FPS dropped to one (1)

[threadkill]

That’s not a misprint; my frame rate, as measured by Fraps, actually went to 1 or 2 towards the end of the CAS mission; most enemy distroyed at that point and troops advancing.

 

I’ve been struggling with getting BS to run reliably for about 3 weeks; here’s my story.

 

Initial specs:

Asus PN5-D mobo

Q6600 Quad CPU

4 GB memory

Ultra 1000w PSU

Nvid GT9600 GPU x 2 w/wo SLI

Gateway 24” LCD (1900 x 1200 native)

TrackIR 4

5.1 headphones

WinXP 32 SP2

Realtek on-board HD Audio drivers

 

Initial problem:

 

Game would run for different lengths of time (always under ~5 minutes) and then either freeze or the screen would go blank and power off (lost DVI signal), and then freeze. When the screen would blank, I could continue to hear game sounds for a few seconds. In any event, only way to recover system was the Reset switch or power off/on. FPS seemed okay; was playable at 1900x1200 (non full screen). Error logs showed much of what's already been uploaded here; crash caused several tmp files to be created. Could reboot and again play for a bit.

 

Tried:

 

Disabled SLI, took out one card, switched cards, reinstalled/used latest audio drivers and video drivers (ran cleanup utilities before reinstall), latest chipset drivers, reseated memory. Tried different screen resolutions and game settings (high-low). Tried lowering sound hardware accel in DxDiag (I’ve been pouring over this forum for clues). Also tried up’ng CPU clock speed to 2.54 (used BIO 5% over; simple interface solution). Tried up’ng pagefile to stated max in settings page.

 

I have used Nvidia tools to stress test the GPU individually and the entire system. All tests passed. I’ve also cleaned the registry. This is for all practical purposes a dedicated gaming machine; no other software except a TV tuner card. Only other game I run is ARMA, which seems to run fine. Has crashed after looooong MP missions, but just a few times in many sorties.

 

Temperatures remained in normalish (I think) range throughout. CPU and mobo never over 114F. Graphics cards did reach 130F for the active card.

 

Specs change to test graphics card:

 

Swapped out GT9600 graphics cards for one GTX 260 card.

Set an environment variable to find all unused USB drivers in Device Mngr; deleted all unused drivers.

 

Current Issue:

 

I can now get to around 20-30 FPS with med or high settings, but after playing for some period of time, usually around 15 minutes, my frame rate drops into the single digits and the game becomes unplayable. No more crashes with this GPU though.

 

Affinity and XP

 

I’ve read all the posts about XP not being able to take advantage of an affinity setting, but after having my frame rate drop to four, I tried turning on all processors; brought my frame rate up to around 15 for a while. Seems an improvement is possible in this extreme case.

 

Have not tried:

 

I have a TV tuner card installed and use GB-PVR to activate TV; have not tried pulling this card. I do ensure that the background recording service is not running, and in general try to keep my running services at the bare minimum.

 

May try:

 

Have not tried a complete hard drive reformat….. Perhaps that’s next.

 

Will try a different sound card and disable the onboard HD Audio.

 

Thanks for any assistance you folks can provide. I hope to find a solution, as I just love this sim; have been waiting for it since the initial announcement. If I have to, I’ll plan my flying around 15 minute intervals and then reboot. There’s nothing else out there like it.

 

 

 

 

[DragonRR]

Obviously your issue sounds like it's the graphics card but since you had 2 9600, tried both individually and then bought a 260 and have a similar (but not identical) problem with that too the fault must (well not 100%) lie elsewhere.

 

CPU, HIGHLY unlikely unless you overclock it.

 

Motherboard. Possible although the board you have is pretty good. It's pretty tough to test for motherboard faults. Suggest visually checking the board for bulging capacitors, black marks etc..

 

RAM. Possible. Suggest checking your RAM voltage is correct. Try running Memtest86 for 12hrs.. It's a hassle but 12hrs no errors will probably rule the RAM out. I have seen a huge number of systems with faults caused by faulty RAM. Crucial ram in particular seems to have issues over the long term especially Ballistix.

 

Harddisk drive. Possible but you would probably see event log errors stating bad block or some problem reading Drive. Suggest checking event logs thoroughly.

 

PSU. Possible. It could be faulty OR it isn't a known brand/high quality. 1000w seems like a total overkill for your system but if the rating is peak only and it can't sustain high watts then this is a likely candidate for a time issue like the one you have. However normally poor PSUs cause black screen reboot issues not just a slowdown.

 

Software.. check that all drivers are up to date especially chipset, graphics and sound, check your harddisk is defragged.. oh and I would just try removing that TV tuner (just in case). There should be no issue with the onboard HD audio btw unless the chip is faulty I suspect you will have a Realtek chipset just like most people here probably have.

Edited February 17, 2009 by DragonRR

[EtherealN]

Oh god damn it... >.<

(touches wood)

 

Crucial ram in particular seems to have issues over the long term especially Ballistix.

[threadkill]

DragonRR - Thanks for the great feedback.

 

For disk management and defrag thoughts, I flew Falcon 4 in the 1.08-plus-patch days so am accustomed to uninstall/defrag/reinstall/defrag routines. Have tried with BS with no change in behavior.

 

Had a look around the mobo; was also wondering about a bad discrete component. Have been looking at Event logs constantly, no joy there. Will take a closer look at all voltages; usually have Probe2 active.

 

The PS is an Ultra 3X; supposedly a good quality PS. Yes, more than I'd need for this config, but the price was good and I liked the modular connector aspect; however, I did recently have to make sure the PS-side connectors were in firmly (one more thing to have to check). True, the bad PS symptoms fit the GT9600 vids but not the newer card. That's a strange one in and of itself.

 

No joy on removing the tv tuner card and driver.

 

Have the ISO for Memtest86; will image to CD tonight, run, and if all is well there, I'll then be starting the backup/reformatting process.

[Swebeast]

FPS seemed okay; was playable at 1900x1200 (non full screen).

Why do you use Non Full Screen? Is it for FRAPS? I loose a LOT of fps if I don't use Full Screen

 

I flew a few times with multi monitors (Dual View -> Non Full Screen) but gave up since my fps dropped to around 20-30 + extra lagg :(

[Prophet]

Almost sounds to me like the GFX driver is crashing. Trying uninstalling the driver and software, rebooting twice without installing a driver, and then install the driver.

[Cionara]

Yea turn full screen on and overclock your CPU or change to Vista.

Because on Vista DCS can use multiple cores. It is like a singlecore 2,4ghz CPU at the moment.

[Washer UK]

Then crank that Q6600 to 3.2 ghz :smilewink:

[threadkill]

Hey folks,

 

The additional comments and suggestions are great; thank you.

 

Swebeast - Think I misunderstood some initial data, thought full screen was an issue. I just tried and was able to get a higher frame rate; that is until it crashed again. Good catch, sir.

 

Prophet - have reloaded a few times with latest and then one version back. Ran Driver Sweeper between installs; will try two reboots before reinstall if I get no joy.

 

Cionara and Washer - Roger that on overclocking. I'm a noob at OC so need to bone up first.

 

Well, I did find out that memtest crashed on the 3.5 version, at least test 0; was able to run if I skipped first test and ran them individually. The 3.4 version seemed to run; will let it run overnight.

 

Get this: When I first ran 3.5 and after it crashed, I thought I might have a bad card. It crashed consistently at 48% into test 0. I tried different combinations of one mem card in either slot; 3.5 ran test 0 okay with just 1 2GB in either slot, and with either card, which got me thinking I had a Northbridge problem. Reinstalled the chipset drivers; no luck. It's a mystery.

 

Now backing up my files and will reformat, just to start with a clean system.

 

The battle rages on.

[hitman]

Hate to say it, but those 750i boards are junk. Trust me, Ive had my fair share of them. Personally it sounds like you may have a bad memory slot, but I wouldnt rule out the NB issue either, since Nvidia left lots of problems to be solved with their 7xxi series boards. Small dumb question though...are you running your memory in dual channel or do you have your memory sticks in other slots?

[threadkill]

Hate to say it, but those 750i boards are junk. Trust me, Ive had my fair share of them. Personally it sounds like you may have a bad memory slot, but I wouldnt rule out the NB issue either, since Nvidia left lots of problems to be solved with their 7xxi series boards. Small dumb question though...are you running your memory in dual channel or do you have your memory sticks in other slots?

 

Hate to read it . . but thanks for the honest impression. This mobo has been running since March of this year and has been fairly reliable, but dust and heat do take their toll. If it turns out the mobo is going, I'd be interested in what you might recommend that supports SLI. The GTX series are double wide, so installing a second card on this mobo won't work as the 2nd card slot hits the SATA connector. This is if I even return to SLI, but would like to have the option.

 

Good question and worth asking; I am using the dual mem channel slots.

 

Now reformatting and starting from a clean install. Will add bare bones drivers and start with MemTest. Anyone know: should the latest (3.5) work with my configuration?

[hitman]

A good mobo with SLI? If your lucky you may be able to find an X48 motherboard with SLI...I found a couple for crossfire, so Im fairly certain an SLI capable X48 is out there somewhere.

 

Have you tried running your memory in single channel (pairs)?

[threadkill]

Reformatted last night and reloaded Windows this morning along with minimum chipset and graphics drivers. Will test memory in single channel bank(s) this eve. Thanks for the data on Mobo. Given that my main games are ARMA and BS, and Arma II when it comes out, will rethink my system requirements on the whole.

[DragonRR]

Hate to read it . . but thanks for the honest impression. This mobo has been running since March of this year and has been fairly reliable, but dust and heat do take their toll. If it turns out the mobo is going, I'd be interested in what you might recommend that supports SLI. The GTX series are double wide, so installing a second card on this mobo won't work as the 2nd card slot hits the SATA connector. This is if I even return to SLI, but would like to have the option.

 

Good question and worth asking; I am using the dual mem channel slots.

 

Now reformatting and starting from a clean install. Will add bare bones drivers and start with MemTest. Anyone know: should the latest (3.5) work with my configuration?

 

3.5 should work but the fact that it doesn't, doesn't mean it proves you have a fault. If 3.4 works and run the tests fine then it would suggest at least that you don't have a RAM fault. When I read your original post I didn't realise you had a 750i chipset. Unfortunately I tend to agree that the 750i isn't the best out there. Googling issues with your board: At least a couple of people have mentioned freezes in games. One or two have suggested that fitting a chipset fan has cured the issue. Might be worth a try before spending more money on a new board.

[threadkill]

Will try that, Draggon; thanks! the mobo did come with an optional fan for the heatsink, but the instructions noted to not use if using active cooling, which I am. I remember a thread where a user blocked the side next to the CPU as to not send air that direction, which is what (according to the manual) causes the airflow problem for the CPU fan. I think tinkering with this is well worth the shot.

 

And cheers for the answer on the mem3.5 question; that had/has me a bit puzzled. More testing tonight. Will be glad when I can blow up bandits instead of computer parts.... 8~)

[Cionara]

The airflow should not be the Problem. I would definetely try it out.

And run Speedfan. So you can see if something is too hot.

 

temperatures that are not dangerous:

 

Q6600: <65°

HDD: <45/50°C

Northbridge: <60/65°C

Graphics: <90°C

 

greetings Cionara