Peter, please help

[deltaflight]

Please first excuse me for posting this topic here but I cannot find an active email address for you...

I'm writing you because I know you too have the Matrox Parhelia card.

The problem I am having is that any type of precipitation, i.e. rain or snow, freezes my system shortly after being activated within the weather scenarios. All within FS2004. Did not have this problem with FS2002.

I have done everything in my mind to remedy the situation from un-installing sound cards, disabling joysticks, re-installing the software, etc. etc. You name it, I've done it.

Thinking the system I had was not enough, I built a new one and still have the same damn problem. Shortly after the precipitation starts, the screen will freeze but the sound is still playing for another 6-8 seconds or so. The sound then begins making a repititious bam-bam-bam noise. The only way I can get out of the lockup is to do a cold boot. Ctrl-alt-delete does nothing. Again, I've tried everything. All sliders, and I mean every slider within FS2004 all the way to the left. I've even removed the raindrop.bmp and disabled precipitation within the fs9.cfg. Still the problem remains. I normally fly in 3072x768 (32) 3 screen mode but I have tried all others as well such as:

2400x600

1920x768

1024x768

800x600

I've tried all 3 Matrox drivers now using their most recent release. I've tried DX9 and now I'm using DX9.b.

I'm at a loss.

All give me the same damn lockup.

If you have any words of wisdom I could surely use some help.

Thanks so much and I have listed my current specs below:

Athlon 2400+ CPU

Gigabyte GA-7VTXE mobo with Via KT266A chipset and most recent bios install

512 ddr memory

Parhelia 128mb card

PS: Matrox tech support is absolutely useless!

Michael Lehkamp

http://www.deltaflight.com

[Pete Dowson]

I'm writing you because I know you too have the Matrox Parhelia card.

I have two, one with 256Mb RAM and an older one with 128.

The problem I am having is that any type of precipitation, i.e. rain or snow, freezes my system shortly after being activated within the weather scenarios. All within FS2004. Did not have this problem with FS2002

...

I've tried all 3 Matrox drivers now using their most recent release. I've tried DX9 and now I'm using DX9.b.

I'm at a loss.

I would be too. Sorry. I've had some odd graphics glitches but the latest drivers (1.5.107 I think?) seem pretty well perfect with FS2004 so far. I use them at 2400 x 600, but with no FS panel (virtual or 2D) at all, just the forward view at 0.50x Zoom. I did try 3840 x 1024, but really for the outside view that resolution isn't needed and the lower gives me more frames per secwhich I then use up by having virtually all sliders at max.

Have you thought it might be nothing to do with the video card and drivers, but the sound system instead? Try it with no sound, and with the sound acceleration turned down one or two notches (use DxDiag for that). It wouldn't surprise me if it were the sound drivers.

Athlon 2400+ CPU

Both my Parhelia's are on Pentium based PCs, though it shouldn't really make any difference, unless the Matrox drivers have some incompatibility with AMD stuff. Were both your systems AMD? Same chipset?

PS: Matrox tech support is absolutely useless!

Really? Mind you, if it is your sound system you can't really blame them for being puzzled too.

Just to see if it's some problems with AGP you could try turning AGP off (in DxDiag too) -- there was a time when AMD-based mobos had AGP problems. I think you have to make sure you have the latest "minidrivers" or some such. Whether that applies to your mobo's chipset or not I wouldn't know, but it's worth checking.

Sorry, I've really no other ideas.

Regards,

Pete

[deltaflight]

Peter,

First off, thank you kindly for your reply.

You mentioned the sound card and I too was very skepitical about it as well. But as I mentioned, I have actually pulled the card and used no sound and ended up with the same result.

Like you, we use .50 zoom in our simulator setup also. I'm beginning to wonder if the 128mb version of the Parhelia is even able to handle the weather in FS2004. I'm beginning to believe it cannot.

I did try your recommendations regarding DirectX and disabled AGP texturing as well as reducing the sound acceleration to the bare minimum. Although the sim stuttered more often, it did seem I lasted a little longer in the precipitation before the inevitable happened. I'm so frustrated at this point I'm either going to trash the card or go back to FS2002.

I mentioned how poorly the Matrox support is. In fact if you read their surround gaming forum, there is quite a bit of dissention amongst the group. In my opinion, it stems from Matrox's inability to address anything that gamers bring up as problems. Even the reported problems that they ARE ABLE to duplicate go unattended. As you were aware, we had the unsightly horizon issue in dense fog in FS2002. It too was never addressed. Such a shame for such a card that provides so much potential. Enough hollering. I appologize.

I thank you again for answering my post and I'll keep trying. One other thing. You inquired as to whether the other machine was also a AMD. Yes it in fact was a 1700+ Athlon.

Michael Lehkamp

http://www.deltaflight.com

[flyguy]

Two other things to try if you have not done so already.

If your bios supports try enabling the "15M-16M" for the Memory Hole in the Advanced Chipset.

Also, have you triedGeorge Breese's unofficial PCI latency patch ? Not sure if it supports your chipset, but it has worked for a number of folks having sound issues.

Hope this helps.........

j

[deltaflight]

Flyguy,

Thanks for your reply.

No, I do not have that 15M thingy.

And as far as the patch goes, sound cannot be the issue if there is no sound card installed.