Contemporary thoughts on the "out of memory" error

[Brian Doney 127]

Paul,"Do you see a performance gain by offloading certain apps to a separate box? Is it worth it?"ABSOLUTELY.I picked up an old Dell 1.7G Pentium box last year to serve as the WideClient machine, and have now offloaded ActiveSky, Radar Contact, all my chart apps, etc, and in addition to the obvious flexibility of such a set up, have seen worthwhile gains in performance and stability as a result.When I run the sim for a serious session, the only apps running on the WideServer machine are FS itself and AISmooth (AISmooth is network capable, but needs to not be in competition with other network intensive apps such as ActiveSky to work reliably, in my experience.)If you have another machine available, I cannot say enough about what WideFS can do for you.

[psolk 3,040]

OK, looks like I have a project then...Thanks Brian. I love that I can still learn something new almost every time I am here.-PaulPrimary RigLiquid CooledIntel C2D E6600 @3.2 gigsAsus P5N32SLI-Plus2 gigs Corsair XMS PC6400 4 4 4 12 @810Dual OC'd XFX 8800GTX @ 2 gigs24 inch Widescreen LCD 16XAA/16XAFDual 19 inch LCD'sRaid-0+1PCPower and Cooling 1k Quad SLIhttp://home.comcast.net/~psolk/3monitorsa.htmlBackup RigAMD 4000 San Diego @ 2.72 Gigs Kingston Corsair XMS CL2XFX 7900 GTX Raid-0

[Guest DJMilo101]

I got that message to, all i did was restart my computer and it was fine.Daniel Johnson

[svenks 4]

Hi all,I remember another way to run out of memory, one that maybe have gotten lost in the steam of time...It has to do with add-on scenery. Basically some add-on scenery installs itself in a way, that will cause you to run out of memory. I can't remember the details, but it was something about directory structure and empty "Texture" or "Scenery" folders. Do a search on these forums, and see if you have that same folder structure.Maybe someone with a better memory can step in here with additional info?BRGDSSven Sorensen, EKCH

[Bob Scott 7,720]

>Bob,>>You've been running this way for awhile now, yes ?>>What has been your experience with I/O, system cache, etc. ?>>The /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag ? Or should I say, the lack>thereof ?>>Bit 31 ?>>Video drivers ? <---often they require more address space than>the 1 GB kernel address space permits.>>Finally, what on earth are you doing to get FS up over 2GB in>the first place ? For whatever reason, the caching behavior changes pretty dramatically with /3GB...looks similar in behavior to the "LargeSystemCache" memory option in WinXP. FS9 is not getting >2GB, since it is not flagged as large address aware...so the real changes seem to be in this unexplicable change in the behavior of the caching subsystem.Your comment on video drivers is true, especially for those with very large video RAM arrays (>512MB) or those running with multiple cards in SLI or similar parallel setups. The entire video buffer is mapped to address space in the 4GB available to Windows...in the case of my 8800GTX, that's 768MB of address space gone. This could be the reason I try a 64-bit OS some day in the future...XP64 and Vista64 both do the hardware address mapping up out of the lower 4GB.I'm never getting close to 2GB with FS9...but with 1.4 Gb allocated to FS9, approaching a complex airport apparently drives FS to, at least momentarily, request allocation of enough memory that the requested (but never allocated) total memory exceeds the 2Gb allowable, and trips an OOM.I still haven't done enough testing with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag in FS9 to be able to say if it works reliably at this point.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

[Bob Scott 7,720]

>Hey Brian,>I'm not actually running Wideserver or running anything on my>other box. I run everything on the FS box directly. Do you>see a performance gain by offloading certain apps to a>separate box? Is it worth it? I just never took the time but>I know FDC, ASV, FSEarth can all be run networked.>Maybe it is something worth looking into :-hmmm Bob, are you>runnig everything on your FS box?I run everything on my primary PC right now...but I do set the CPU affinity of standalone add-ons like AS6 and Radar Contact to CPU #1 and FS9 runs restricted to CPU #0. I found that AS6 running over WideFS induces some microstuttering while the stations are updated...but that was on my last system, and I frankly haven't had cause to try offloading these programs to the LAN given the stunning performance I have with it all running on the new box.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

[Guest kittie]

:( I too have been have the same problem. I think this might help as one possible reason for the error, I know this has been brought up many times before. I just reinstalled the patch for UT USA and I'm gonna see if it works. This time when I did reinstall the patch it took much long than the original time, not sure why but this time it seem to write more files. I'm online flyin UPS400 KSDF-KPDX in the PSS757 at dusk for takeoff and night for landing using ASv6. I hope I can land, I've had a lot of practice at takeoffs lately but it would be nice to land one!!!http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...+of+memory&PN=2ps feel free to say hi, it's a long flight.:-wave

[scott967 62]

I suspect you are right about somewhat difficult to understand behaviour of the memory manager in XP under the influence of some of these switches. Vista will have to be all the moreso.scott s..

[Tabs 2,790]

It's pretty clear to me that this error is a system specific combination of both software and hardware - I've tried absolutely everything that folks like Paul and Randy told me produces the OOM message and I've still never seen it despite having a very similar high end machine with 2GB etc...We went through the 747's code with a fine toothed comb looking for any evidence at all of memory issues and we found none. I even had the plane in a 24-hour holding pattern at 500 feet over various detailed airport sceneries that people were reporting these crashes at and still never saw it myself.I also want to again make note of something I've pointed out on our forum that's a personal pet peeve of mine - the misuse of the term "memory leak":Many simmers seem to have the idea that any high usage of memory or memory related error is automatically the result of a "leak". This is not true, "memory leak" has a very specific definition in programming - it's when an application process allocates memory, uses it, but then essentially fails to free it back up for other processes to use after it's done. If the process continually executes again and again, this leads to a skyrocketing use of memory and eventual saturation of the system's memory. This is NOT what occurs in FS when you see high memory usage in excess of 1GB and it's also not what occurs when this OOM error happens.Here's some further info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

[georgetyrrell 7]

This is a great post, very informative by the original poster, can I just ask one, maybe simplistic question, and I'll give out the usual disclaimer about being computer illiterate, there was a point brought up in this thread regarding FS9 loading scenery from ridiculous distances to where your aircraft is in the world, so can I take that to mean that I can disable certain scenery before I fly? ie I'm flying Edinburgh Scotland to Hannover Germany and I diable my Punta Cana, Canary Island, Boston Logan airports etc just keeping active the airports or add on scenery along and surrounding my route? and does this only apply to add on scenery, ie if I'm flying in Europe only can I disable default USA, Asia etc? Guidance would be appreciated,Regards,George Tyrrell

[Slick9 24]

Ryan would you mind pasting a copy of your FS9 CFG. I deleted my config file and let FS build a new one, so far no more OOM while flying (i did get one after parking KLAX-KJFK and attempting to switch to outside view). I want to start adding some tweaks back to my cfg but first I'd like to look at some of the settings you have. thnx Richard

[BAW9DV 2]

Hi Guys,Interesting thread here....As someone who has flown the PMDG744 since it was released and who has been experiencing OOMs for some 4 to 5 months now, I would just like to chime in here.After loads of advice about what to do with my memory and Virtual memory, RAM and hard disk space, I firstly added another GB of RAM to make 2GB on my Pentium 4 3.4GHz system. Whilst the programmes I use when I fly FS9.1 benefitted from this extra RAM and seemed to run smoother (I fly online mostly with the PMDG744, ActiveSky 6.5, SB3 and BAV ACARs and sometimes ServInfo thrown in for good measure - all on the same PC!), it did not solve the OOMs.Next, I set up virtual memory to "let Windows manage it" and set a 2GB pagefile on my C: drive (230GBs - 128GBs free) and another 2GB pagefile on my second internal F: drive (76GB - 58GB free). This still did not solve the OOMs but it did make for less hard disk activity, it seems. Then, I did a re-install of all the PMDG add-ons I have (the 737NG plus the -800/900 update, the 744 and the 74F freighter). Still no solution to the OOMs although some strange activity in the 747 has gone away and it "seems" to fly smoother.The other day, I removed all my addon scenery from the Scenery Library list (just deleted the installs from the library list - but left the scenery install folders in place to add back later) back from about when this all began to happen.From about 5 months ago I have not been able to complete a flight over about 2 hours - and it always shuts down with the OOM right about turning finals! Even the long hauls of about 7 hours or so (Dubai) went flawlessly right up until final approach...Yesterday, I attended the South African VATSAF Spring FlyIn along with many other pilots and flew the 11 hour 37 minute trip down to Cape Town. I only left the FACT scenery and mesh and my UK2000 sceneries available in the scenery library..... and guess what? No crash or OOM at all! Nothing but a perfect flight! A real joy for me!I have done considerable delving into this issue over the last 3 months or so. The PMDG744 by itself, is not at fault. Issues do result from interaction where badly coded sceneries are installed and the PMDG744 is in use. PMDG are not themselves at fault, since they cannot plan for all conflict possibilities. But there is evidence that complicated aircraft addons for FS9, DO conflict with ppossibly badly coded sceneries. Not necessarily complicated sceneries - I fly into and out of FlyTampa's Vienna and the Mega Airport Frankfurt with no issues - but any sceneries where there are, shall we say, small faults (AFCADs?) will trigger the OOM. Note that when this happens, my ActiveSky and ACARs programmes were left running! Only FS and SB shutdown probably the latter because it runs as a module inside FS.The Modules point is an interesting slant on this and something I had not considered. What about Autosave? This is a DLL file too. Hopefully it is not at fault...Just my two cents,Take care,Lee

[kerosene31 349]

Don't know what I can add to the discussion other than to say that as someone who has used fs2004 since the day it was originally released, I've never had one of these out or memory errors. The only crashes I have had on two different PCs have been due to recently installed sceneries. An uninstall of the offending product always resolves the issue. I don't have the PMDG 747, so can't comment on that. Their 737 was been running fine for quite some time though. I try very hard to avoid all these little modules unless they are necessary for a commercial add-on. We simply can't expect 3rd party vendors to test compatibility with the practically limitless amount of add-ons out there.

[ideoplastic 86]

clipped<

[FalconAF 213]

Hi all,I rarely post here, but this thread caught my attention after I also upgraded my computer and began experiencing the OOM messages in FS9 (something I NEVER experienced with my old P4 2.0Ghz system while running FS9 for almost 4 years).I'm going to offer a few more "possibilities" that you may want to check if you are experiencing the OOM errors in FS9. My background is I'm retired Air Force with a degree in Information Systems Technology, and have extensive experience in IM trouble-shooting, and all versions of Flight Simulator.I upgraded to a Core2Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz, 4Mb memory, nVidia 8800 GTX 768Mb, 2 - 500Gb hard drives in Raid 0. Naturally, with this system, I installed just about every addon you could imagine for FS9 that I had collected over the past few years. UTUSA, UT Canada/Alaska, AS 6.5, GE Pro, Flight Environment, Radar Contact 4.3, and numerous other commercial and freeware scenery addons. FS9 would always run at a rock-solid 60 FPS with all sliders maxed out. But I too began getting the OOM messages about 2 hours into any flight I made.I finally diagnosed the problem. It was the result of ONE AI aircraft file, a freeware download, that was causing the problem. After deleting that ONE AI aircraft, FS9 runs with no OOM crashes whatsoever.My point is this: You need the TOOLS to diagnose what is actually happening on your system both PRIOR TO and DURING your FS9 sessions. In that regard, I'm going to list the tools I use which I consider ESSENTIAL to diagnosing any FS9 OOM problems you may be encountering. Try 'em if you want...don't if you don't want...but they can identify and solve many of your problems.1. Process Monitor - If you are using WinXP and SP2, get rid of Filemon and download Process Monitor from the Microsoft website. It does so much more than Filemon does, and was specifically developed for use with XP after the SP2 release. I won't go into details about it, suffice to say that you can set parameters in it that will do so much more than Filemon allows you to do. 'Nuff said here.2. ScanAFD - Essential freeware program that scans your entire FS9 installation for any duplicate AFCAD files. Worth it's weight in gold. Run it...get rid of any duplicate AFCAD files you have.3. FlightSim Manager - An old(er) freeware program that will identify any problems with any aspect of your FS9 installation...aircraft files, scenery files, you name it. It is no longer supported by the author, and there is a problem with it now that requires a small patch to make it work if your computer system time is "newer" than last year, but it is still a must have diagnostic tool. This is the program I used that identified the one single cause of my OOM problem...the ONE AI aircraft that had a corrupted file in it. Every time I approached this AI aircraft in FS9, Process Monitor (above) showed that FS9 just kept trying to load it time and time again. It would fail, but the memory would not get released from previous attempts. The reason I made this post is simply to offer some alternative options for you to help you try to diagnose any OOM problems you may be having. FS9 can go OOM on you if you have only ONE file that is causing problems. The above 3 utilities can help you find those files, and maybe solve your problem for you.Hope any of the above may help someone here.FalconAF