Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and would like to share a problem I've been having for two days with p3d v4.
The other day I went for a flight and out of nowhere the simulator crashed.
The next day I did the same thing, everything seemed fine until the cockpit FPS dropped to 2/3, while all other external views were running at 50/60.
I thought it was a bug, so I turned it off.
Today, the same problem. I restarted the simulator and since then the simulator no longer loads the plane. The black loading screen remains and nothing happens.
I tried reinstalling the pmdg 737 but nothing happened, while the 777/747, also pmdg, have no problem. Does anyone know how to fix it?

15 hours ago, MikeWalls said:

The other day I went for a flight and out of nowhere the simulator crashed

What was the error message?

15 hours ago, MikeWalls said:

The next day I did the same thing, everything seemed fine until the cockpit FPS dropped to 2/3, while all other external views were running at 50/60.

What are your computer specs? CPU, GPU, RAM. Do you start P3D with a default aircraft like the Cub and at the Scenario screen select the PMDG737?

Try clearing your shaders folder.

My pc specs are:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz, RAM 16 gb, nvidia gtx 970 8 gb.

I select the plane from the main menu and start the flight. Once the loading reaches 100%, either the screen stays completely black, or it simply loads the airport and not the plane. However, it's as if it crashed because I can't move anything.
Sometimes, if I leave everything as is, after about 20 minutes the plane loads. In any case, it's not a PC problem because it's never given me any problems and it's a bug that only occurs with the PMDG 737.

Mike, what was the selected aircraft on the scenario menu when you selected the PMDG?

What has changed on your system in the two days since it last worked okay? Windows update?

What airport is loaded? If a third party one try a default. Any difference?

Is it the PMDG NGX or NGXu?

The selected aircraft is default f35.

Honestly, I don't remember any updates to my PC in the last few days. What I do remember is that I installed the "flydubai" livery by downloading it from the internet.

It gives me the problem at every airport, When it decides to load the plane, everything seems to be fine. After a few minutes (just enough time to set up the plane for flight, etc.), the fps in the cockpit drops dramatically from 35/40 to 1/2. I repeat, the problem only occurs in the cockpit.

Is the PMDG NGXu

4 minutes ago, MikeWalls said:

Honestly, I don't remember any updates to my PC in the last few days. What I do remember is that I installed the "flydubai" livery by downloading it from the internet.

You would know if any had been installed as it’s difficult to miss. Right, the fly Dubai livery seems to be the culprit. Choose another and repeat the test.

Report back.

I tried uninstalling PMDG, deleting all the folders and reinstalling everything, but the problem still persists.

13 minutes ago, MikeWalls said:

I tried uninstalling PMDG, deleting all the folders and reinstalling everything, but the problem still persists.

I think you’re going to have to ask on the PMDG forum.

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/pmdg-737-ngxu-for-prepar3d-v4

No response from pmdg. Could a solution be to completely uninstall p3d?

17 minutes ago, MikeWalls said:

No response from pmdg. Could a solution be to completely uninstall p3d?

I can’t see anything from you here.

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/pmdg-737-ngxu-for-prepar3d-v4

No, it’s highly unlikely reinstalling P3D will help. Can you provide any details of the crash. Event Viewer should have something.

Have a look at windows event viewer and find the error you are getting. It could possibly be graphical glitch or something - I had similar thing few months back where my sim was crashing constantly when selecting any PMDG addons. Ensure that your windows and graphics drivers are fully up to date and try again. If all fails try reinstalling P3D Client. 

When experiencing an unexpected crash or CTD of P3D I always perform the following two items and restart the computer prior to beginning any further troubleshooting.

• Delete the compiled cached shader files, these are located in the following path and can be safety deleted as they are recreated on the fly as needed. The files have an extension of .cso and there maybe many thousands that have built up, I've found many problems resolved once the shader cache has been cleared.
  • C:\Users\<user account name>\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v<version number>\Shaders

• Delete the scenery indexes, these are located in the following path and like the compiled cached shader files, are rebuilt when P3D is started. 
  • C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v<version number>\SceneryIndexes_x64

The above two items are quick and easy to perform as well as being non-destructive given the files are automatically rebuilt when P3D is restarted.

I also practice the renaming of configuration files e.g. renaming the prepar3d.cfg (as it is heavily customised) rather than just straight up deleting the file, then follow a process of elimination to track down errant entries that maybe causing the subjective issue.

Cheers

Edited August 3, 2025Aug 3 by Rogen

Sorry for the late reply, but I was on vacation.
After completely uninstalling p3d, I reinstalled the simulator and pmdg. Everything was fine until I loaded a flight with an airplane (the basic F35 that's there at startup). After that, once the scenery and everything had loaded, I changed the airplane, choosing the pmdg. I got an error that I don't remember now, but it said something like, "To change from an airplane to a pmdg, I had to restart p3d first."
I clicked "OK," and the simulator closed, and now I have the exact same problem again. The airplane is incredibly slow to load. Once loaded, everything seems to be fine, until the FPS in the cockpit drops dramatically, making it unplayable.
This problem only happens in the cockpit, because if I go to external views or other views other than the cockpit, it works fine.
I really hope you can help me solve this problem because I really don't want to go through this all over again.

On 8/1/2025 at 1:09 PM, MikeWalls said:

No response from pmdg. Could a solution be to completely uninstall p3d?

I cannot see any posts here by you. Have you asked for help there?

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/pmdg-737-ngxu-for-prepar3d-v4