TerryS

Hello, I have the 737 and 777 for P3D installed and, well, they were working! I have a lot of other addons and today I updated P3D from 3.1 to 3.2 by uninstalling and reinstalling the client only to save me having to reinstall everything. Needless to say P3D now crashes on start-up with the faulting module being ai_player.dll. I have tried everything to resolve this by disabling all ai and scenery which contains ai but its too hard now and not worth wasting any more time. I cant get past the loading screen. I have decided to do a complete reinstall but I know from previous experience that I must deactivate the 777 and 737 through the FMC. What happens if I cant even load P3D, how do I deactivate? Is there any other way? Its a bit of a pain having to wait on the license being authorised again and I was told off the last time in a nice way! Terry

Decided to download the new installer for the 737 P3D thinking I could have a quick flight before I went to bed. Uninstalled the previous version and have started to download the new version @ 9 kb/s! Cancelled and tried again but the browser is telling me over 3 days to download! I'm in the UK on 150Mb/s cable and it takes me 10 mins to download the whole of P3D so I assume the server is overloaded. Someone earlier mentioned 1982, well not long after this I had a 14.4K modem which was quicker than this. Oh, its just picked up speed, 4 mins now so if anyone else is initially very slow it does pick up after about 5 minutes. Might get a flight after all Terry Shields

I sold an EVGA SC Titan and bought an EVGA SC 780 Ti. The 780 Ti is more powerful than a Titan for gaming by about 10% which I verified playing Arma 3. Didn't notice any difference with FSX considering it has only half the VRAM and I'm running 2560 x 1440 + 1024 x 768 touchscreen. No memory problems flying over VFR London with Horizon VFR Scenery, Ultimate Traffic and NGX 737. Now I'm contemplating switching to Prepar3d which is why I'm checking these forums.

Hi Paul, Ithink the autopilot should disconnect automatically when it detects touchdown, however it doesn't touchdown therefore the autopilot remains on. It will not disconnect manually either and the aircraft just flys along 5ft off the ground. I now think it's a problem with the airport scenery as I just flew into EGGD (Bristol) and the autoland worked perfectly. I've run AFD scanner to see if there are any duplicate sceneries but everything checks out. I'll just avoid EGNT for a while, or manually land. Up until recently I always manually landed but I find the autoland quite interesting especially in poor visibility and because I'm not used to it. Thanks Terry

Hi, I have the same problem but I read somewhere on these forums that it's a problem with FSX itself and there is no workaround at the moment. I just hit the 'q' key twice to reset the sound or mouse click anywhere on the main panel. Terry

Hi Andrew, I wish it did then I could manually land it but no matter what I do, the controls don't respond. I thought it may have been a symptom of the 'panel freeze' however I've installed the hotfix and it made no difference. Thanks Terry

Hi everyone, I've been scratching my head over this one and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm attempting an autoland at Newcastle, UK (EGNT). Both NAV radios are tuned to correct ILS frequency, both course dials set, speed correct, flaps correct, barometer set, both autopilots on, both FDs on etc. The NGX flys the approach perfectly down the GS with 'GS' in green and 'flare' in white letters. About 10 feet from touchdown, the aircraft begins to flare and the white 'flare' turns to green. That's it. The aircraft flys along the runway at about 5 feet altitude and wont touchdown. Eventually it turns gently to the right and lands in the terminal! I've tried to turn the autopilots and autothrottle off just prior to touchdown however despite the switches moving it seems as if the autopilot still has the aircraft and I cannot regain control, where's the ejection handle. Has anyone else encountered this or is it just me who thinks they know what they're doing but really hasn't a clue. The landing gear was down BTW and I've installed the hotfix. Terry

Hi Mark, I was also interested in the correct setup for Ryanair. I thought the livery 'knew' however I done a google search for images of Ryanair 737-800 cockpits and they all came back with the analog IFSD whereas the Ryanair livery installs the digital IFSD. Maybe the photos are old and the current fleet have been updated, I don't know but I suppose it doesn't really matter. Terry

I'm having problems with autoland at a particular airfield. I have programmed the FMC for a flight between EGAA and EGNT. If I fly an ILS approach to ILS 25 the aircraft will autoland at EGNT no problem so I know autoland does work. If I program the FMC to land at RW 25 and set a RW Ext of 15, then tune both NAV radios, set both course dials etc, the aircraft descends down the GS as indicated on the PFD. A small white 'flare' even appears below 'GS'. The problem is, the aircraft flares but does not touch down and carries on the full length of the runway about 5 feet in the air! I've tried disconnecting the A/T and A/P and although the switches move and alarms sound, I still have no control. It's probably something simple I'm doing wrong but I've had about 5 attempts now with the same outcome. If I follow the same procedure at EGGD the aircraft touches down and autobrakes without issue. I've glanced through the manual for something obvious and searched the forums but can't find an answer. Regards Terry

Hi Dazz,I can report that the 2600K at default (3.8 GHz Turbo Mode) is noticeably faster (but not by much) than the i7 965EE @ 4Ghz in FSX so any overclock on the 2600K is a bonus. As you know, it's really hard to give exact numbers because every flight is different however I did record FPS during a 1 min takeoff at Heathrow using FRAPS on the old system and replicated it on the new system to compare results. It's not an exact science but it does represent what I'm seeing on the screen. This is (1)i7 965 @ 4GHz v (2)i7 2600K @ 4.6GHzFrames Time (ms) Min Max Avg(1)1069 60000 7 24 17.817(2)1403 60000 10 29 23.383The low FPS were slight stutters in both machines at various points as scenery loaded but most of the time things were smooth.On another matter, I reinstalled all my DCS Combat sims to the SSD the OS occupies (from a 1 TB Samsung) That made a big difference with regard to slight stuttering at certain points during missions. The whole thing is as smooth a silk now so I'm going to have to consider a 256Gb SSD for FSX and DCS, when the prices come down.Terry

I reckon it's Renton Municipal Airfield in Washington with the Boeing factory.Terry

Hi,I don't post too much, mostly read to see what's happening in the FS world. I've been following all the posts regarding the new Sandybridge CPU's and got suckered into changeing my PC which, to be honest, ran FSX really well. It was an i7 965 EE @ 4GHz which I bought 2 years ago when they were released. I have spent maybe close to £1000 on FSX scenery / aircraft and my current install is 150Gb. The most demanding place for smoothness on my setup is approaching Uk2000 Heathrow Xtreme in an Aerosoft 747, flying over Horizon UK VFR Photoscenery, Aerosoft London, all the other UK2000 airports in close proximity and UT2 at 50%. After applying all the tweaks, mainly from Bojote, my FPS averaged around 17 but it was a bit 'choppy' owing to fluctuations when the FPS dipped to around 12. In other less demanding areas FSX ran smoothly and I was quite happy - until Sandybridge. I was going to wait until Stephen built his new PC and make an informed decision based on his testing before taking the plunge but my son was at school, wife at work and I'm off all week on Leave!I jumped into the car and drove 100 miles up the motorway to Overclockers UK.I decided on a 2600K as rightly or wrongly I considered it would allow for a higher Overclock. For the MB I decided on an Asus P8P67 after reading a really good review in CustomPC Magazine. When I was in the shop, a guy came in returning a P8P67 Pro version claiming it wouldn't boot and that internet forums were full of complaints regarding that model. He wanted to swap for an MSI. I've never had any issues with Asus so I stuck with the P8P67. I was going to buy 2 x 4Gb modules of Corsair Vengeance RAM @ 1600 MHz 8,8,8,24 however the sales person advised me that I would be more likely to achieve a higher overclock if I only used 4 Gb RAM, 2 x 2Gb modules. I queried this however the shop does specialise in selling overclocked systems and he assured me that they had more success using 2 x 2 Gb rather than 2 x 4Gb. It was going to save me money so I went for 2 x 2Gb of the lowest latency 1600 MHz RAM they had which was G-Skill RipJawX 6,8,6,24. Finally I needed a heatsink. I read that the Sandybridge CPU's dont't generate as much heat as their predecessors so I opted for a Corsair A50 which is alot smaller than the Thermalright cooler in my existing PC. The other reason for this was concerns over the clearance for the RAM heatsinks as the RAM slots are quite close to the CPU socket. So I put the stuff into the car hoping that the CPU was not a duffer. I even checked the CPU's batch number on an OC database via my iPhone to see if it was listed but it wasn't.Back home and deauthorised various accounts and games on my old PC before taking it apart. It wasn't too dusty as I cleaned it a few months ago when installing an SSD and 580GTX. The case is an Antec 1200. Built up the new Mb first using the heatsink compound supplied with the Corsair A50. It recommends in the Asus manual that the RAM goes into slots 2 and 4 rather than 1 and 3 which are closer to the CPU so there was a good 1/2 inch clearance between the cooler and the RAM. Maybe a bigger cooler would fit if necessary. Installed the mb assembly into the case and connected the HD's. 120Gb OCZ Vertex 2 SSD for OS and 300 Gb Velociraptor for FSX to SATA 6Gb/s (backwards compatible) 2 1Tb Samsung F3's and DVD to SATA 3Gb/s for games and backup. Finally I installed the GTX 580 and Soundblaster Titanium, checked all the connections and closed the case. Took about an hour. I powered the system up and it actually worked! At this stage I didn't care about any overclocking, I was just happy it seemed to be working and I entered the Bios. I set up the boot drive first, turned off all the stuff I didn't need like onboard sound etc and let it boot into windows 7. Amazingly W7 started without any fuss. I normally start with formatted HD's and reinstall everything but I thought I'd see what would happen doing it this way. It would certainly save alot of time if it worked. I installed a few drivers from the Asus DVD, rebooted, connected to the Internet and W7 automatically updated more drivers. W7 then flashed up a warning that I would have to reactivate this installation as the hardware in the PC had changed however I decided to leave it until I was sure I wouldn't have to start from scratch with a clean install. I downloaded a bios update from ASUS which was supposed to solve a few issues with the new mb and updated the bios. I then printed off an overclocking guide which I found after a google search, www.clunk.org.uk/reviews/sandy-bridge-overclocking-guide-for-beginners.html. There are loads of guides but this one worked for me. I followed the guide and ended up at 4.6GHz with a Vcore of 1.30 and RAM as per it's specs with Hyperthreading off. It did take a long time to reach this level as I overclocked it in stages, testing each overclock using Prime95 for an hour and adjusting the Vcore as necessary to make sure eveything was stable. An article in the forums at Overclockers.uk states that the maximum safe Vcore on these CPU's is 1.35v for continuous use. Once I reached 4.6GHz I was happy enough and the CPU temperature during Prime95 stayed between 55 - 60 C as opposed to 25 -30 when idle so the Corsair A50 cooler was good enough. I then ran Prime95 overnight without any faults so the overclock is as stable as I need it to be.The whole point of upgrading was to make FSX and DCS A10 run better. After reading loads of reviews, none of them mention any flight sims, it seemed that the new i7 CPU's were about 10% faster clock for clock than the old i7's. This coupled with the higher clock speed should give a good boost in performance to CPU limited games. Well I tried Super_pi_mod first and it calculated to 32M in 7m 51.480s. I started FSX and had to reactivate Acceleration (FSX is OK so far) as well as some essellerate addons. After that, FSX was loaded before UT2 initialised, around 10 seconds. I went to Heathrow and loaded up the 747 for a flight. On runway 9L I was getting 17 - 18 FPS, I'm now getting 22- 23 FPS. I took off and flew around London and it was very clear that the whole flying simulation was alot smoother. The FPS still fluctuate but at a higher level so I am now getting fluid movement like X-Plane rather than a slight stuttering. There's no point giving you my FSX settings (there's always someone with an older PC who gets twice your performance with the same settings) but they're not on maximum yet. There is still the occassional momentary pause or hiccup as scenery is loaded from the HD but overall I am very very pleased with the result. I have found that all the CPU intensive games I use such as Arma 2 and DCS A10 / Blackshark and Flaming Cliffs 2 run visibly faster. I now have an i7 965EE for sale!Sorry for rambling on for so long but I thought I would just pass you my Sandy Bridge experiences. Hope the wife doesn't read this, she just thought I was cleaning the computer! Good luck Stephen when you finally get all your bits.Terry

Never thought about right clicking, can't you just use your middle finger! :(

I had a look at one of the new PC systems in a local store with an integrated 23" touchscreen monitor. It seemed to work quite well in Windows 7 although the PC itself wouldn't be powerful enough for FSX. I had a look on the internet and found that a couple of large manufacturers are selling standalone 23" 1920 x 1080 touchscreens. I was wondering how well these might work in FSX or any flightsim with a clickable cockpit. I think it would be quite effective with TrackIR, operating the VC by physically touching the switches on the screen. Has anyone tried this or seen it working? I know you can get small touchscreens and move the FMC etc onto them but these large touchscreens are not as expensive as I thought or maybe they use a different technology which wouldn't work with sims.Terry

It happens on any flight when you access the menus more than a few times by right clicking. Some people get a CTD after less than 10 clicks, for others it's more than 20. This may be related to how much RAM is installed in the PC. I right click quite alot to check out the ai traffic on a long flight. According to posts in other forums, many people get this even with FSX installed without the service packs.

I installed W7 64 RC1 on a brand new HD then installed FSX with acceleration. I may have noticed a slight improvement over Vista 64 but that could be due to a new install. The main problem with W7, which makes FSX unusable for me, is the constant CTD when accessing the menus in game by clicking the right mouse button. This CTD is reportedly caused by 'uiautomationcore.dll' and has been discussed in the Avsim FSX CTD Forum and other W7 forums. I keep checking for a solution but the forum threads seemed to have dried up with no solutions forthcoming or even a response or acknowledgement from the W7 devs that I have found anyway. I like to have the latest OS, even if I don't need it, but this is a show stopper as far as W7 is concerned for me. I'm sure lots of people don't see this problem but I'm one of the many that it does affect. I'm hoping that someone will reply with a solution to this CTD that I've missed.Terry

Hi Vic, even if I don't have anything dispayed on or moved across to the second monitor the FPS still drops dramatically. It drops by a third whether I have zero or 3 additional screens moved across to the second monitor. I'm beginning to think it may be a driver issue. I'm currently on the 185 WHQL's but will try the latest ones.Terry

I am running FSX on a 24" LCD but recently connected an additional 15" LCD to display GPS, FMC etc. Both monitors are connected to the same graphics card and I run FSX in full screen mode. Everything is setup correctly within the windows environment and I am able to move the FMC to the smaller monitor when running FSX. The problem I am having is with performance (FPS) which has dropped by a third within FSX when the second monitor is connected, whether or not I move any instruments onto it or not. Is this just the way it is or is there something I am missing. The OS is Vista 64 and I am using FPS Limiter. As per other forum posts I set FPS limiter to 60, rather than 30 when I was using just 1 monitor. My system specs are: Core i7 965 EE @ 4Ghz, 6Gb RAM and Nvidia GTX 280. Terry

Hi Jim, I was only considering a netbook with a view to running ASA etc simply because they are relatively cheap and would fit nicely on my limited desk space, however, they probably aren't powerful enough. If I were to install ASA on a laptop, would I have to buy another copy, since the original is already installed and registered on the FSX PC.Terry

Couple of questions, do you think a netbook with WinXP and an Atom Processor would be up to running ASA as the client PC when networked to the main FSX PC. I was also considering using it for connecting FSX to Google Earth. Also, I have installed and registered ASA on my main PC, can I also install it on the client PC and register it there as well?i7 EE @ 4Ghz, GTX 280, 6Gb RAM, Vista 64.Terry

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go and see what else I can offload onto the spare PC while I'm at it.Terry

Hello, I currently have ASA installed on my main FSX PC but was considering networking it via a spare PC. What are the advantages in doing this, does it make a big difference in performance?Terry

Thanks everyone who has contributed to this thread, it has been great reading. I too am looking for a realistic B737 NG for FSX and was really tempted by Ariane's Website which in my opinion looks good and is very enticing. It gives the impression that their product is in a different league above all others and if you were really serious about simulated flying of commercial jets, this was the product to buy. Initially the high price put me off but then I thought for such a superior product, I should expect to pay more. I'm glad I found this thread. It seems that Ariane have a Ford and are trying to sell it as a Rolls Royce with a price and delivery times to match (not that I know how long it takes for a RR to be delivered). Ariane could probably sell alot more if they reduced their prices a little and opened their forums for us poor common folk to visit. Is Peter Tishma still connected with Ariane as they seem to be using his business plan.Terry

Hi Roger, I'm running at 1920 x 1200 with Trilinear Filtering on and AA off within FSX settings. I'm using Nvidia Drivers 180.48 with nHancer v 1.4.2 to set AA and AF within the graphics card drivers. To give me an idea of which settings to use I done a Google search of FSX and nHancer. I've left mine at AA 8S combined and AF 16 within nHancer.Terry