Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
AMD Dual & Quad Core "Gotchas" - Important if you own AMD! |
DVA7636
Senior Captain, L-1011-100
OLP
Joined on August 11 2009
50 State Club
Events Double Century Club
Burbank 250 Club
Quincentenary Club
Online Quintuple Century Club
Globetrotter
Black Pearl Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"Uses "Sparkly Eyes" Technique on ATC" Channelview, TX USA
588 legs, 1,196.5 hours
572 legs,
1,164.8 hours online 586 legs,
1,192.9 hours ACARS 287 legs,
572.1 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
April 14 2010 09:49 ET by Tracy Norris
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Sys Specs:
Proc: AMD Dual Core 4200+ 2.2Ghz
RAM: 4gb Kingston DDR2
Power Supply: Thermaltake 850w
Video: 3 x XFX Graphics 9800 GTs (512mb Ram), 6 (yes six) 22" Acer Widescreen displays
OS: Windows XP Pro (but there are patches for other OS's as well)
Recently I did a complete wipe of my system (first installed in 2006 so it was time), installed XP Pro, Service Packs, updates, FS 2004, FS 9.1 patch and all of the goodies. Everything should be peachy right? NOT!
About 60% of my flights ended in absolute frustration when, towards the end of the flight, the video would start "flashing" the textures and FS9 would enter some kind of weird "simulation rate" where it would suddenly start zooming through the countryside even though the Simulation Rate in the Options was set to 1x. This is not good at all for online flying!
Over time, I found out I could *temporarily* fix the problem by going into the display settings and *gradually* lowering my desired frame rate when it happened. This would buy me another 5-10 minutes of flight before it started happening again. Sometimes, by the end of a flight, I'd have the slider down to 5fps just to be able to finish! In addition, bringing up Task Manager showed my CPU usage all over the place.
Oh, and let's not forget the all-to-frequent Blue Screen of Death!
This went on for about 2 months with me pulling my hair out in frustration. I'm a former computer tech so this was embarrassing to say the least that I couldn't figure it out.
Finally, it dawned on me that "Way Back When" (in 2006) I installed an AMD Processor Driver update so I went and looked... Lo and Behold, AMD was describing exactly the problem I was having!
http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=173?=us
It seems that some single-core games get their timing queues from one, or the other processor and loose track of what speed they should be running at. Basically what I was experiencing was a timing "glitch" (FS lost track of the processor speed). This same effect can happen in other games as well (weird video artifacts, game speed changes, BSOD, etc).
I checked my Processor Driver Version and sure enough, it was version 1.0 from Microsoft. I downloaded the above Processor Driver from AMD and am happy to report that the simulation is MUCH smoother, steadily uses about 50% of the CPU, has frame rates upwards of 68 and is as smooth as a baby's bottom from takeoff to touchdown. All of this with Active Skies 6.5, GE Pro, Ultimate Terrain, ACARs, Simulation Rate set to Unlimited and all of the display sliders "maxed out".
In addition, the temps for all three videocards and the processor has dropped significantly (no more "racing fans" on the motherboard).
If you own an AMD processor and are experiencing anything like this then I highly recommend this processor driver. Don't worry, it won't install if your existing driver is newer or you already have the patch. For me, it made all of the difference in the world.
Give it a try and see if it fixes your FS (or FSX) issues!
STAFF: Depending on response, may consider posting this as a "Sticky"
Tracy NorrisSenior Captain, L-1011-100
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DVA3794
Senior Captain, A320
OLP, 737-ATP
Joined on December 03 2006
50 State Club
Globetrotter
US Coastal Club
Events Quadruple Century
US Mountaineer Club
Everett Bi-Millennium Club
Tri-Millennium Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Three Million Mile Club
Online Thirty Century
"volando libero......." Antarctica
3,459 legs, 8,141.9 hours
3,131 legs,
7,039.5 hours online 3,251 legs,
7,332.7 hours ACARS 478 legs,
964.8 hours event 65 legs dispatched, 72.4
hours
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Posted onPost created on
April 15 2010 08:52 ET by Vincenzo Musumeci
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Tracy,
I'm gonna give it a look tonite,but I don't have any probs with my fps I have them locked at 30 and the lowest I get is 22 with CS757 and AS6.5 REX. UT ACARS and a couple of other application running at the same time .
I also looked in my BIOS like Tom suggested and everything is fine there......I see a lot of hair pulling in my days to come LOL
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DVA6061
Captain, B757-200
Joined on June 22 2008
Southeastern United States
26 legs, 51.3 hours
22 legs,
44.4 hours online 23 legs,
46.0 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
May 06 2010 21:44 ET by Brian Faust
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Tracy,
Thanks for posting this!!!
I downloaded the updated driver and have had no problems the last 2 flights.
Before this driver it wasn't uncommon for me to have to resume a 2 hour flight at least one or two times. I was close to buying another power supply or graphics card but this seems to have fixed my blue screen of death!
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
Brian FaustCaptain, B757-200
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DVA7636
Senior Captain, L-1011-100
OLP
Joined on August 11 2009
50 State Club
Events Double Century Club
Burbank 250 Club
Quincentenary Club
Online Quintuple Century Club
Globetrotter
Black Pearl Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"Uses "Sparkly Eyes" Technique on ATC" Channelview, TX USA
588 legs, 1,196.5 hours
572 legs,
1,164.8 hours online 586 legs,
1,192.9 hours ACARS 287 legs,
572.1 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
May 06 2010 23:22 ET by Tracy Norris
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Brian, glad it helped! I would have blamed my system had it not been working just fine before the wipe and reinstall of everything so I figured it was something like this.
After your BSODs, it'll take a few flights for you to "trust" the system again but so far I'm very happy and haven't had any problems since installing the patch. Again, glad it worked!
Tracy NorrisSenior Captain, L-1011-100
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DVA6061
Captain, B757-200
Joined on June 22 2008
Southeastern United States
26 legs, 51.3 hours
22 legs,
44.4 hours online 23 legs,
46.0 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
July 08 2010 22:42 ET by Brian Faust
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Tracy,
Have you still been running error free? My last three flights ended with blue screen of death while the eight prior to those were error free......
Brian FaustCaptain, B757-200
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DVA7636
Senior Captain, L-1011-100
OLP
Joined on August 11 2009
50 State Club
Events Double Century Club
Burbank 250 Club
Quincentenary Club
Online Quintuple Century Club
Globetrotter
Black Pearl Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
"Uses "Sparkly Eyes" Technique on ATC" Channelview, TX USA
588 legs, 1,196.5 hours
572 legs,
1,164.8 hours online 586 legs,
1,192.9 hours ACARS 287 legs,
572.1 hours event
|
Posted onPost created on
July 08 2010 22:52 ET by Tracy Norris
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Brian,
Yes, I had the BSOD about 3 weeks ago. It seems my video cards were caked with dust. I have an air compressor in the garage and blew everything out. Everything has been working great since then. Seems to be a yearly ritual.
Make sure your video card(s) aren't overheating
Tracy NorrisSenior Captain, L-1011-100
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