FS9 freezing my PC. Any ideas?

[martinlest2 58]

Well, actually my laptop. When I travel (as I am away for up to two years at a time, as now) I take FS9 with me on a Dell XPS M1730. Out of date of course now, but it runs FS9 pretty well. I have WinXP x64 as the O/S.

 

My problem is that when FS9 is running, moving the mouse about the screen, especially (but not only) when other windows are open, causes everything to lock up for about 10 seconds. The mouse freezes, as does FS9 and anything else that is open. I tried using Process Monitor to see what is happening (that also freezes up for the duration), but when I scroll back to the exact time the lock-up occurred, there is nothing out of the ordinary to see there.

 

Has anyone any ideas what could be causing this? I tried unplugging all my external hardware, including the mouse, but that changed nothing. Not sure what else to troubleshoot. Event Viewer doesn't show any problem either, as far as I can see. I've defragged... cleared out Temp files, cleaned up the registry (albeit cautiously). The problem only occurs when FS9 is running - the laptop never freezes up otherwise.

 

Thanks for any leads: I won't be back in the UK for over a year yet, so am relying on my XPS/FS9 to keep me 'amused' till I can return to my 'main' FS PC there!!

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

[Appliance 51]

Martin freezes for that length of time are unusual.  Could be that the computer is trying to find a missing file or texture.  FSTextureChecker reports missing/incorrect textures in AI aircraft.  Run FS Configurator, SceneryConfigEditor and FS Scenery Manager.  Maybe they will identify your problem.

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks, I will try that as soon as I can and report back, but why would such a thing freeze not just FS, but everything, mouse included?

 

M

[sauviat 137]

Run Windows Task Manager, for some lateral thinking on the issue, as it may not be FS related!

 

Regards

 

Sauviat

[martinlest2 58]

Hi, I did that first off, but there's nothing to see - nothing using the CPU more than a few percent apart from FS9 and the memory use is normal for FS9.

 

I think it must be FS9 related or why would it only ever happen when the fs9.exe process is running?

 

M.

[ematheson 19]

Sounds disk related. I was getting this all the time in my last install... Seems it was because not only the files, but the directory too, was fragmented. Because of replacement of ground and sky textures, I had ground textures essentially shotgunned around my drive, so I got a severe lag drawing ground textures.

 

You might also try turning on auto_lod in your FS9.cfg. And/or adding empty LODs to your converted FSX libraries. Anything to reduce the amount of searching your drive needs to do...

[gwillmot 31]

You might also try turning on auto_lod in your FS9.cfg.

 

???? What is auto_lod ????

[ematheson 19]

???? What is auto_lod ????

By default, FS9 doesn't actually use LODs of scenery objects... It's either all or nothing. Auto_lod is an option in the display (I think) section of the FS9.cfg that toggles use of LODs for scenery objects, which can reduce number of polygons and textures needed while still displaying the same number of objects at a distance. If you're getting stuttering while FS9 loads high detail objects, this setting might help.

[A320driver 17]

By default, FS9 doesn't actually use LODs of scenery objects... It's either all or nothing. Auto_lod is an option in the display (I think) section of the FS9.cfg that toggles use of LODs for scenery objects, which can reduce number of polygons and textures needed while still displaying the same number of objects at a distance. If you're getting stuttering while FS9 loads high detail objects, this setting might help.

Interesting. Never seen that before. 

[martinlest2 58]

I'll check that out, I've never heard of it either. There is certainly a lot of disc activity going on, no less so after I defragmented the drive.

 

The laptop is ten years old now. It was a top-of-the-range gaming laptop in it day, and in theory if it played FS9 well then, it should still do so now, the O/S and all were reinstalled not that long ago. But maybe the disc and/or memory are now simply getting tired. Unfortunately it's this or nothing at all for another year yet, until I return to the UK and my real FS PC...

[martinlest2 58]

I tried changing the auto_LOD setting to "1", but I can't say that I see much difference so far.... but I'll leave it a bit longer.