Starting state (default state) of an aircraft

[Garry Russell]

Hi Ben

My PC....the one I have been using for several years but had a HD crash in Jan so it was all reloaded...with the old raid as two drives and a new C drive.

TBH scrolling through PDF is flickery and I get the paging memory error towards the end of most sessions

It is as if the video driver is not handling video acceleration properly

Problem is I can't sit at it for more than a few minutes so trouble shooting id difficult

Attempts to get a better driver have proved fruitless

If also will not read any video CD's

FPS in FS.9 used to be in mid thirties but is now in the mid teens


FS9 runs as a sort of jerky flicker and pauses about every 10 seconds......basically it is unusable

I have ordered more ram.they don't stock the earlier DDR but six weeks and it still hasn't arrived........after saying that it was running OK before on FS.9


XP Home SP3
AMD Athlon 64 processor 4000+
I.GB Ram
Nvidia Geforce 7800GT

Windows in on C drive 1TB

FS9 is on Local E drive 80GB

FS.8 on Local F drive 80GB

[DavidK]

Since I reinstalled everything and added SP2, my FSX experience has been transformed.

Previously, the frame-rate was only a few per second (dropping to very few per second when at or near big airports) but it's now significantly more and looks smooth (again, except at/near the big airports, where it drops but still to something better than before). So, in good conditions, I think I may now be able to achieve touchdowns at less than -100 ft/min on a far more regular basis. The aircraft display setting, however, still refuse to budge from "Medium High" and though this looks markedly better than before (e.g. instruments at night now backlit) there's now one problem I don't seem to be able to remove: the "tooltip" text that appears when I leave the mouse over certain spots -- e.g. the "heading bug" knobs to set headings for the VOR and then main compass dials -- now consists of unreadable black blocks (when in virtual cockpit mode) and don't appear at all when I switch to 2-d mode. This is making navigation much more difficult.

I haven't tried searching the forums here yet, but if anyone knows that this problem has already been reported and/or solved somewhere (ideally with that "Medium High" display setting), please point me in the right direction.

In the meantime, with the graphics performance improved so much, I've started looking for improved scenery and have already downloaded and installed a few British airports. I feel like the boy in the sweet shop who's just discovered a hidden aisle.

DavidK

[DaveB]

Hi David

This problem isn't uncommon but I don't have an answer for it I'm afraid. I used to see the top screen text go into red blocks on my old XP3200 which I put down to either my 6800GTX struggling to keep up or equally likely, a slightly incompatible graphics driver. I'm sure the 'staff answer' will be to update your video driver but personally, I'd leave that as a last resort. I find that updating video drivers tends to break more than it fixes

ATB

DaveB

[Myles]

Hi David,

Your problem seems to be quite common if you are in full screen and using an aircraft which is not FSX native. The solution is to either use windowed mode or to use only FSX-native aircraft.

If neither of those cases apply, then I can't help, but maybe someone else can.

Best,
Myles

[austerdriver]

I have found saving a flight with the default Cessna 172 with all systems off and then whiching to another aircraft helps.

[austerdriver]

I have loaded FS.X and SP1 plus SP2 and I get FPS of 3-7 with highs of 9-12 12 and lows of less than one......between pauses that is

It is unusably dire


Unless of course I unwittingly loaded Acceleration back to front

But FS.9 won't run properly either

Are you running the default FSX settings?

Have you tried to turn every thing to zero settings and then move the sliders up till you get a good result that you enjoy?

Plus I found this one thing on the internet. In the Autogen folder in FSX rename it defaultold. Uses the old FS2004 autogen files from what I remember.

[Garry Russell]

This is straight in default settings

But as I mentioned FS. 9 won't run either and PDF''s flicker....some web pages too.......the graphics are behaving as if the acceration is not running properly.


There is sometjhing seriously wrong but I dcan't spend time sitting on the PC trying to sort it out

[DavidK]

...and PDF''s flicker....some web pages too.......the graphics are behaving as if the acceration is not running properly.

Certainly does sound as if something isn't running properly. I'm no expert, so, at the risk of suggesting how to suck eggs, would a graphics-driver update work? (Since the problem seems to extend beyond FS)

On the (related) "blocky tooltips" problem, thanks to all who've chipped in -- yes, I did little Internet foraging and pretty quickly found other folks have the same problem. I've switched to using windowed mode (maximised, with the Windows task bar minimised) as suggested by Myles -- which works fine -- but I'll try austerdriver's suggestion too: currently, I have a simple "native" flight as the default when FSX starts and then load the non-native (HS-748) one, so I'll try loading the native flight and then switching it to an HS-748 one instead. If that doesn't work, I can at least fall back to the window-mode solution.

David K

[Garry Russell]

Tried driver updates..two are offered but both make no difference

Maybe a conflict somewhere??

[DavidK]

In that case, if it were my computer, I might start thinking about downloading the most recent drivers I could find for all the various components, then setting aside a few hours for a complete reinstall from nothing. That's partly because I know no better, but also because experience has made me wary of trying patch upon tweak upon update upon (etc). I suppose it depends on how awkward the current situation (yours sounds pretty awkward) and the time, effort and hassle starting again from nothing might involve (e.g. many programs needing reinstallation, reconfiguring, etc). I'd also try to find a helpful general-computing forum or three where I could post the same message giving a brief description of the current awkward situation (mentioning that recent graphics drivers already tried) and seeing what people suggested.

Apologies again if this is merely more egg-sucking instruction.