Tragic news! FS9 won't work on my new computer...

[Saitek]

Well my dream computer,(you saw it in the hardware forum here has let me down someting terrible. It just hates my flight simulator.
Me and my Dad have tried every single thing under the sun that we can think of and to no avail. It is an empty computer with practically nothing on it, yet it just won't have the sim.
It keeps crashing, sometimes I can barely get passed clicking the Fly now button, before a terrible crash occurs. As you know crashes on XP aren't usual, but this crash is so bad nothing works except the mains switch. Sometimes the Blue Screen of Death appears, but usually it is just a plain crash.
We have tried different drivers for the graphics card, (Geforce FX5200 128mb (PCI) ), tried all the options practially on microsofts help page, have latest directX and in all other respects there has not been a problem - it also works on a car game we have.
One clue which may help is that the settings are really low and yet they are giving rather bad frame rates. I was getting the same or better on the old computer with settings all on max. If I put the settings higher it is impossible to get into the fligth at all.

I have tried absoutely everything and I fear there is nothing you will be able to do. At the moment I am running FS8 on another computer, with frame rates twice as high, settings on max, with just an onboard graphics chip! But I really want to get flying on FS9 on the new computer.

Thanks,

Ben

[Nav]

Oh dear!

Saitek, is the new computer the one that appears at the bottom of your post?

[Gixer]

I can only think you have conflicting drivers or somthing hasn't installed properly.

If you have nothing on the PC and cant get to the bottom of the issue, I would first burn off all the latest drivers etc onto CD.  Then re-format.

This is the order I do my installs:

XP Pro
Service Pack1  (I downloaded the file)
Motherboard Drivers
DX9c
Nvidia Drivers (You may need older drivers due to your g/card being old.  I have heard about problems with some FX5200 and the latest ones)
Sound Drivers

It might be worth getting DriverCleaner3 first though.  Get rid of all your old graphics drivers and roll back to some older ones.  Strange other games work though.

[victor_stanescu]

I am thinking about three issues regarding your problem.

1. A hardware error (like bad RAM, bad CPU, bad motherboard or bad video card). If your computer is perfectly stable under heavy loads and 3d graphics - games with big requirements, 3d benchmarks, we might exclude this.
2. A power shortage - may be the power supply is not enough. The same comments as (1) - if under heavy loads your computer has no problems, but it has problems with FS2004, then this is not the case.
3. An incompatibility between FS2004 and your computer. The video card is very common, so it should be ok. But your option for AMD 64bit could be an issue. May be the 32bit emulation mode of this chip is not perfect, and FS2004 has some issues with it. In this case, either you convince Microsoft to create a patch for this, or you change the cpu/motherboard. Try to find out if other users run FS2004 on 64bit AMD chips.

About your RAM/Video RAM/HDD, there is no problem with their sizes. You have enough RAM (of course, more RAM would be nice, but it sure runs in 512M and may be even in less), the HDD requirements are ~4G for FS2004 with no add-ons, and I am sure you cannot find 80G of quality addons to install :-) and the video ram is also enough.

[dan741749]

Have you thought that maybe having a PCI graphocs card in such an otherwise high performance machine is what's messing it up?  They don't make many (if any) pci graphics cards anymore for a reason.

[Saitek]

No Nav, that is the old one the one I am using for FS2002.

I am using an AMD thlon 3000+, 1GB ram, 200GB hard drive and a 485W PSU. Check the link in the former post. I am using XP standard though and not pro.

Victor, I think my answer above answers most of yours.

Dan, I would be very suprised if thatis the case. Surely just because AGP are the latest shouldn't effect it's performance. As I said it was working allright for another game, which although is no way near FS in graphics is still quite good.

Gixer, I can probably reformat the PC and wipe off absolutely everything if that's what is needed.

Our XP already has Sp2 in it I believe. The direct X, motherboard and sound drivers are all good. As for Nividia drivers, I believe we are using the correct ones, my dad tried several and all of them came ended the same.

I really don't know what to do. I haven't tried FS2002 on it yet, so I don't know what that is like,

Ben

[Hagar]

Hi Ben. Sorry to hear your problems. Wish I could help but I don't use WinXP & only know what I read here & on other forums. As this is a new PC it probably shipped complete with SP2. I believe most problems with SP2 are caused by updating from existing versions with spyware installed. As this PC is not connected to the Internet this would be highly unlkely if not impossible so I think we can leave XP out of the equation.

I'm no expert with hardware or setting up PCs & could be quite wrong about this but I think it's worth mentioning. That's a powerful machine you have there. Unless you have a driver conflict or defective hardware I'm afraid to say that I agree with dan741749. I suspect the problem is most likely your PCI graphics card causing a bottleneck.

[Saitek]

That's really tragic if that is the case!
I have no idea where I could afford another card. It is a pretty super computer, but I can't believe it is too good. We only bought the card 18 months ago and it cost just under

[Saitek]

But surely,  (My dad suggested this), if that is the case then if we turned down the computer settings then wouldn't it work?

[Hagar]

Sorry Ben. I have no wish to upset you even more than you already are & really have no idea what I'm talking about. Most people seem to agree that AGP graphics cards can handle data far more quickly & effciently than PCI ones unless they're the later PCI Express type which I believe is a comparatively recent development. I have no idea if this would cause FS9 not to run at all or crash your PC. The problem could be elsewhere but I have a feeling this doesn't help.

There are plenty of people on this forum far more qualified than me to help you on this. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of it but you might not like the answers.

[dan741749]

PCI Express is really being pushed and AGP is starting to be phased out little by little, AGP is hardly the latest anymore

[Saitek]

Really.. well is there anyway my problem can be solved or are you guys sure that it is the card?

[Gixer]

Your mobo has somthing called 'Cool and Quiet' technology.  Make sure that this is turned off.  It possibly could be restricting your CPU.

In Bios make sure the graphics card is set to pick up from the PCI socket (I have a choice to set mine as PCI or AGP somewhere in BIOS)

As I said uninstall your old drivers then boot into safe mode and use driver cleaner to get rid of all the old bits of nvidia vid drivers.  I would suggest maybe trying 66.71 drivers, these work fine on an old GF3 ti200 I have at home so think they would be ok for your FX5200.

I am not sure what can be altered in BIOS to do with PCI ports but maybe check everything looks ok in BIOS.

[Clipper]

Just a note about pci cards. I just installed a geforce fx5200 256k pci in my p.c.  I have a p4 2.8 with 768k ram. The pci card is completely compatible with fs9 and  supports directx9. The difference between my computer and yours is very marginal, yet I am getting very satifactory results. The pci card- fs9 compatability is probably not the problem. Make sure you have disabled the old graphics card or integrated graphics. XP has a nasty habit of automatically re-activating the old graphics card or integrated graphics system. Maybe the actual game is defective!

[Saitek]

Well guys, maybe this is a breakthrough - I don't know - in determining the problem.
We saw the hardware acceleration option and decided to try out that setting. It was on full before and we started it on zero - so really basic mode here. The simulator worked! On really sick graphics, yes. It also worked on the second and third setting. Any higher and it just totally crashed.
Here is the maximum we can have it below. So what does this tell us? Too good computer for an old-out-if-date card?
Hopefully this can help you in telling me what's wrong.



Many thanks

Ben