Second test complete.....and it was a FAIL. The aircraft that I am flying is the Quality Wings Avro RJ70, and the AI settings were as follows......

 

UT2 Airliners: 20%

UT2 GA: 0%

FSX Airliners: 20%

FSX GA: 5%

 

The ironic part is that, even though the UT2 GA is set to 0%, this still amounts to over 21000 flights if the "Display" checkbox is ticked! This is enough to add quite a few default Learjets and KingAirs at Heathrow and elsewhere, so I will see what happens with the above settings, but with these aircraft disabled.

 

Did you try the Manual DLL Load option mentioned above?

No, because I want to test FSX in "normal" mode first to see where I can make compromises. On a side note, I would still love an explanation as to why FSX does not "flush memory" during a flight. I mean, what is the point in having Heathrow loaded into memory after you have left it behind? I guess there must be a reason, but I remain baffled.

No, because I want to test FSX in "normal" mode first to see where I can make compromises. On a side note, I would still love an explanation as to why FSX does not "flush memory" during a flight. I mean, what is the point in having Heathrow loaded into memory after you have left it behind? I guess there must be a reason, but I remain baffled.

 

Actually it does, the problem is Virtual address Space must be contiguous, so if you use it all up front, like loading unnecessary DLL's, then later on even though there may be enough total address space there may not be a large enough contiguous space for what FSX tries to allocate. So for example say FSX has 250MB address space available but the largest contiguous space is 50MB, Then FSX tries to allocate 60MB, result will equal an OOM error, even though it appears there is enough VAS available. This is why if you get a OOM, it is usually in the later stages of flight (Usually Approach or landing) as it goes to load the destination airport scenery in memory. So we need to give free up as much VAS as possible up front to reduce the chances of this happening. Ryan in the PMDG forum, explained this better, but I can't find the post right now, it was a while a go. For the NGX even that is not enough if I fly into heavily populated areas like NY. Then I have to reduce Autogen to Normal (and some cases Sparse) from my normal setting of Dense. That though is with m Vista 32bit OS. With 64bit OS that probably would be necessary, because of the different way Windows allocate Video memory into the VAS.

That though is with m Vista 32bit OS. With 64bit OS that probably would be necessary, because of the different way Windows allocate Video memory into the VAS.

 

It's not really a difference between 32 and 64 bit Windows, the difference is between DX9 and DX10. DX9 makes a copy of allocated VRAM into the VAS, while DX10 doesn't.

 

The real, big, difference between 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows, is that with 32 bit Windows, you have 4GB shared with *everything*, Windows itself, all background programs, plus FSX AND the Video memory too, if you use DX9, while in 64 bit you at least have up to 4GB per process (if they are compiled with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag, and FSX it is, otherwise you have 2GB per process), but still DX9 will eat some of your system RAM.

 

This means, running Windows 32 bit with a video card with lots of VRAM, under DX9, is asking for troubles.

 

The best possible situation for FSX, from a memory point of view, is 64 bit Windows under DX10.

Third test complete....and it was a PASS.

 

I removed a few static BGL files (added static aircraft parking spots in various locations), and disabled UK2000 Gatwick Xtreme, Stansted Xtreme, and London City Xtreme. The AI settings were as follows.....

 

UT2 Airliners: 40%

UT2 GA: 0% (disabled)

FSX Airliners: 40%

FSX GA: 5%

 

I managed to get parked at a gate after completing the standard test flight (take off on runway 27L, and landing on 27R), but I noticed a missing texture on the top of my RJ70 when I switched to top down view after shutdown, and three AI planes nearby were black (ie. no textures). So I guess that I wasn't far off....

 

In the next test, I will disable the FSX Power Project electricity pylon network (since switching this off has made quite a significant difference in the past when flying around London), and increase the UT2 Airliners to 60%.

Fourth test complete....and it was a PASS.

 

I disabled the FSX Power Project electricity pylon network, and increased the UT2 Airliners to 60%. All other settings were the same as the third test. I completed the test flight without any problems whatsoever. In fact, I saw fewer "blackouts" (those ground textures that go black for a few seconds before being displayed again), and there were no missing textures on any of the planes or scenery after I had shutdown.

 

I will now crank the UT2 Airliners up to 80%, and see what happens. If I can pass that test, then I will have a reasonable solution for flying into and out of Heathrow (at least for short flights).

I set all my optional DLL's (Mostly the aircraft addons) to manual load

 

What do you mean as "manual load"?

I have similar problems and I am interested in this solution.

Is it possible in some way activate selectively the dll withouth edit the dll.xml and restart FSX?

 

 

Edit:

OOpsss, sorry I read the following posts.

Very interesting, I will try it tonight.

Well, I managed to PASS the next test. I increased the UT2 airliners to 80%, and even activated UK2000 London City Xtreme. Maybe removing those static aircraft files has made a significant difference? I wouldn't have thought that they would be loaded into memory when restricting my test flights to a tight radius around London Heathrow, but I wouldn't rule anything out where FSX is concerned....

Christopher, would it be save to say that the current results show that there's a certain limit (perhaps the VAS) which can be reached or avoided in many different ways? The actual impact an addon has on the case is different, but combining too many of them and the oom happens.

I agree with that statememt, but this test was not really designed to discover if any specific products are particularly troublesome where OOM errors are concerned. I just wanted to see what combination of addons would work together on my own PC. The fact that I posted my results here was just so that you all had something to read during a boring day at work :lol: Nevertheless, I did learn something useful. I still reckon that removing those static aircraft files had an effect, although I do not understand why FSX seems to want to load some files into memory when the contents of those files are nowhere near my current location.

The fact that I posted my results here was just so that you all had something to read during a boring day at work

Finally someone who cares! :lol:

 

I do not understand why FSX seems to want to load some files into memory when the contents of those files are nowhere near my current location.

Same here. Maybe a dev can clear that up. I remember looking at the process monitor and disk access like because FSX was scanning scenery from light years away. Now, what I didn't know was/is if those scanning outcomes remain in the memory. And if they do, is that a flaw of the FSX engine or can it be influenced by what the scenery dev has set up?