Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - AMD Dual & Quad Core "Gotchas"

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
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"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 April 14 2010 09:49 ET by Tracy Norris

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. eek

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". biggrin

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" wink

Tracy Norris

Senior Captain, L-1011-100

DVA3794
Senior Captain, A320
OLP, 737-ATP

Joined on December 03 2006
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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

Posted onPost created on April 15 2010 08:52 ET by Vincenzo Musumeci

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

Vincenzo Musumeci (DVA3794)

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

Posted onPost created on May 06 2010 21:44 ET by Brian Faust

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 Faust

Captain, B757-200

Posted onPost created on May 06 2010 23:22 ET by Tracy Norris

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! biggrin

Tracy Norris

Senior Captain, L-1011-100

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

Posted onPost created on July 08 2010 22:42 ET by Brian Faust

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......

banghead

Brian Faust

Captain, B757-200

Posted onPost created on July 08 2010 22:52 ET by Tracy Norris

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 wink

Tracy Norris

Senior Captain, L-1011-100

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