I didn't get FS9 until earlier this year because frankly I didn't think my computer would be up to it (P4 2.0gHz, 512mB DDR RAM, Radeon 9200SE video card, WinXP Home). However, it ran pretty well (better FRs than FS2002!) so I was happy. I customised it heavily (as I did with FS2002), until this crashing problem started a while back. It didn't crash, and then it started doing it regularly. I re-traced my steps back through all the recent addons, but no real success. I'd installed MSN Messenger v7.5, so I uninstalled that as it hogs processor power.
Finally, I removed FS9 plus all the addons (backing up, of course) completely and then reinstalled. It was OK at the start, and then it started happening again as I put more and more addons in.
To cut a long story short (and this is the spooky bit), it crashed most frequently when I was flying around Area 51 in Nevada! This is a recent photoreal download with lots of large bitmaps in it. I don't like unsolved mysteries, and a friend of mine suggested FSAutoStart to free up as much system resource as possible. Since then, FS9 has run OK - as long as I don't do silly things like change aeroplanes with complex panels in mid-flight. With FSAutoStart, my FRs have also improved by 4 to 5 FPS!
During my researches, I found that the 'fe' in fe.dll could stand for 'frame engine', and perhaps I was overloading my system, which must have been pretty near its limit in any case, but I didn't know it. Using FSAutoStart increased my available system memory from around 280mB to 350 to 380mB so on the basis of this, what I am going to do this week is add another 512mB of memory to the system, making a gig in total. I hope this should sort it out once and for all. I'll let you know!
I love happy endings ... so I hope this will be one!
