Hi all!I have problems when trying to enjoy evening & night flights as sooner or later my screen goes black and I'll get an error message.I have a lot of add-ons but I think my computer (AMD XP3000+/1.25Gb/Radeon9800 Pro etc.) should handle these.Have anyone of You experienced this and what was Your solution?ThanksPetteri

Sorry to hear about your problem. It would be very helpful if you could tell us what error messages you were getting. Can you fly in the same area during the day without any problems? Have you tried a new video driver because that could solve your problem? One last question, can you remember when this started to happen? Try to think back and remember what add-ons you may have installed before you first noticed this issue, one of those may be at fault. Hope this helps,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Thanks for your reply.Yes, in the daytime I can fly these areas without problems. Error messages are: ntldl.dll, gdi3*.dll, terrain.dll etc.I changed my video drivers to the latest version of Omega drivers after these ctd's began in large scale. My newest add-on is F1 C-172 aircraft. But the problem may lay in that I used to avoid night flying for some months (due to frequent ctds), and now wanted to see the city lights, roads etc... Ok I understand that the reason behind error messages "terrain.dll" lays behind some faulty sceneries, but most often I can see the other two before-mentioned ntldll.dll and gdi3*.dll errors..RegardsPetteriVihtiFinland

I will tell you my "tricks" for trying to determine where am error lies, this can be a lot of work so you may or may not want to do this. First I scan for duplicate Afcad files using ScanAFD, if there are any I remove the duplicate and then test the sim. The next step seems harsh but it is an easy way to narrow down the potential problems, I create a folder on my desktop or elsewhere and move all of the Afcad files from the Addon Scenery/Scenery folder to this new folder. I then start the sim and see if the crashes go away, if so one of those Afcads is the culprit, if not I just move all of the files back where they came from. If the Afcads seem to be the problem then I put them back into their original folder a few at a time and test for crashes, this way I can narrow it down as to which file or files it is fairly quickly. Next I test the sceneries that I have installed, here there are two ways to do this, take all of the add-on scenery out at once or piece by piece. Either way you will go into the scenery library and disable the scenery area(s), exit the sim and then move the scenery folders elsewhere just to be sure, then start the sim again and test for crashes. Also keep in mind that if you have crashes and you are testing to find the source it is probably best to use a default unmodified aircraft because an aircraft could possible cause a CTD too. Actually one of the first things that I do before all of the above is to fly the area that I have crashes in with several different aircraft to make sure that an aircraft or group of aircraft aren't the cause of the crashes, several aircraft could use the same sound, gauge or effects file so be thorough. Next I will fly in several weather conditions starting with no weather at all to see if certain clouds or conditions lead to the crash. A corrupted texture file for a cloud, tree, building or anything could cause a crash so this is why you need to test everything. I will also fly in different areas of the world to see if there is some common factor as to where the crashes occur. Try to fly in areas that have different tree and texture types from where you normally fly, if you normally fly in Nebraska, then you could try flying in Tokyo, the Alps, the Amazon rain forest, etc., you get the idea. Make notes if you crash in some places and not others, people on this forum could probably help you to track down common factors in what textures are used. You also need to fly some with various options turned on and off, for example try a few flight with autogen turned off, then try it with AI aircraft turned off to see if the fault lies with either of those or your other options. You could also take a look at whatever mesh you have installed if you did not check those when you checked your scenery files, do the same as the scenery files, try flying without the mesh installed to see if that is the cause. The only true way of finding and fixing a problem is to systematically search for and find what the problem is, sadly in something as complex as this sim it can take time. Remember that on top of all that you also have things with your system to test as well, video drivers, sound card drivers, the settings for your video card like anti-aliasing and anisotropic, do you over clock your video card? Then there is your hardware acceleration setting, your BIOS settings for AGP, etc, etc. I am not trying to scare you away from this but to give you ideas on how to test and find the problem, it sounds overwhelming but it does not take that long to go through and test things and find the problem or at least some common ground as to when and where the crashes occur. If you choose to try testing in this manner I will be happy to help you interpret the results. Best of luck!Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Hei Philip!Thanks for a very loooong reply! I think I will start some testing now when on vacation... With the AFCADs I've already been strict and used scanafd for several times - so afcads shouln't be the problem ( a should be = a dangerous expression, lol ).I will send my test results here for a common interest in the near future.Thanks again Philipp!PetteriVihtifinland

If you have a lot of AFSADs you can speed up the search for faulty ones by collecting them into 2 folders then trying all the AFCADs in each folder in turn. If there's only one faulty one you've eliminated half the AFCADs already. Split the AFCADS in the folder with the faulty one into two folders then try both in turn again. Keeping one halving and testing. In this way, you'll quickly narrow down to the faulty one.