New FSX problem

[Speed of flight]

Thank you for all the helpful info everybody!
Lastnight, I removed the video card, and am going to exchange it today. I can't adjust the problem out of it, so it has to be the card.

To address some if your suggestions:
AMD hasn't made a new driver for the 7000 series since May, and even after trying the newest "Beta" driver, the problem persists.

I've tried the "Heaven" benchmark, Cinebench, and some other tools and intensive applications, but like you say, as I've noticed myself, there isn't a program out there that runs the machine harder than FSX. During this whole O/C campaign with this new 8350 processor and CrosshairV F-Z MoBo, any of my benching tools may run fine, but loading FSX in a busy area with a High-Fidelity aircraft seems to expose any problems with the O/C attempt better.

The Asus 7870 card has a utility for tweaking voltages, fan speeds @ given temps, clock and men speed tweaks, all sorts of powerful what-nots, but nothing makes the problem go away. Not stock settings, nothing.

Hopefully, swapping out the video card solves the problem. I will keep everyone updated.
Thanks again for all the helpful ideas!

[OldAirmail]

Keep us posted, please.

We're all interested in how it turns out for you.

[Fozzer]

Over the years, there is one thing that I have noticed with all my various video cards...

Video Card Drivers...>>> "The latest is NOT always the best!"... ...!

Often, I have found the best drivers, (most reliable), to be the ones that were supplied on the CD with the card!

Paul... ...!

[ZS-AWK]

Hi there.

I had exactly the same problem and was also worried about hardware issues. The culprit, in my case, was new scenery for PE Harbour, South Africa. After removing this scenery, FSX ran as usual. I would say that garymbuska was correct with his diagnosis. Good luck!

[Speed of flight]

Although I can see how that an cause problems, I haven't installed any new scenery lately. I wonder if maybe installing a new airplane could cause this problem...

[jnigeld]

Some time ago, all of my graphics, including FSX, started getting randomly strange and goofy. It turns out that the chipset in the video card was failing. The card's warranty had expired, so I had no choice but to purchase a new video card. The new card worked like a charm and solved the graphics problem.

[Speed of flight]

Well I managed to return the card. This did not solve my problem, however.
I stopped messin around and took care of a couple issues at the same time.
1. Deleted/installed the original driver (the one that came with the card) as Fozzer recommended: Thanks, Paul.
A. Unchecked an option entitled "Surface Format Optimization". Not entirely certain what that is, but just incase...
2. Uninstalled 2 or 3 recently acquired aircraft, thinking maybe a texture conflict or something.
3. Tuned settings. This will be my solution. It seems that it wants to be at its highest power settings even at stock speeds.
A. That is somewhat disappointing. So, all my headroom is gone before I can even start to tweak it.
B. the next cards had better not be this way. I didn't buy this thing to down clock it.

As soon as I move a speed setting up, it starts to act up. I'm going to have a thing or two to say about this particular iteration of powerful GPUs from AMD.

[Fozzer]

I'll tell you what... ...

In all my many computer builds over the years, I have never "overclocked" any of my hardware; processor, video card, etc...

....preferring to leave everything as per manufacturers default recommendations, for stability, reliability, and long life.... ...!

If something appears to be running a bit "slow"... ...., I just upgrade it to a faster model and leave it as standard... ...!

(The same principle applies to all my Motorbikes!).

Fiddling with hardware is a recipe for tears...trust me!... ...!

Paul....Fiddling is difficult...I play the piano... ...!

[OldAirmail]

"Well I managed to return the card. This did not solve my problem, however."

It may simply be that you have a corrupted file, and not hardware at all. I say that because you said that it only affects FSX.


Having said that. I recall fixing a friends computer many years ago that had a strange problem.

Most of the time his computer worked just fine. But whenever he did any video editing he had strange problems that would eventually lock up his computer.

I opened up the case to make sure that everything looked good; no stuck fans, no dust clogged air fins, etc.

What I found was a very small bit of soft plastic packaging stuck under one of his SIMMs.

He had added more memory, and the plastic was keeping a couple of contacts on that SIMM from making contact with the SIMM slot.

Everything would work fine until he went beyond a certain amount of memory.

I doubt very much that this is your problem. But strange things can happen.

Me? I'm betting on a corrupted file.


.

I also agree with Paul "....preferring to leave everything as per manufacturers default recommendations, ..."

My power supply, CPU, motherboard, and memory are capable of being pushed to the max. I call that insurance. Paul calls it "stability, reliability, and long life.... "

[alrot]

I saw this question too late , and THIS IS NOT VIDEO CARD OR HARDWARE PROBLEM AT ALL !!!
you change a good video card !

This are textures OR BGL corrupt or missing files because of some scenery or airplane with auto install that has replaced or damaged FSX files that you just install, just because you download something or PAID doesn't mean that it has to be benign to your FSX game

Sometimes this can also happen when the instalation wasn't good too (a DVD lack of reading properly) or a wrong fragmented hard drive

I miss the old times when there used to be experts around here in this kind of things


Alex

[Speed of flight]

Well it seems to act up at the stock settings. It only starts to ease up when I slow it down and throttle up the power. I need to crank up the power just to get it to run at the lowest speeds. That seems counter-intuitive to me, in that it should give some head room.

Alternatively, if you're suggesting that a .bgl or some other file could be corrupted, it may take a complete uninstall/reinstall to fix it...

Ah crap.

[alrot]

Alternatively, if you're suggesting that a .bgl or some other file could be corrupted, it may take a complete uninstall/reinstall to fix it...

Ah crap.

BGL are the builders of everything in the scenery just like MDL are the airplanes , bgl is a model/land that it contains locations object latitude and longitude coordinates ..

make sure your HDD is properly desfragmented before UNINSTALL and reinstall the whole thing from 0

make sure you delete MANUALLY the FSX.CFG and aplication data folders,BEFORE REINSTALL

[Speed of flight]

I figured that this question is worth asking, simply because of the time I would save:
Is a complete uninstall really necessary? Or is it possible that using the DVDs "Repair" option may suffice? That's what I'm doing as I type this, and I hope it works, because it is such a pain to perform a "fresh" install.

[alrot]

I figured that this question is worth asking, simply because of the time I would save:
Is a complete uninstall really necessary? Or is it possible that using the DVDs "Repair" option may suffice? That's what I'm doing as I type this, and I hope it works, because it is such a pain to perform a "fresh" install.

well try the repair option first and see if it fix it , If it don't you will not have other choice that a complete reisnstall ..

I mean you return back the Asus video card the you bought, you bought and PSU after all that trouble you been through ,I think its easier ,but you are right try the Repair and see

my point is this was never a hardware problem

Alex

[Bass]

I know how your feelings are right now!

A change of vidio card and psu should not interfere with any files inside fsx, BUT, as Paul mentioned, an oc'ed cpu can make troubles when changing gpu. They are working close together!

As Alrot mentioned, a wrong .exe install to fsx can ruin alot.
Many of us always open up the .exe and then install manually. In that way, you can backup crusial files if anything goes wrong.

Have you tried to remove any addons scenery from the folder and inside fsx library?

Also, next, i would backup the stock scenery folder and search for it on the dvd. This may not be easy! Its hidden inside an install .cab file.
If you play around with this and you start up fsx, you can expect a lot of scenery failures. Thats because there are 3 scenery.cfg's. One in the main folder, one in program data and one where you find fsx.cfg. (remember to remove that too)
So if things are working, we can just pray, you might need to delete those failure sceneries inside those .cfg's.

It takes time, so maybe a backup of what you got now, (aircraft, effects and gauges) > a reinstall might just be the same.