You could try and remove the limiter and see what happens. The 900 series was not nvidias finest, in fact the rock solid 8800GTX leaves it for dead. It is possiable the 9600 could be a bottle neck for you, and if somehow you could grab a 8800gtx form somewhere and give that a try. There are plenty for sale second hand, it would be worth sourcing one if you can. I had a 8800GTX for 6 years, retired it 4 months ago 4 a 580, it never let me down.

I did the Tutorial again and it worked perfectly. Does this mean that it isn't a virtual memory problem? With respect to virtual address space, I remain to be convinced that this is a graphics card issue. Microsoft did use to take up some of the 4Gb address space by copying the graphics card address, however this was eliminated in Windows Vista SP1 and later as far as I can figure out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 quote: If an application creates its own in-memory copy of its video resources, or the application uses DirectX 9 or an earlier version, the virtual address space contains the WDDM video memory manager's virtualized range and the application's copy. Applications that use graphics APIs that are earlier than DirectX 10 and that target GPUs that have large amounts of video memory can easily exhaust their virtual address space.To address this problem, Microsoft is changing the way that the video memory manager maintains the content of video memory resources. This change is being made so that a permanent virtual address range does not have to be used for each virtualized allocation. With the new approach, only allocations that are created as "lockable" consume space in the virtual address space of the application. Allocations that are not created as "lockable" do not consume space. This approach significantly reduces the virtual address space that is used. Therefore, the application can run on large video memory configurations without reaching the limits.

So where does a 3G card sit with all this????? Andrew Dixon

I don't know if Win7 behaves as Vista after SP1 in this point.I couldn't imagine MS went back a step in Win7. Let PMDG find someone of the old geezers from Aces and let him patch FSX to an 64 bit application, no more worries about OOM's under 64 bit OS.

Big reply to a bunch of things:

I'm thinking the one thing people are not taking into account is Windows Updates. I always turn off Windows Updates due to my previous computer issue where I updated through Windows Update and my computer began to crash in FSX. I only have my computer updated through W7 64 bit SP 1 and have never updated since. Maybe you should try to go back through system restore if its turned on and restore before the later updates that Microsoft put out.

Extremely bad idea actually - most of the things that come through Windows Update are security patches that prevent your OS from being exploited by malware. I've run a fully up to date system forever - no problems.

Fred. I do agree that the results could be interesting, but what is scaring the heck out of me is, the thought that the only way to fly this ac is to do exactly this and exactly that. I don't want to be walking on egg shells every time i fly this ac, wondering if i am going to freeze/ctd on touch down or wherever because i entered somthing wrong into the FMC or i used a flight plan by FsBuild that NGX didn't like when i entered it as my co route. I say this because 95% of my flying to date has been using a saved flight, set up 'Exactly' as per the tutorial to get everything down pat before flying just anywhere, just anyway, and i've had no issues other than brake loss and other little things that have already been addressed.

You're misunderstanding what I said earlier - I want people to try like that so that we can try to figure out if it's possible that doing things in a non-standard way could be behind some of these freezes. That will result in the freezes getting fixed if we can narrow stuff down and after that you'll be able to fly however you want. I'm just bringing up the point that those of us on the dev team and the beta testers may not have flown it the way some people in the community are and certain issues may not have been apparent because of that. We can't have a 2000 person beta team guys, this is nowhere near a big enough industry for that.

Ryan, Yes, I can confirm that I did this flight three times and in two of those cases I got the OOM error - no freeze. The first time it happened being on short final, the second time while taxiing after arrival and the third time all worked fine. I used the same start situation and the same a/c. My panel freeze happened between EDDT and EHAM after starting to decent. Here again, I used the same procedures as before. PMDG got the saved situation files that had been automatically stored in the background by FSUIPC. You got a ticket describing as good as possible what was going on. Again, I wrote it somewhere above, I did not experience any problem since I reduced slightly my AI settings by turning back to about 20% ground and water traffic, airport services and as well GA even if the memory use rose up to 2.8GB from time to time. Regards,Axel

Axel, An actual OOM message is definitely not the airplane - that's FSX itself running out of virtual address space. Take that 2.8GB of use and then add the video memory and any other system device overhead stuff to it and that's your true total - with a 1GB graphics card you've got a 200MB razor's edge there at 3.8GB. If it tries to go even 1 byte over that 200MB you're going to get the OOM error.

Leif I moved to XP for about four months ago, after losing patience with CTD. I installed FSX and only enough to run it. No antivirus, no Word, clean. And I can tell you that I never had a single CTD since then. Now, with the NGX, I have no problems with OOM or CTD. Just freezes. I will start to decrease the UT2 and other parameters to see how it looks. I just hope not to let the FSX FS98-faced at the end.

The problem here is that the freeze could be an unannounced OOM - that can happen. If you're running a 32-bit OS it's almost a guarantee that it's going to happen if you're running a ton of addons. You're only going to see a max of 3.75GB or so of memory *for the entire system*. FSX with addons can very easily get above 2GB of working set usage. Add the video memory plus all of the OS stuff (the lack of which is why 64-bit is better for FSX) and again you're probably teetering on the edge.

just dont get it ? Has nouthing to do with the computer specs!

Absolutely not true at all, it's the first thing we ask people for when they write in.

I feel theres some small memory leak somewhere, as the flight tend to get more laboured and laggy with time, and landing seems slightly juddery. Then often a freeze or ctd.

There is no memory leak. A memory leak is a highly specific thing where a program just constantly uses up more and more RAM until it crashes the entire computer. I've run the NGX for nearly 24 hours straight before and have flown a bunch of flights without shutting the sim down for the entire day several times. We've observed no actual memory leaks in doing this. Slow performance or crashing is not synonymous with a memory leak.

Low end card... hm...I sure will not scrap my brand new water cooled eVGA GTX580 just for the sake of running NGX with all my scenery as a slide show @5FPS. I would rather see the issue properly addressed from the developers. Thank you very much.

A 580 is probably right about at the limit as far as this address space stuff goes. I know plenty of people running the NGX fine on 580s and I myself am running it just fine on a 570. There's not going to be anything we can "address" if people run video cards so large that it takes up half or more of FSX.exe's available 4GB of address space. The NGX itself uses somewhere around 400-600MB of memory depending on what the panel is doing. You can test this yourself - load up the default MS 738 first, look at your memory working set in task manager, then load the NGX and subtract the default's values from it. When FSX is using up 2.8GB, we're actually a pretty small part of that - huge detailed scenery areas, weather, AI traffic etc - those are the really massive memory tasks in FSX.

I think the Dev Team is correct. It can't be coding if the majority of the people that bought the plane are experiencing no freezes while a small percentage are. Lets say 5 percent just for the hell of it. ....I have a suspicion that the video card is getting overwhelmed and hence the freezes. Will find out soon enough cause I am planning on a Video Card upgrade very soon.

It's nowhere near 5% actually, we think it's maybe 1% if even that. The vast majority of people who've bought the NGX since release have never written in to us for anything and they're not posting on the forum. I seriously doubt it's the GPU itself being "overwhelmed" - FSX hardly utilizes the GPU at all, it's a CPU based engine. You can monitor the actual GPU usage with an app like EVGA Precision or GPU-Z. My 570 basically never shows over 50 or 60% utilization unless I crank up AA and stuff to absurd levels.

I'm no expert but i believe having a 64bit system makes no difference at all under these circumstances. As far as i have read, FSX is a 32bit APP and you are stuck with the 4GIG limit no matter what O/S you are running. Correct me if i'm wrong.Regards,

That's half-true. FSX.exe will always have a 4GB address space limit regardless of the OS it's on - this is correct. The thing with 64-bit OSes is that the *OS ITSELF* does not have that limit. In a 32-bit OS the OS itself has a hard 4GB limit, so you basically have to squeeze every single thing the system is doing into 4GB or something's gonna crash. That's not the case with 64-bit where the OS can operate outside of FSX.exe's 4GB limit. This is why 64-bit Win7 is our recommendation - it maximizes the amount of address space FSX has to work with, the OS doesn't interfere provided you have a lot of physical RAM for it to work with.

I just started flying this bird about a week ago. I was having a problem with the freezes. I saw another post on here which suggested that you pause FSX before using the FSX menu bar, or switching between windows. I have now made several complete flights with no freezes or crashes.

So where does a 3G card sit with all this????? Andrew Dixon

Does anyone use a 3G card, and if so what are your findings? Thanks

I don't understand why people are getting OOM's with the NGX. Compared to the MD-11 the NGX just takes up 250-300MB more of VAS and RAM here. MD-11 (2.11GB VAS - 1.72GB RAM)NGX (2.38GB VAS - 1.98GB RAM) That's after a 1'30'' flight. Obviously in a 32b OS those 2+GB of VAS usage would be a problem since the space limit for the application is just 2GB by default, but it doesn't look so "memory hungry" to me

When you say UT2 are you refering to Ultimate Traffic?

Yes, indeed - Ultimate traffic 2 Regards,Axel

I did the Tutorial again and it worked perfectly. Does this mean that it isn't a virtual memory problem? With respect to virtual address space, I remain to be convinced that this is a graphics card issue. Microsoft did use to take up some of the 4Gb address space by copying the graphics card address, however this was eliminated in Windows Vista SP1 and later as far as I can figure out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 quote: If an application creates its own in-memory copy of its video resources, or the application uses DirectX 9 or an earlier version, the virtual address space contains the WDDM video memory manager's virtualized range and the application's copy. Applications that use graphics APIs that are earlier than DirectX 10 and that target GPUs that have large amounts of video memory can easily exhaust their virtual address space. To address this problem, Microsoft is changing the way that the video memory manager maintains the content of video memory resources. This change is being made so that a permanent virtual address range does not have to be used for each virtualized allocation. With the new approach, only allocations that are created as "lockable" consume space in the virtual address space of the application. Allocations that are not created as "lockable" do not consume space. This approach significantly reduces the virtual address space that is used. Therefore, the application can run on large video memory configurations without reaching the limits.

Yes, that was also my understanding. If Win7 really has to create a virtual map of all a GPU's RAM, then I would expect far more people would be having problems. However, the virtual map still apparently has to include all the "lockable" allocations. I imagine this is mainly a software function and it would perhaps be worthwhile for someone knowledgeable to explore whether more is "allocated" with some setups / installed add-ons than others. Tim

I agree since FSX is a 32 bit program it is not going to use more than 4 gig of memory that is a fact. The benefit of using a 64-bit OS and having extra ram are obvious if you read below. I am going to using Vista as an example. I know Windows 7 requirements are way less but I use Vista so I going to use that as my example. Microsoft recommends a computer with 1 gig of system memory for Vista Basic and 2 gigs for Home Premium to run optimially. Since I have home premium Vista won't have the 2 gig it needs to run optimally if FSX is using 3.0 gig of my system memory. If I had 32-bit Vista and a GTX 580 with 1.5 gig of Video Ram on board this would be a nightmare situation cause the OS would have to map the 1.5 gig leaving me with 2.5 gig left over. That means FSX and Windows and anything else I had running at the time would have to share the remaining 2.5 gig of available system memory. Since we know Vista likes to use at least 1 gig of Ram in most cases when a bunch of programs are running that leaves FSX and addons with 1.5 gig of memory to share. So you can see in certain situations with those Huge amounts of memory on the video cards these days 32-bit is not ideal especially if your using Vista. These cards are only going to get larger and add more memory in the years to come so 32-bit OS, Programs etc are going to reach extinction soon enough. Now of course I am using 64-bit so I do not have to worry about windows having to map the GTX 580 and lose 1.5 gig of my system memory. I also have 8 gig of memory so that means theoretically that Vista Can have 2 gigs of System memory anytime it wants to, FSX if it needs to can use up to 4 gig, and there is still 2 gig left in reserve for any other programs I want to run while I am flying, such as FS Commander 9, Vatspy, Photoshop and my Internet Browser. See my point here? So when you say all you need is 32-bit and 4 gigs of ram, I don't people are taking into consideration the other programs that need memory as well. FSX is not the only thing running on your computer. I never run out of memory, I never have any OOMs and I think a finally tuned Vista 64-bit configuration is more stable than Windows 7 so I will stick with what works for me. Shrug.A short version of this would be better to have enough resources than not enough.

Oh darn! I`ve had several flights now, and no panel freeze.. But now it happended to me too. This is a strange problem. I have no add-ons installed but three AC`s and some airports. So until now its been working just fine.Was just loading the AC for a flight out of SXM, and suddenly everything is frozen on the screens. Observation: On this flight I experimented with the two buttons on the glareshield above my EHSI and EADI (those two buttons that will shift your ND over to the EICAS or so and so). Never touched that until now, andthe result was a panel freeze. My specs are: Win7 64xGTX560 1GB Tii5 2500K8GB memory

I have win7 64bit, 16 Gigs ram and GTX570 no no freezes or crashes only time i crashed was when I was playing around with tweaks

Yes, indeed - Ultimate traffic 2 Regards,Axel

Hi Axel. The reason i asked the question was, from your sceen shot you are using FSX traffic sliders. Why?

I agree since FSX is a 32 bit program it is not going to use more than 4 gig of memory that is a fact. The benefit of using a 64-bit OS and having extra ram are obvious if you read below. I am going to using Vista as an example. I know Windows 7 requirements are way less but I use Vista so I going to use that as my example. Microsoft recommends a computer with 1 gig of system memory for Vista Basic and 2 gigs for Home Premium to run optimially. Since I have home premium Vista won't have the 2 gig it needs to run optimally if FSX is using 3.0 gig of my system memory. If I had 32-bit Vista and a GTX 580 with 1.5 gig of Video Ram on board this would be a nightmare situation cause the OS would have to map the 1.5 gig leaving me with 2.5 gig left over. That means FSX and Windows and anything else I had running at the time would have to share the remaining 2.5 gig of available system memory. Since we know Vista likes to use at least 1 gig of Ram in most cases when a bunch of programs are running that leaves FSX and addons with 1.5 gig of memory to share. So you can see in certain situations with those Huge amounts of memory on the video cards these days 32-bit is not ideal especially if your using Vista. These cards are only going to get larger and add more memory in the years to come so 32-bit OS, Programs etc are going to reach extinction soon enough. Now of course I am using 64-bit so I do not have to worry about windows having to map the GTX 580 and lose 1.5 gig of my system memory. I also have 8 gig of memory so that means theoretically that Vista Can have 2 gigs of System memory anytime it wants to, FSX if it needs to can use up to 4 gig, and there is still 2 gig left in reserve for any other programs I want to run while I am flying, such as FS Commander 9, Vatspy, Photoshop and my Internet Browser. See my point here? So when you say all you need is 32-bit and 4 gigs of ram, I don't people are taking into consideration the other programs that need memory as well. FSX is not the only thing running on your computer. I never run out of memory, I never have any OOMs and I think a finally tuned Vista 64-bit configuration is more stable than Windows 7 so I will stick with what works for me. Shrug. A short version of this would be better to have enough resources than not enough.

Paul;I found interesting your point of view. I've had, for a long time, FSX installed on W7 (64 bits). After so many CTD, I decided to partition the hard drive and install XP (32 bit) only for FSX. Everything went perfectly, until now.But with the arrival of NGX, things changed. I have frequent freezes in the beginning, middle and end of the flight. MD11, 747, everything, works perfect. I only found problems when trying to fly the NGX. I agree with your explanation, as well as Tabs, who said: The problem here is that the freeze could be an unannounced OOM - that can happen. If you're running a 32-bit OS it's almost a guarantee that it's going to happen if you're running a ton of addons. You're only going to see a max of 3.75GB or so of memory *for the entire system*. FSX with addons can very easily get above 2GB of working set usage. Add the video memory plus all of the OS stuff (the lack of which is why 64-bit is better for FSX) and again you're probably teetering on the edge.But now I'm stuck. If I go back to W7, I know I'll bother with the CTD. If still in XP, maybe I'm tying the whole system due to lack of resources. I have only two addons in FSX: UT2 (20% of traffic) and RC4, which neither I've been using during my tests with the NGX.I've thought of migrating to Vista 64, which would be midway between the W7 and XP. I do not know, I feel lost.I wonder if you, who uses the Vista 64, has had freezing problems or similar problems with the NGX.I hope we have a light at the end of the tunnel ...