X Plane 9 stops responding

[Kesomir]

System

core i7 d0 920

ATI 4870x2

6GB Ram

Vista x64 / win7 x64

Catalyst 9.5

xplane 9.22 / xplane 9.30b12

Windowed mode

Problem

xplane 9 on any flight of duration (say 15mins +) will stop responding. Most of the time it just freezes, sometimes it causes the video driver to crash. Happens with different aircraft at different locations.

Attempted fixes (no joy)

removed plugins and scenery

cleared prefs

reinstall (which was updated to 9.22 (using 9.3beta12 for main install))

run with the --no_vbos switch

disabled second monitor

tried in full screen

any ideas?

[Kesomir]

to reply to my own thread

Turning off AA and dropping AF down to 1 allowed me to make the run from klax to ksfo (~1hr).

Will do the run back and see if that holds.

[Cameron]

to reply to my own thread

Turning off AA and dropping AF down to 1 allowed me to make the run from klax to ksfo (~1hr).

Will do the run back and see if that holds.

Kesomir,

I'm beginning to wonder if this is an ATI driver issue. Have you reported this to the bug system for X-Plane yet? You system is more than capable of handling hi-res settings in the sim!

[Kesomir]

The sim crashed on the way back

I think you're right and its a driver issue. The more I read, the more I discover that ATI users on x64 operating systems are having a hard time.

Shame too, as I'm starting to get bitten by the x-plane bug.

On the flight I was able to complete (9.3beta12) the fps took a steady downward slope from 40fps on takeoff to 19fps on landing. I'm going to assume this is a beta issue (even though I had switched pixel shading off).

The return flight I tried with the 9.22 install. Clean 100+fps all the way until it caused a video driver crash.

Shame. I think it might be around the places it load in new scenery (where I get a stutter).

If it is my card, only thing I can do is swap the card over for my old nvidia 7800GT, but considering the card is both new and expensive - I don't want to (I also fly FSX, FS2004 plus other games on this machine).

How do I report it?

[Cameron]

Kesomir,

You can report bugs here: http://dev.x-plane.com/support/bugreport.html

I know the ATI drivers have caused some issues too, so reporting this may do you some good, though not immediate.

Even though it's a pain, I would encourage you to swap out your ATI for the Nvidia card you have just to see if you're able to do a successful flight at the very least. That will pinpoint whether it's a video card/driver error or not!