PSS 757 impossible to complete flight: 5 tries same results everytime

[Guest Ruahrc]

Hello againA while back I posted a cautiously upbeat message saying that I had just bought the 757 v1.2 and was initially impressed. The tutorial flight went off w/o a hitch and I was excited to try some of my more regular routes with the plane.Well after 5 tries I still can't complete a single leg. Here's the details:I am trying to fly KSEA-KDFW using the AA RR-engine 757. I plan the flight, load the weather in ASv6, boot up FS just like I do with every other airplane.I can start up, taxi out, take off, and cruise no problem.Approach usually goes fine too until the end, where FS9 has crashed on me EVERY TIME I try to finish the flight.On try #1, I was admiring the 757 from the outside and then switched back to the 2D panel to complete the approach- but never made it inside as FS9 crashed with a g2d.dll error.Try #2 was the opposite. I was switching from 2D to spot view (again on approach here) but never made it outside as FS stalled with the "out of memory" error.Try #3 I made it further down the approach and even lined up on the localizer but again when I went to take a peek outside I couldn't because FS crashed AGAIN.At this point I figured enough was enough. I had been sitting on the fence about upgrading my RAM for a long time, and this was what put me over. I upgraded my system from 1GB to 2GB of RAM, hopeful that the extra memory would improve things.While it did make things smoother, Try #4 to make it into Dallas was met with another stall, again relating to changing views on the aircraft. I had flown most of the approach just fine but when I went to look outside I noticed that the textures on the plane were no longer loading. I thought it seemed funny but the sim was still responding. Unfortunately a few minutes later the sim stalled, giving no error as the screen just froze.Try #5 did not result in any better of an outcome, although I did gain a little more knowledge. Again the flight goes off w/o a hitch until approach, when I go to land and again (notice the trend here) when I go from internal to external view I notice that the textuers aren't loading anymore. Being familiar with this phenomenon I resolve to stay in the cockpit until the end of the flight and hope I make it. But no, as every other time before, the sim simply stalls and freezes. I am able to task switch out and get a glimpse of my taskbar where I see a new window in the bar, and although I cannot see the window itself (due to the hung FS Main display) it has the FS9 icon and is titled "error". This is different than Try #1's crash in g2d.dll, and different from the "OOM" error which does not have a taskbar entry.(I will post a SS of it in a minute)So ##### is going on here? Certainly it is not lack of memory, or too many addons- 2GB of RAM plus another 2 of pagefile should be plenty. Faulty RAM or hardware you say? I don't. I can play other games for longer periods of time than this flight took with no errors. 3 hours of a DOS-based memory stress program and another 12 in a windows based one also leads me to believe that my new memory does not have any flaws in it. I have made many other flights across the same terrain (yes I do have UT installed) with other aircraft and have never had any problems. Only this PSS plane triggers it.I have also tried doing this same SEA-DFW flight using both the VC and non-VC versions of the plane, and neither makes a difference.You may say that the scenery is to blame, but I disagree. I have never had problems flying over Ultimate Terrain USA in the past, even on long legs like this. The fact that this always happens during approach may indicate that the Dallas scenery is to blame, but since the sim crashes at different places every time (sometimes when I was 5 miles out, other times 50) I don't think it's related to that either. And, given the fact that the plane operates perfectly up until the time when I am on approach and ALWAYS triggered by changing views from the inside to outside or vice versa, leads me to believe that the culprit is in the plane somewhere. The data I collected is just TOO consistent to reliably point the finger elsewhere. I should note that all throughout the cruise portion of the flight I am switching views to see the scenery, etc. And it always works fine then- but not when I am out on approach. I think some kind of memory leak is going on here, and coincidentally it is crashing the sim just shy of my destination.Yes I have installed the latest version and yes I even rebuilt the cfg after PSS's embarrasing POSKY snafu.Any ideas or help here? I have the .pln file and even the ASv6 weather files I have been using every time I try the flight. My opinion of this plane has definitely changed from my last post and sadly it has not changed for the better. I just want to fly the darn thing and make it to the destination!!!Brief list of system specs:AMD X2 4800+2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 RAMATi X1900GT 256MB PCI-EI run FS9 with everything maxed, 1024x768x32 4xAA 8xAFTypical addons (again all used for months/years of flights and no problems)ASv6FSGenesis mesh/landclassUltimate Terrain USA+CanadaFlyTampa stuffCloud9 stuffUltimate Traffic AI (uses AIA+FSP+EVAI models though)And a number of planes from your competitors whose names I will not mention here.Norman

[Guest Ruahrc]

Here's the screenshot I took of the error. What you can see of the task manager also shows that I have plenty of free memory available...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/169397.jpgNorman

[Guest Phoenix5]

Norman,The plane has not changed, so the question is what has changed on your system. Not being able to read the error message does not help, but you have yet to name a PSS gauge or dll file as causing the error.Can you disable the UT scenery and try again... Is it related to the FS ATC (does this occur when they give an instruction)?

[Guest Ruahrc]

Well nothing has changed on my sytem. I was never able to complete the flight at any time, before or after I rebuilt the cfgs. So far I have only been able to complete 1 sucessful flight, and that was the short tutorial flight in Austrailia.The crashing is not related to FS ATC as there is no correlation between receiving instructions or responding to instructions and the crashing. Furthermore I FS9 has never crashed citing an error in atc.dll, the module responsible for ATC functionality.What DOES happen every time FS crashes, however, is switching views on the aircraft.I ran a test today and came up with some interesting results...I ran this test at Melbourne Airport YMML where I have NO addons. All default except for a few AI aircraft flying around.Loading up the 757 I was able to crash the sim after about an hour and a half by just switching views from internal to external and back, all while simply sitting on the tarmac at YMML. I watched the memory usage very closely using the task manager and noticed that when I went into spot view, fs9's memory usage would increase by about 20-40MB. If I switched back to internal view the memory usage would not decrease immediately, but after 10 seconds it would drop a little bit (10-20MB). If I then went back to external view, the memory usage would again rise by an additional 20-40MB. So after multiple view cycles you see that the total memory usage creeps up with time. I started with fs9.exe's usage at about 550MB and the program finally crashed after fs9.exe had accrued about 1.5GB of memory. Right at the end, I experienced the previously-reported glitch whereas not all the textures would load on the 757 when switching to spot view, indicating an imminent failure of the sim.Remember, no UT in this area, and not even any other addons that could be either sucking memory or conflicting.I tried doing the same thing with some other complex airliner aircraft I have, even loading their most memory-intensive VC and/or VCabin versions and while in some cases I did notice some memory creep, it was nowhere near the degree that I saw it with the PSS plane.I tried my problem flight again KSEA-KDFW (still leaving UT enabled) and it crashed again on descent. For those of you counting, that is SIX times in a row that the sim has crashed in the same general area, with the same plane, under the same conditions. And again let me reiterate that every single time, the crash has been catalyzed by switching views from interior to exterior.The error this time was in fe.dll (which is not Flight Environment as I do not have that addon but rather a .dll that is related to the loading of textures onto aircraft and models). It is consistent with the crashing of FS9 when I try to switch views. I was monitoring the memory usage of fs9.exe throughout the flight and also periodically switching views to see how it would respond. The only times when I saw increases in memory usage were when I was switching views. Otherwise, if I left it alone to cruise for 30mins, the memory usage would not change. But it would start rising again once I started switching views again.The next step is that I will try to fly this SEA-DFW flight using one of these other planes, keeping everything else the same, and see if it fails then. Also try flying the flight using the PSS plane but never changing views the whole time. Since it is a 3+hr flight, this will take a while to do.You will probably fault my fe.dll file as being corrupt, so please try my experiment out for yourself and tell me what you see. I'd like to see if other users could try it too, and report if it happens to them as well.Lastly, as an aside, I notice that the 757 external model features randomly moving window-shades that go down and up, simulating the presence of passengers in the cabin. Could you please tell me what triggers them, or under what conditions they start to move? I observed them moving in cruise but did not see them operating on the ground.Perhaps as a suggestion, review the coding for this animation and see if there is any problem or emory leak there. Or, simply cut it out altogether and free up those resources? You have left wingviews out of your products (a popular and oft asked-for feature) in the name of performance and reaslism, surely these sliding passenger window covers are a bit superfluous too (equally if not moreso than "useful" features like wingviews)?Norman

[Guest Phoenix5]

"...Perhaps as a suggestion, review the coding for this animation and see if there is any problem or emory leak there. Or, simply cut it out altogether and free up those resources? You have left wingviews out of your products (a popular and oft asked-for feature) in the name of performance and reaslism, surely these sliding passenger window covers are a bit superfluous too (equally if not moreso than "useful" features like wingviews)?"The window shade feature was added after feedback citing that the windows and the cabin "appeared" empty. I suppose it is a case of not being able to please all the people all the time, as for wing views... I can not ever see it changing sorry."You will probably fault my fe.dll file as being corrupt, so please try my experiment out for yourself and tell me what you see. I'd like to see if other users could try it too, and report if it happens to them as well."I am not trying to fault any part of you or your system, I just stated that you had not given the name of a PSS file that had failed, and the error message in the screenshot was not readable. I will try your flight, and I will ask one of the test team to try it as well.

[Guest Ruahrc]

You're right it is not possible to please 100% of the people, 100% of the time. Just check and make sure that the code is not leaky or anything, to make sure it is not part of the problem :)My comments about the fe.dll refer to the fact that it is not necessary to have an error in a particular (in this case PSS) file for the (in this case PSS) plane to be at fault. With the case of fe.dll, an error in the PSS model or texture file might cause problems when fe.dll loads the textures. This in turn could crash FS9 citing an error in fe.dll, but when in reality it was a corrupt texture file that could have been the source, and not a faulty fe.dll.Please let me know what you see when running the test I described. I would be interested to know the results. I think the PSS 757 has great potential and will enjoy it very much if I could only finish a flight with it :)Norman

[FOD 23]

Norman,Just run your route in real time with the 757 PW 200 Pax