Imac

Hi again, R. Further to my remarks about the HP file and its involvement in failures of very long flights, I thought I should mention that (from memory) my failures usually occurred on flights of 9 hours or more, e.g. Hong Kong to London, New York to Tokyo, Vancouver to Sydney. So your failures after 6 hours or so might not be caused by background HP services. Perhaps, given Jim's advice, it's a combination of graphic memory depletion along with an intrusive process such as the HPCMPMGR.EXE which mucked me around. But your system and GT740 card don't sound too bad, so it might still be worth doing the elimination tests I mentioned, if no other explanation pops up in the mean time. Of course, if you have to do a 6hr + test flight each time, it might take a week or more to get an orderly set of results. If you do try this elimination routine, I suggest that you write down the services & processes disabled initially, and again each time you re-enable a bunch of processes, so you can analyse the results logically. If I haven't described the elimination process adequately, let me know. Another thought: is there any chance that temperature of the system or graphics card could increase slowly over the time of a long flight? If you live somewhere like Phoenix or Miami, rather than Anchorage or Reykjavic, perhaps the system's thermal performance might be checked. Anyway, enough. Good luck with your investigations, R.! Ian, Oz.

Hi, Likeag6. Your post reminded me of a similar problem I faced two or three years ago, and which I eventually resolved. Apart from my own investigations, Jim Young (who has just responded to your post) was very helpful, and there were good contributions from Matt450 and JayBirdski as well. In my case, the cause was traced to a particular HP (Hewlett-Packard) printer file, HPCMPMGR.EXE. If this was running in the background during a very long flight, FS would eventually crash without warning or explanation. Now, your system is quite different from mine, which was already old in 2013 and is now quite ancient - and you may well not have any HP gear installed. BUT - perhaps you could try to adapt the procedure I used at the time to isolate my problem. In essence, I set up GameBooster to run flights with ALL of its recommended process and service shut-downs in place. In other words, I was disabling background PC functions which GameBooster then thought were unnecessary for FS to run. Then I tried a very long flight. If the flight failed, I knew that (probably) none of the disabled processes was causing the error. If it did NOT fail, I then disabled only HALF of the processes and services in question. If the next long flight failed, it suggested that one (or more, perhaps) of the re-enabled items could be the culprit. You could probably do much the same using Alacrity PC, which I believe is a well-regarded FS tool. I guess you get the idea. My approach was to try to find the culprit with a relatively low test flight count. Of course, you could try disabling services etc. one by one, but wow, that could take a lot of long flights! This approach might not be suitable for you, but if you'd like to look back in the Avsim forums for the thread I started, it's still there in the Crash To Desktop forum. Search for 'Very Long Flights Fail', started by Imac ,April 30th 2013. Possibly something in my investigation, or in the detailed advice offered by Jim, and also remarks by Matt450 and JayBirdski, might be food for thought. I do hope you can sort this out,It's great to know Jim Young and others are still there to help. Good luck! Ian (Imac)

Hi there Jetsmell. There is (or was - just now I can't find it) an Avsim guide to hardware for FSX. It's very helpful indeed for questions such as yours. I go along generally with the other comments, and bear in mind that while the fastest CPU you can get for your board is a good starting point, your i5 should not be useless. Can you try a decent graphics card to see how you go? But in any case, if you can get and read the Hardware Guide, you'll surely get a good idea of where your system needs improvement. Don't worry, it's better than my old Core-2 Duo, anyway! Cheers. Ian / Imac

Hi again, Oliver. Yes, that worked! After uninstalling the NG using PMDG's special removal tool, and uninstalling FS9 via Control Panel, I reinstalled everything to the folder you suggested I create in the C: Drive root directory. Well, I haven't completed a full flight yet, but all the variations and installed liveries are now present. It looks good! Once again, thanks a lot for helping me, Oliver! Best Wishes. Ian / Imac, Murwillumbah (YMUR near YBCG) - Australia.

Hi, Oliver. Thanks for responding. I'll certainly give your suggestions a go. I'm not very familiar with Vista as an OS, but I had heard that the default location is often not the best place for some installations. Nevertheless, I wasn't expecting trouble with the FS9 NG, because FS9 itself seemed to go in OK and run normally enough considering the PC's weak specs. Anyway, I'll do as you say and report how I go. Thanks again for your help. Kind regards, Ian / Imac

Hi all. I've been forced to temporarily install my PMDG 737NG for FS9 in a basic Vista PC. It runs, but only a few of the variations are available - no winglet versions, and just a few of the non-winglet versions. The variations missing from the 'Aircraft' selection window are actually present in the programme's Windows Aircraft folder; they just don't appear for selection within FS9 while it's running. I realise that PMDG did not have Vista in mind when this plane was made, and it has worked wonderfully well for me in XP, but I would like to get the NG going fully again. Does anyone have a clue why some variations appear (and work well enough) - but others are simply not listed for selection when I'm creating a new flight? Thanks for reading. Ian / Imac

Hi Jim, Matt & Anyone Interested. I believe that it is indeed the previously mentioned HP file which was causing the failure of flights beyond about 11 hours. I narrowed it down to HPCMPMGR.EXE as outlined earlier, then further tested by: (a) Disabling about 40 services and processes identified by GB3, but leaving the HP file active - the flight failed at about 11 hours. (b) Enabling all those 40-odd other services but DISABLED the HP file. This flight continued as planned all the way from Hong Kong to Paris. From this I conclude that the HP file is the only one out of all the identified background services and processes which failed the flights. The time taken for it to fail the flights varied between about 10.5 hrs and 11.5 hours. Possibly the timing variation is dependent upon how long FS, or the PC itself, was running before the flights were loaded. Well, it's been a long exercise, but maybe something in the story will help someone else. I don't plan any more testing - I'll trust this result for now. Safe flying, everyone. Ian (Imac)

Hi Matthew, Thanks for your concern. Yes, I THINK I've got it; a check flight is now nearly 9 hours old - not long now before I'll be certain! By the way, I like your X-Ray cat (or is he a Gamma cat?) - ours seems pretty heavily sensored-up, too - two days ago he saw (with merely an idle glance) through a tiny crack in our fence an offending local cat and took off after her like greased lightning. Murder was on his mind, not romance. Fortunately someone else intervened before blood was spilt ... just. Our guy weighs about 20lbs and has real attitude. Okay, Matt, take care. Regards to you in CA from me, Ian, here is AUS.

Hi Jim & Everyone Reading, Sorry to have been absent for a while, but there has at least been some progress. Following your suggestion, Jim, that I look at REX, I reduced the load it offers to the system by reducing texture resolutions, etc., but while this did give a slight lift in FPS, it had no effect on the 'Very Long Flight Failures' problem. I therefore embarked on a programmed investigation of the background processes and services running in Windows (XP). This involved LOTS of flights from Chek Lap Kok (VHHH) to Paris (LFPG). Using GameBoost's free utility (a slightly older version) I first disabled ALL the services/ processes identified by GB as being largely or wholly unnecessary for FS, and tried a flight. If the flight then succeeded, it suggested that the culprit was among these disabled services. And yes, it succeeded. I then re-enabled half of the disabled processes / services before flying again, and so on - each time noting the services and processes either enabled or disabled. This procedure greatly reduces the number of trials needed - otherwise it would have required about 40, ten or twelve hour flights! The last file left in question is one associated (I think) with an older HP printer. The File. HPCMPMGR.EXE might be an update scheduler, but I'll investigate further. So if anyone else has experienced a similar problem, perhaps you could try this process of elimination. Or you could simply use a utility to shut down ALL the services and processes thus identified, but at your own risk. DON'T shut down Windows Explorer' - GameBooster gives a specific warning not to do that. If in doubt about a service or process, leave it running unless you have expert advice to the contrary. Anyway, Jim, this might might be of interest. Thanks again for your thoughts - I now seem to have both my very long flights back, and a useful FPS lift as well! Best wishes, Ian (Imac) - Murwillumbah, Australia.

Hi Jim, and thanks once again. I hadn't thought of the possibility that Rex was involved and your several angles of attack on that front are certainly worth investigating. I'll do that, check the SimConnect angle, and look at my weather configuration in both FSX and FS9 . I must admit I just installed and set Rex to run to my visual preferences and not much else, and it's entirely possible that later experimentation happened at about the time my recent long flights began failing. Something could have changed. Thanks for broadening my thinking, and I'll get back to you. I do appreciate your time and trouble on my behalf. Kind regards, Ian (Imac)

Hi again, Jim - I neglected to thank you specifically for the link to MS KB info on Event Viewer. It could be that I've missed something there. By the way, although for all practical purposes FSX has hung when it minimises as described, Task Manager shows it as still running. Even so, the system as a whole is usually otherwise frozen and a reset is needed. Occasionally I can restart via Task Manager. Oh - another angle: can you tell me whether the flight data stored for Instant Replay continues to accumulate on such long flights? If so, one assumes there's a limit. Can the Instant Replay function be disabled, even for a trial run? Anyway, don't trouble yourself too much with this issue - I really do need a new PC for FS, don't I? Cheers, and thanks again for reading. Ian (Imac).

HI and thanks, Jim. Yes, sorry about 'SP3' - my feeble mind had done a cross-feed between XP with SP3 and FSX with Acceleration. Anyway, I accept all of your comments concerning RAM and the degree of complexity in scenery, etc., which my old system might be expected to handle. I do run Orbx sceneries and other add-ons such as Tom's A340 and 330 models, Posky Boeings and so on, but this FS setup worked for all extended intercontinental flights in the past. No scenery add-ons should have been involved in the largely empty areas where the failures occurred. I can't find anything which has changed significantly either in FS itself or in my PC. Yes, I've searched Event Viewer's logs for clues but see nothing unusual at about the time the failures have occurred. So, yes, I might just have to stick to shorter flights .. and ASAP build a new system with more CPU steam, RAM etc.! But I'll still keep looking for any pesky Windows service or background app which could interfere. Thanks again for your thoughts, JIm. Regards, Imac. .

Hi All. Sorry if I've missed crucial posts on this, but I have yet to find anything re my particular scenario. Simply, FSX fails with no warning and no error messages towards the end of very long flights - usually at about the 10 or 11 hour mark, but still in cruise. One moment the flight is progressing normally - then FSX instantaneously minimises and nothing will wake it. This usually means CTRl+ALT+DEL or even a system reset. I have installed the latest graphics driver from Nvidia, run a memory check, closed all AV, firewall, etc., disabled XP's Power Saving options, defragged, moved the page File to a different HDD and so on. A similar failure occurs in FS9. Examples of failed flights: Hong Kong VHHH to Paris LFPG - fails over Poland or Austria with about 1000 nm or perhaps 750nm to run; also Sydney to Santiago SCEL - fails over the ocean several hours short of the Chilean coast. It looks to me as though there's some time or memory dependent process involved. Setup is FSX-SP3 and FS9, Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz, 2GB RAM, Gigabyte 8600GT graphics, Corsair 650W PSU. Six months ago flights like these ran all the way; now they don't, but I'm unaware of any significant change in the system. Does anyone see something familiar in this? Is there an XP equivalent to 'App Crash View' which might help? Thanks for reading, anyway - Imac.

Hi Gerard and also Bart S. - Thanks very much for your kind assistance with the Belgium scenery downloads. I will get them soon, once I make some more space on my computer. Best wishes from Australia to you both. Ian M.

Hi G Salden - I only just saw the message advising of your kind offer of Belgian scenery. I don't know how I missed it before, but as it was just a short time ago (August 7th) at the top of the Topics list, I tried the links - unfortunately (as your post suggests) they have expired. Is there any other way to download the Belgium scenery? Years ago I had a short holiday in Belgium and would like to tour the countryside and cities again - this time, from the air! Thanks for making your offer. I just wish I'd seen it before the 25th May. Ah well, cheerio anyway. Regards from Ian, in Australia.