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Dougal

Enough is Enough (for now)

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Aaaaaagh!!! Having reinstalled Windows, FSX and all my addons 3 times in the last 4 months, I'm finally giving up on it, at least for now.

 

I've just uninstalled every addon and FSX from my hard drive! I expect I'm far too hooked to leave simming forever, but if I don't take a break, I might just break something, or someone :O

 

It seems to me the vast majority of my error messages and crashes are caused by addons. Don't get wrong PLEASE, I'm not suggesting they're faulty, as such. It's just the more addons I install, the more frequent and serious the problems become. I think it's more that 'our friends' at MS didn't exactly design FSX with 3rd party addons in mind.

 

I dare not count the number of payware addons I have, but probably now into 3 figures and, it seems almost each one has its own way of 'doing things' in FSX, which is always going to cause problems. I'm a little tired too, of some people who say things like, "well x or y doesn't cause problems on my PC" or similar, when the chance of them also having the other 99 or so addons installed that I have, are pretty small. That in itself is why things are SO hard for many addon developers when fault finding. I feel for you guys *nearly* as much as myself ;-)

 

On the one hand I've been fortunate, being able to buy so many, but I guess if I didn't, then I probably wouldn't have so many issues either. Nice problem to have I supose.

 

Maybe when I install FSX next time, I'll keep it stock, or ONLY install those things I consider vital. Mmmmm.... fat chance I supect :blink:

 

I have a competent PC, but when adding a top notch addon aircraft, to areas like KLAX by FSDT, and Aerosoft US Cities, then it just doesn't hack it.

 

I think it's time for some of my other games to get an outing. None of which give me 'stackhash' or ai_player errors :wacko: Okay, maybe they give the occasional CDT ^_^

 

I'm afraid you lot don't rid of me though, as I'll still be keeping a check on you all to make sure you don't misbehave too badly :Big Grin:

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On the one hand I've been fortunate, being able to buy so many, but I guess if I didn't, then I probably wouldn't have so many issues either. Nice problem to have I supose.

 

Maybe when I install FSX next time, I'll keep it stock, or ONLY install those things I consider vital. Mmmmm.... fat chance I supect :blink:

 

I always only have installed what I actually use. It's impossible to use 99 planes (I think...) so why not, as you say yourself, remove the ones you don't use? I usually have 2 addon planes installed: I don't need (or want) anymore. Add to that OpusFSX, ProATC/X, FS2Crew and one or two scenery addons and I am done. (I also use REX but only for textures so I am only mentioning the addons I actually have to run). I may have some more scenery addons installed but I usually deactivate them until I want to use them again. So all in all my FSX is pretty clean and (specially thanks FSUIPC's anti-crash function) I never have problems.

 

MS did design FSX with addons in mind (otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with backward compatibility) but er... they probably didn't design it to run a few hundreds of addons. (Also don't forget that in the old days a new version would have appeared after two or three years: so by now there are much more addons for FSX then there have ever been for previous versions, I think!)

 

So... when you have reinstalled FSX again coming weekend B) :rolleyes: keep it simple: that way you might actually enjoy using FSX. (Not having to install hundreds of addons saves precious time too!)

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Just install one thing at a time and test it before proceding to the next addon. FSX dosent like to many changes at a time. Slow is the only way to go. Josh


CPU: Intel i9-11900K @5.2 / RAM: 32GB DDR4 3200 / GPU: 4080 16GB /

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Just install one thing at a time and test it before proceding to the next addon. FSX dosent like to many changes at a time. Slow is the only way to go. Josh

I hear what you say friend, but with 120+ addons, have you any idea just how long that would take;-)

 

By the way Jeroen, what about what so many talk about as being "the essentials", like Ultimate Terrain, GEX and AI Traffic - do you have those installed?

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By the way Jeroen, what about what so many talk about as being "the essentials", like Ultimate Terrain, GEX and AI Traffic - do you have those installed?

 

I don't have UTX and GEX installed (I do own UTX Europe). I forgot to add that I have MyTraffic X 5.4b (or whatever) but I only bought that one this month so I tend to forget to mention that it. ^_^ I have flown for YEARS without AI...

 

What I install and/or enable depends on how I fly. Lately I've been flying the PMDG 737NGX with FS2Crew a LOT and when I fly that one, I don't care about scenery that much, so I won't use Orbx in that case: default FSX is fine with me! (Specially in the winter when FSX default scenery looks mighty fine imho (if there is snow...)). When I fly the Legacy I do like to enable some addon scenery but then I also don't care too much about AI and ATC so I turn those two down or off. So I do make choices to keep performance okay: I know and have accepted I can't do everything I want with FSX.

 

Obviously all this helps to prevent problems. But even when I do load a lot (every now and then) I don't seem to run into problems, which I think is mainly due to FSUIPC (I use the freeware version for its anti-crash feature). Guess I am lucky with my system.

 

Of course this all has to suit your way of playing the game. If flying a different plane every day is what keeps you coming back to FSX, then my 'tips' won't help... ^_^ As I said: I usually have two planes installed (one airliner, one GA): having three installed is a LOT for me! Having a few hunderd installed would drive me nuts. B)

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I hear what you say friend, but with 120+ addons, have you any idea just how long that would take;-)

 

By the way Jeroen, what about what so many talk about as being "the essentials", like Ultimate Terrain, GEX and AI Traffic - do you have those installed?

 

Hell of a lot less time than reinstalling FSX three times! Be patient..friend. Think about this for a second. 120+ add-ons--how many are you actively using right off the bat? Install your favourite piece of scenery, a couple of your favourite planes and go fly a bit. Relax.


Eva Vlaardingerbroek, an inspiratiom.

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It's a one by one process and as Josh said, check FSX for proper operation after each addon installed. Nick's (Needham) installation guide stresses a re-boot after each major addition (FSX-SDK-Acceleration). I do that now and so far, so good.

 

My addons in order of installation, checking each one in FSX after it is installed, are:

 

FSX, SDK, Acceleration, SDK-SP1A, OPUS-X, ADE1.5, UTXUSA with patches, UTX Canada with patch, UTX Europe with patch, UTX Tropical & Carribean with patch, GEX-NA, GEX-EU, FSPS, FS Water Configurator, Addon Scenery's (Fly Tampa KBOS-X and about 30 other freeware's), AES, and my most recent, Accu-Feel. After those, I then add my selected aircraft ( 60+) & WoAI (100+).

 

Last night, I had to do a COMPLETE re-format and new installation of WIN7-64 which I did from my HP recovery DVD's. I tried using the Recovery partition on my HD but kept getting a fatal error message involving "SYSPREP". Couldn't resolve it so I was forced to use the DVD's. What a LONG process as opposed to XP. And this was just Win7. Not to mention FSX. Win7 alone took about 2.5 hours. FSX took another 6 or so to get it all back in working condition.

 

Take a breather. Get your wits backs and do a SLOW, addon by addon methodical install, checking each one as you go in FSX for proper operation. We all know how frustrating this program can be but when it works, IT WORKS!

 

Good luck.

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A few weeks ago I made a thread out of complete rage, being in exactly the same situation as you are now. I just uninstalled some ORBX scenery and the whole FSX world became black. I've been going through so many problems with FSX in the past few years that I almost gave up, but I'm glad I did not. Recently, I bought some great add-ons like Opus which made FSX great.

 

I do feel your pain, but I will try to help you.

 

Of course it's always very hard to find the culprit of the problems, and I can understand nobody has the patience to install one add-on (out of your 100+ add-ons) at a time and do flights and flights only to find out your FSX will be messed up again after a few weeks. Most of the time, the culprit to the problems of FSX are not the add-ons itself, it could also be system instability. Default FSX might be able to handle an unstable system, but throwing in so many add-ons might mess it all up. Many times, installing and uninstalling can create errors in the registry which can cause system instability.

 

I will now try to list things that you should all try in case you haven't tried it yet.

 

- Go to add/remove programs, and delete everything you don't need on your PC. Usually doesn't help much, but you never know.

- Delete any leftovers from previously uninstalled programs in your drives.

- In your fsx.cfg make sure you have HIGHMEMFIX=1 under [GRAPHICS], but I guess you already have that.

- Run FSX as administrator

- Run every installer that involves anything for FSX, as administrator

- Run a malware scan with MalwareBytes (freeware)

- Run a full virusscan with Microsoft Security Essentials (freeware)

- Last, but definately not least (actually very important), run a registry cleaner. I have RegClean Pro and it's very good. Sometimes, when I've been iinstalling lots of stuff it discovers like 5000 errors, make sure you also run the Optimize Registry option. Please not this software is payware

 

If this all doesn't work it might be related to hardware

 

- Check your temps of your videocard and CPU during full load

- Run a 12 hour Prime95 test with small FFT

- Run MemTest over night

 

If this all doesn't work, it's just one of your add-ons that is poorly designed regarding FSX's stability. Only install what you need, like: REX, GEX, UTX, Opus, PMDG planes, and a few airports sceneries. Keep it there for a while and then add sceneries of other producers. When the problems start again you can indentify the culprit.

 

I see many people always have an obsession with reinstalling, reformatting, reinstalling, reformatting, etc., but usually this won't help much, especially if the problem is hardware related. All it does is replacing files that were already there, and the only advantage of reformatting is that it sets a clean registry and it doens't have trash on your PC. But some of the steps mentioned above can give you a similar result.

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Just a quick note....we do feel your pain of course....but heeding the advice above about slow and easy for sure....slowly build it back up to where you want it...then....

BACK IT ALL UP, MAKE A COMPLETE BACKUP OF YOUR ENTIRE SETUP.

 

If you ever have to reinstall windows, which I have had several times now...I have my original (on a separate drive) and a backup on other drive AND a default setup on another. All of which allow me to get my FSX up and running with very few problems. There are a few planes that require a reinstall for various reasons but its all those tweaks and configs that can mess you up. With a back up most if not all will work properly for you once you use a registry fix tool to link in your backup or your originals on another drive.

 

My FSX is 385 gigs in size with 583 scenery layers and 987 Airplanes (mostly AI, but many flyable). Last year when my C root drive died, I had a new one installed windows 7 reinstalled and had my FSX up and running (almost in full) that very day. As I noted several planes required reinstall for their modules to work properly. ALL my UTX, GEX, ORBX, FSAddons, Simaddons and their respective configuration modules worked perfectly.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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I feel your pain.

Installed Windows 7 again yesterday

Started format of HDD @ 16:00

Finished Win 7 updates @ 20:00

Installing FSX @ 20:30

Installed PMDG MD-11 NGX and AXE ~23:00

Wife made me go to bed

 

Today 9:00 Install Aerosoft Scenery

14:00 go to work

 

To be continued.......


Jude Bradley
Beech Baron: Uh, Tower, verify you want me to taxi in front of the 747?
ATC: Yeah, it's OK. He's not hungry.

X-Plane 11 X-Plane 12 and MSFS2020  🙂

System specs: Windows 11  Pro 64-bit, Ubuntu Linux 20.04 i9-9900KF  Gigabyte Z390 RTX-3070-Ti , 32GB RAM  1X 2TB M2 for X-Plane 12,  1x256GB SSD for OS. 1TB drive MSFS2020

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I feel for you, Phil. Must be so frustrating, and you have hit on some very valid points i.e.MS, etc. Hopefully, once you have had a good long break away from it, you will bounce back with the same enthusiasm it has been a pleasure to follow considering what you lost when the 'tea leaf..........'

 

All The Best

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120 addons wow! I try avoiding installing anything beyond what I really use and my FSX has been rock stable (touch wood) since the last install on a new laptop a few months back locked at 25 FPS. Essentials in my case being - Orbx FTX regions (almost all), REX, Accufeel, some GA airports and aircraft (RA Legacy, Cheyenne, Duke and a couple more). I am actually impressed by FSX now that it runs smoothly and looks good on non expensive hardware these days (i7, 8 GB Ram, 2 GB Video, no SSD, $800 in all - Dell). So my suggesstion would be the same as Jereon above - avoid too many installations. Keep it simple. Hopefully it works out!

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It seems to me the vast majority of my error messages and crashes are caused by addons. Don't get wrong PLEASE, I'm not suggesting they're faulty, as such. It's just the more addons I install, the more frequent and serious the problems become. I think it's more that 'our friends' at MS didn't exactly design FSX with 3rd party addons in mind.

 

I dare not count the number of payware addons I have, but probably now into 3 figures and, it seems almost each one has its own way of 'doing things' in FSX, which is always going to cause problems. I'm a little tired too, of some people who say things like, "well x or y doesn't cause problems on my PC" or similar, when the chance of them also having the other 99 or so addons installed that I have, are pretty small. That in itself is why things are SO hard for many addon developers when fault finding. I feel for you guys *nearly* as much as myself ;-)

 

One of the main reasons people with a great amount of addons have problems, isn't because there is a problem with an addon, (although that is possible) but how many and how much address space ones which dlls are loaded via the dll.xml file. These get loaded on FSX start up whether you use them or not. Which is a complete waste of VAS, which of coarse is at a premium, when you are using addon aircraft such as the PMDG NGX. To avoid this add or modify the following line in each optional section of the dll.xml file. Leave the dlls you know are used on every flight alone.

 

ManualLoad>True</ManualLoad>

 

Then when you start FSX it will ask if you want to load each dll. Say no to all but the ones you are using for that particular flight. The only time I have gotten CTDs or OOMs were with PMDG aircraft. Since doing this, I haven't gotten one, and I'm still using Vista 32bit, which limits me even more!!!


Thanks

Tom

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http://www.youtube.com/user/tf51d

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Tom, thanks for that recommendation, I had never heard of that before...it makes sense to me that this would be useful.


Bryan Wallis aka "fltsimguy"

Maple Bay, British Columbia

Near CAM3

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To avoid this add or modify the following line in each optional section of the dll.xml file. Leave the dlls you know are used on every flight alone.

 

ManualLoad>True</ManualLoad>

 

Then when you start FSX it will ask if you want to load each dll. Say no to all but the ones you are using for that particular flight.

 

Interesting method, didn't know about that one, but I do it in a slightly other way. I usually fly one plane for quite some time so I disable the dll's I don't need in the fxs.cfg: this way I only have to click on NO a few times when FSX loads and asks if I want to use the dll. The method above requires you to enable or disable every dll and that may become cumbersome.

 

If I would switch planes more often I would probably create seperate FSX.cfg's for them and then create a bat file to make the one I need the active one. This way you can also load specific settings for specific planes (like more autogen and less traffic for GA and less autogen and more traffic for airliners).

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