Add-on Aircraft suddenly causing stuttering?!?!!?

[Agrajag]

Guys, due to problems with the new Squawkbox 3 and others who had luck by re-installing FS9, I bit the bullet and went ahead and re-installed.

I then added just a single aircraft, my Phoenix Simulations Software Dash 8. I've had this since FS9 first came out and few it all over without any trouble. Now, whenever I load it, every 3 seconds the sim stutters for no apparent reason. Worse, if I then switch to another aircraft, the sim STILL stutters but if I never load the plane, no stutters at all.

This is my favorite plane and it never did this before. Has anyone seen anything like this? I can't imagine giving up the plane entirely. It's excellent.

All this re-installing to have this unexpected problem crop up is really annoying. I've tried changing various settings, tweaking the FS9.CFG again and nothing is impacting it.

I should point out that I also tried a re-install from C: (on a SATA drive with lots of room) to my D: which has a lot more room but is a standard ATA drive and then back to C: again. Neither spot made any difference.

[beana5]

I think thats a common occurrence. Many of a good looking D/L comes with that unwanted baggage. Plunging F/Rs,and other problems. I delete them, and hope they do not leave something behind,like sub-performance. I just went through that.The answer had to be a full uninstall and a careful re-install of only good performing D/Ls.Rite now my Sim is working just fine. Also I don't jump into every good looking D/L that pops up."Caveat Emptor"(i think that means watch yur butt) REGARDS VIN :D (try the othe forum for tech support)

[RyanbATC]

I had no problems with SB3...whats the problem?

[Agrajag]

To the first response, the issue here is that this plane worked flawlessly for the entire time I've had it (over a year) with the previous install. It's just this new install where it's acting up.

As far as SB3, look on their Technical Support Forum. Many of us are having serious problems which is to be expected for such a new release. In my case, every time I connect, a few minutes into the session FS9 crashes back to the desktop ending the session. Several people reported that they fixed the problem with an FS9 re-install. Even though that was not a pleasant thought, I did it anyway and ran into this new, unexpected problem.

[Agrajag]

Guys, getting further in this but I think I hit a wall now.

On a hunch I theorized that the problem was always there but masked by other overhead that made it appear more smooth than it was and now that FS9 is unburdened by add-on's I'm seeing a problem that was always present.

So I went digging. I first checked the modules folder and they hadn't installed anything there. I then found the panel for the plane in a file called panel.300 so I renamed it to panel.300.old and started up the sim. The theory being that if there was no stutter then it's something in the panel. Loaded up the plane and, of course, I had no panel but but everything worked and it was smooth as glass. Ah hah! Something in the panel. Plus I found out this was a FS2002 plane that was QUICKLY moved to FS9 so it likely had some elements that weren't FS9-friendly.

I then decided to rename panel.300.old back to panel.300 and went looking for gauges. The only one I could find that made sense was something called PSS-Dash8.gau. This plane has a lot of gauges so I suspect this is some sort of compressed gauge file but I know NOTHING about gauges. I renamed it and went back into the sim. Smooth as glass flying again though the panel was really confusing this time. There were some outlines there and some actual parts of the panel were there but I couldn't interact with them in any way and they were stuck open so it blocked most of my forward view.

I had been hoping I could find the offending gauge and either fix it or replace it or get them to fix it.

Am I stuck now or is there a chance to fix this yet? I'm coming to the conclusion that PSS isn't a company I'd likely invest with again given the number of complaints about this plane and the lack of support behind it. It seems they just decided to get as much for an FS2002 plane for FS9 by reducing the price and limiting support for it. However, it's still the best Dash-8 out there by a wide margin so that explains the frustration.