Desperate plea for help on sudden low fps
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Thread: Desperate plea for help on sudden low fps

  1. #1

    Desperate plea for help on sudden low fps

    I haven't fired up my still beloved fsx in over 2 months. I've preordered the new sim but still wish to keep fsx to fly my
    favorite addons. $thousands spent in this regard and when I last played, it ran flawlessly with a smooth locked 30fps.

    I have spent hundreds of hours tweaking and troubleshooting over the years to get it in that shape.

    So I launched it the other day and to my horror I was greeted by an entirely unplayable 1-4fps in almost every situation
    I attempted. Followed all the standard remedies including rebuilding the .cfg and scenery indexes, swapping folders from my
    backups for gauges, effects, etc., updating all drivers...etc. Nothing has worked. But here's the really weird part:

    My Majestic Q400 works flawlessly when I launch it as a saved flight. It does not work and follows the 1-4fps horror if I configure
    a flight with it from scratch. If I switch aircraft from the properly running saved Q400 flight, all aircraft be they payware or default
    exhibit the flawed behavior. My best guess is that since the Q400 runs a number of processes outside the sim, it may not be loading
    the offending file that is degrading my sim. I wonder if there is some .dll corruption somewhere, or a broken database (nav?). I am
    absolutely stumped as to why the sim operates normally with a saved Q400 flight but nothing else.

    The only recent additions were a number of the free 'Coronaware' aircraft and airports recently released by certain developers. Again,
    All these were tested and ran well before I took a hiatus from FSX 2 months ago.

    I'm at my wits end. The last thing I want to do is uninstall and start again as it would take me days or weeks to get it all
    together again. I fear that I may not bother with it all after installing the new MSFS and simply endure missing FSX.

    I would be most grateful for any suggestions or leads.
    __________________________________
    8700K running a stable 4.7 overclock
    EVGA 1080Ti
    1tb SSD dedicated to FSX and related programs
    32GB Ram

    WIN10 1809
    Latest Nvidia drivers
    Nvidia profile inpector
    FSUIPC, SODE, FSRecorder, AI Carriers and vLSO
    TrackIR
    Numerous Orbx products
    Majestic, A2A, Captain Sim, Carenado, Lionheart, ATS Antonov, Aerosoft, Aeroplane Heaven,
    ANTS, Realair, Warbirdsim, Virtuacol aircraft.

  2. #2
    Charter Member 2022 srgalahad's Avatar
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    I ran into a similar problem coincident with installing and running a "complex" add-on. Someone found a reference and passed it on, and it solved the problem.. although perhaps at the expense of disabling the add-on in question.

    Before running FSX:
    In your FSX root folder, find the FSX.exe, right-click and select "properties"; select the tab for "compatibility". If "Run in compatibility mode" is selected, de-select it. Select "OK".

    Run FSX. If it works, you should be good.

    I have found that every once in a while Win10 +FSX pops a dialogue when you close the sim that basically says "you 'need' to run in Compatibility Mode -click yes and shut up". If you don't catch it you may be getting it set for you.
    Someone with more interested in the guts of the system might offer other/further advice.

    "To some the sky is the limit. To others it is home" anon.
    “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein


  3. #3
    Thanks for your willingness to offer help srgalahad. Good suggestion, not something I would have thought of. Unfortunately ineffective.
    Compatibility checkbox was already unselected. Out of curiosity I attempted to toggle this off & on by selecting and running the sim in
    Win7 compatibility mode. Problem persists either way. Also, I have never even for an instant seen that warning box appear.
    My heart sinks each time I load the default Cessna and see an fps of 1.1.

  4. #4
    Hi,

    You might want to check if there are processes that are gobbling up your GFX card processor and memory.

    Also do a deep antivirus scan.

    Another possibility is that there are windows updates in waiting. Run your windows update and update all your drivers.

    Priller
    Windows 11 23H2 Enterprise Edition
    Intel i9 13900KF @ 5.8 GHz
    be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Pro cooler
    G-Skill 32Gb DDR5 RAM 7600-36
    MSI Z790 Motherboard
    Nvidia RTX4090 Graphics Card
    Samsung 1TB 980 EVO PCIe M.2 C: drive
    Samsung 2TB 980 EVO PCIe M.2 Data drive
    be quiet! Straight Power CM1000W PSU

  5. #5
    SOH-CM-2024 Duckie's Avatar
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    As Priller suggested, check the processes running in the background. I had a similar problem a few years back. It slowed down my sims to the point they were not useable. Seems a nasty Trojan had been loosed in my system. Unfortunately for me neither my AV nor Malwarebytes could see it. I could see it in processes disguised as a system service. I would stop the service and about 30 seconds after that it would restart itself. Nasty beast. I had to use an online service to get rid of it.

    Steve
    Duckie

    "I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave!"

    Intel i9-9900K; Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Cooler; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi;
    ASUS Dual RTX 2070 Super OC EVO; Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB 3200;
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  6. #6
    I noticed you are running Win10 1809. You may want to update to the latest version Win10 2004. There have been numerous fixes to the system since 1809. Robert

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by mcanx View Post
    I noticed you are running Win10 1809. You may want to update to the latest version Win10 2004. There have been numerous fixes to the system since 1809. Robert
    1809? I looked over that!

    Good god man, update your system! Updates are free and for your security!!

    Priller
    Windows 11 23H2 Enterprise Edition
    Intel i9 13900KF @ 5.8 GHz
    be quiet! Dark Rock 4 Pro cooler
    G-Skill 32Gb DDR5 RAM 7600-36
    MSI Z790 Motherboard
    Nvidia RTX4090 Graphics Card
    Samsung 1TB 980 EVO PCIe M.2 C: drive
    Samsung 2TB 980 EVO PCIe M.2 Data drive
    be quiet! Straight Power CM1000W PSU

  8. #8
    Thanks to everyone for their help. Unfortunately proposed solutions have failed me. On the bright side, I now seem to have an up to date Win10 2004. I usually delay Win10 updates for as long as possible if everything is running ok; have suffered some bad Win10 update experiences in the past. This time the update appears (so far) to only have compromised my Nvidia Profile Inspector settings which was easily remedied.

    Malwarebytes multiple scans in both safe and normal mode yields no infections. I do realize that there may be something going on in this regard that MWB has missed.

    As far as background processes are concerned this might be a little beyond me. I have over 140 running and wouldn't know what to look for to troubleshoot.

    The great mystery here, at least for me, is that a Q400 saved flight works flawlessly, but nothing else does. Would not viruses, permission issues, offending background processes etc, not also compromise this flight situation? It's as though the Q400 does not use the anomalous 'something' that every other failing aircraft does. Nav Databases perhaps? flight model? Sound? This is likely beyond me also to troubleshoot but if anyone here has any ideas on this specific point, I would be most obliged for your thoughts.

    I also attempted to launch the sim as close as possible to default without reinstalling, by placing all aircraft folders in SimObjects in a temporary folder, leaving just the default aircraft. Unfortunately no improvement.

    I'm looking forward to the new sim but would really like to keep my FSX intact also. I can't do carrier traps in a Q400

  9. #9
    Yes! It's fixed. Obscure problem the solution for which may help anyone that may become cursed with the same situation. After looking at everything addon, dll
    and graphics-related I stumbled upon something that did not look right in my Asus motherboard's Realtek sound software. Having previously updated the Asus drivers and not seeing
    a cure, I thought I had done all that's necessary in this regard. Wrong. I now decided to completely uninstall the sound device and let windows reinstall the
    drivers rather than simply update the existing ones and....presto! Something was obviously corrupt within either the driver itself or the Sonic Studio 3
    software suite that comes with the device, which a routine driver update did not cure. I suppose this may be similar to Nvidia graphics drivers, where generally
    it is better to completely uninstall existing drivers before going to a newer version. Understand that I've had no previous problem simply updating existing sound
    drivers many times in the past. I suspect that a windows update broke something in these drivers since the last time I successfully ran the sim 2 months ago.

    Lesson learned. That a corrupt sound driver element could totally trash your sim as it did in my case was not something I had even heard of before.

    FSX now working great and will continue serving me well in the years to come and this, despite my readiness for MSFS (2020).

    Happy flights to everyone.

  10. #10
    SOH-CM-2024 Duckie's Avatar
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    Great news Fuzz1! And a timely subject as I am in the process of updating drivers for my new build. Your fix has now been added to my resources.

    Congrats and thanks...

    Steve
    Duckie

    "I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave!"

    Intel i9-9900K; Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Cooler; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi;
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    My SOH Downloads: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...d=79620&sort=d

  11. #11
    Thanks Steve and good luck on the new build. Oh, and how you got to the bottom of a virus disguising itself
    as a system process is quite remarkable, particularly when conventional scans failed to identify it.

  12. #12
    SOH-CM-2024 Duckie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fuzz1 View Post
    Thanks Steve and good luck on the new build. Oh, and how you got to the bottom of a virus disguising itself
    as a system process is quite remarkable, particularly when conventional scans failed to identify it.
    Wish I could take credit for that but I can't. I did do the AV and MW scans which came up with nothing. When I got around to checking processes I found this one process that was using huge amounts of CPU processing capacity, 90% - 98%. It got to where I couldn't even use a word processor. I finally was referred to a reputable free online diagnostic operation. They are the ones who identified the problem as a trojan that was, according to them, using my PC to link with other PCs for the computing power and time to conduct their nefarious deeds. These guys sent me tools and walked me through the instructions to rid my self of the bug and block that one from ever coming back. These guys were very professional and knew what they were doing. Seems they loved what they did so much they had actually formed a "club" and took it online to help folks like me.

    That was a few years ago and I haven't had an issue since. I did fire my AV after that and hired a new one.

    Steve
    Duckie

    "I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave!"

    Intel i9-9900K; Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Cooler; Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Pro WiFi;
    ASUS Dual RTX 2070 Super OC EVO; Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB 3200;
    WD Black 500GB PCIe M.2 SSD; 3 Samsung 860 EVO SSD; WD Black 2TB HDD;
    Corsair RM 850x Gold Full Modular PSU; Phanteks P600S Mid Tower; Win10 Pro
    My SOH Downloads: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...d=79620&sort=d

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