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pbenoit

You can't always get what you want

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In my 30+ years of simming, I have bought every aircraft addon (with a few exceptions) and "listened" in on the forums about some people's issues with their newly acquired addon. Miraculously or very fortunately I never had an issue with ANY addon. They ALWAYS worked right out of the setup.exe. O my, I now have compassion for all of those disappointed simmers with their issues, which I never had. So here I am, with one of the most detailed, wonderful versions of a simulated aircraft I could ever dream about, after waiting years, only to be in a situation where I cannot complete a flight, not even one measly little hop from LA to Dallas. I have submitted two freeze reports to support, installed the hotfix, tried the suggestions.... Highmem, etc, offered by the fine folks here in the forum, but again today, and YES I am a glutton for punishment, who lives in false hope, on my way from LA to KDFW at 36000 feet, on J74 between Saint John (SJN) and DRYHT when all stopped again. I went to tune the next vor station CMX and OY, could not change the freq. Could not update the course or heading on the MCP ... o well, still flying over the ground, changing to the skeleton aircraft view (yes I have a lowly ( i guess) Win XP 32 bit OS) but actually dead in the water. Today my hopeful flight was with RC4 and a cute little app for my iPad2 ... FX Follow, a cool little moving map. I'm addicted to moving maps to try to keep myself oriented in time and space, I miss FSNAV so much it's painful, my addiction to moving maps is indeed terrible. On my laptop I'm following the flight using a Navigraph NDAC Hi Alt chart to see where I am on J4. Cool Stuff. Ok, maybe there is a hitch with FXfollow or RC4. But how can that be???? Yesterday with ONLY RC4 I got as far as overshooting DFW on approach to RW17C, was lost, and hit ALT, and the FSW map to see where I was. I was SE of the airport, so was going to turn north then West, and then try an localizer intercept coming in from the northeast. O well, How many times have I done this ... lots, well switching back to the main screen I see all white, with the text in the little RC4 window all scrambled. Nothing I could do would bring me to a panel screen, virtual or 2d. AGAIN, DOA so to speak. Why do I keep doing this I say to myself, feeling stupider by the minute, just like spending my $79 on an AOA membership which so far has nothing but developer's comments to offer, not what I bought!!! Paul, you are an IDIOT (notice I restrained myself from using the F adjective). So I guess, I'm done for now. This wonderful piece of software simply will not work for me, with or without addons. Let's face it RC4 is really not an ADDON, but a key part of FSX ... how can you fly without ATC? So what am I to do? I have been "away" from FS for over 2 years, and this wonderful NGX was to be my reentry back into the hobby. But I am so disgusted at this point, and angry with myself, that I just want to scream. I suppose I can go back to the other 737 and my favorite MD-80 (while SAS, Delta and AAL are still flying them) and be satisfied with them, and of course a 747 filght or an MD-11 or ATR-72 flight. I feel very sad writing this, because, having been at one time a programmer, I understand the level of effort put into this software. I can't blame anyone and will not blame anyone. Perhaps the PC world has become SO COMPLEX that it's impossible to "write" software for all possible environments, specs, and configurations. With my WIN/XP 32 bit setup on my Dell XPS630i, I feel like a third world country... not having the resources to even "be in the game" or so it seems. Sad. I am now retired, and don't envision a new machine in my remaining lifetime unless we hit the mega million something. I have looked to upgrading to Win 7 64bit, but it appears really daunting, and beyone me at the moment. So I wish you all at PMDG well, and hope you have success with this wonderful software, and perhaps find the niggling little teeny snippet of bad code somewhere which is causing the freezes and memory difficulties. If it appears that a lowly 4GB 32bit PC is not able to run the NGX, please say so so my expectations can be set. I'd appreciate knowing that. I know you are all working very hard on problem soplving and I wish you bon chance in your efforts. In the spirit of ex-programmer-like cooperation, I would be very happy to test any potential future fixes. ou can find my email addr in your support system. Very respectfully, Paul BenoitKBOS

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There's supposed to be an updated hotfix tomorrow I believe

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Paul, Really sorry to hear you're having issues. Can you tell me what settings you're running (maybe post screenshots of them etc?) You have to realize though that especially on a 32-bit system you are limited in what you can do - by default in 32-bit XP you've got 2GB of memory address space to work with in FSX. It's quite easy to exceed that with high settings, a lot of addons and a complex aircraft - we've been seeing it for years and not just with our own aircraft. We're positive that a certain percentage of these NGX freeze things are this sort of resource exhaustion problem and not crash bugs in the plane. We've reproduced it ourselves by cranking the settings up and pushing the sim over the edge. When the sim runs out of address space the result is a freeze like what you're seeing. We're coming up with some guidelines on trying to deal with this that should be posted shortly.


Ryan Maziarz
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For fastest support, please submit a ticket at http://support.precisionmanuals.com

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Ryan, thanks very much for your response!!! I have been communicating with Pan Lalas who very graciously alked me through many tweaks to graphics settings, fsx config and other settings. What a great, helpful individual. my next window of flight opportunity is Monday, (tomorrow is for my granddaughter, lucky guy that I am). I'll give KLAX to KDFW with RC4 another try and see what happens. Hoping for the best of course. I do understand the memory issues, and with Pan's help, applied tweaks, oo many to remember, to try and limit the "drag" on memory. I have two support items open which have all my config details If you can't see those, I'll take screen caps and post here Thanks again for your concern. I'll post with my results on Monday, Best regards, Paul BenoitKBOS

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2nd hot fix and tweaking assistance from Pan Lalas, this issue is now solved for me. Best to everyone, hope you ALL have success with this great aircraft.Regards,Paul BenoitKBOS

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