I’ve been having this problem with FS2004 since I installed it. A little background:
I’m running Windows 98se, 500mb RAM, AMD 1800+, and an ATI Radeon 9700 pro. Everything has been updated and patched to the latest revisions, especially the ATI card which has caused many problems for me in the past.
In essence what happens is a complete system lockup. The screen will simply freeze after anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. Once this happens I am completely stuck until I reboot the system, ctrl-alt-del has no effect. FS2004 is the ONLY application that does this to me, and I have just about every flight sim on the market.
I should also mention that I’ve been involved in PC gaming for the last 20 or so years, have worked in technical support positions for the last 7 years, and know my way around a PC. This particular problem leaves me scratching my head.
If there are any known issues like this with my hardware combo and FS2004 I would greatly appreciate if someone would let me know. I’m also open to try anything, but please keep in mind I have tried all the basics and again, FS2004 is the only game out of dozens that do this. Many thanks in advance for any help!
Well, there are some “problems” with new vid cards (especially ATI) and 2004. I haven’t heard of a hard lock with it though, usually menu flashing and such. That is also something that happens to me with my 9500 Pro.
I am assuming you are not running in tweek/overclock programs for the vid card? It sounds suspiciously like an overheating problem to me. My old system was absolutely rock stable with every game/sim on the market, but would always freeze with Unreal Tournament. As soon as I went back to stock specs, it ran fune… although, I suspect you aren’t doing anything you shouldn’t be.
I’ll recomend the AVSIM forums. There are some very tech savvy people there. If all else fails, it might be a great time to upgrade to XP. I’ve heard of more people having problems with 98 with FS2K4 than with any other OS.
Its a great sim, BTW. Coming from another guy that also owns pretty much every sim put on the market for the past 8 years!
I just solved a FS2K4 crash-to-desktop problem with a VIA motherboard by installing something called the VIA PCI latency patch. Doesn’t sound like the same thing you’re experiencing, though.
Definately many, many problems with the newer ATI and GeForce cards, but I’ve fixed that trouble. I also don’t have a VIA chipset, but good thinking! To be honest I’ve sent this querry to every major FS message board and no one seems to have seen this particular problem. I’m starting to think I’ve just reached the pratical limit for my machine and it occasionally results in this problem.
