FSX freeze up problem - Possible causes?

[trebor737 2]

Hi,

 

I am having a problem with FSX, that it freezes! This now happens on every flight i do, so am looking for possible ideas to fix this problem. The freeze happens for about 5-10 minutes, during this time sound still works, as does ATC and my aircraft fuel and continues flying.

 

I am starting to think that the problem could be due to overheating of the processor. i will list my pc specification below.

 

Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-3570k Quad Core (3.40GHz @ max 4.60GHz)

ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)

2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE

SPIRE GEMINI REV.3-THERMAX HDT TWIN FAN CPU COOLER

 

Whilst flying i am using:-

 

PMDG 737NGX

Active Sky Next with REX texture

Pro ATC X

AI Smooth

FSX Fiber Accelerator

VNPC - Virtual airline ACARS program

 

Is it possible that my processor is overheating, and this causing the freeze? I have done the UIAutomationCore.dll and looked at the BIOS stuff. I dont run FSX on max settings like i wished thinking this might be the problem but with no success.

 

Thanks 

Rob

 

[Dazkent 113]

Hello

 

Is it a total freeze or can you change views?

 

I had a very similar problem, the sim would freeze for exactly 8 mins and then resume, I found by running without ASN the freeze went away. I tried iASN with the SP1 beta update and so far it hasn't shown itself, would love to know the exact cause.

 

[trebor737 2]

Total freeze, is the beta update for active sky a new one?

[Dazkent 113]

Its a an open beta update, is fairly new as its been for a few weeks

 

[trebor737 2]

Just downloaded it and going to give it ago later on! Fingers crossed!! What are the major changes with it?

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[trebor737 2]

Updates Active sky next to the SP Beta and just done a flight. It worked!! No more freeze, but will do more testing in the coming days. 

 

It was def not overheating, i ran a CPU temp monitor and the max temp it got to was 60 degrees C. Which i dont think is too bad!

 

Cheers Dazkent for your help

 

Rob

[Jim Young 2,356]

Thanks for reporting your solution.

 

Best regards,

[trebor737 2]

Cancel that excitement!! Just tried another flight, longer one than before, it had 2 freezes within 800nm! Totally fed up with it, does anyone no if Prepar3d v2 have any freezes like this? Am really tempted because this freezing has ruined flight sim for me at the mo!! Just end up flying expecting the annoyance of a freeze at anytime!

 

Cheers

Rob

[Jim Young 2,356]

Cancel that excitement!! Just tried another flight, longer one than before, it had 2 freezes within 800nm! Totally fed up with it, does anyone no if Prepar3d v2 have any freezes like this? Am really tempted because this freezing has ruined flight sim for me at the mo!! Just end up flying expecting the annoyance of a freeze at anytime!

Cheers

Rob

Most likely you are running out of VAS (Virtual Address Space) which is common when running FSX/P3D for longer than 2 hours (sometimes shorter if your settings are too high). Very common and frequently discussed here and in other forums. The biggest eater of VAS in FSX is Autogen. You can monitor the amount of VAS as follows:

 

Monitoring VAS in FSX or P3DV2 – The freeware or registered versions of the FSUIPC utility will allow you to monitor the amount of VAS remaining during a flight session. This might be valuable in troubleshooting Out-of-Memory (OOM’s).

Startup FSX/P3D and then enter the Addon Menu and select FSUIPC. Once FSUIPC is open, click on the Logging Tab and enter 024C under Offset and select S32 under Type. Select where you would like to have the usage displayed. The FS Window is for Full Screen sessions. The FS Title Bar is for Windowed Mode. AVSIM recommends you also check the Normal log file as this provides you information on how much VAS you had to start out with and then it logs usage throughout your flight.

The VAS usage is displayed in Kilobytes (KB’s). The value represents the amount of VAS left so, the lower the value, the more VAS being depleted. The max amount of VAS allowed in computers with 64 bit Operating Systems is 4GB’s. This is shared with other applications running in the background on your computer. For 32 bit Operating Systems, the max amount of VAS allowed for FSX/P3D is 2GB’s but this can be expanded to 3GB’s with a switch like the /3GB switch.

To convert the KB’s to the amount of GB’s, you should use one of the Byte converters on the Internet like the following: http://www.whatsabyte.com/P1/byteconverter.htm. You will never see 4194304 KB’s displayed as this equals 4GB’s. You might see around 3GB’s (3145728) remaining when you first start up FSX/P3D but that would be unusual. Do not be too concerned with the amount of VAS remaining when you first start up.

You might be interested in a utility in our AVSIM Library called Quantum Leap which allows you to speed up your trip across the US or any ocean but it requires the payware version of the FSUIPC utility - http://library.avsim...php?DLID=179703. According to the developer, “this utility was written to allow an FSX aircraft established at cruise to "leap" to a point further along the flight plan track. It allows the user to select a nav fix or manually enter coordinates for the jump-ahead point, as well as setting a new time in the simulation to be set at the designated leap-ahead point. The primary objective was to leap forward on very long haul flights to eliminate long periods of droning or wrestling with accelerated flight. It was tested with the PMDG® 777 and 737NGX simulations, but will most likely work with most other add-ons.”

 

Almost everyone is having issues with VAS because they think they have a super computer system and they crank up the fsx and display driver settings.  They also crank up the settings of many of their addons.  They think their system can handle it.  Back before Sandy Bridge, everyone kept their settings low.  Now with the fancy Haswell chipset, people are ecstatic they can have higher settings.  It was proven by LM techs in P3D that use of Autogen will reduce the amount of time a person could fly w/o getting a freeze as a result of loss of VAS.  They optimized their Autogen dramatically and it has reduced the amount of freezes/crashes.  This cannot be done in FSX as no one is around the fix the FSX engine/code. 

 

Another major cause of freezes is bad tweaks in the fsx.cfg.  Bufferpools tweak will bring most systems down if not employed correctly.  Same with Affinity Mask.  This is why AVSIM does not recommend these tweaks in the AVSIM FSX Configuration Guide.

 

My suggestion is to look at the AVSIM CTD Guide located at the right of this forum under Hot Spots and follow some of the suggestions to troubleshoot your problem.  If you have the uiautomationcore.dll still in your main fsx folder, you should remove it.  It did not solve your freezes/crashes and it could be doing more harm than good.  I have never used the uiautomationcore.dll and I have never had menu crashes which is what the module was suppose to fix.  If you have the wrong version in your fsx folder, it could be the problem too. 

 

Right now you have to determine for yourself whether your freezes are related to VAS and then take the necessary steps to try to reduce these types of crashes.  There are many suggestions but they will not prevent freezes, just reduce them.

 

Best regards,

[trebor737 2]

Cheers for your advice, I have deleted my fsx.cfg and let fsx generate a new one. I changed some of my settings as some other advice I found with nvidia inspector.

 

I have put the VAS logger on in fsuipc and started a flight. So far I haven't had any freezes, and I am nearly 1000nm into flight. Considering I had two freezes within 800nm last time! Fingers crossed!

 

It the VAS monitoring I am getting around 1.25GB. Is that ok?

 

Cheers

Rob

[Jim Young 2,356]

It the VAS monitoring I am getting around 1.25GB. Is that ok?

If it gets down to about 700-800 MB's, you will start seeing problems. 1.25GB is not much VAS left but, if you are at altitude, if should stay around that amount. When you begin your descent and landing I'm almost positive you will see FSX really slowing down. Hopefully you can make it to a successful landing before the CTD.

 

Best regards,

[trebor737 2]

What are the ways to improve that figure? Is it just a case of adjusting the settings?

 

When I left aerosoft Oslo is was getting around around 1gb. So hopefully will stay around that.

 

Cheers

Rob

[Jim Young 2,356]

What are the ways to improve that figure? Is it just a case of adjusting the settings?

The following link may be of assistance - http://support.precisionmanuals.com/kb/a108/vas-management-stopping-out-of-memory-oom-errors

 

Best regards,

[trebor737 2]

First flight was good, no crashes! But the return leg was shocking, back to the crashes!!! The VAS on the return was better, when it crashed it was about 1.6GB.

 

What next, maybe going to try and run through a flight without active sky next!