The title reflects a very serious question, to which I hope to get some good feedback from the community.  After recently reinstalling FSX:SE (due to hardware issues that I won't get into as that is verbotten here), I installed all of the usual suspects in my arsenal of content.  For the moment, I have all of ORBX England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales as well as ORBX OpenLC Europe.  Along with that, I installed a fresh copy of PMDG B737-800/900 (hot off the digital download) as well as FSDT GSX.  Now, taken into consideration that my system can run all of these (at least as the specs go), they don't seem to play well together.  First indication that there will be trouble is that every time I run FSX:SE, I get a message that Couatl.exe wants to run, to which I say yes, as that is tied to GSX.  After another confirmation that I want to do this, I click yes again and voila, FSX is running.  I go to the aircraft menu, choose a livery from PMDG for the 737, pick my airport, check the time and weather and off I go.  I am not loading any custom weather, neither do I have any weather generators installed (yet).

 

I get into the cockpit, allow PMDG to initialize the systems and then I am good to go.  As I am a noob to running the 737, I opt for the tutorial, but am immediately stonewalled with the FMS, no biggie, I am learning.  So, I ESC out of FSX and go back to the menu and then exit the sim.  It is at this time, I get two fatal errors, one from Couatl and the other from PMDG, so I am forced to terminate the programs and all I am left with is the Steam menu glaring back at me with a happy smile.

 

So, with just THAT to ponder over, anyone out there have any friendly advice, hints, tips, tricks, tea leaves, astronomical signs or otherwise portents to another plane of existence as to why I have this issue?  For the record, I back down my scenery settings in FSX to make the sim a little "faster", opting to turn down autogen, air traffic (was a little on the high side), aircraft shadow casting and even limiting my frames to a lower amount than I usually get in FSX (from unlimited to 40).

 

Granted, I am not a noob to FSX and with my new rig, flying aircraft from various sources (default, Carenado, JustFlight), my sim would run fine.  I am not going to pass judgement and point fingers to what may seem obvious because tight now, i have no clue what the problem could be.  I had a couple of thoughts though:

 

1.  What can we get away with, running in the background while the sim is running (ex. antivirus, browsers)?

2. Could this all stem from FSX:SE not handling the complexities of the 3rd party add-ons?

3. Hardware...but we cannot talk about hardware here.

4. FSX settings beyond the obvious.

 

Anyone interested in hearing more, please let me know and I will answer whatever is needed.  I am not necessarily at the end of my rope and the drama hasn't hit an all-time high yet, so that's why I am here, to prevent that from happening.

 

Thanks Folks,

 

-Jim

I have all those addons you mentioned running on Windows 10 tech preview and fsx steam and everything runs fine.

Your problem is couatl. That program is the worst piece of software in existence. It will crash if you have certain software running. Last time mine kept crashing was because of the beta version of Nvidia GeForce experience I had installed and I never knew until someone mentioned it on their forum, so for you it could be anything. Just don't expect too much help from the developer because he thinks couatl has no flaws and its always another program is at fault. Good luck

I have all those addons you mentioned running on Windows 10 tech preview and fsx steam and everything runs fine.

Your problem is couatl. That program is the worst piece of software in existence. It will crash if you have certain software running. Last time mine kept crashing was because of the beta version of Nvidia GeForce experience I had installed and I never knew until someone mentioned it on their forum, so for you it could be anything. Just don't expect too much help from the developer because he thinks couatl has no flaws and its always another program is at fault. Good luck

Wow, gmta.  I DID happen to come across that thread here at AVSIM (which I believe got locked because of the inordinate number of people bashing Couatl).  It is a shame that FSDT uses that piece of software.  I love how GSX works and have had the chance to use it prior to using it with PMDG aircraft.  I'd been mulling over this problem I am having right now and I think my best bet is to uninstall GSX and then try running the sim to see if the fatal error occurs again.  I have a sneaking suspicion that if Couatl crashes, it brings everything down with it.

 

Just a thought though: FSDT HAS to be aware that many people are switching over to FSX:SE and even if THAT is compounding the issue, they could make a concerted effot to fix their code so everything plays nice.  As I said, it's just a thought.

 

So, as you stated that everything runs fine, is that with or without GSX?  If the answer is out there, I'd much rather have it now rather than spinning my wheels trying a billion combinations.  Sorry, my patience is really being tested and I hate tests. lol

 

-Jim

I should also add that I did open a ticket with PMDG, outlining as much as I could to them.  I highly doubt it is anything with PMDG though as I have been able to fly the 777 before (through Steam and through boxed) but this was before installing GSX.

 

-Jim

Yes everything is running fine including gsx. It's just a matter of finding the offending program that's causing coault to crash which could be anything since its so sensitive. Also try the beta addon manager from the fsdt forum. They have been updating the code so that may help

So that add-on manager can take the place of Couatl?  Man if that's the ticket, I'll be a happy camper, thanks.

 

-Jim

So that add-on manager can take the place of Couatl?  Man if that's the ticket, I'll be a happy camper, thanks.

 

-Jim

No the new Beta AddonManager will install a new Beta Couatl, which BTW I'm getting some unexplained crashes with that one as well. One symptom is each time the next time I use GSX I doesn't recognize my sound drivers, so I have to restart it with the diag box checked, to get the list back. So the problem may be a conflict between Couatl and the audio drivers.

No the new Beta AddonManager will install a new Beta Couatl, which BTW I'm getting some unexplained crashes with that one as well. One symptom is each time the next time I use GSX I doesn't recognize my sound drivers, so I have to restart it with the diag box checked, to get the list back. So the problem may be a conflict between Couatl and the audio drivers.

I was looking at the rather long thread at FSDT's forum about this beta and it seems that for everyone that has an issue with GSX, it is stated to download the beta.  Now, i shall wait an see how many come back with issues like yours.  I may put GSX on the back burner for now, just to see if my performance stabilizes with it uninstalled and if that's the case, I found my suspect, no matter what the dev says.  I'm not knocking FSDT's abilities to put out a great product, because as I said, I have seen it in action and it definitely provides a more immersive experience, but I can't trade stability for it, at least not right now.  The way I see it, I have it and I'll keep it and when everything stabilizes (hopefully soon), I'll put it back on.

 

Btw, are you folks running FSX:SE or boxed FSX?  I own both and open to either one, but preferably the one that doesn't cause problems.

 

-Jim

 

 

Btw, are you folks running FSX:SE or boxed FSX? I own both and open to either one, but preferably the one that doesn't cause problems.

 

I'm using FSX-SE, but I run it on a old 3Ghz C2D system still under Vista 32 bit (Don't ask ) Still generally it runs fairly well, I just have to compromise  a little, either with traffic or scenery. Just to be clear though, Couatl crashes, not FSX.

I'm using FSX-SE, but I run it on a old 3Ghz C2D system still under Vista 32 bit (Don't ask ) Still generally it runs fairly well, I just have to compromise  a little, either with traffic or scenery. Just to be clear though, Couatl crashes, not FSX.

Ok, that gives me a great baseline to compare to (no offense).  I am running a Devil's Canyon i7-4790k, o'clocked to 4.5ghz, with 16gb ram and a gtx-980m w/8gb memory.  You are correct, it is Couatl that crashes, but crashes FSX as well when you think about it, or at least it does for me.  Once I exit a flight, the screen goes back to Windows and while I wait for the FSX menu screen to come back, that's when I get the fatal error from Couatl and then everything else dies.  the Steam library screen still remains but FSX is shutdown.  I'll have to revisit my FSX settings again and see if I need to scale it further back.  I'm not running everything at max (I know better) and while in the sim I do get 30s thru 40s for frame rates, so i can't complain in the slightest.  I just think that something with Couatl refuses to let go when a flight is done or rather, just existing a flight at any point (which was happening to me).

 

Thanks to all for the feedback so far.

 

-Jim

No for me just Couatl crashes, I can continue to use FSX but I won't be able to run GSX or fly into  any FSDT airports when it does.

I uninstalled GSX last night, reinstalled PMDG 777 and did a flight from EGLL to OMDB.  About an hour in to the flight (along with about 20-30 minutes on the tarmac), I exited out of the flight, and then I was greeted by the friendly FSX menu.  I then exited FSX altogether and I received no fatal errors.  Now, I have narrowed things down a little.  Did the uninstall of GSX help?  Did flying the 777 over the 737 make a difference?  Does the 737 use more resources than the 777?

 

Burning questions now.  Tonight, I'll try performing a flight with the 737 under the same conditions and see if I get a fatal error.  I should also add that prior to fying last night, I made some adjustments to the FSX settings again.  The only big difference, was dropping airline traffic down about half, unchecking hi-res 3D cockpit (heard it isn't needed for PMDG aircraft), as well as fixing the autogen to match a 777 guide I had.  All of that could have made the difference. 

 

I am not so much concerned with frames as I am with stability so anything I can do to keep the sim stable but also have a decent flight experience for environment would be great.  I know, sometimes I can't have my cake and eat it too.

 

-Jim