Going To Be A Long Day

[harleyman]

Out of nowhere, FSX has lost performance...Again......:faint:

Its been beautiful for weeks now..no problems.....

I have touched no settings at all.....NADA

Frames were locked at 60, and holding that above 3 thousand....Out of nowhere they have dropped to half that...Gotten a tad stuttery as a result...

Hmmmm...Locked it back to 35....It won't hold 35 till well over 7 thousand feet....Still slightly stuttery below 3 thousand...

Checked all FSX and CCC settings in comparison to screen shots I took when all was wonderful..

Nothing has been changed....


I did add two sceneries, that are now off the rig, but the problem persists....

Now I will rebuild a new config and see if that corrupted.....

Good thing there were not any M$ big dogs near me this morning, or they may have been late for work...:a1451:

[datter]

That's bizarre, the the sceneries make any changes to your cfg that you might be unaware of? Did Windows update itself overnight or something?

[gajit]

I have been playing Arma Armed Assult, Silent Hunter 4 and Empire Total War for a few days just to have a really pleasant escape from the hassles of FSX. I sympathise :rapture:

[harleyman]

Not sure about config entries..

No updates allowed on this rig unless I OK them for instillation first...


Its just pising me off...LOL


I think I'll go watch a movie and stuff my face......:amen:

[datter]

Face stuffing/movie is always good but if you're like me the FSX troubles will be sitting in the back of your mind the entire time. I'd look through your FSX.CFG and SCENERY.CFG to see if there are any mentions of the scenery you removed. Maybe it didn't get banished properly for whatever reason. I'd also guess that whatever it was made a change somewhere that it didn't tell you about. I'm almost to the point of locking my FSX install down and never installing a damned thing again to prevent this sort of thing happening.

FSX reminds me very much of the old hotrod days. You build and tweak and get this cool car together then spend most of your spare time tinkering with the damned thing instead of cruising for chicks like you intended. :)


- AH thar's yer problem, yer Johnson Rod is bent!
- I didn't even know I HAD a Johnson Rod!
- yah, that musta got installed when ya put in the 18liter carb now she wont start at all
- DAMNIT

[gera]

Ding Dong!!! Ding Dong!!!!....surprise, surprise!!!!! my name is FSX!!!!!:173go1:

Harleyman.....my FSX is so "loaded" that it takes about 5 minutes to load!!!!!....at 4:45 minutes I usually find myself praying!!!!!!

[harleyman]

I went to delete the config and found this..

Never remember seeing it before..

Anyone know what it is or ever seen it before... LWconfig.????

[datter]

LWcfg.spb is the "living world" config, something to do with AI and autogen stuff like boats, cars and whatnot I believe.

[Lionheart]

It must be a addon configuration.

If FSX is unchanged, I would think another program is running in the background pulling down resources.

You might scan for any spyware programs that may have sneaked into your computer. This is a major culprit and sign of them.

Also, you could check the resources window and see what programs are running when FSX is running. If you have Program Defender running, that will kill framerates as it runs a background copy behind the scenes to watch for virus works.


For me, I was having wierd issues on my new iMac computer with FSX. It wouldnt run certain things, and would run it badly, then it would run smooth, (every now and then). I couldnt figure it out.

Come to find out, I cant run Gmax and FSX at the same time. BaSys had a good point. DirectX probably was having an argument between managing Gmax and managing FSX, splitting the two 'video setting requirements' and thus the system was just not able to cope with it. My problem in noticing it, was that I rarely run FSX without having Gmax on also. So it was 'always' running sketchy. Now I just turn off Gmax, boot up FSX, and test.. Then reverse and repair and repeat.. Tedious.. but gets the job done..


I hope you get things back to running right..


Bill

[Buddha13]

Hi all,
Harleyman sorry to here of your problem.I am of a similar persuasion that it may be something else causing the problem.Have you tried just rebooting and see what happens.
I am in the same boat as some of you.Just starting to rebuild my FSX set up.Not because FSX messed up but because I had to reinstall Vista.Went to get my back up FSX HD and found it had corrupted.Atleast my CFS2/1 and FS9 drives were ok.29 dvd's worth of stuff to work through.18 left to go.Has allowed me to do some house cleaning and leave out the bits I do not want.On top of that my favourite keyboard had just died.Waiting for a replacement from Belkin.This will be the last from belkin though as they have stopped making mice and keyboards.

Buddha13

[harleyman]

Just gotta hate that for you Buddha13.....


I have 27 processes running ..Same as always..

Nothing unusual running that was not before...

I scan for virus daily, it was not running....




Thanks for that info datter.......:ernae:


I'm deleting the config now and see....LOL

[harleyman]

Update::

Its not the config..built a new one and did my same tweaks to it....

Still acting stupid...Am running a deeper virus scan and then a malware scan next...

I may just end up doing a fresh install....Man...hate that


I have FSGenesis mesh and might want to try something different..i hate the platoes and sunken airports the mesh has..


I have seen FSGlobal before..Is it good? Anyone know what site just sells it in sections? ( I will try the USA) out first...

I can't find what site sells it in sections , just the bundle...But I know its sold that way..(it is mesh is it not?)


Thanks

[Cazzie]

Harleyman,

All I can offer is first to show my FSX.cfg. and then do a little unsolicited promo.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/cazmodel/fsx_cfg_scr.jpg

While over here a few weeks past, some gentleman listed a link to IObit's Advanced System Care 3.20. These are the same people that make Smart Defrag that some of you may have. I went to the website: http://www.iobit.com/ and downloaded Advanced System Care 3.20 Free and let me tell you, this thing does a whopping amount of work in not really that much time. I liked it so well, I went ahead and got the payware 1-yr. liscense. My FSX has never been better, they have a Game Booster utility within ASC that shuts down all programs you are not using and do not need Harleyman and it works dang good. They also have a RAM Booster that will free up RAM, it too is spot on.

Aw heck, just try it, it cleans and defrags your Registry too.

Caz

[datter]

I have FSGenesis mesh and might want to try something different..i hate the platoes and sunken airports the mesh has..

I have seen FSGlobal before..Is it good? Anyone know what site just sells it in sections? ( I will try the USA) out first...

I would be very interested to hear your opinion (or anyones) on how FSGlobal is regarding these plateaus/sunken airports. I've come really close to buying FSGenesis several times, but always stopped because of that. As I said on Justin's forum... I might not even be able to appreciate more detailed terrain for parts of the world I'm unfamiliar with, but I WOULD notice if all the airports were sitting up on 40 foot tall plateaus. I appreciate his situation and all the hard work he's doing, but I don't want to put an addon in place that will end up bugging the hell out of me as far as these airports go.

Anyway, let me know about FSGlobal if you go that route and now back to our regularly scheduled thread.

[Buddha13]

Hi all,
Harleyman I really feel for you.As I am going throught the same reinstall you are considering.
On a brighter note you talk about changing your mesh.Raimondo Taburet and J. De Ferranti have just about got the whole world covered with a dedicated FSX mesh.It is very good and best of all free.it is at Flightsim.com.
I must admit I am one of those who have been promoting this program.It must be good because hey_moe has also bought the payware version.
That and smart defrag have been keeping my system clean and stable for some time now.
Get it from
www.iobit.com (http://www.iobit.com)

Buddha13

[abrussell]

Fsgenesis has updated the US mesh that fixes the plateaus. Hawaii and Alaska are in progress and the rest of the world to follow. Upgrades are free.
Bruce

[harleyman]

I have the latest FSGen mesh and there are literally hundrens of wacked airports still..to many to shoot pics of I told Justin once...LOL


@ Buddha..Been using Iobit for several years now....Love its deep optizmize feature..... I will check out their mesh..Thanks for that tip

@Datter,. I will let you know...

@ Cazzie...I have The System Care on my test puter and think its great..its not on this however..But from the Defragg its one click away...Guess now it won't hurt to use it

Cazzie...You don't have that file I showed that Datter says he thinks it a world traffic thing for boats ships... But I do..I never noticed it before eighter...I might delete it and see brfore I reinstall




Last but not least...


DO NOT WATCH VAMPIRES IN VEGAS..............Its very poor......:rapture:






Oh..FlightSim DL speed @ 48kb 's gonna take a year......LOL

[datter]

Raimondo Taburet and J. De Ferranti have just about got the whole world covered with a dedicated FSX mesh.It is very good and best of all free.it is at Flightsim.com.

I've always thought the Taburet stuff was photo scenery.

[harleyman]

I've always thought the Taburet stuff was photo scenery.



Hmmmmmm May be...I'll look into it better


His read me notes show it as NOT photoreal


New and Updated Version 1.1 - FSX Usa 10 M terrains Project is a freeware mesh terrains addon for FSX.
It is designed to replace elevations all over the united States - enhancing
terrains from the 38 m to 10 m - providing you a far more detailed terrain to fly
over. It is designed using the Latest Ned 10 m elevation models and compiled using
multilod and a slight compression to keep files to a reasonable size.
This first Released provide you complete coverage for the west coast - splitted
into 6 zip files:

[datter]

ah cool. If it doesn't suffer from plateaus and such I will try it out.

[Odie]

Sorry to hear about your FSX setup, harleyman! Please don't hesitate to give me a shout if there's anything I can help out with.

[harleyman]

Sorry to hear about your FSX setup, harleyman! Please don't hesitate to give me a shout if there's anything I can help out with.



Thanks Odie..... I'm waiting for that first mesh to DL to try before I do anything ..I want to test it first in this wacked FSX before I reinstall if I end of doing that....

The DL is taking over 2 hours so far......LOL Its almost done, and don't want to loose it now....AHHHHHH:rapture:

[Buddha13]

Hi Harleyman,
just thought I would show you the mesh in action so to speak.This just to the east of KLAX.

Buddha13

[harleyman]

Thanks For that Buddha 13..

I just took some shots too...Honestly I can't see much difference between default and this new stuff...But FSGenesis is a clear one to see differences..I did move my slider to 2 m for the new mesh..

Mine too is out of KLAX looking at the Hollywood sign...LOL

Default....FSGenesis....New One... In that order

[datter]

Thanks For that Buddha 13..

I just took some shots too...Honestly I can't see much difference between default and this new stuff...But FSGenesis is a clear one to see differences..I did move my slider to 2 m for the new mesh..

Mine too is out of KLAX looking at the Hollywood sign...LOL

Default....FSGenesis....New One... In that order

Wait a minute, this new one is that Taburet stuff or something else?

[harleyman]

Datter...Its the Taburet mesh I downloaded today...

I can't really tell any difference....:faint:

[datter]

hmm, yeah it really does look about the same as the default... especially compared to FSGenesis. :(
I downloaded the taburet Canada stuff (two files worth), will check them out later... not expecting much at this point though.

Any other mesh options out there? FSGensesis with plateaus, Taburet which may be little better than default for some reason... FSGlobal? Any others?

[jimjones]

Mason, the mesh may look the same, but the colors seem so different. Any texture changes between shots? Lighting changes?

Good luck with your fps problem. Perhaps you will recall some other change you made that caused the problem. Happens to me more and more these days.

[guzler]

I have noticed a load of windows updates over the last week. Could these of had anything to do with it ?

May be worth doing uninstalls of recent updates to see if that cures it. They maybe conflicting with something. I had that with my Zone alarm a while ago and couldn't even get on the internet. I had to uninstall the windows update.

[harleyman]

@ JimJones...The screens were all taken at the same location(almost) same time of day, same plane, same everything..So I don't really know ....


Well I did a complete restore of my system from a back up i made....It failed to boot...I thought it was my mild OC so I took that off...Still no go...

So I redid the backup again...Thats a total of 6 1/2 hours of backups..Still had nothing but my desktop picture...WHAT?

So it appears that when I made my back up I did not check the desktop shell to be included...Opppssssss


It was weird as I had my desktop pic as I said . but I had no icons at all...All I could do was make a folder and delete it...Thats all there was....But I knew it was there, because my Catalist Control Canter was spinning up my Vid card fan at boot.....LOL


So I just finished a partition, format, and complete OS install...

Now I'm back to the beginning again....:faint:


Maybe this time I will do my backup correctly...HeHe

Live and Learn....:rapture:

[FLighT01]

Harleyman,<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I have FSGenesis on 1 box and FSGlobal 2008 on the other. By and large not hugely different except I don't believe FSGlobal 2008 installs any mesh in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> at all, I think their manual states that at 38 meters the stock mesh is the same as what they (FSGlobal 2008) would offer anyway so in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> your still on FSX stock mesh, which to my eye, is good.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
"For that reason, FS Global 2008 provides no improvements north of the Mexican Border or in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Hawaii</st1:place></st1:State>."<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Both mesh addons will show some runways and some water bodies at odds, elevation wise, with the surrounding terrain. I just turn my in FSX seting back to 38 in areas where I routinely run into too many problems and to tell the truth in many areas it just doesn't matter significantly if it's 10 or 38. But try setting it to 3 and fly Mt Saint Helens where the ACES used a special 3 meter mesh I believe,the detail is spectacular. I think that for every area that shows a lot of improvement anywhere in the world you find an area that's whacked or shows little difference. Just my opinion. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Your sudden change in FSX performance is very interesting and I've been there, done that, and continue to scratch my head and experience thoughts of violent intent from time to time, LOL. I wouldn't jump to reinstall. I've had the same issue from time to time and it's absolutely maddening but sometimes it will come around, which sounds absolutely absurd but I swear it happens after a little poking around and a reboot or two. I sometime suspect that updates not only of Windows but also the installed programs trigger an "event" but not necessarily immediately. But sometimes it appears to be immediate. For example, if I install a new FEX theme and launch FSX from the FEX program I can insure that it will freeze in my setup. A reboot or two and it goes away, why? Can too much defraging cause a problem? There are just so many variables to deal with. And the fact that repeatability of a problem issue is no more guaranteed than a permanent fix. The various available tests of computer performance aspects done by the makers and reviewers alike are about as useful as the mammary on a male boar when it comes to FSX so there's no surefire way to know in advance how a system will or won't perform with FSX other than more horsepower can beat less horse power when running FSX. <o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
With only 27 programs showing in my Processes/Task Manager (<st1:place w:st="on">Vista</st1:place> 64) I will at times get a sudden drops from a stable 29 to 30 fps down to single digits flying around but I can't tie it in to anything specific and the drop does not seem to correlate to a freeze unless there is some time delayed consequence. And using Resource Monitor shows well over a 100 threads of background processes within the many svchost.exe Processes running, turning on and off but again no if / then corollary. I can't zero in on any one factor when I have a problem which is not all that often since I located a driver for a sound card that is not on my machine, and uninstalled it. (And no, I don't build my own machines or allow automatic updates). And Event Viewer and Performance Monitor never record anything helpful.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I use to think it was view changes over taxing the CPU or GPU or both but again, it's not repeatable even with the same flight and conditions. I've tested memory, running processes and monitored temps to death, never a clue. I find that after I fire up the high performance box if I let it sit for a few minutes for background processes to settle down I get better results. I also do the same thing when I load FSX and a subsequently a flight. Sometimes I can fly for over 5 hours without a hitch other than a sore back, sometimes a few minutes before a freeze. Never a crash to desktop, never an OOM, just a freeze of everthing including the keyboard and mouse. The Overclock? I would think that should easily be repeatable with the same flight and settings, but it's not. So what triggers it? Turning off the CPU OC (memory and GPU are not OC'd) means turning down the settings to avoid stutters, pauses, etc. As I am primarily a VFR flyer it becomes uninvolving to the point where I'd rather go do something else than fly FSX.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
I can't seem to pin it down, it’s a moving target, but we continue to investigate. And since locating that rogue driver things are very much improved which is a good thing as I usually fly 2 to 4 hours a day presently.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>

[jimjones]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a successful reinstall of everything.

Backups are too much trouble to restore to a complete reinstall. Now I clone my hard disks. Everything is always there!!!!

[harleyman]

@ Frank....Ita a mystery for sure......It was doing so good to...

@Jimjones ...You know, i had Acronis, never figured it out for cloning the drive, so I gave it away.....LOL

Now all I have is the back up option for now....I think with this install I will just back up FSX and all its folders...Thats what I really needed anyway...

But hopefully It will all go great this time again......

I installed the new ATI 9.3...I'll see how that goes..The last one was a no go for me and I had to roll it back ....

[datter]

@harley : I tried out that Taburet Canada stuff last night and really saw the same as you. Very little difference from the default at all, so much so that I actually question whether I installed it properly though I made sure I did.

[harleyman]

@harley : I tried out that Taburet Canada stuff last night and really saw the same as you. Very little difference from the default at all, so much so that I actually question whether I installed it properly though I made sure I did.



Well then I'm not going nuts then...LOL


I installed two ways....

1) made a filder with a scenery folder and added it to add on sceneries in FSX and activated in the FSX scenery library... Took some shots..And thought it was still default..So I

2) Placed the files in Scenery/Worls?Scenery and took some screenshots again...It looked all the same to me....


I might just skip mesh now and see how it is set to 38M in FSX...

[datter]

I did the same thing when installing it. Initially thinking I must have done something wrong, but apparently not. Personally I find the default stuff fine anyway. I mean I can see discrepancies locally because I'm so familiar with my immediate terrain (Nova Scotia) but honestly, I have NO CLUE what the hills of the San Francisco area look like so while FSGenesis might make them "better" aside from seeing a bit more detail I really don't notice anyway. The plateaus... I notice those whether I'm familiar with an area or not. Think I'm sticking to the default too, it's good enough for me and it's just one less thing thrown into the FSX stew so that's not a bad thing either.

[harleyman]

Datter...you run your default mesh setting at 38?


Or change it like FlightT does to suit the location?

[datter]

I used to leave it at 38m since for the most part that's as good as the default mesh gets (aside from Mt. St. Helens and the like) but lately have settled on 19m, but that only because it lets me put the texture setting (whatever it's called) at 15cm which is as good as I need it for various ground addons. The only reason my mesh is at 19m is to get the 15cm setting. Ideally I could set 38m mesh and still get 15cm textures, but no go. I tried 10m/7cm but the difference between 15cm an 7cm is not something I notice. I tend to care more about textures than mesh.

[FLighT01]

I find 38 meters and 30cm keeps my ground textures (trees, houses, shrubbery?) sharp. I also fly at .30 zoom levels all the time which I think keeps textures sharper and perspective seems more realistic to my eyes. I up the mesh detail to 19 or 10 when flying mountanous areas or something like the Grand Canyon. Death Valley, Bonneville Salt flats, large bodies of water...38 is probably overkill, LOL.

I also think when flying areas with lots of houses, trees, and other objects the mesh detail is less important/noticeable (unless t's a leveled house on steeply sloped ground, attached to it on one side only and this seems to be exacerbated by higher detailed mesh). But in mountanous areas (say the Alps) where the ground terrain itself is the predominant visual aspect the higher the mesh detail the more satisfying it is to me.