Is FSX worth it?

[WILDHEART3003 8]

Recently, I experience yet another unstable loading of FSX. It load up until default flight screen but with no Airplane in the picture, only black screen.

After trying all methods rescuing(i.e. deleting the cfg/xml files etc) without reinstalling FSX. I failed to get it start.

At the end I went on to reinstall FSX. After installing a fresh copy of FSX. It work fine booting up to default flight with animated airplane picture this time. So I thought, yay I fixed it! Next, I reboot and do the Nick's step by step installation guide with add on. The first add on I installed is EZdok. When I load FSX and up to where it ask for 'trusted' window pop up, it crash...

 

Some time I just wonder FSX is worth the time. Each time reinstall FSX, reboot, reinstall each individual add-ons. It take me approx 3 whole days and nights. (This includes defrag the drive with OO software). And then, just you thought everything is stable....IT crash after 2-3 months of play.

[Glynn 405]

Hello

It is not FSX, it is your PC.

FSX is very stable here on an I5 2500K@ 4.5ghz, never crashed since I built this rig last July

[WILDHEART3003 8]

Congrats with your "stable" FSX. I doubt you spent enough time to crash it I suppose. I spent approx 6 hours every day practising my skill since I'm a student pilot.

[tgenius 2]

Sounds like you should try P3D.

[WILDHEART3003 8]

Sounds like you should try P3D.

Yes, thinking of that. Been doing plenty of research on LM P3D.

[xplanery 250]

FSX is unstable program no doubt, especially if you have loads of third party addons installed. I have myself finally gotten it working very well now after all, have done little tweaking, Uiautomationcore fix and removal of one windows directory to stop it from freezing my whole computer up (though wasn't only FSX related problem, but most of time happened with it). Also got rid of slow texture loading problem after I set FPS inside FSX unlimited and added external FPS limiter.

 

Though although I have high end system (Radeon 6990, 8GB of RAM and I7 2600k 3.4ghz), I do still turn autogen off when flying long flights as at least in my case it seems to increase performance and not lowering it like some people have reported.

 

Maybe I can turn it up a bit when I get better cooling system so I can overlock.

 

My FSX still does crash on about 20% of startups though, after each crash it says that I should disable either FSUIPC or some Level D related addon, but I always refuse to do that and it works again perfectly till next crash. This really doesn't bother me as I very rarely get in game crashes, actually almost not at all even with really complex addons. Sometimes it just hangs my computer for few seconds, but nothing worse.

[sargeski 16]

Congrats with your "stable" FSX. I doubt you spent enough time to crash it I suppose. I spent approx 6 hours every day practising my skill since I'm a student pilot.

 

I doubt that you understand that many of us here spend countless hours in our "stable" FSX installations without any crashes and have been practicing our skills for years.

 

Did you reinstall FSX and make sure it was crash free before you started adding any addons and began tweaking?

 

If you are having problems you need to approach it one step at a time to find the issue. Otherwise it is going to be no different than trying to find a needle in a haystack.

 

And BTW if all you added was EZDOK and now you are crashing......that in itself should be telling you something.

[Glynn 405]

I doubt you spent enough time to crash it I suppose. I spent approx 6 hours every day practising my skill since I'm a student pilot

 

Hello,

Well your doubts are unfounded.

Like most here that have zero problems with FSX I use FSX every day

I will say it again, your machine is unstable not FSX.

 

My FSX install is 89 GB and I have never managed to get FSX to crash on this PC even on 4 hour flights

 

We would all have given up on FSX by now if we were having the issues that you seem to be having, but the truth is the majority here seem to be able to use FSX without any crashes.

 

But then I have been doing this for a very long time, maybe that's why I have zero issues ?

[Guest firehawk44]

Nick's step by step installation guide with add on

 

NickN's guide is just a guide with many recommendations. Following each one does not mean you're not going to get a whole lot of crashes. Every system is different. Are your FSX settings set to max? I suspect not but that will crash FSX with a system like yours pretty fast. Overheating will cause many crashes too as well as wrong settings in the system BIOS. You could have corrupted video card or sound card drivers. If you ever get a CTD, you need to look in your system Event Viewer and let us know what caused the crash. Look up in the CTD forum just above this one and you'll see a lot of instances where FSX has crashed and most have gotten the problem fixed after approaching the problem one step at at time (as Sargeski above stated). Up in the CTD forum you will see how to get into your Event Viewer and begin diagnosing your problem. If FSX frustrates you too much because of the crashes, then I recommend moving on to Microsoft Flight. It seems to be much more stable.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[blueshark747 1,843]

Congrats with your "stable" FSX. I doubt you spent enough time to crash it I suppose. I spent approx 6 hours every day practising my skill since I'm a student pilot.

 

ok.....and???

[PIC007 82]

First, what version of FSX are you running//Standard..Gold, or Acceleration? If it's the standard (Delux) you need to install SP 1 and 2.... Gold and Accel already have them.

 

Second, stop messing with tweaks and addons until you get FSX working correctly, 90% of the time no tweaks are needed, at least initially.

 

Third, if you are going to install addons, be sure you test FSX with each one before installing the next, and defrag each time.

 

Your system should handle FSX fine, you just need to install it correctly

[Kosta 122]

I doubt you spent enough time to crash it I suppose.

 

Sorry, but I share my opinion with mad dog. Stable, and very well tested for crashing. I do know how to crash FSX, given my history of testing for OOMs, g3d.dll crashes, general FSX crashes...

 

I would say nearly, but that would be a lie... every flight is finished and stable since months now.

 

Oh... and installed quite some payware aircraft, about 70 (guesstimate) or so airports, mesh, some photoscenery, bunch of addons, total of over 200GB for FSX. 373 lines in scenery library.

[WILDHEART3003 8]

@ Jim, Thanks for the advice. I am aware of checking on the event viewer to diagnose the problem. I have followed very closely on the thread with CTD. I appreciate Pete D with the wonder Fsuipc software can target many fixes. But this has nothing to do with enb series. I uninstall it as it make my VC view very dark. And beside, enb is never recommended with fsx. The reason I went for FSX because of the scenery realism. Has high hope on MSflight b4 it release, tried it, not suitable in term of flight simulation.

 

@blueshark747, not sure what or where you getting at my friend...Im not looking for an argument here. Just looking for an answer here as what to decide in terms of Stable Flight Simulation platform to practice beside the real thing. Because I'm not rich, only can afford perhaps 5-6 lessons a year. And this depend on the wonder UK weather we have.

 

@PIC007 I got the Gold + Acceleration edition, GEX + UTX, All 4 Region of Orbx AU, some payware air plane including the latest Baytower RV7, plus other add-ons etc. I use to use Bojote's ******* tweak until Word Not Allowed came up with the wonderful fps boost. I regularly defrag with O&O.

 

At the end of the day, we go back to the OT, is it worth staying on with FSX or going for the more stable P3D. (So far I've not heard of P3D crash though...)

Sorry, but I share my opinion with mad dog. Stable, and very well tested for crashing. I do know how to crash FSX, given my history of testing for OOMs, g3d.dll crashes, general FSX crashes...

 

I would say nearly, but that would be a lie... every flight is finished and stable since months now.

 

Oh... and installed quite some payware aircraft, about 70 (guesstimate) or so airports, mesh, some photoscenery, bunch of addons, total of over 200GB for FSX. 373 lines in scenery library.

Thanks for the confirmation. Think is about time to be serious on FSX and fellow your hardware guidance thread.

[Barnstormer1 0]

more stable P3D

 

After using it for 3 weeks I had more CTD with FSX addons in P3D than I had for months of using FSX. It is NOT more stable. I'm with Word Not Allowed, I dont have FSX crashes unless I force them myself in an experimination processes. I also run a dedicated sim computer and not trying to Skype, text, chat, with my buddies and explore forums at the same time. Generally its not FSX causing crashes theses days with the hardware and tweaks ,its all the other processes running at the same time. Like I stated earlier, I have to make it CTD. I also fly 6 + hrs a day.

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Hello,

Well your doubts are unfounded.

Like most here that have zero problems with FSX I use FSX every day

I will say it again, your machine is unstable not FSX.

 

My FSX install is 89 GB and I have never managed to get FSX to crash on this PC even on 4 hour flights

 

We would all have given up on FSX by now if we were having the issues that you seem to be having, but the truth is the majority here seem to be able to use FSX without any crashes.

 

But then I have been doing this for a very long time, maybe that's why I have zero issues ?

 

I'm in the same boat Maddog. I'm on my original install from April '08, have a pretty good amount of planes, sceneries and utilities installed in to FSX and never have crashes. The one crash I did have a about a year or so ago was due to something I had done wrong with a scenery I manually installed, but aside from that FSX has been rock solid on my rig.

 

As far as the argument about the amount of time spent using FSX and getting it to crash doesn't really hold a lot of water in my opinion. Since my April '08 install I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000+ hours in the FSX log book and between that and the 4 years i've been running it, if usage in its own rights led to crashes I certainly would have more than one by now. Heck, I even let FSX run for 4 or 5 days with AS2012 updating weather and the NGX parked at a gate and still never had it crash and I am using hardware that is WAY out of date compared to what most people here are running these days.

 

I'd guess that the problem lies in either the hardware (compatibility problem or overclock issue), the Windows setup itself, driver issues (video card, chipset, etc.), or something is faulty with the FSX install itself and/or its addons that are installed in FSX.

 

I'm sure it can be frustrating to say the least, but considering that many of use are and have been running it trouble free for years, I think it would be safe to say that you cant really pin the issue of instability on FSX itself since they are so many "moving parts" involved to make in run in the first place.

 

Hope you find a solution, but once you do I would dare say that yes, FSX is worth it once you have a stable setup.