Can't Sh Sh Shake the St St Stutters

[TexasMike]

Hello,
        I'm new to the forum but it seems like there are a lot of knowledgeable people here so I hope you can help me. I upgraded my computer back in October,( hardware listed in my signature). FSX was running pretty well. Very smooth with frame rates set on unlimited. At the time I was using an ATI HD2900 Pro video card. All of a sudden one day I developed stutters, microstutters pauses or whatever you choose to call them. I thought it might be the video card, so I replaced it with a Nvidia 8800 GT. Although my 3d Mark scores are higher I still have the same problem. When looking out the sides of the cockpit, the display appears to jump. It's as if the display is lagging for lack of a better term.
        I have installed the latest drivers for both the video card and motherboard. I have used Nick N's tweaks for Windows XP. I have uninstalled and reinstalled FSX too many times to count. Truthfully I'm at a loss. If it had always performed this way I could understand. For a while I was very happy with FSX. Am I looking at a reformat of the drive my OS is on and a reinstall of XP, or might there be another solution? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jrsd747]

think you need vista and therefore direct x10 that comes with it. your new 8800 was made for vista and direct x10 combined with vista will run this game pretty well. youll still have to tweak your settings some cuz tyhis games a hog, but with vista and sp1 for it you can use 4gb ram.
you system is almost exactly like mine.
I crashed a vista hard drive, and havent yet reloaded it, so Im in XP on FSX, and I can tell ya it makes a difference.
remember they used this game t. hype direct x 10.
also d/l both FSX patches!

so basically more ram vista and DX10

[richardd43]

This is what nick told me today, hope it helps.

try the bufferpools tweak...   8000000 for stutters in turns

stutters in panning view is usually related to the bus being saturated.. TBM too high, frame lock too high or unlimited, or just oo much going on in general and yes the processor will be the center of that

[TexasMike]

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried the bufferpool tweak, but no luck. The stutters remain. As I said, it's very frustrating because it wasn't always like this.

[Celtman]

Have you tried a re-install? It's often a last resort, but if nothing else works, I'd try it. First though, try the "Repair" tool located on the FSX DVD (Not sure if it is on DVD 1 or 2).

[TexasMike]

Believe me. I've reinstalled. I've reinstalled on another partition. I'm surprised the activation still works, I've reinstalled so many times. I'm just wondering if a fresh install of XP might be the answer. I don't want to do it, but I will if I have to.

[idahosurge]

Where do you access "bufferpools"?  I would like to try this tweak.  I looked in my fsx.cfg file and did not see anything regarding bufferpools.  I may have missed it, but I looked through the whole file twice.

Regards,

Rod

[Microsoft Corporation]

I'd try reformat of the drive my OS is on and a reinstall of XP, if it were me.  98% of time these problems are driver related, usually some combination of settings that the card doesn't like.

It would be easy for me because I made a Ghost image of my new system when it was 3 days old, and the Forceware 169.21 driver is quite good for my 8800GTS-640 in WinXP.

[TexasMike]

Well,
        I reformatted the hard drive, reinstalled XP and still no luck. I've swapped out video cards, newest drivers and still I've got pauses and stutters. As I said, it wouldn't be quite so frustrating if I had this problem from the time I put this system together, but at one time it ran pretty smooth. I just can't put my finger on the culprit.

[Celtman]

I noticed in your sig that you CPU is overclocked..... did the game stutter BEFORE you overclocked? I have a feeling that with a 610W power supply like you have, and the hefty overclock on that E6600, your system is not getting enough power, causing FS to stutter. Try reducing the overclock and see what happens.

[TexasMike]

Celtman,
             Thanks for the help. I took your suggestion and dropped the cpu down to stock speed, 2.4 GHZ. It still does the same thing. FSX actually ran smooth with the cpu o/c'd to 3.2 GHZ. I've reinstalled FSX on another partition. The next step is to try it on a completely different physical drive. I'm running out of ideas.

[rikm12345]

I wouldn't recommend running it on a partition!

I purchased a second 400gb drive which i have installed FSX onto.

I had similar, ocassional stutters & with it on its own drive it is smoother.

Be sure to follow NickN's guides in the sticky at the top of the forum & do a good defrag after everythings all set up.

[wsciutti]

TM,

I have a modest PC: Intel dual core @2.4
                             

[wsciutti]

TM

I stand corrected!!  I went back to 1920x1200 with the same results except DCA and London (all I tested tonight) require unlimited FPS setting(C172 at DCA, J3 at London)


I forgot to add that I had FSX rebuild the cfg and tested with the new one. The only mod on my system: bufferpools=600000.

Good Luck.

ANOTHER THANK YOU TO NICK N FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE!!!
JS

[TexasMike]

Thanks wssciutti,
                         I've reinstalled FSX and only installed SP1. So far it's been pretty smooth. I'm starting to install my add ons. Right now I'm defragging the HD. I plan ontrying your settings when I'm ready. I really enjoy FSX when it's running good, not so much when it isn't. Thanks again to everyone.