With the MD11 PMDG has finally released a DUD!

[Guest terminator888]

I have flown the PMDG 747-400 for FS9 for ages (ever since it came out in 2005) and have used it in conjunction with Flight Simulator at least across 3 different physical PC machine with different configurations and I have NEVER had a single problem with PMDG 747 whatsoever, whether we are talking about vanilla PMDG 747 or the later voluntary updates which I did do. Today I have what would be considered a top of the line Desktop Gaming machine. Needlessly to say I have no problems with my Quad Core processor 4GB of ram, and my video card is considered excellent by todays standards and benchmark tests. I do not overclock and my machine can achieve a 3dmark06 score of well over 18,000+ and I have run all kinds of stress tests on my hardware and do not have a problem with any component tested. My machine is using Windows XP SP2 (which I later upgraded to SP3 to play GTAIV) I can run Crysis with everything on high and AA turned on at average of close to 65+ fps, with all the reports of the terrible port from console to PC of the GTAIV that Rockstar released I was still able to get 38+ fps on that game, which is not bad considering what most other people are getting. I play several dozen recently released video games for the PC and have never had any issues with any of the games on this machine. I have not yet made the transition to FSX and as for now I am FS9 only. PMDG is the only addon I use, I don't have extra terrain addons or even things like activecam or activesky or FS2Crew or whatnot. I have yet to encounter a CTD or OOM or graphical defect or anything else for that matter on the PMDG 747. I am very happy and pleased with it. The PMDG MD11 is a nightmare to say the least. I have always ALT-TAB between the tutorial pdf and the flight simulator game when learning the beginning steps of how to fly the PMDG 747 .. I still ALT-TAB between PMDG 747 and online tutorials or documentations and have never had a problem with this whatsoever. Recently and having installed the PMDG MD11 for FS9 I proceeded to do the "MD-11 Tutorial", and somehow about 50% into the tutorial my computer all of a sudden got VERY slow like FS9 somehow was "stuck" and about to crash.. I decided immediately to save my work in case it crashed but I could not see the airplane from any view anymore, all the screen was a mess of textures that I could not make out, and when attempting to save the entire FS9 crashed to desktop and I got this very cryptic error message from FS9 that I have never seen before in all my years of playing this simulator. I thought this was a one time deal and when to the forums to see if anyone else reported this kind of thing. Low and behold many people have the OOM error all of a sudden... Hmmm I say.. Okay... Maybe just bad luck I shall try again... This time I started from scratch and remembered to save every 5 minutes . However after ALT-TAB for about 3 times each time the SOUND would go corrupt I instead of the low engine sounds I would hear this ridiculously loud high screaming pitch sound coming out of my speakers to the point where I had to mute everything... I could save and reload and the sound will return back to normal but after about 3 minutes it would go berserk again. I am deeply disappointed by this. The point I want to make to everyone is this: regardless of what you say or how you defend this product, the fact of the matter is I had no problems whatsoever with anything hardware or software, games or applications, addons and whatnot on my machine until immediately after I installed PMDG MD11 and the nightmares started rolling in.... This is empirical prove that there is something very systematically flawed with the design of this addon and anyone who dismisses this as unjustified criticism or ranting or trolling is just trying to deny the reality and just isn't looking at the truths of these self-evidence facts. If an addon company is going to release an addon for a platform in which they are going to charge good money for, it should be sound business practice and moral imperative to release something that actually works. If you are going to release an addon for FS9 intended on 32bit systems then you had better make sure that everything works out.. Blaming FS9 for old architecture and hard coded limitations is not a good excuse at all. That's like Crytek adversting that Crysis will run great on DOS systems and then blaming the customers for not having a high end machine and a 'real' operating system. You decided to release PMDG MD11 on FS9 and 32bit systems, Microsoft didn't force you into this. Don't use the limitations of the flight simulator platform as an excuse for mediocre. All the aforementioned strange and unacceptable issues aside: I find it rather odd that when comparing to the PMDG747 that the PMDG MD11 for FS9 looks far worse graphics wise (exterior is SO very blurry and not what I had come to expect of a PMDG quality product at all), the 2D panels look like a 5 year old had drawn it in MS paint, and even the virtual cockpit looked like absolute crap when the words not even reading out correctly (I don't have this problem on the PMDG747) and it crashed ever five minutes and you cannot alt-tab or else you will go deaf, it takes much longer to load compared to the PMDG 744, the model and mesh seems to me to be far less faithful and accurately fidelity and polygon wise when compared to the PMDG747, and the MD11 is just low resolution with crappy textures and I don't see what in the world could possibly justify it using up tens or more frames per second than the PMDG747 which was in my opinion a much better product and more detailed and realistic addon in all departments..I don't see how the PMDG MD11 has better external textures than the PMDG747, the PMDG747 has far more detailed polygons and a far more accurate mesh of the actual Boeing 747 than does the PMDG MD11 to its real life counterpart. I can fly the PMDG747 with everything maxed out a very silky smooth frames on the FS9, however on exact same system and version of FS I can barely get about 25 fps for the MD11 whether or not I use virtual cockpit, 2d, or outside views... The 747 is a far more sofisticated and complexed system than the MD11, so please don't use the "ai needs to calculate all those intensive calculatiosn" as an excuse... The Lunar Module had less computing power than my Ti-89 graphics calc and yet it autolanded men on the moon.. The md11 should be much easier to simulate than the md11, and even so a modern quad core and surely handle it, why OUT OF MEMORY? why Crash to desktop? Why the textures look like crap and the model is unfaithful and the 2d panel looks like a kid did it with crayons? I don't understand, it is 3 steps backwards in all deparments (graphics, mesh, realism, panels, etc..) and yet it crashes and is more unstable than an uranium atom that makes it more like 5 or ten steps backwards, so much for next generation. I can't believe this is crap that comes out of PMDG after more than 7 or so years of working on this... I cannot believe. - Jason Zhou

[Andydigital 93]

In all that huge rant, and it is a rant, you don't seem to be asking for help, you never actually mention what this super duper graphics card is in your machine, let me hazard a guess that its made by Nvidia? Also how much memory does the card have?

[Guest terminator888]

In all that huge rant, and it is a rant, you don't seem to be asking for help, you never actually mention what this super duper graphics card is in your machine, let me hazard a guess that its made by Nvidia. Also how much memory does the card have.

Andydigital,I got CTD while doing the tutorial for the PMDG MD11. I was still programming the FMC when this happened, I was parked at the gate and not in flight and not even moving, I was in only the 2D panel as I don't usually use virtual cockpit..Please tell me how and why I am supposed to get an OUT OF MEMORY error in a case like this? This repeately happens as well and I have yet to even get of the ground when doing the procedures from this tutorial... The external textures are FAR worse than PMDG 747, also the 2D panel is supposed to consume a whole bunch of graphical memory I guess?? WHAT YOU SAY? I was parked at the terminal not even moving or in the sky, I even tried later to set the FS9 graphic settings to much lower setting and to no avail... You expect me to believe this isn't a systematical flaw or memory leak in PMDG 11? Sorry if you do I'm not buying it. What heavy computations? what extremely memory and processor intensive graphics and functions? It's not like I was preparing to land in busy airport with traffic at 100% and custom cities textures and using autoland with time acceleration turned on and graphics all maxed out.... I was ON THE GROUND, not moving, in 2D panel, simply programming the FMC, not even loooking at the external plane,,, and it OOM on me.... I can duplicate the error, it is not a one time thing. There is no reasonable "excuse" for this.

[Andydigital 93]

You still haven't answered my questions.

[Guest terminator888]

You still haven't answered my questions.

And you still haven't answered mine. I can play Crysis on all very high settings with average 65+ fps and I have plenty of video RAM so I don't think it has anything to do with it. Stop trying to change the subject... Tell me why, when the 2D and external views of the PMDG MD11 are by any accounts much poorer in texture resolution than the PMDG 747 that I get out of memory error when I am parked at the airport and inside the 2D view only? I mean WHAT exactly is there to RENDER that is so intensive ESPECIALLY considering the PMDG747 2d panels, and external views looked ORDERS OF MAGNUTIDE better and more realistic and with higher resolution textures than the MD11!!!! You must be joking me to be defending PMDG on this one!!!! I could understand if the textures in PMDG MD11 actually were BETTER than the PMDG747, but they are worse (esp the external textures and silly 2d panels) so there is NO excuse for OOM when the PMDG747 never had such an issue! And how in the world would it OOM when I was PARKED AT THE GATE, with engines OFF, in ONLY 2D view, only programming the FMC???????? Exactly..

[Andydigital 93]

Conversation is over then as you clearly don't want my help.

[Leemazz 0]

This is a common problem i suggest reading the posts on OOMs its about memory timings and so on . Great rant though , just chillax and take a minute to read the posts . I know what your thinking " i have 4 gig of memory though " its a problem with multicore proccessors and memory in high end games ...... I think . Lee Marrow painter

[Orlaam 306]

I can Alt-Tab all day between Active Sky and FS9, and I have no problems! LOL

[Fallap 4]

You should use the 3G switch, combined with lowering the landscape texture settings.- Philip

[chiswick72 145]

Hi Jason,Can you try something for me please - goto the FS9 Graphics menu and check your fps slider settings, if you have set your fps to "unlimited" then this may cause some of the issues you are experiencing. I recommend setting the fps locked to 60 fps for a powerful pc and lower if you have an older one.Thanks,

[VIPERGTSR01 22]

I also have a pretty much top of the line PC for them moment (quad core, 64 bit OS, 6gb, multi GPU etc) and I also can play Crysis, far cry 2 blah blah blah etc etc at full settings (irrelevant really) and I run the PMDG MD11 in FSX, in terms of software reliability it has been FLAWLESS.I often alt-tab between software and the internet while flying etc etc, never any problems, it appears this problem is unique to you at the moment and you should be trying to find a fix (which is what I would want after shelling out 80 clams) rather than just ranting about how the MD11 is a dud.Jay V.

[ehasanov1 1]

HiNo problems with fs9 MD11.Tried few flights without any sign of memory leak or CTD.And I must say that performance of this a/c is much better then with PMDG B737/B747.Although, I heard cranckling sound, it looks like sound is breaking. But not all the time.So Terminator888 You have some kind of hardware problems, maybe VGA drivers.I have this config and in 2D panel my FPS are around 40-50FPS and in VC not bellow 25FPS (with Aerosoft Frankfurt for example) and ASV6.5 weather.PC:Intel C2 E6750ATI 2900HD PRO4GB DDR2WinXP Pro 32bitHas

[chiswick72 145]

HiNo problems with fs9 MD11.Tried few flights without any sign of memory leak or CTD.And I must say that performance of this a/c is much better then with PMDG B737/B747.Although, I heard cranckling sound, it looks like sound is breaking. But not all the time.So Terminator888 You have some kind of hardware problems, maybe VGA drivers.I have this config and in 2D panel my FPS are around 40-50FPS and in VC not bellow 25FPS (with Aerosoft Frankfurt for example) and ASV6.5 weather.PC:Intel C2 E6750ATI 2900HD PRO4GB DDR2WinXP Pro 32bitHas

Hi Has - if you continue to experience the "breaking sound" can you also lock the fps as I suggested in the post above.Thanks,

[ehasanov1 1]

HiThanks Armen for great support and GREAT AIRCRAFT.I will try your adviceHas

Hi Has - if you continue to experience the "breaking sound" can you also lock the fps as I suggested in the post above.Thanks,

[Tabs 2,790]

Jason,1. There are known issues alt-tabbing out of FS with Nvidia video cards. It's been listed in their driver User Manual for years as an issue that they won't fix. I had the same issue with my old 8800GT before I got a Radeon 4870 - there's absolutely nothing we can do about this and we're not causing it - it's ACES & Nvidia's issue.2. As others have said, OOM errors are something that are going to happen in a 32bit OS if people want us to continue making higher and higher fidelity simulations. We can't fully explain why they only occur on certain systems. (several of us on the dev team, myself for example, have never seen one) What we do know is that trying the /3GB and userVA switches in boot.ini has solved them for some people, and for others, moving to Vista x64 with 4GB of RAM certainly does. There are also very positive reports coming in from people using the Windows 7 x64 beta, and we're pretty confident once that arrives at retail and people upgrade, it'll end this problem. Yes, the MD-11 can use a lot of RAM at times, but I assure you there is no "memory leak" or anything like that - that term has a very specific meaning in programming and we're positive we don't have one. High use does not = leak.3. Comparing Crysis to FS is a big no no - the engines are not even remotely similar. FS relies almost completely on the main CPU and memory subsystems for doing its calculations and graphics, Crysis relies almost entirely on the GPU. We seriously wish FS worked like Crysis does (and it may in FS11, our fingers are crossed), but comparing the two has absolutely no meaning currently. Your video card has almost no bearing on FS's performance, and in fact if you have a card or multiple cards with a lot of memory on them, that eats into your userVA and can cause OOMs faster than if you had a single card with less memory on it. (I've had no problems with a single 512MB card) I'm sorry you're upset, but clearly we would have a LOT more posts like yours if there was really a systemic problem with the aircraft. You're one of the very few who's complained since release - we have thousands of people using the plane without issue now. I would take a very hard look at your machine and see what you can optimize as far as memory use within windows - ensure you have the minimal systray/background apps running, no malware infections, and that you're not trying to run too many addons all at the same time in FS. (scenery stuff can really suck down RAM at start bringing you close to that userVA limit that causes the OOM once you exceed it)