P3D & Addon Settings Used in 777 Cadet Videos

[TszChun 0]

Hi Ben,

 

Just purchased 777 Cadet and nice to see you and Captain sparing no effort to make those informative videos. Having watched episode #2, I have decided to switch from FSX to P3D for better graphics, and most importantly better memory management as you told. However I have some questions about P3D that I would be grateful if you can help answer.

 

In the video, you mentioned you could approach complex airports without getting OOM issue. I am very much interested in the settings you have applied to the sim since the memory issue drove me mad when I used FSX even though with low settings :( You also recommend FTX Global Vector in the video which is well-known as memory-hog, may I also know its settings as well so that I could active prevent OOM? I also notice that the graphics are very stunning! May I know how you configure anti-aliasing? Is Nvidia Inspector used?

 

Nice to know you are going to upload resources in the next couple of weeks. Since your system should be very stable for producing this programme with the graphic settings somehow "approved" by Myron, I would be grateful if you could focus more on the simulator settings which will definitely help us to configure our simulator properly and resonably.

 

Thanks very much Ben and Myron! Your hard work is much appreciated.

 

Anson

[Airline2Sim 489]

Hey Anson

 

No problem, I can do that. I should point out that P3D helps with OOM issues due to the more modern code, but is still limited by being a 32bit application. It's not a silver bullet sadly.

 

I have a bunch of stuff for the member's area that should answer all your questions, which will be online once the rest of the 777 program is online around two weeks from now.

[TszChun 0]

Hey Anson

No problem, I can do that. I should point out that P3D helps with OOM issues due to the more modern code, but is still limited by being a 32bit application. It's not a silver bullet sadly.

I have a bunch of stuff for the member's area that should answer all your questions, which will be online once the rest of the 777 program is online around two weeks from now.

Thanks a lot Ben!

 

My biggest concern is the VAS Management of P3D. How is your sim? Have you ever experienced memory leak, maybe when recording the videos and flying into complex sceneries for the cadet programme? Since the switching costs me a lot of money so I would like ensure that there won't be unreasonable OOM with REASONABLE settings in P3D which I experienced in FSX unfortunately:( I understand that P3D doesn't get OOM totally eliminated, but do you think P3D has a significant lower risk? I remember that you compared P3D with FSX flying into JFK(?), and you had got OOM in the latter...

[EnQ 7]

I'm not Ben but I feel like I could throw in my 2 cents here as I've had severe issues with OOMs in P3D lately.

 

I've only started with P3D v3.0 one year ago, only had FSX for a month to test if that sim would be acceptable for me (I've flown with X-Plane 10 for a year before that), so I was careful to only buy addons which would be compatible with both FSX and P3D v3 up to that point. If I would have had any FSX-only addons I would have been very reluctant to switch to a 32 bit P3D version which is no longer compatible with many FSX products.

 

While P3D certainly improves the OOM situation compared to FSX (although Dovetail's modified version FSX:SE appears to have been slightly improved over the old boxed versions as well), you're still able to run into issues unless you start to adjust your sim settings according to the aircraft and situation you are flying in. With one year of not missing out on sales and great new releases, I've accumulated enough addons to easily drive my P3D installation into OOMs. The probability of hitting OOMs even increased with release of P3D v3.4 and I'm now back to 3.3 as I could hardly complete any more flights in the PMDG 737 (OOMs always occured 10-15nm out, just around the FAF, when the arrival airport would be completely loaded together with all aircraft on ground). But even back at P3D client v3.3 I still had similar issues with increased memory consumption.

 

I'm currently attempting to work around that issue using Aerosoft's SIMstarter NG. It's no silver bullet either but it allows you to save multiple custom presets for all kinds of simulator settings which you can assign to profiles. I've chosen those settings so that I have at least 1GB VAS free after loading up at an airport. If I want to fly VFR, the aircraft is less complex than a big airliner and I can increase scenery complexity and LOD/range which I need as I'm flying closer to the ground. PMDG's aircraft (and the newly released TFDi 717) are definitely most demanding in terms of VAS; using the 737 as baseline for "benchmarking" VAS usage on my system, I noticed that it consumes about 600MB more VAS than the Dash 8 (the 777 appears to be 100MB less hungry than the 737, so just 500MB more than the Majestic). While P3D will attempt to unload scenery (a little less successfully on the latest versions), it can't get rid of that big chunk of memory the aircraft is occupying, so you are forced to lower your settings, optimize scenery config etc. While you can do that without any additional tool it's not really practical if you switch aircraft frequently and want to get the most out of your sim. SIMstarter NG allows to switch all of those settings by just a single click, once set up.

 

When it comes to making a decision to buy P3D now I would highly recommend to save your money on P3D v4 when it will most-likely be released later this year (at least that's my guess from their previous release schedules; one major revision every 2 years whereas v3.0 released in summer 2015). Some developers, among them Orbx, have dropped clues that P3D may finally be switching to 64 bit which would actually solve OOMs (at some point, you can't optimize memory consumption any further and that point appears to have been reached with v3). However, keep in mind that transitioning from 32 to 64 bits will require updates to all addons using any type of program code (mostly aircraft and tools but even some highly complex scenery such as that from Orbx ship with some DLLs to enhance the sim with custom features). I would be very surprised if those upgrades are given away for free (although I hope I don't have to re-purchase every single addon I ever bought).

 

(Edit: Just another point why it's a bad decision to switch to P3D now: LM will only allow to download the latest release available which now is the OOM-ridden version 3.4. You can no longer get the easier version 3.3, unfortunately. For that issue alone, I would rather wait until they will eventually fix those issues and check if 3.5 eases memory usage again when it comes along but then it will be just a few months until v4 releases, so no need to hurry here...)

 

TL;DR: For the moment, I would rather take a look at SIMstarter NG if you don't have it yet and save the money for when P3D v4 (or maybe even Dovetail FS?) is being released and requires re-purchasing addons again which are available for v3 but will no longer work in v4 (you would have to purchase v3 versions for the migration from FSX to v3, then upgrade again in a year or so to get to v4 which just doubles the cost - so it never was a better moment to stay with the old platform and wait).

 

 

@Ben: I've just finished watching part 2 of the training flight; it's yet another amazing program so far, hats off to Myron and you! Also, many thanks for including that setup video - it was really interesting to see some of the tools I read about but didn't try yet. As I've just got a new graphics card, it was also a great reminder to check Rob Ainscough's website again to compare Nvidia settings. While I'm unable to improve FPS on some airports (seems to be limited by CPU), trying Rob's settings at least finally improved sharpness in the PMDG's cockpit without any performance hit on the new card (switched from 750 Ti to 1070, great card but sadly not used efficiently by current flight simulators; XP10 has similar issues as soon as complex scenery gets involved).

[officercrockey 196]

 

(Edit: Just another point why it's a bad decision to switch to P3D now: LM will only allow to download the latest release available which now is the OOM-ridden version 3.4. You can no longer get the easier version 3.3, unfortunately. For that issue alone, I would rather wait until they will eventually fix those issues and check if 3.5 eases memory usage again when it comes along but then it will be just a few months until v4 releases, so no need to hurry here...)

 

Not quite true, I can download all versions from their website (seems to be something new though)

[twharrell 38]

I'm using v3.4 and am not getting any more OOMs than earlier versions (read zero), just FYI.

[Airline2Sim 489]

I had a couple of OOMs with FlyTampa's EHAM after changing day into night and changing views a lot etc and Aerosoft's Dublin is also an OOM deathtrap, but apart from that it's not something I have big problems with. Even back in the FSX days it wasn't an issue for me. I'll post up the full settings at the end of the Program.  

[twharrell 38]

Ben, what Hawaii scenery did you use?

[Airline2Sim 489]

Ben, what Hawaii scenery did you use?

It was FSDT Hawaiian Airports paired with Megascenery Hawaii. We'll be back there for the 717 soon!

[twharrell 38]

Thanks, Ben.