FSUIPC 3.45 slow when clicking tabs after fs9 patched

[darrenecm]

After installing the latest 3.45 version of FSUIPC after I updated FS9 to 9.1 with Microsoft's latest patch I now find using FSUIPC from within FS9 very slow. When I bring up the FSUIPC interface from the modules menu and click on FSUIPC's tabs to navigate the menu pages I find I have to wait between 4-7 seconds before the page is displayed.

This is after a total uninstall of FS9 and reinstall prior to applying Microsoft's patch so that I could avoid some of the reported problems that installed add-ons cause when patching to 9.1. Essentially I reinstalled FS9, ran it to see if installation was okay, then patched it and ran it again to check. Then I installed FSUIPC 3.45 (I'm fully registered user by the way) and noticed the choppy performance of FSUIPC when navigating through tab pages.

As a test I uninstalled FS9 again and reverted back to the pre-patch 9.0 version and installed FSUIPC 3.45 and everything seemed fine. I patched and the problem of slow performance was still there.

As far as I can see the general performance of FS9 is unaffected. Problem only appears when FSUIPC interface on screen.

Interestingly, I put up with the slow switching between FSUIPC pages and set my usual settings and then set about installing my favourite add-on aircraft, Flight1's Piper Meridian. After installing this and patching it to the latest version this too is having similar problems. When I fire up the RealityXP-based GPS that's licensed for the Meridian (which uses that pesky Garmin Trainer 16-bit external program) the GPS interface is extremely choppy in performance with slow responses to button presses and menu switching via the rotary knob. The same 4-7 second delay as I see when using FSUIPC is apprent with this product too.

Could it be there has been some changes to the way FS9 communicates with external utilities? But then again surely Microsoft's SDK for FS9 should mean all third-party add-on publishers know what to do, and what not to do when writing their add-ons?

My PC system is:

AMD Athlon 2400

1GB of ram

GeForce FX5950 Ultra

SoundBlaster Audigy 2

2 x 75Gb hard disks, recently defragged

[Pete Dowson]

When I bring up the FSUIPC interface from the modules menu and click on FSUIPC's tabs to navigate the menu pages I find I have to wait between 4-7 seconds before the page is displayed.

How odd. FSUIPC itself isn't doing anything when you do that, it is all down to standard Windows library routines, managing what's called "property sheets".

This is after a total uninstall of FS9 and reinstall prior to applying Microsoft's patch so that I could avoid some of the reported problems that installed add-ons cause when patching to 9.1.

Hmm. Never heard of such problems. I have four different FS9 installations on different machines, some with very many add-ons, and the installation of FS9.1 never needed any of them to be re-installed clean. The only problem I had was on one PC (with virtually no add-ons I hasten to add) where the 9.1 installation itself took a long long time to complete (over an hour I seem to recall). But complete it did and it's been fine since.

As a test I uninstalled FS9 again and reverted back to the pre-patch 9.0 version and installed FSUIPC 3.45 and everything seemed fine. I patched and the problem of slow performance was still there.

Well, I don't know what is going on there. The differences between FS9.0 and FS9.1 are relatively minor as far as FSUIPC is concerned. They are all fairly technical changes, nothing really to do with the user interface or the way FSUIPC operates.

... Flight1's Piper Meridiantoo is having similar problems.

Hmmm. I wonder if you have some other process running in the background on your system which, for some reason, it having more effect with 9.1 than 9.0. In your shoes I would be carefully examining what is running on the system and try a process of elimination. As well as those things that put an icon in the bottom right corner when they are running, check the Process list (Ctrl-Alt-Del, select Processes tab). You can even try deleting them there -- if you delete anything serious you may crash the system, mind, so be careful. However, a re-boot should recover things. As a way of working out what's doing what it's crude but sometimes effective.

Could it be there has been some changes to the way FS9 communicates with external utilities?

No, nothing much has really changed in 9.1. Just some bugs fixed.

Regards,

Pete

[darrenecm]

Thanks for your observations Peter. Things, however, just got weirder and weirder. I once again uninstalled and reinstalled FS9, along with FSUIPC 3.45, and then applied Microsoft's update. Now this time around all seems fine.

I suspect you may be right about some other program in memory is the cause of the problem - and intermittently at that it appears. Seems I may have to be more ruthless than normal about what is running in the background when I start my gaming. My usual routine before starting a games session is to shut down virus checker and then right click on all the icons in my system tray and shut down all that have the ability to be shut down manually.

I'm about to install my favourite add-on aircraft, Flight1's Piper Meredian, which was also having problems with the GNS530 gps being slow to respond. If the problem rears its ugly head again I'll have to delve into the Task Manager and set about disabling the unessential hidden processes. Hopefully I'll discover the issue and will post back with my solution.