Unfortunately I haven't been able to complete a long flight in prepar3d V3 because a couple of hours in, sometimes even sooner, the game just freezes. Freezes so bad I can't cont+alt+del to get to the task manager, can't do anything to close the program. I literally have to do a hard reboot of my PC. On short flights it's ok, as long as I'm present the whole time and looking around and what not. I'm almost always using my PMDG 777, and have ASN and Rex 4+soft clouds. Any ideas on what causes this?

I experience at times similar problems. After about an hour of flight or when approaching my destination the simulator freezes.

However, when waiting for half a minute or so (which feels like 5 minutes when flying online) my P3Dv3.1 resumes as if nothing has happened.

 

Try and wait for a while before pressing the reset button.

 

 

This sounds very similar to what can happen in FSX, I have had these issues in the past and found having an affinity mask in the CFG file sorted it out, not sure if its the same thing for P3D

I might suggest you get the free appcrashviewer at http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/appcrashview.html

to help you pinpoint the problem.  I've used Yogi's approach of wait it out when this has happened to me.

Thanks for the responses. I'll look into that for sure. The only thing with my freezes is I have a temperature controller on the front of my PC, when I'm at full load, it sits at 55 degrees Celsius, but when it freezes, it goes back to normal operating temps. So the graphics card isn't even being stressed. Also too I've done this before when I set a long flight, came back a few hours later and it was frozen. So who knows how long it was frozen for.

Take a default aircraft, turn on unlimited fuel, and fly for 12+ hours. If it doesn't crash, then you might have the same problem as me, and like many others on the P3D official forums. I get a crash after 7-9 hours using PMDG, I tried over 10 times and I got the crash every time. First attempt with a default aircraft and I flew for 26 hours before just deciding to land.. without crashing.

 

Many people are getting a CTD after hours of flight with PMDG products and P3D v3.... I don't think there's a work around yet. Some people get the crash, some don't.

I had the same issue couple of months back it was fsuipc that caused the freezes with pmdg 777

Sorry to hear you are having this issue. 

 

To get to the point of your issue, I like others have already posted found that certain planes will cause problems, for me it started with CoolSky MD-80 that I was lucky if it would go 20 minutes before crashing.  After reading several post I decided to install a VAS meter, and watched as I the CoolSky MD-80 would cause the VAS to fill up like a sinking ship.  The funny thing I noted about the VAS crash was when I would do "Event Viewer" after the post crash to see what went wrong, very seldom would I get the same dll error. Sometimes it would crash with nothing concrete, the only thing that was certain I would see VAS go from green to yellow then alarms, finally CTD!

 

I have noted that when flying PMDG 737 on P3D V3 it too will start a drain, that I have found if I turn certain things off like traffic and such, and turn down radius and textures it does slow the process down.

 

The Ifly 747v2  I have found I had to turn it down, and the VAS hovered around 72% for a flight from KSFO to EDDF that was 10 hours.

 

I did a return flight the next day in the CS 777-200 P3D version and saw my VAS never exceeded 49% and on that flight I had traffic and most of the sliders at normal quality level for my system.

 

The only thing I can really recommend is install a VAS monitor to see if that helps identify the issue.   Also, I have had other friends replace to their vid cards for P3D ver 3.1.  I am running a Nvidia 760 4gyg mem card and can not go ultra on the settings, but I can fly with no stutters and quality scenery.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to complete a long flight in prepar3d V3 because a couple of hours in, sometimes even sooner, the game just freezes. Freezes so bad I can't cont+alt+del to get to the task manager, can't do anything to close the program. I literally have to do a hard reboot of my PC. On short flights it's ok, as long as I'm present the whole time and looking around and what not. I'm almost always using my PMDG 777, and have ASN and Rex 4+soft clouds. Any ideas on what causes this?

Does your mouse start to beep if you move it around?.  If so the computer's usb system has crashed.  I have had this issue since version 3.0.  I  believe it is an issue that was introduced when LM "rewrote the way contollers are handled within the sim."  Wondering if you have any Saitek contollers?  (I have the combat pedals). There is a long thread on the LM forum discussing issues with the Saitek trim wheel.  I suspect the problem goes deeper.  I can not complete a flight anymore without the USB crash.  Have not found a solution and don't know if LM has even acknowledged a problem.  I'm thinking of going back to version 2.5.  Quite a few people are having this problem but it does not seem to be the majority so I'm wondering if it has anything to do with Saitek.  I've tried all of the new beta driver etc. to no avial.  Sooo frustrating!

The crash of PMDG's 777 in P3D might also have something to do with clicking at gauges. It has been discussed a few times. I believe here is some more information: http://www.avsim.com/topic/475739-p3d-v3-777-gauge-dll-crashes-p3d-and-un-clickable-vc/

See page 12 of the AVSIM CTD Guide (link in my signature):

 

Freezes During Flight – Freezes are most commonly caused by –

• High application/display driver settings.  Check.
• High settings within commercial weather programs like REX, ASN, and OPUS.  Check. Some raise settings to the highest texture settings (4096 HD) within weather programs and/or texture programs like REX. This coupled with high applications LOD_Radius and Texture_Max_Load settings may take up too many resources and application will freeze.
• Complications with weather server updates.  Application may try to update the weather and the weather server is down or cannot comply with a request.
• Running out of Virtual Address Space (VAS) especially on one hour or longer flights (see VAS/OOM discussions).
• Bad tweaks.  BufferPools and or Affinity Mask are most often attributed to freezes. Rebuild the application configuration to see if this fixes the problem or disable the tweaks.
• ENBSeries Module – DirectX hack for better visuals.
• SweetFX Module – DirectX hack for better visuals.

Best regards,