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Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:40 pm
by Barbr
Hi guys:

My husband got sick of hearing me complain about the computer having errors when I'm using it for FSX, and so he borrowed a friend's "graphic card" and told me to also ask people here what they thought. Specifically, he said that our current computer is:

Intel 5-750
4 gigabytes of memory
Nvidia 9600 graphic card
Windows XP

Right now the computer has a "5850" graphic card in it. I'm not sure it is that much faster, but I guess now I can turn on bloom and it looks a bit nicer. Here are some test pictures (but FSX is still crashing  :'( ):

Image

Image

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Image

He said that otherwise we can try more memory instead of the new graphic card. What do you guys suggest? I just want to be able to land at different places with the PMDG planes and not have the program quit on me at random.

Thanks for any advice!
-Barb

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:51 pm
by SeanTK
1. Are there any associated messages with the crashes? Also, does the program freeze, go to a black screen, or go instantly to the desktop?

2. Have you tried doing a fresh install of the program and defragging the hard-drive?

3. Are you using XP 32 bit or 64 bit? If using 32, adding more RAM won't matter, since you are already at the maximum amount that the 32 bit version will recognize.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:59 pm
by Barbr
Two more..... I also feel like now the disk has to read a lot more and there are some long pauses once in a while  :-?...

Image

Image

-B

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 12:02 am
by Barbr
1. Are there any associated messages with the crashes? Also, does the program freeze, go to a black screen, or go instantly to the desktop?

2. Have you tried doing a fresh install of the program and defragging the hard-drive?

3. Are you using XP 32 bit or 64 bit? If using 32, adding more RAM won't matter, since you are already at the maximum amount that the 32 bit version will recognize.


1) Normally it's when I am doing something like switching between views, from 2D cockpit to virtual cockpit... then it keeps loading from the diskdrive and doesn't do anything. Then when I hit "escape" it is re-starting FSX  >:(. Or, it has some small window that says something about how FSX crashed and do I want to restart it...

2) We just reinstalled everything 1-2 months ago...

3) Yes, hubby mentioned something about going to Windows 7 and adding more ram. Would that help? I guess this Graphic Card thing didn't fix the problem... ?

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 1:03 am
by an-225
While I can't provide any assistance regarding your problems, that last shot is absolutely incredible!

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 8:41 am
by olderndirt
Just curious - was it doing this prior to your PNW installation or after?  Reason I ask is I had a virtual memory problem with PNW and hopefully fixed it by adjusting the pagefile amounts.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 8:43 am
by Groundbound1
Great shots indeed.

I'm just guessing here, but just to start eliminating possibilities, you might try to download and run memtest.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 10:02 am
by Barbr
[quote]Just curious - was it doing this prior to your PNW installation or after?

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Mon Apr 12, 2010 11:28 am
by SeanTK
Might be your virtual memory allocation....

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:43 am
by HectorD
[quote][quote]Just curious - was it doing this prior to your PNW installation or after?

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:18 am
by olderndirt
Might be your virtual memory allocation....
Next time you run FSX, load your heavweights and bring up 'taskmaster' - click 'performance' to see how close your 'peak' is to the 'limit'.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:03 pm
by Barbr
Might be your virtual memory allocation....
Next time you run FSX, load your heavweights and bring up 'taskmaster' - click 'performance' to see how close your 'peak' is to the 'limit'.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 12:25 pm
by Groundbound1
Might be your virtual memory allocation....
Next time you run FSX, load your heavweights and bring up 'taskmaster' - click 'performance' to see how close your 'peak' is to the 'limit'.

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:04 pm
by Barbr
Where did 'dis loud "bonk" come from, speakers or the tower? :o


;D The speakers, silly!

Re: Testing Barb's new computer upgrade...

PostPosted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 6:25 pm
by Flt4ever
Great shots