would not expect to see that if it was inherently unstable.

 

G

[LHookins 3,113]

I regard it the best sim there is, probably even the best computer game I have.

 

Agreed. Otherwise we wouldn't put up with the problems.

 

This means very little really--certainly no more in the inverse than my personal positive experience w/ 5 different installations of FSX on different systems where no problems developed, despite lots of addons and overclocking. First of all, having to apply 'every possible combination of fixes' in itself is telling. You do a fresh install of XP 32bit, update DX if needed, a WHQL nV driver in place, install FSX w/ SP2. What 'combination of fixes' can you possibly apply to vanilla?

 

If the first 20 people's reports of multiple complete reinstalls on vanilla systems doesn't convince you, maybe the next 30 will. And if that's not enough, you can find any number of additional ones. Read 'em 50 at a time until you understand. For some people a reinstall seems to work. For others, it does nothing.

 

At present I'm working on a hover package using SimConnect. I can now hover but haven't cracked full control yet - especially transitions

 

Best of luck with that!

 

FSX is not really inherently unstable, but windows XP is.

 

I was responding to Noel's post about installing on 32 bit XP. When I got a new i7 computer running Win 7 I had the same crashes at the same frequency. It's not XP. In fact, I ran XP for 8 months with only 3 crashes total before I installed SP2.

 

Hook

[Lewis Bloomfield 6]

FSX is as unstable as any other computer program out there in particular the open type programs such as FSX. The real differance with FSX is that after years and years of development with hundreds upon hundreds of man hours poured into the code it is too good, too content with itself really.

 

At A2A we quickly found this out when we started playing with the simconnect goodies etc for our advanced stuff. Upon release we quickly found that our aircraft were not working with some customers and couldnt figure out why. The issue was that there FSX was either corrupt or that the simconnect component was corrupt/broken however they were flying FSX daily just fine.

 

After lots and lots of testing we found that an FSX reinstall/repair fixed the issues OR a simconnect reinstall using the simconnect installer itself. The simple issue is that so long as the basics are there FSX will not error, it will not tell you that x, y, or z isnt working correctly it will run and run and run all day long right up until the aircraft, weather program or a particular part of the code is trying to be used and then 'WHACK' it will crash. Luckily because of this you can normally somewhat track down what is at fault, using the error or event viewer.

[FSMP 95]

I start and run FSX for 100's of hours at a time, and it NEVER crashes.

 

If your PC is crashing, you need to look inside and find the bugs... They are little Red creatures, that hatch from FSX addons.

 

Look near memory chips -- they love to eat Memory ..

 

[LHookins 3,113]

Lewis, I have great respect for you guys at A2A. You do excellent work. Thanks.

 

If I'd had a problem with my Cub or Stratocruiser, I'd have posted on your support forums. Same with Accu-Feel. But those worked fine out of the box.

 

For many of us, the constant crashes are just a fact of FSX life. After reading hundreds of threads on fixing problems, and trying dozens of solutions, we've given up and just accepted them. If I get a crash tomorrow flying the Stratocruiser, and it's not obviously related to some A2A function, you'll never hear about it. If I hadn't suddenly gotten a stable system, I wouldn't have even considered the B377. But so far, so good, and I'm loving the plane.

 

Hook

 

If your PC is crashing, you need to look inside and find the bugs... They are little Red creatures, that hatch from FSX addons.

 

If it were only that simple.

[Noel 4,563]

If the first 20 people's reports of multiple complete reinstalls on vanilla systems doesn't convince you, maybe the next 30 will.

 

No, these don't convince me the software is inherently unstable. And these, I am arguing, are the exceptions, not the rule. For every 30, there are 300 who don't suffer from crashes after every 3rd flight. And for every 300 who use FSX SP2 on a clean Windows install AND DON'T commence w/ the inevitable tweaking to get every last frame out of it, and every possible 3rd party addon ever developed for it including FSUIPC, FSPax, REX E+, GEX, GSX, myriad complex aircraft, and XYZ there are 3000 who will, and within 24h! Name another piece of software that can tolerate this level of 3rd party addons for it and last going on 7 years now and still going strong. Inherently unstable? Rubbish! Yes...it's just my opinion and please feel free to hang on to and enjoy your own.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Lewis, I have great respect for you guys at A2A. You do excellent work. Thanks.

 

If I'd had a problem with my Cub or Stratocruiser, I'd have posted on your support forums. Same with Accu-Feel. But those worked fine out of the box.

 

For many of us, the constant crashes are just a fact of FSX life. After reading hundreds of threads on fixing problems, and trying dozens of solutions, we've given up and just accepted them. If I get a crash tomorrow flying the Stratocruiser, and it's not obviously related to some A2A function, you'll never hear about it. If I hadn't suddenly gotten a stable system, I wouldn't have even considered the B377. But so far, so good, and I'm loving the plane.

 

Hook

 

If it were only that simple.

 

I used to think fsx was inherently unstable and had just learned to live with it.

 

Interestingly, if i think back i haven't had a crash in six months that i remember - so it is possible with the right system and install and tweaks to get this right.

 

For me, fresh install plus w7 64 bit plus uiautomationcore mod plus selective use of payware resulted in an effectively fully stable system.

 

So my point is, it is possible to get fsx rock solid (i would not have believed that a year ago), but i'm not 100% convinced how you do this.

 

My best guess is that a w 7 64 fresh install plus fsx fresh install (and keep the computer solely for fsx) on a sandy/ivy bridge with a keppler card with the uiautomationcore vista dll would be stable for anyone.