Stuttering and Sound Quality

[martinlest2 58]

I normally get good frame rates - nice and smooth at 60fps with the PMDG MD-11 at the moment (on my other PC, as I write this on my laptop). But for years, probably ever since I have had MSFS on my PC, I get short periods where the frame rates suddenly drop to just 3 or 4 fps. Perhaps just for 5 seconds, usually no longer than 10 seconds and only every 15 minutes or so. Annoying, but as I mostly fly from the 2D cockpit, I often don't even notice.

 

I have had the same issue on all my various PCs,. Windows XP and Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit and I sort of accept it as an unavoidable evil by now... Never seen anything to pin it down in Process Monitor or whatever (I am 99% sure that it comes from within FS9, not due to a Windows, Anti-virus process or whatever) and having spent so long over the years troubleshooting the issue (in vain), have pretty much given up trying to cure it.

 

What I do notice though is that I get some stuttering, freezing of the sim for a fraction of a second, when ATC makes some announcement (I use PFE for ATC, but it has made no difference). In other words, even if the longer periods of very low frame rates (as above) are not caused by this, it seems pretty sure that there is a sound issue which is causing stuttering and mini freeze-ups just a split second before the voice starts. I have had lots of different setups,as I say, with different sound cards and drivers, but this has been constant.

 

Is there a way to turn down the quality of speech without reducing the quality of engine sounds etc. (in the FS9/Sound menu)? Not an area I know too much about, so if anyone has any ideas, on the mini freeze-ups, or even the longer fps drops that are part of my FS9 life, I'd be glad to hear.

 

Thanks,

[sascha 314]

I have this sometimes and the hard disk drive spools up. In my case, this is a graphics driver glitch.

[martinlest2 58]

I have had the issue no matter what graphics driver I have had (over the years).