Core 2 Duo and Fly!II saga. Need help

[Guest tonyc]

Roger,"date on files"--actually, those files that are read by FLY acquire the date the current date. I will tell you more about it when I figure out the name of that program.1. Video card-- go into the bios and look at the agp aperture. Fly is very fussy about this. Look at its setting and then adjust it downward. It's improbable that this is the cause , but who knows.2. Joy stick drivers. Usb drivers are notoriously slow and FLY being old..... Try disabling these drivers and then load fly.3. two partitions? Just for the heck of it, try putting the program on the second partition--with the os on the first.There's agreat program, Ultimate Defrag , with which you can actually locate FLY on the outer ring, thereby reducing access time considerably. REad about it....Tony

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Tony,>1. Video card-- go into the bios and look at the agp aperture.>Fly is very fussy about this. Look at its setting and then>adjust it downward. It's improbable that this is the cause ,>but who knows.Ok I checked right through the bios settings. I could find no mention AGP aperture or anything of similar name but as I'm using a PCI-Express motherboard and video card I'm not really surprised.The PCI-E standard was not around when Fly! II was conceived so just maybe Fly! II is having a dummy spit during startup.If you look at the Render.ini in a post further back you will see the automatic allocation of texture slots for a 256 Mb card. >2. Joy stick drivers. Usb drivers are notoriously slow and>FLY being old..... Try disabling these drivers and then load>fly.No problems with the operation of the joystick (USB). The driver is the default Win XP driver. I haven't loaded any joystick driver.>3. two partitions? Just for the heck of it, try putting the>program on the second partition--with the os on the first.>There's agreat program, Ultimate Defrag , with which you can>actually locate FLY on the outer ring, thereby reducing access>time considerably. REad about it....There is no hard drive activity during the long wait for the video setup screen. Whatever the problem is it is all happening in memory.As things stand my setup is excellent for a user but I'm afraid it is a big no-no for development work.At a guess I would probably fire up Fly! II aprox a couple of hundred times when making an aircraft ( I've obviously never counted but it is a heck of a lot). 200 X 4 min 10 secs is 833 minutes which is a long time to be looking at a Pilatus PC-12. :-)Just for info my old computer only takes 33 seconds from double clicking the shortcut icon on desktop to sitting in the cockpit of the Cessna ready for Take-off. But that's on an antiquated OS - Win98SE :-lol Cheers,Roger

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day all,Well after all that I feel a trifle embarrassed. :+The original complaint is still valid but simply by settingaskuserforgraphics=0 in Fly!.ini and I go from desktop shortcut to the Cessna cockpit in 15 secs (timed - that's only half the time of my old computer so I'm stoked), so I really dont have a huge problem.The only time it will be of any problem is when I want to switch from dx8 to Dx8-T&L in the render box. Unfotunately whilst Dx8=T&L gives the subdude glow of the early morning and late afternoon sun it reduces the landing/taxi lights to single figure candle power.Sorry for the panic session.cheers,Roger

[Guest Colins2]

Hey Roger,Sorry to read of all your problems!FWIW I don't think that it is much to do with your setup.I've used Fly with XP since XP beta days and never had a problem.I've also never had to 'tweak' any XP settings.The same goes for your drive configuration.Fly doesn't care - period.It may run a tidgy bit slower or faster depending on drive but with your new processor it probably won't be noticeable anyway.One thing you might consider is which of the dll's you are using.Fly came with 3 of them. You never know, try one of the others.The other point you made about a faulty CD may be relevant also. Try physically disconnecting it - XP won't care, it's very good with changing configurations and you won't need to change anything in the bios either.It can't be a big problem. A lot of people make a lot of fuss about running Fly, re-installing etc. but I don't see the need for most of it.I have Fly installed on a HD in my main computer at home. I also have a copy of this installation on a portable usb drive which I take away to work with me. I must admit that I don't use it much any more but I used to.It's also the original installation!By that I mean that I have only installed Fly11 once.I have moved and copied the directory a few times over the years but I have never had to re-install it.When I have had problems it has always been driver related.This could be a mobo driver as well as a display driver!I'm sure you will get to the bottom of it.CheersColin

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Collin,Thanks for taking an interest.If you look at my previous post in this thread you will see that I have basically solved ( or found a workaround ) to my problem.- simply set fly.ini to by-pass the the opening splash screen and video setup screen. Fly! II then loads real quick. So it is just the way Fly! II interrogates my system that causes the extended delay.I still need to check out the non operation of the Benq DVD RW drive. Will do so as soon as I get the time. I have 2 dvd RW drives and they appear to be SCSI even though they are woking off an IDE connector. - as master and slave. I'll check it out. Cheers,Roger

[Guest Chris Wallace]

Roger,Glad that you got your problem sorted out...I would have replied to this thread sooner, but I fainted upon reading that you'd upgraded your PC, and have only just now come to and picked myself up off the floor!Have fun...Chris WallaceOttawa, Canada

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Chris,> Have fun....That pretty well sums up my approach to simming.... and I'm having a ball. :-lol I fixed my CD Rom drive problem.....turned out to be a faulty IDE ribbon cable. Changed the ribbon cable and now both CD ROM drives are functioning perfectly, but that made no difference to the loading of Fly! II. > but I fainted upon reading that you'd upgraded your PC, and have only just now come to and picked myself up off the floor!:-lol :-lol yeah nice one! But .. sit down a minute - don;t want you getting hurt. I also upgraded ( well changed my operating system) to Win XP-Pro. Not only that but purchased the CD of TrueSpace 4.3 (only US$19.99 from Caligari) and added your 3ds to s3d converter. I haven't yet tried the converter yet but I don't anticipate any problems :-) Along with all the other excellent freeware tools for Fly! II I'm all set up for some serious hobby time. :-)This WILL be my last upgade. Fly! II and Vista are like east and west so notwithstanding all my other issues with "DRM" and "content protection" I see no reason.Everything I've done is to get the best performance I can out of Fly! II. .......... unbeliveable performance, obscene is the word that first springs to mind. I can't explain but how can the frame rate in FPS exceed the monitors refresh rate in Hz. I other words how can I have an FPS of 400 when the monitor refreshes at only 70 Hz. Does that mean the monitor only actually displays every 5th or 6th frame? Just curious.????I hope you are getting a good night sleep these days and that your family had a great festive season and wish you all the best for 2007Cheers,Roger

[Guest Chris Wallace]

> I haven't yet tried the>converter yet but I don't anticipate any problems :-)You don't?!? Are you new around here? :-lol>I can't explain but how>can the frame rate in FPS exceed the monitors refresh rate in>Hz. I other words how can I have an FPS of 400 when the>monitor refreshes at only 70 Hz. Does that mean the monitor>only actually displays every 5th or 6th frame?Yes, exactly. The application can fill the frame buffer as often as it wants, but if the card only scans it and sends a new picture to the screen at 70Hz, then that's the true frame rate. But I can assure you that you aren't likely to have that problem with Legacy :-)>I hope you are getting a good night sleep these daysNot really, but thanks for asking :-) > and that>your family had a great festive season and wish you all the>best for 2007Thanks, same to you and yours.Chris WallaceOttawa, Canada

[Guest angels355]

Brian,I think if you are able, that if you can bring your ram up to 1 gb things generally work better. Good luck.

[Guest angels355]

Roger,I was wondering how your new computer build was going. I'm glad that things have turned out well. I think that 2 gb's of ram would be better because there are MONSTER scenery files available for Fly!2 and more ram makes that better. And the dual channl specification means that if you get a second dual channel ram stick of the same exact type then they will work together in synch and perform at a much higher level. There are some techies that manually adjust how page files are managed, how much disk memory is allocated to them and location, however I never touch that myself, I allow Windows to manage the page files. And you have plenty of ram so that you don't have to worry about that, and if you get 2 gb's of ram then managing page files will be the last thing you have to worry about. Page files come into play when you don't have enough ram and the computer uses the hard drive as virtual memory to cover the shortfall.Did you say you got a Core 2 Duo chip? That's awesome! Interestingly it runs extremely cool, Maximum PC ran it without any heatsink and it ran fine to illustrate how cool it runs. But I definitely would not suggest anyone run it themselves without a heatsink.Your computer sounds incredible, great chip, good ram, Raptor HD.Re: Vista, I've been studying it, it manages RAM and cache differently than XP, it preloads as much as possible into the ram to overcome the slowness of the hard drive. But it needs LOTS of ram, 1 gb ram for bare functionality if you don't want to multitask, 2 gb's for household use and multitasking, and 4 gb's if you want to be a power user. As far as I know, a 32 bit application will only use 2 gbs of ram normally as in XP, however with Vista, if you've got 4 gb's of ram Vista will preload 4 gb's of data into the ram, so even if you're only running a 32 bit application it will still use 4gb's of ram to process it. There's a big downside to Vista however regarding how it audits hardware and may shut down the OS due to upgrading hardware requiring activation, and also it disables hardware to protect hi def premium content, which is unbelievable. If only they had spent all this energy and resources on developement of FSX, then perhaps it might have been 64 bit and fully multithreaded. Read this article on the subject, the author says that their motive is to monopolize distribution of premium content as Apple has done with music. At least XP works great, and they are extending support for it.http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.htmlGood luck with your new setup, it should be great. Tell us how it handles those heavy scenery addons, and perhaps give us a couple of screen shots!!!

[Guest willorge]

Hey guysSorry to bug, i just got FLY2, it wass a gift lets say it so. Any way, Im runing MAC INTEL CORE DUO, system 10.4.8, 256 VRAm and 1GB RAm, 2.0ghz, now the problem is, IT DOENST OPEN, jsut like the begining post. Opens for a sec and closes. First off, HERE! Anyone, has any one ran FLY2 with MAC, new IMAC Core duos? PLEASEEE HELP! Please give me a handwillorge@gmail.comStefano

[Guest willorge]

So sorry again for posting, any one with the will to help, please give me a hand, very frustrated, waited for FLY2 a lot and well, NOTHING now..... cant return it, I live in ECUADOR , bought it from the states!Heres the post----------Hey guysSorry to bug, i just got FLY2, it wass a gift lets say it so. Any way, Im runing MAC INTEL CORE DUO, system 10.4.8, 256 VRAm and 1GB RAm, 2.0ghz, now the problem is, IT DOENST OPEN, jsut like the begining post. Opens for a sec and closes. First off, HERE! Anyone, has any one ran FLY2 with MAC, new IMAC Core duos? PLEASEEE HELP! Please give me a handwillorge@gmail.comStefano

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day Stefano,Welcome to the fly! forums. It's always nice to see new members. Unfortunately Mac Fly! II users are almost as scarce as hens teeth but there are a few still active.Edit: Removed reference to Mac forum as I see you have already posted there.I hope you get your problem sorted out.Cheers,Roger

[Guest angels355]

Stefano,You have a Mac/Apple, running OSX? I think there were two versions of Fly!2, one that was designed (ported) for Macintosh (and the Apple operating system), and one for Windows. New Intel Macs run both OSX, and also using bootcamp they can also install Windows XP. By the way, in Maximum PC Magazine in testing determined that Macs run much faster on XP, 12% to 62% faster depending on the application if I remember the figures correctly. So if you're running OSX, anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but you need one of two things:Either: purchase the Mac version of Fly!2, which I think is the cheapest alternative, I think they are only about $10 or so.Or: purchase Windows XP and install it using bootcamp onto your Mac, thats the expensive alternative, and should only be done if you actually want to also run Windows XP.On your Fly!2 jewel case, look at the system requirements on the back. Does it require Windows to run it, or the Apple/Mac operating system? If it is the Mac version, it should say somewhere on the jewel case. Otherwise on the system requirement section on the back of the jewel case, it will say something like, requires Windows 98, 2000, etc. In that case it is a Windows version, and won't work on a Mac unless you have Windows XP.I hope this has helped.

[Guest 3cffts]

Roger: I have just upgraded to a new machine - which may be similar to yours - and I get the same 4 minutes delay in loading Fly2 - so I changed the "askusergraphics" as you suggested and it now loads in 15 secs! Thanks for your great tip!I am also surprised at your huge frame rates. On my old P-4 2.4mhz I was, on the initial Cessna screen and generally, getting 67 -74 fps. On this new machine I get very little improvement - 87fps - also, I am disappointed in the detail in the scenery with the NVidia video card chip. The graphics on my old ASUS Radeon 9600XT are noticeably sharper and crisper.Do you have any thoughts as to how I can improve my frame rates.I have an ASUS P5B-E mb with a P-4 Core 2 Duo E6600 with an Intel 965 chipset and the video card is an ASUS EN7600GS 512mb. 2gb system RAM.Cheers,Brian.