I HATE FSX…There, I said it

[Maurice]

While I was flying & making videos a little while ago, FSX was running reasonably well for me (not great but certainly acceptable). But now, something has happened in the last month or so and now, FSX is running like molasses with major stutters and terrible frame rates around any major airport.

I just did a flight out of Washington (DCA) and when landing, besides the slide show, the runway elevation started jumping up & down. I'm pretty sure I must have done something to screw things up but I have restored all the settings I had earlier and nothing is helping.

With the high end hardware I have in my FSX PC which is running at 4.7 Ghz and with a GTX 690 video card, I should be able to get better performance than what I am getting now.

I am so fed up now that after I cool off a bit, I am going to rebuild my FSX PC but this time, I may go with P3D. XP is definitely not an option for me unless I run it with one view only and I don't think I would be happy with that after experiencing full surround visuals.

If P3D does not make things any better (and I doubt it will), then I am pretty sure I will throw in the towel and get out of this business unless Lockheed Martin releases some updates that improve the fps performance which I understand is currently no better than FSX.

I know I have talked about doing this many times in the past but this time, I am truly at the end of my rope and this simulator has become a thorn in my back and not giving me any pleasure anymore. It's one thing after another and I'm more than ever tempted to dismantle it and sell the parts since I doubt there is a market for a complete simulator.

Anyway, Spring is in the air and getting out of my basement for a while sounds very appealing to me right now. Stay tuned for possibly great hardware bargains soon. 

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hi Maurice,

You always know I try to be the first one to say "no, don't give up"...uh, even though I did say just give up once, but you have dealt with this more than most of us, so you know how FSX really is.

Now, what should I say this time? How about this; turn the sim off, stop making videos and start spring early. You're at burnout stage again, so just leave it all alone and come back later. Besides, if you quit and sell out what would you do for fun...other than make posts on CB to bring out the crazies?

Finally, please go visit Scott or even Karen and I. Scott's would be better because he wants someone to do more piloting with since he has been so consumed with being airplane/simulator mechanic. As for Karen and I, we're rearranging house for simulators, but that's normal crazy people stuff, so a visit here might make you crazier, make you appreciate yours more or Karen will make you work!

John

[Garys]

Hi Mau,

You have probably tried this already but if you have tried updating to the latest nvidia driver you will need to redo your FSX profile again in inspector. 1/2 refresh rate option and limiting frames to 30 in game should get you back to minimal stutters.

Gary

[HarryZ]

I just did a flight out of Washington (DCA) and when landing, besides the slide show, the runway elevation started jumping up & down. I'm pretty sure I must have done something to screw things up but I have restored all the settings I had earlier and nothing is helping.

With your CPU and GPU, you should indeed have much better frame rates.  Please send me your fsx.cfg file and settings you use in Nividia Inspector.  hzanin@rogers.com

Thanks.

Harry

[Maurice]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, but right now, I need to stop banging my head against the wall and take a long sabbatical before I do something I may regret later.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder so I  am going to test that theory before contemplating divorce, although in that case, I would not get taken to the cleaners and would end up with some money in my pockets 

Maurice

[Nat Crea]

Mau,

Delete your FSX.cfg and leave the new one alone!
I don't do ANY tweaks anymore, besides "WideviewAspect=True"...period.
I know this is conflicting advice but Please try it!

If you feel like, try the DX10 Preview mode, guaranteed to be smoother,
only downside is some night textures at add-on airports don't support it.

Nat

[Maurice]

Nat,

Did you say delete FSX? That's a fantastic idea and I'll do that today. Why did I not think of that earlier...like 5 years ago? 

But just a tiny reminder here...you have 3 or maybe 4 PCs running FSX ( or XP). I have only one. Big difference I think about what tweaks are necessary 

Maurice

[HarryZ]

But just a tiny reminder here...you have 3 or maybe 4 PCs running FSX ( or XP). I have only one. Big difference I think about what tweaks are necessary 

Maurice

I too only have 1 PC running FS X which also runs AS 2012. Also have several add-ons to FS on the same computer.  I had the same problems you have now until I spent a fair amount of time tweaking the config file as well as using Nvidia Inspector.   With today's hardware you really need to do the tweaking to take advantage of it.

Harry

[XOrionFE]

Sitting looking out at the beach and Gulf of Mexico relaxing with a cup of joe reading about your plight Maurice and my sim is a thousand miles away. 

Sometimes it is nice to take a break from it all for a week and enjoy the other things life has to offer.   Take a breather and enjoy the wonderful winter views out of your garden room and pour a cup of coffee.  Come back to it in a week or two.

Best regards,
From sunny Sanibel Island, Florida (not a sim in sight!)

Scott

[Maurice]

Harry,

Tweaking FSX.cfg and Inspector would not help a runway jumping up & down, especially in an airport I landed on before with no such problem. Something else here is at play.

I have been tweaking those 2 files ad-nauseam for years now and as I said before, FSX was running mostly ok but I was never quite happy with it as I never fully got rid of white flashes and/or occasional black patches of terrain now & then. I could live with those but not with what I am seeing right now.

Are you saying that you have discovered some magic settings that have not been discussed in any of the various tweaking posts made by Bojote, Kosta and others? I have tried just about everything in every possible combination and the only acceptable result is the one I was using now, but now, these same settings work like crap.

And by the way Gary, I did also try 1/2 the refresh rate and setting the internal fps limiter to 30. That made the frame rate much worse for me.

I am pretty sure I can eliminate a CPU hardware issue as I have run CPU tester Pro for hours at 4.7 Ghz and it ran perfectly with the CPU temperature never exceeding 80 degrees C. I also ran memory diags for hours with no problems. The only thing I cannot really test is my 240 Gb SSD drive. I have replaced it once already but at that time, I was seeing errors in the Event Viewer. The event viewer is not showing anything now so I assume the SSD drive is ok but who really knows?

Anyway, I really appreciate all the suggestions but I would have to see FSX running absolutely smoothly with 3 separate views and one computer only to believe that this is possible. It might well be if they come up with a much faster CPU than currently available but it seems like CPU speed increases have stalled now and if it ever happens, that means yet another hardware upgrade. At what point do you say enough is enough? For me, it's right now while I still have a few years left to enjoy life without FSX 

Thanks,
Maurice

[Sean]

From sunny Sanibel Island, Florida

You're in Florida? Man, you could've brought the sim, then I could've drove down to see it! 

[Maurice]

Sitting looking out at the beach and Gulf of Mexico relaxing with a cup of joe reading about your plight Maurice and my sim is a thousand miles away. 

Scott

You see... enjoying life without a sim is indeed possible, even for a long, long time  . There must be a support group for recovering sim addicts somewhere in this world and if not, maybe I should start one. Anybody else willing to sign up? 

Maurice

[Maurice]

'Sorry' for hijacking my own post, but does anyone know anything about satellite TV receivers? Now that I have so much more free time, I have to figure out why one out the 4 receivers in my house is losing satellite signal from time to time and that receiver is the most used and important one in the house and also an HD recorder (the others do not record)

It is not the cabling since I tried a regular receiver in that same spot and that one works ok. I am quite sure that something is gone bad inside the box but before I spend 500 bucks for a new one, I would like to be 100% sure if possible.

So, does anyone know anything about satellite HD recorders internals? I am wondering if the internal disk drive may be flaky and causing the signal loss. In other words, does the satellite signal get recorded before passing on to the tuner and if the drive is flaky, the tuner may not be getting the full signal and thereby giving a message the signal was lost?

Any satellite TV wizards out there? 

Maurice

[jackpilot]

Would you dare to reload FS9 on a tiny part of your HD and give it a try!

[Maurice]

Would you dare to reload FS9 on a tiny part of your HD and give it a try!

OK Jack, please find a good therapist near you. I'm really worried about your mental state now 

Maurice

[iwik]

Maurice,
Do you have an antvirus software running?.If so turn it off temp,ive run into that problem
with Avaast on my system.
Les

[Boeing Skunk Works]

Would you dare to reload FS9 on a tiny part of your HD and give it a try!

OK Jack, please find a good therapist near you. I'm really worried about your mental state now 

Maurice

Hey, hey, HEY! Watch it there bub...

[Maurice]

Maurice,
Do you have an antvirus software running?.If so turn it off temp,ive run into that problem
with Avaast on my system.
Les

Antivirus software could affect frame rates & stutters but it would not cause the runway elevation to jump up and down. I really need to re-build and get rid of a lot of extra programs which I tried &  don't even use now. Any Windows PC needs a clean rebuild from time to time but unfortunately, with all the scenery add-ons I have loaded, I dread starting and I need to get away from it for a few months before I muster the courage or desire to try again.

Right now, I am feeling a euphoric sense of relief to be out of the basement and I can't see myself back at it until next Winter at least, and if I last until Winter, it will be very unlikely I will start again and that thought is very appealing to me right now . So what I need to do is quit watching flying videos (cold Turkey) because watching videos is the only reason I got back at it in previous episodes of sim despair 

So... nobody has any idea about my satellite receiver?? I really need a change of subject here.

Maurice

[jackpilot]

Antivirus software could affect frame rates & stutters but it would not cause the runway elevation to jump up and down. Maurice

IMHO maybe conflicting sceneries.??

[Maurice]

Antivirus software could affect frame rates & stutters but it would not cause the runway elevation to jump up and down. Maurice

IMHO maybe conflicting sceneries.??

Could be. I watch the scenery on the Discovery channel and the satellite reception is ok , and then I switch to Oasis, and the reception sucks. And the next day, things are different again. 

Am I being subtle enough? 

Maurice

[HarryZ]

Maurice,

Tweaking FSX.cfg and Inspector would not help a runway jumping up & down, especially in an airport I landed on before with no such problem. Something else here is at play.

Sure sounds video card related. When did you purchase the 890 card?

Are you saying that you have discovered some magic settings that have not been discussed in any of the various tweaking posts made by Bojote, Kosta and others? I have tried just about everything in every possible combination and the only acceptable result is the one I was using now, but now, these same settings work like crap.

I can only say that I had similar problems to yours and by spending hours with the cfg file and inspector, I managed to get it fixed.  But what may work for one sim may not work properly with another.  That's why I suggested you send me your fsx.cfg file so I could have a look and also your inspector settings.  Sometimes one setting can cause problems....it's just a matter of finding out which one before you go and jump off the nearest bridge :-))

And by the way Gary, I did also try 1/2 the refresh rate and setting the internal fps limiter to 30. That made the frame rate much worse for me.

What MHz setting are you projectors using?

I know the frustration you are feeling. I've been there on more than one occasion.  I keep on telling myself that whatever the problem, it IS fixable.  Just a matter of finding the right info.

Harry

[andarlite]

'Sorry' for hijacking my own post, but does anyone know anything about satellite TV receivers? Now that I have so much more free time, I have to figure out why one out the 4 receivers in my house is losing satellite signal from time to time and that receiver is the most used and important one in the house and also an HD recorder (the others do not record)

It is not the cabling since I tried a regular receiver in that same spot and that one works ok. I am quite sure that something is gone bad inside the box but before I spend 500 bucks for a new one, I would like to be 100% sure if possible.

So, does anyone know anything about satellite HD recorders internals? I am wondering if the internal disk drive may be flaky and causing the signal loss. In other words, does the satellite signal get recorded before passing on to the tuner and if the drive is flaky, the tuner may not be getting the full signal and thereby giving a message the signal was lost?

Any satellite TV wizards out there? 

Maurice

Maurice, what about your TV programs that are recorded on the drive ....  do they play OK? If they don't then that would definitely indicate a problem with the drive.

In regards to your FSX issue, the first thing I would do is un-install and re-install the video driver. My son had a similar problem on his computer with a game and that solved the problem .... somehow the driver got corrupted.

Regards,
Henry

[Maurice]

I know the frustration you are feeling. I've been there on more than one occasion.  I keep on telling myself that whatever the problem, it IS fixable.  Just a matter of finding the right info.

Harry

Sorry Harry, I sincerely appreciate your effort & everyone else's efforts to help me fix my FSX problems. But the biggest problem right now is that I don't care to fix FSX anymore. Maybe in a few months, I will try again and at that time, I will gladly listen to any suggestions if I still have problems.

But for now and the foreseeable future, I am done with FSX and my sim and I don't know if I will ever attempt to revive it. For many years, it has caused me countless hours of aggravations for a measly few hours of flying pleasure. The more I think about it, the better I feel about my decision. It simply isn't worth it for me anymore.

The biggest benefit has been the camaraderie with many new friends so I will probably continue to annoy some of you and set you straight when you do something silly like installing a useless one inch gauge in the overhead or adding windshield wipers like I did or spraying the scent of jet fuel like John does (BSD) does 

But for now, please let me rest in peace   

Maurice

[rhysb]

Maurice,

Is it a single or dual feed satellite receiver? Is it connected to a phone line?

Rhys b

[Maurice]

Maurice,

Is it a single or dual feed satellite receiver? Is it connected to a phone line?

Rhys b

Finally! . It's a dual feed receiver and it is connected to a phone line to pay for Pay per View programs. We don't use the second feed though.

Maurice