FSX - Graphic Driver Freezes

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

Hello,

 

I've been testing a whole different set of configurations for a long time, trying to eliminate the only thing that causes problems on my FSX installation: Temporary (5 - 10 minute) graphic driver freezes. I have given up because after more than 300 hours airborne i still didn't find what the problem is.

 

The configuration:

 

FSX runs full screen on a 2560x1440 monitor, Core i7 2600K 4.5GHz, 16GB 2133MHz RAM and a GTX780 with the latest driver (although it happened with previous drivers/graphic cards). Never had a bluescreen, i've had this build for over 1 year (except video card) and it's hardware-stable.

 

The symptoms:

 

FSX image freezes while sound keeps playing. It's apparently frozen, but it's not, it's simply 'paused'. If i go into the control panel and click on nVidia driver settings, i can't see the 3D logo rotating (driver is apparently crashed/halted). All addons running on a separate computer (ACARS, Weather, online client, etc) keep working normally and don't crash/show any disconnection symptoms. After a few minutes have passed in this state, the driver apparently resets/unfreezes/whatever and FSX resumes normal operation. It might repeat this behaviour one or two times in a flight depending on duration, it might not repeat it or it might NEVER happen - It seems totally random.

 

What i did already:

 

I tried almost everything i can remember of. New default fsx.cfg, antialiasing on FSX, antialiasing on driver (with the help of inspector), AA with supersampling, AA with multisampling, SGSS, no SGSS, no water wave animations, no antialiasing at all, different filtering settings, different driver power settings, frame rate limited, frame rate unlimited, vsync, no vsync, and a LOT of combinations of all of these and many more. When things seem to be working again after 3 or 4 5000nm flights, there it happens again with a random aircraft over random airspace on a random situation.

 

What i would like to know:

 

Is anyone else experiencing these weird driver freezes and knows of a solution (a real permanent solution)? I'm going nuts trying to find out why this is happening, because i don't really remember this happening when i had a GTX480 a long long time ago with a much older nVidia driver. I fly online and sometimes this happens when under ATC control and it's really really annoying. I don't have OOMs or crashes of any sort (or these happen very very very rarely) so i'm really interested in getting rid of this particular nuisance.

 

Thank you for reading!

[TheFamilyMan 279]

I've had FSX pause for a few seconds on rare occasions, but never for minutes at a time.  One thing worth checking is if your gtx 780 is having problems, which could range from overheating to a hardware failure.  Using a dedicated GPU stress/benchmark app such as http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/2111/unigine-heaven-dx11-benchmark-3-0/ could help identify if any of the above are really the problem.  This benchmark has lots of tunable settings (much more so than the newer 4.0 release) and can be set on 'run forever' mode.  Run this bench for several minutes, monitoring the temps and watching for it to hang in the same manner as FSX.  If it does you'll then know for sure that your gtx 780 is the problem.

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

Right now i'm testing with another GPU which was one of the things i never tried. It's not the same GPU, it's a 650Ti but let's see how it goes.

 

I'll put the 780 back once i clean her up just to make sure the contacts are good and try heaven for a bit (i have it installed). Thanks for the tip.

[Paul J 349]

Hi Nuno:

 

Download this file, place it into the root folder (where fsx.exe lives), unzip it and rename it as "UIAutomationCore.dll". This should fix the issue.

 

All the best,

 

pj

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

It's there already, one of the things i tried and doesn't do anything really. Sorry :(

[Paul J 349]

Which version?

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

Vista's SP2, 18000. I know yours is 16386, think it can make a difference?

[Tim-HH 570]

I guess that's one of these dreadful TDR errors with which Nvidia seems to have a lot of troubles lately. Here are two links for more infos:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/389688/geforce-drivers/nvidia-statement-on-tdr-errors-display-driver-nvlddmkm-stopped-/

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/621899/geforce-drivers/desktop-internet-browser-freeze-thread-w-geforce-460-560-gpus-updated-for-nb-12-5-13-page79-/1

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

I guess that's one of these dreadful TDR errors with which Nvidia seems to have a lot of troubles lately. Here are two links for more infos:

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/389688/geforce-drivers/nvidia-statement-on-tdr-errors-display-driver-nvlddmkm-stopped-/

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/621899/geforce-drivers/desktop-internet-browser-freeze-thread-w-geforce-460-560-gpus-updated-for-nb-12-5-13-page79-/1

 

Excellent find, it does seem to be this problem indeed. I'll have a read and see if i can solve this issue.

 

Just to be clear, since this was moved to the CTD forum... this isn't a CTD, it's a temporary freeze situation that doesn't cause a crash ever.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Another freeze/ctd where the uiautomationcore.dll does not fix the problem!!  A look through the CTD Forum will reveal that most had the uiautomationcore.dll in their main fsx folder and they still received a crash/freeze.  Many have removed the uiautomationcore.dll and the crashes/freezes stopped.  It is definitely not the video card that is causing these freezes.

 

As quoted from the AVSIM CTD Guide:

 

Freezes During Flight – Freezes are most commonly caused by –

 

• High FSX/display driver settings.  Check.
• High settings within commercial weather programs like REX, AS2012, OPUS.  Check. Some raise settings to the highest texture settings (4096 HD) within weather programs. This coupled with high FSX.cfg LOD_Radius and Texture_Max_Load settings may take up too many resources and FSX will freeze.
• Complications with weather server updates.  FSX may try to update the weather and the weather server is down or cannot comply with a request.
• Running out of Virtual Address Space (VAS) especially on one hour or longer flights (see VAS discussion further down in this section).
• Bad FSX tweaks.  Rebuild the FSX.cfg to see if this fixes the problem.
• ENBSeries Module
• SweetFX Module

 

Excellent find, it does seem to be this problem indeed. I'll have a read and see if i can solve this issue.

 

Just to be clear, since this was moved to the CTD forum... this isn't a CTD, it's a temporary freeze situation that doesn't cause a crash ever.

We are putting all incidents of freezes/ctd's in the CTD Forum.  It makes it much easier for members when they have to conduct a search for problems they have with freezes/CTD's.

 

Best regards,

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Just to be clear, since this was moved to the CTD forum.

 

On second thought, I'll move this back until this problem is resolved.  I can see your reasoning for having it in the FSX Forum as there are more frequent visitors.

 

Best regards,

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

Thank you Jim.

 

I have inserted a new registry entry regarding the TDR problem, let's see what it does. It's supposed to ignore the driver if the GFX card takes too much time rendering a frame.

 

I don't use ENB nor any of those addons. I am 100% sure it's a GFX driver halt/crash because i cannot see the 3D logo in the nVidia control panel when the simulator is frozen. Also, if i try to run a game during the crash, i get D3D initialization errors. When the sim unfreezes, the logo is back and games run once again.

 

These freezes also last exactly 5 minutes - I found this with my ACARS logging program that shows the aircraft remained in the same position for that period of time. It must be a timer of some sort that reinitializes the driver.

[G MIDY 101]

I guess that's one of these dreadful TDR errors with which Nvidia seems to have a lot of troubles lately. Here are two links for more infos:

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/389688/geforce-drivers/nvidia-statement-on-tdr-errors-display-driver-nvlddmkm-stopped-/

 

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/621899/geforce-drivers/desktop-internet-browser-freeze-thread-w-geforce-460-560-gpus-updated-for-nb-12-5-13-page79-/1

 

I too have had these kind of problems recently however my entire system froze with no errors at all, this also happened in Windows. The only stable drivers that worked for me were 314.22 however according to Nvidia forums they have fixed whatever they broke and everything seems okay so far on 331.93 BETA. To quash driver problems I'd just install whatever driver came on the disc or those available on the GFX card manufacturers website. The problems I had seemed to be quoted for the 400/500 series so this might not help? If you are getting GFX related crashes on a fresh FSX than the only thing to consider really for me is the driver or overheating. Any other problem for example with other hardware would for me manifest regardless of whether FSX is running or not.

 

It might be worth checking the event viewer for any suspicious crashes/errors and also completing a full fresh driver install by running the Nvidia driver program, ticking advanced and then tick clean install.

[Nuno Pinto 1,394]

Well, i seem to have found the problem. Somehow my PC doesn't like overloading the GFX card with so much AA or SGSS. Even though it can handle it (no stuttering, etc), it doesn't like it.

 

I have tested many flights already in which the sim would hang with success by setting AA and AF inside the simulator only. So, now i'm going to start low (maybe just 8xS and 2xSGSS) and go from there. I had 32xS, 4xSGSS and AF16x in the video card, plus i hadn't set the maximum prerendered frames to 1 which might increase load even more.

 

But bottom line, my issue was *apparently* this. Too much being done on the video card. It doesn't really surprise me because i don't play games for 10h like i do long hauls with FSX so i never had issues with games.

 

Once again thank you everyone for reading/suggesting, it got me there eventually with fresh ideas

[Jim Young 2,356]

Good to hear you found your problem.  Thanks for letting us know how you fixed your problem.  Yes, as I stated, high settings will cause all kinds of problems.  I knew it could not be a TDR as I can replicate a TDR 100% of the time by merely changing the voltage on my video card.  I think wrong BIOS overclocks and individuals messing around with the video card OC settings have these TDR's as not everyone who has a certain driver installed gets this crash.  If you overclock and have high graphics settings, suspect this first, not any drivers.

 

Best regards,