Maybe found what causes the freezes.........

[PerWel 23]

We have seen these statements before several times and a couple of posts later it says False Alarm, still freezing.

 

But this did work on my system, have done 5 flights now with scenery settings where I want them. Weather, OpusFSX and 25% AI with My Traffic Professional latest version.

Scenery is UTX + mega airports.

 

Final test an hour ago was a night flight and landing at Mega Arlanda Stockholm with around 18+20FPS, 30 on cruise. Clouds here and there. No freezings at all.

1920x1080x32 screen setting. FSX Anisotropic and FPS limiter at 30, nVidia Inspector takes care of the AA. No FPS limiter there.

 

I run on WinXP 32, yes 14 years old but also 14 years of bugfixing. Anyway.....

 

After a lot of research, tweakings and settings... yea you know what I mean. I still had freezing now and then with enough VAS 7-800 Mb.

Lowering all kind of scenery settings until it looked terrible, noting helped. Flying at night was impossible, just forget it. Night lights takes a little bit more power.

 

I noticed that when I disabled all AI traffic I had no freezing at all. So what is in common!?, yep The sound. AI also uses sound, so I first set SOUND_LOD=1. Makes the AI use

just some standard boring sound. And I had less freezes. Must be something with the sound.

 

Then I saw this little param in fsx.cfg, seen it every time I open fsx.cfg, at the top, but did not pay any attention to it. Because during freezes the sound continued, only the screen was locked.

 

[sOUND]

SOUND_QUALITY=2

 

Could not find any FSX->Settings about sound quality. So after surfing around I found out that:

2 = High quality

1 = Mid

0 = Low quality, sounds terrible. Unusable.

 

So I have my set to 1,

 

SOUND_QUALITY=1.

 

This did it. I also gained some FPS, around 5-10 more. FSX is also a lot smoother in general and with the T7 it is a very big difference.

More clouds, better and stable weather and so on... List is long with improvments.

 

Why? Because sound also takes resources from the CPU, so I think with max quality FSX sound and screen render system had a fight

about CPU time and the screen render lost and gave up, locked or went in to some never ending loop.

 

So you out there with freezes try setting

SOUND_QUALITY=1

 

I do not hear any difference, but I only have a couple of desktop Logitech speakers. VIA onboard 5.1 system on a ASUS motherboard.

I build all my machines myself, done that for the last 30 years. I am also a programmer/developer since 35+ years.

 

Would be great if you can come back and report your findings.

 

If someone want to know about my machine/hardware and whole setup just let me know and I will post the list.

 

 

Per W

Sweden

 

 

 

[pete_auau 1,152]

be interesting to see if  this fixes  it,  since  I got mine set  to 2  and I don't  suffer   from the freezes

[SteveW 1,792]

There was no discernible difference on my system. However, I'm running Win8/64 and I have an add-in Sound Blaster Recon 3D. I've never had any kind of freezes, stutters, slow downs, or sound problems.

[PerWel 23]

Yes if you have a system that can provide enough power to it all it will not freeze. Sometimes software reacts like this, hangs instead of CTD.

 

I will continue increasing things here and there to see if I can cause a freez again.

 

/Päe

[aentwis 61]

There might well be something to this...

 

Perhaps a quesiton to those experiencing this freeze: Do you have a dedicated sound card or do you use the on-board sound solution that most mainboards these days supply?
 

I have always had a separate sound card on the PCI or now PCI-X bus... I always found issues with using on-board sound solutions and FS...

 

A

[pete_auau 1,152]

Until the op  can reproduce the freeze  all the time, you be searching  for ever  since by the sound of it its random

[777simmer 117]

Well, it is worth a try.

 

Like I said in another post, in my system it seems the freezes are cause by too much load on core 0

moving OPUS away from core 0 stopped the freezes.

But so did disabeling all AI traffic.

 

Makes sense to me that less audio load on the CPU can have the same result !

 

In the end though, if this works.....it again comes down to reducing load on core 0.....by whatever means.

 

 

I have Bose companion 5. It connects via USB and has a build in sound card.

So I have HD sound turned off in the BIOS and no audio drivers installed.

But the CPU still has to do its thing (process audio I guess) to make the sound go out the USB port.

I thought this kind of an audio setup would put less strain on my system due to the external bose soundcard....but I read at other places that it actually puts a high load on the CPU.

(no idea what is the truth)

 

I will throw everything at it :-) to force a freeze and see what your sound tweak does :-)

[777 340]

Maybe I will try this, until SP1 is released, thanks for the HU

[777simmer 117]

I just wanted to say I would like to try this Sound tweak......but I can not reproduce my freezes anymore.

 

Done 4 flights now (with that sound quality =2 still), but cant get it to freeze.

 

And I am trying!

OPUS weather (and not removed from core 0), all AI traffic enabled, 4x accelerated flight !

 

 

All I did was update the Original Ops Center that came with the 777 download (yes, first time I updated it).

 

I saw a 777.dll was updated in the process.

Is that THE.....777.dll...?.....the one that you have to allow to run in FSX after first time start of a fresh install?

 

Is that even possible, that an Ops Center update fixes my freezes?

[PerWel 23]

No if you update the Ops center you only updated the Ops center files, there is a 777.dll in there if you check

C:\Program Files\PMDG Operations Center

 

This is where I have it on WinXP, on Win7 I have no idea.

 

 

I can report that I have not had any kind of freezing anymore with the T7, only maybe micro stops lasting just milliseconds. But I think it is FSX reading scenery

or something. Done several flights and increase settings after everyone to see if I could cause a freeze again, none so far. Last night I did a flight from ESSA Stockholm to LIRF Rome (3 hour) with only 8-10 FPS on the final and only 250 Mb VAS left, had set the scenery a little high. Waiting for a freeze or OOM msg but nothing, did a manual landing from 1000 feet without any problems. Made it to the gate also. Middle of the night in the dark.

Could never do that in the past even on a FSX standard airfield. LIRF I have is a freeware, www.newscenerygroup.forumattivo.it

 

So I have saved a lot of money, was planning to build me a new i5 machine. Did some calculations and checking out hardware the same day I first tried my little sound tweak.

New machine can wait now   no need for it. So I am happy and are waiting for the SP from PMDG.

 

The 737NGX also fly a lot better, much smoother and nicer to hand fly on takeoff and approaches. Even through a lots of clouds and a lots of AIs in the area.

So FSX has less load now and can do its work easy.

 

It can also be that the onboard VIA sound I have can not take the HiFi sound at the rate FSX sends it. And you with an addon soundcard have a much faster one.

So when I build a new machine I will get a sound addon card.

 

Is Soundblaster still the best?? Or are there better ones out now?? I also like to play music when I work.

 

/Per

[slaphead 0]

I too experienced the frustration of the random FSX freezes, mine where 8 minutes in duration and occured regardless of what or where I was flying. I spent many an hour trying to track down the source, changed sound drivers, upgraded graphic drivers, ran scenery utilities to see if one interfered with another, fiddled with the O/C voltages etc. etc with no luck.

 

I use ASN with REX textures and produced numerous crash reports to analyse when and after the freeze occured and discovered that there was a vague relation to ASN's involvement with the problem

 

I started a dialog with HiFi via a ticket and it was recommended that I include the flowing entry in my FSX.cfg file....

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

I have stuck with Nickn's philosophy of not including the many tweaks which have been suggested over the years to "optimize" FSX but have found that as we all have very different setups, some subtle tweaks are sometimes required.

 

So...... I did what was suggeset and the freezing immediately stopped and (fingers crossed) has not reoccurred since. The only other step I took was to ensuite they I had the latest version of FSUIPC.

 

Regards,

 

Paul

[777simmer 117]

No if you update the Ops center you only updated the Ops center files, there is a 777.dll in there if you check

C:\Program Files\PMDG Operations Center

 

Yes I found it....and it is the ONLY 777.dll file I found on my PC!!

 

I did a search for the PMDG777.dll

 

I thought it would be in the FSX folder, but it was not.

 

The one and only PMDG777.dll I could find is in the programs folder.

And that is the one that got updated with the Ops Center update.

 

 

1)

Now is that the one that you have to allow in FSX the first time you run the PMDG777 or is it not?

 

2)

a .dll is what makes an addon aircraft work right?

It is like a .exe file right?

 

3)

If there is only one PMDG777.dll and if this is like the .exe of the application then it makes sence that an update of it can improve things, no?

[PerWel 23]

Went through my fsx.cfg and these are my tweaks, if it is much I do not know but if I remove them things start happen:

 

[Display]

TextureMaxLoad=24      Some param for calc of textures sent

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.7      these are just cosmetic, no performance. Looks a little better.
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=0.7
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=0.7
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=0.7

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80  also for calc of textures

 

 

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.25   spends less time reading scenery, slightly more FPS

 

These two are important that you delete if you change the CPU speed, new ones are created on start of FSX

ProcSpeed=8042
PerfBucket=7

 

If you change CPU freq and do not delete them FSX might work strange. That is my experience

 

This I have used over a year, when I change it it always get worse

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=14

 

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1       everyone should have it

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024   this I sometimes set to 2048 but makes no difference

 

 

This made my system to work a little bit smoother, default is 1. Made FSX a little smoother.

[sCENERY]
MAX_ASYNC_BATCHING_JOBS=2

 

These two really made a difference with VAS and FPS. If you set the slider to Sparse you still have thousands of them. Someone claims that the FSX setting only affects houses.

[TERRAIN]

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=800
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=800
 

If I change or remove this I have a lots of spikes, have tried a lot of different settings since first time. This works best for me.

[bufferPools]

UsePools=1
PoolSize=8388608
RejectThreshold=98304

 

 

I always reduce liveries  down to 1024, no need for bigger ones. Most of the time i am in the cockpit.

Clouds are 256, yes sounds crazy but it looks better. Water too.

 

And last is what I found reading through Kostas guide at his new own site.

 

nVidia Inspector only takes care of  the AA. Nothing else. Inside FSX I have FPS to 30, Bileaner and the Anisotropic ticked. Seems like nVidias Anisotropic does not work well with FSX.

After doing these changes FPS does not fluctuate so much most of the time it is close to 30 and the whole FSX runs a lot smoother.

[PerWel 23]

1)

Now is that the one that you have to allow in FSX the first time you run the PMDG777 or is it not?

 

No. They are in the <fsxhome>\Gauges and are called PMDG_777.dll + some more all starting with PMDG_777 + <fsxhome>\pmdg\DLLs\PMDG_Interface.dll

 

2)

a .dll is what makes an addon aircraft work right?

It is like a .exe file right?

 

Yes a DLL is a binary file that contains code that can be executed but needs something else to call it. And .exe can be started direct by clicking on it, not a dll.

I have done a lots of programming and created DLLs myself, only pure Windows things. But I have no idea on how it is done in FSX and how PMDG does it.

DLL stands for Dynamic Load Library

3)

If there is only one PMDG777.dll and if this is like the .exe of the application then it makes sence that an update of it can improve things, no?

 

No. The dll where you found it are only used by the OP Center. Nothing to do with running the T7, except that you can update liveries and change settings you also does via the CDU.

If the update you did does anything to the T7 only PMDG can answer on. But I suspect not.

 

[777simmer 117]

 

No. The dll where you found it are only used by the OP Center. Nothing to do with running the T7, except that you can update liveries and change settings you also does via the CDU.

If the update you did does anything to the T7 only PMDG can answer on. But I suspect not.

 

Somehow your reply got embedded into my post, so I lifted it out of there.

 

I agree......it would not make sence for this 777.dll to be the actual 777.dll that makes the PMDG777 work.

 

But then, can you show me the real 777.dll ?

I found no other, and I am pretty sure I had to click ALLOW for some PMDG777.dll after I installed the PMDG777.