I am not very convinced that the issue is entirely hardware. I have had this rig running smoothly since 2001. Indeed this issue is only a new one. I flew CFS2 smoothly with a mere 512 Mb of system RAM and on the MoBo video. When Il-2 came out I upgraded to my previous graphics card which was an nvidia 5200 FX with 256 Mb on board RAM and Il-2 ran fine with that. Now the machine is an old one and the card interfaces with an AGP slot so I know my limitations. Later on I upgraded after Pacific Fighters came out so I could see the water better to an nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 512 Mb of RAM. The system at the time was 1 Gb of RAM and it ran well enough. I am now up to 2 Gb of system RAM and upgraded my processor to a P4@ 2.8 GHz with a second HDD in a pagefile set up as previously described. Until a few weeks ago I was flying fine with frame rates in the 70-75 fps range off line and in the 30's online. Once in a while I had lag issues but this has since resolved when I finally got DSL. I live in a rural area and one way cable was the best I could do until now. I can only guess that if the drivers aren't bad and the hardware is set up right, that the card must be failing?
I had an idea today and tried it out: I used DirectX instead of OpenGL and got decent frame rates! Now this means at 40,000 feet I got 60 fps and at sea level I got 22 fps. In formation with four B-29's in my F-86 I got 35 fps. It doesn't solve my problem but I am flyable again.
I take it back... I updated to the latest version of DirectX and lo and behold! Yes, the fps dropped into the 12 fps range. :-(
Yes I would agree the driver is suspect here. I have the disk at slot 0 partitioned with windows on one side and program files on the other. Including Il-2 in the opposing partition. I did this for various reasons but primarily for two: space is not an issue any more and should windows need to be reinstalled (as happened) I can retain my copy of Il-2 without issue.
BOLTER,
If space is not an issue as you say, then why not keep an exact copy of IL-2? You could keep one copy in each partition, test them both, and compare to see if there is any difference. This could give you clue in what to do.
I copied to the windows partition and it made no difference at all. Same good fps and then a minute in, drop to 9 fps.
System RAM is not an issue in my view as with 2 Gb on board. When I am flying Il-2 with the Task Manager open, it barely uses 50% of the available RAM. As a matter of fact when I had only 1Gb of system RAM Il-2 flew fine. I suspect something is conflicting with the video drivers within windows. Perhaps the Microsoft updates are conflicting with the nvidia drivers?
OK here's what I managed over the weekend. I went and researched this issue and heard many complaints from others who have nvidia cards that issues became apparent with driver versions beginning with 180.15. I used a program to completely remove the drivers and clean the registry. I had an issue come up then that was an eye opener but more of that in a moment.
After installing the older 179 series drivers I expected the problem to go away, but alas; after a minute of flight time, you guessed it! FPS in the single digits. And I had so much hope.
While I was using the windows default drivers my dual monitors become cloned rather than spanned. After a few minutes of work, the screens went black. I had to do a restart to get the monitors back online. SO perhaps it is a hardware problem requiring replacement of the video card after all!
After all this, I can say it IS hardware. Just not the video card I think. I scoffed an ATI Radeon 9800 from the obsolete shelf at my studio and dropped it in. With a complete cleaning of the old nvidia drivers and a fresh install of the ATI drivers, I had wonderfully clear frame rates and beautiful water!
Then after about a minute the game froze. I used the WIN key and the task manager to close the simulator. The ATI window came up and said that the drivers had crashed and a restart was required. A condition that seems similar to the problem I had with the nvidia card.
So now my thoughts are one of two things: MoBo is going or the Power Supply is failing to provide enough power. I will check the power with the sim running with a program I have called ASUS Probe. Stand by...
I monitored CPU clock times and power supply voltages. All stayed consistent and in the normal ranges. SO that pretty much leaves the Mother Board. Anyone have an idea other than MoBo replacement? If it does have to go then I understand. It IS from 2001 and has performed yeoman service for close to a decade. And it is the only part left original aside from the case and power supply.
Sounds to me like a Windows problem. If I were you, I'd first back up all my data and try a reformat and reinstallation of Windows. Since you haven't expressed any desire to do that, I digress.
At this point it isn't worth replacing the motherboard and leaving the rest intact. You'd be better off saving up a little and purchasing an entirely new rig. It is for this reason that I have not upgraded my own machine-the parts compatible with it cost more than newer, more potent hardware.
If you must replace the motherboard, you should look for the following:
-Motherboard is an LGA775 socket (I'm assuming that's what your P4 is, if you could confirm it, that would certainly be helpful)
-Support for Pentium 4 CPUs and 100MHz FSB; some of the newer LGA775 motherboards won't support such an old chip.
-PCI-express x16 2.0; I can't stress this enough, because this is what is going to get you some mileage out of the replacement. Since your current video card is also an AGP card, you'll have to buy a new graphics unit.
Now, since you'll end up having to buy both a new motherboard and graphics card, this is where I get off saying it isn't worth it to just replace your motherboard and preserve the rest. That same money could potentially buy you a brand new Socket AM3 motherboard and an appropriate Phenom II or Athlon II CPU to go with it, which is a HUGE performance increase. You just have to spend a little more to buy a new GPU (which you will have to do anyways) and new DDR3 RAM.
I have some older, 91.28 NVIDIA drivers. These were designed during the GeForce 7 era and as such are best optimized for them. They work marvelously for me in every game both old and new without a hiccup. If you want, I could send them to you, you just have to tell me how. Alternatively, you could look them up via Google and find a download location for a 91.28 version suitable to your locality (mine is US).
Ax,
Thanks for taking the time to pound that all out. I had actually reinstalled windows once because of this issue so that's why I suspect hardware. The CPU is a P4 Socket 478. I replaced the original 1.6 Ghz one with the current 2.8 one. It came with 128 Mb of RAM but I'm up to two Gb of RAM now. You're dead on about the FSB being 100 Mhz. I tend to agree with you and Fireskull that it's better to just to hand the rig to the wife for browsing and word processing at this point. Now to put away some cash...
