HiI recently downloaded what sounded like a useful utility for monitoring running programs called filemon http://www.sysinternals.com as i was curious why my frame rates were dipping.I have my frame set at 22 but i get momentary "blips" where it drops down by as much as 10fps. Now i know this is nothing new so i decided to run filemon whilst running fs to see if some other application was causing the blips. With my pmdg 737 parked at aerosoft's ibiza 2004, i ran filemon to see what was going on. filemon was showing, in real time, a log of all the files that windows was accesing. These were all fs files, however, certain files seemed to correspond to dips in the frame rates, in particular, calls to bmp's that filemon stated windows couldn't find.Sure enough, if i done a search on these files, i too couldn't find them... Another cause of frame rate dips seemed to be the accessing of bgl's from airports no where in the vacinity, eg, although i was parked up in ibiza, fs was loading bgl files for alicante airport.I'm no expert in these matters so can't explain them, however, the fact that the major frame rate dips seems to correspond to fs looking for files that don't exist is weard. Anyone comment on my findings, is what's going on unusual or is it the norm ?Gary

Very interesting finding. I started a post a few days ago about temporary FPS drop as well. Well I guess I need to try filemon as well as I was suggested to do in my own post.What non-existing BMP files was FS looking for? Maybe we can get some ideas by the file names?Can you also list your secenery related addons in your sim...things like mesh, airports, etc.Thanks.Jason

I agree that filemon is an excellent program to monitor what fs does and track down errors. I recently ran into almost the same problem. FS was looking for an fx file it could not find (from some AI plane). The problem with these missing files is that FS tries to find them indefinitely which really can lead to considerable frame rate loss. It looked for the fx file in the effects folder first, then it looked in effects.cab, then again in the effects folder.....wasting valuable cycles. In my case I simply copied and renamed another vc_fx file.I also pinned down a problem with Megascenery not finding the xxxhw.bmp files with the help of filemon. They simply were not there (forgotten or left out by Megascenery on purpose?). Alex

EXACTLY the same finding here. FS9.EXE just never quits looking for those FX files. So far I found there missing files that my FS9.EXE looks for like crazy:fx_strobex.fx, fx_nicksmokeAI_747.fx & EFFECTS.CABI have found the first two files and still searching for the third. But at least I am very glad to finally found out the reason of my FS shuttering.Jason

although i was parked up in ibiza, fs was loading bgl files for alicante airportThe active zone in FS is up to 108nm in radius from your aircraft.We've documented a couple years ago that not having enough parking at airports within that zone for all AI aircraft causes dips in performance.I'm assuming that you have AI traffic, however, this zone is still important if you do not. Several people have described over the years that FS reads and stores data for this entire zone.It doesn't read textures until you are in visual range - but the basics of the .bgl files of the scenery from the airport information to approach data to terrain information. All have to be read because (1) the sim might need that information for your aircraft's flight, and (2) AI aircraft might need that information.Missing texture, gauge, effects and scenery .bgl files are a major cause of performance issues in FS in my experience.

Very Interesting Program.I was flying out of Seattle to Honolulu in the Concorde and noticed for some strange reason FS kept looking into my LIRF(Rome-Italy) scenery folder than into my EFHK(Helsinki-Finland) folder.I think that's pretty messed up consider where I was at the time.I also was flying on VATSIM and don't have any AI at all.I'll investigate furtherCheers

"fx_strobex.fx, fx_nicksmokeAI_747.fx & EFFECTS.CAB"Jason, I just checked my 9.1 virgin install back-up (on DVD) and none of the three files you listed are in the Effects folder. I then did a search of the entire DVD and found nothing.Hope this info is useful,Greg

Those .fx files that you name are from third-party developers and so wouldn't be on your original FS discs....Nicksmoke.fx is a seperate downloadable smoke effect to add to aircraft that don't have any, or to replace/enhance existing smoke effects.The addon must have been installed at some point, and then later removed; however, the entries made into an aircraft's config file to use those effects have not been removed, and so FS9 will keep looking for them! (of course, it could also be that whovever developed the aircraft in question was using these effects on his PC and didn't remove the smoke FX entries in the config file before hosting it to here or an alternate FS download site!).Hope that makes sense and helps...:)

>>>I was flying out of Seattle to Honolulu in the Concorde and noticed for some strange reason FS kept looking into my LIRF(Rome-Italy) scenery folder than into my EFHK(Helsinki-Finland) folder.<<

Yes those .fx files are third party. With some help from friends I now have them all. And guess what, that fixed my FPS dipping problem. Of course I went on to observing FS9 behaviors and noticed many interesting things. It really helps me pingpoint performance hogging events in FS, both normal & abnormal. So far I don't see any infinite search for any other missing files. The next intense operation is loading of textures. I was kinda surprised how many texture files FS go through in a very short period of time when it decides to load textures.Jason Zhang

Excellent troubleshooting technique. This one needs to be added to the pinned "Read this first" thread in the Tips and Tricks subforum.Thanks Gary.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300Santiago de Chile

A very interesting file. Quite amazing to see what FS is doing as you are flying along.I rather hoped it might help with my Scotflight crash to desktop in daylight hours, but I still can't pin down what is causing it.

That's a good idea to use Filemon to check what FS is doing! Had this program for a long time but the thought never crossed my mind.Another thing I noticed is a great FPS dropper in my system is whenever there is network activity, for instance when Active Sky downloads new updated weather or when ServInfo (utility for online flying) updates it's list of current online ATC and pilots. Never understood really why network activity has this huge impact on the FPS in FS - maybe there's a good explanation to this or maybe even a setting somewhere that would fix it...?

Hi all. I don't have Filemon but I do have Flight manager and in response to this thread I ran a missing effects scan and discovered I have five missing effects: three are associated with My Traffic 2006 installed aircraft (fx_strobe_6h, fx_tchdwn_6h, and fx-smoke_rx). I assumed that these were AI aircraft, but they appear in my aircraft selection menu, so perhaps I can fly them. Another is associated with the dreamfleet A36 I fly all the time (fx_dustrun). The final is associated with the FSD Cheyenne I rarely fly (fx_smoke_rx_pc). Search of the hard drive did not turn up anything. What should I do now? How do I get these files and where do I put them? Quite concerned about the A36 one, since I use this often.

Would like to try FileMon. Have XP Home, with only one account (me), as administrator. But when I try to run FIleMon, it says I don't have "The Debug Programs Privlege", which is neede to run FileMon. Any ideas??Rick