Once you have a skeleton - no way to recover?

[FlyingAxx 2]

A couple of days ago I experienced (again when landing at EHAM) a very close to OOM situation. However, I managed to roll to a gate even if I got outside some graphic anomalies. After reaching the stand I made the big mistake to switch to external view and saw the NGX standing there as a skeleton. As the sim still reacted to inputs, I decided to turn down some of the settings by starting with switching off Ultimate Traffic 2, when toggling through different views, nothing changed even after saving and reloading the situation. The setting of shadows did not make any difference, too. My question now, what could have prevented the NGX (or FSX) from recovering even after some sliders had been set more to the left? It's just for curiosity, is there any trick to recover from such a situation without changing the aircraft? Disclaimer: This occurred indeed a while ago and after applying the latest hot fix it did not happen again.

[MrKen 3]

have you added HighMemFix=1 in the graphics section of fsx.cfg?

[FlyingAxx 2]

have you added HighMemFix=1 in the graphics section of fsx.cfg?

Yes, I just checked again. It's still there.

[PilotoVirtual 0]

FS9 used to do this on me years ago, are your Video Drivers up to date?

[MrKen 3]

It's worth asking, is it spelled HighMemFix or HiMemFix? If the latter, it won't do anything.

[FlyingAxx 2]

FS9 used to do this on me years ago, are your Video Drivers up to date?

I wouldn't swear but they are definitely not really outdated, I'm sure. As FSX is not anymore in the focus of any driver developer I have doubts that any new version could have severe influence (at least when reading the release notes). However, I could be wrong (while preparing an upgrade... ).

It's worth asking, is it spelled HighMemFix or HiMemFix? If the latter, it won't do anything.

Yepp, I know. I followed this forum discussion up. Thanks nonetheless.

[F.Schmid 0]

My question now, what could have prevented the NGX (or FSX) from recovering even after some sliders had been set more to the left? It's just for curiosity, is there any trick to recover from such a situation without changing the aircraft?

Axel. Until recently I was running a low end computer: Core2Duo with XP SP3 and 2GB. Obviously not enough to run NGX together with other programs, which always caused the 'skeleton' effect even running with the sliders at minimum. Changing views, changing from windowed to full screen or any other measure to force a screen refresh did not recovered from 'the skeleton'. So I decided to upgrade the processor to a Quad 9550 and do a fresh install with Win7 64 plus 8GB. Now if I'm flying with 2D cockpit and jump to an outside view I see 'the skeleton' for no more than 1 second. If I'm flying with VC I do not see 'the skeleton' if I go to ouside view. Most of my sliders are at max but I do not use aircraft shadows on itself. I also use water at low 2x. Your specs are better than mine so something is not well balanced. I suggest you to do a defrag on your HD, let FSX rebuild your fsx.cfg and start testing with no sceneries add-ons(UT2) until you find the culprit. Regards Schmid

[FlyingAxx 2]

Axel. Until recently I was running a low end computer: Core2Duo with XP SP3 and 2GB. Obviously not enough to run NGX together with other programs, which always caused the 'skeleton' effect even running with the sliders at minimum. Changing views, changing from windowed to full screen or any other measure to force a screen refresh did not recovered from 'the skeleton'. So I decided to upgrade the processor to a Quad 9550 and do a fresh install with Win7 64 plus 8GB. Now if I'm flying with 2D cockpit and jump to an outside view I see 'the skeleton' for no more than 1 second. If I'm flying with VC I do not see 'the skeleton' if I go to ouside view. Most of my sliders are at max but I do not use aircraft shadows on itself. I also use water at low 2x. Your specs are better than mine so something is not well balanced. I suggest you to do a defrag on your HD, let FSX rebuild your fsx.cfg and start testing with no sceneries add-ons(UT2) until you find the culprit. Regards Schmid

Well, as I wrote before I was quite close to an Out Of Memory crash which I experienced sometimes in the past. I'm just wondering, why the system did not recover after setting the sliders not as tough as before and switching off UT2. I did not even see a severe decrease of used memory even if it was a bit lower than 2.4 GB. By the way, the system is not fragmented and UT2 does not cause any problems (I just wanted to decrease the memory use).

[Tabs 2,790]

I don't think the skeleton is ever just a case of FSX not having enough space or anything - it's an actual corruption of that part of memory, which would explain why it's not recoverable after it happens. If you're getting this a lot the lower resolution texture options in SP1 should help...

[MrKen 3]

I don't think the skeleton is ever just a case of FSX not having enough space or anything - it's an actual corruption of that part of memory, which would explain why it's not recoverable after it happens. If you're getting this a lot the lower resolution texture options in SP1 should help...

Isn't there a way to reset the scenery without ending the flight? Like a forced texture reload of sorts?

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Ok guys my 2 cents I have a very capable rig, now I have never seen the skelton problem until I lost my Overclock, then it showed up, so to the point Overclock your cpu about 1 gig and this problem will disappear for the most part, I have an h70 water cooler on my cpu, they are not that expensive and worth every penny will probablly get the newest version the h100 in the future next rig, anyway thats what I have discovered re-initiated my overclock all is good, Overclocks can go back to normal once in a while for no reason, good luck.

[ZKOKQ 984]

Isn't there a way to reset the scenery without ending the flight? Like a forced texture reload of sorts?

There is Ken. Nick at simforums posted a "How to" regarding changing from GEX USA to GEX Europe before the release of GEX AME, as europe and usa did not sync. Just Pause the sim, go to scenery libary and press ok, let it rebuild, unpause, and away you go.Have done that on occasion when I have needed to reset UTX.

[MrKen 3]

There is Ken. Nick at simforums posted a "How to" regarding changing from GEX USA to GEX Europe before the release of GEX AME, as europe and usa did not sync. Just Pause the sim, go to scenery libary and press ok, let it rebuild, unpause, and away you go.Have done that on occasion when I have needed to reset UTX.

That's it! I couldn't remember how it was done. The reason I asked is I'm wondering if that would help with the skeleton planes. Clearing the memory in which the textures reside & reloading them...

[ZKOKQ 984]

You would think it would, otherwise syncing GEX EU & US would not work. Suppose it depends if FSX is that generous, and what mood it's in.

[MrKen 3]

Whether it reloads all graphics (3d at least) or strictly scenery would answer that. I haven't noticed a skeleton ngx so I can't test it.