Hi everybody,

 

Okay so here’s the deal, I’m going to post this question in a number of different forums because I have become so frustrated with the problem that I want to get a broad range of feedback from different sources and different people who may know something about this issue. What is the issue? Well the issue is the memory problems that I have encountered since the installation of the new PMDG 777 aircraft. I have had memory issues in the past with the 737 and GX but for the most part with a little tweaking and memory fix tweaks that I have found on various forums I have been able to manage pretty well. The new 777 is a totally different Cat!

 

I’ve been working on my Sim for a long time to get it ready for the issue of the 777 into the most part my Sim seems to be running very very well. However, once I installed the 777 I began have memory issues all over the place even when I wasn’t flying that particular aircraft. The main issue was liveried textures not installing correctly by this I mean that the aircraft would be missing parts when it was flying for instance the engine might be missing scowling or part of the fuselage might be missing or when I was sitting in the cockpit there might be areas of the firewall missing so that you can see straight out into open space I am by no means a computer expert----I’m just a pilot who likes to also fly flight simulators in his spare time.

 

I have a good computer with a very fast processor and 12 GB of memory--- the only thing I really skimped on when I built this computer (which by the way I built solely for the purpose of flight swimming) was the total amount of memory. I bought $1000 processor and the best video card I can get at the time which still seems to be high-end acceptable if not the very best on the market. I did not add huge huge amounts of memory to to the fact that I was led to believe from what I could glean from the various flights emporiums that I read that the flight simulator program itself is only able to access a limited amount of memory. My computer guru, when asked about this problem said,(although he is by no means a flight simulator aficionado) that he felt that memory was a big deal because of all the scenery that needed to be crunched)--- so I don’t know if 12 GB of memory is way low or average or way high --- the documentation that accompanies the programs that I run certainly don’t request more than this amount of memory. I have many nice third-party add-on programs which I run with my flight Sim program such as mega scenery 2.0 and Orbix scenery, and professional flight planner ask and radar contact and Rex and all the cool PMDG aircraft.

 

So here it is once again----if I’m flying aircraft other than the 777 then I will usually, but not always have some sort of texture issues on the aircraft itself--- I Sagan this is not always the issue lifelong flights from San Francisco to Chicago in the 737 NGX and experienced absolutely no trouble at all. However, when I load up the 777 I will run out of memory before I can program FMC in the control data unit.

 

I will certainly appreciate any thoughts, ideas, possible fixes, absolutely guaranteed fixes--- general thoughts on the amount of memory that a flight Sim pilot should maintain on board his rig--- and of course will warmly receive any commiserations from other flight simulator pilots about the general state of memory issues in relationship to flying the new PMDG Boeing 777.

 

Thanks for reading this long post and I look forward to getting any and all information that the flight Sim community might be able to provide. I’m going to post this on the PMDG forum, on the Avsim FSX general form, I’m going to post it on my flying Tigers virtual airline forum where there are some really savvy long time flight simmers. So if anybody wants to follow this thread to see if there are solutions to the memory issues that I am experiencing these are the places that you might find flight Sim community responses.

 

Cheers

 

Dorn Cranert

 

Hi Dorn

Am too not a computer expert and after having some out of memory problems with the 777 I read the PMDG introduction manual page p21 VAS management- stopping out of memory errors:

 

I then realised that I had saved a "settings profile" for when I flew the NGX into Innsbruck an area where I have a lot of detailed scenery installed. The saved setting has a very low autogen, AI aircraft, cars and no boats settings. As I also have photographic scenery of England and Wales and all of UK 2000's detailed UK Xtreme airports and VFR airfields I moved all the Xtreme airports and the VFR airfields to the top of the scenery library.

 

Now when I fly the 777 from or to a UK airport I disable all the other Xtreme airports(except of course the arrival/departure and alternate airport) and all the VFR airfields in the scenery library and load my saved NGX Innsbruck settings. This takes me no more than half a minute to do. Ever since doing this I have had no out of memory problems. In fact I only have 8Gb of RAM so your 12Gb RAM will be more than enough for FSX.

 

Therefore it may be worth deselecting add on airports in the area of your departure and arrival points. Also reducing your Autogen and AI traffic settings will help. As I said above I had already saved a special setting for the NGX. Having saved configuration settings makes it a lot easier to get the correct settings for the add on plane you are about to fly. I have different settings for when I fly VFR planes compared to airliners.

 

Hope that helps.

Geez, how many of these threads did you create?

This is a quick note to everybody following this thread as well as threads that are posted on other forums. I apologize to everybody if I posted this on too many forums, but the truth of the matter is that by doing this I have been able to gather tremendous amount of information. If I just posted on the 777 forum I would be talking to a limited audience, by posting also into the PMDG general forum, as well as my virtual airline forum, and finally by the Microsoft FS X forum I’ve been able to reach a very diversified type of audience concerning my issues. I have been working on my Sim pretty much nonstop for two months in anticipation of the release of the new Boeing 777. I’m an old guy, a retired pilot, and restaurant owner----I don’t fly anymore in real life with the exception of some students that I mentor and occasional flight for fun where I take an instructor along for a ride as a safety precaution against the physical variances of middle-age. I worked hard to solve this problem by simply reading prior to posting any of this on the forums. When I did begin to post on the forums I asked very simple questions about out of memory problems and got no response. I learned nothing and no one seemed to care much one way or the other. Since I have posted on all of these forums and explain myself in a more thorough manner the forms have lit up with information, perspectives, speculative ideas, and general Goodfellow attempts at helping me solve the problem. I think that other simmers have been able to learn from all the comments that have been posted, I certainly have learned more about VAS and the memory realities of this wonderful older 32-bit program. I apologize to people who think I’ve posted on too many forms but the proof is in the pudding much great information is now forthcoming. I doubt there are very many people who read this group of threads who knew that Windows 8 is not supported for the 777. I wish I never bought Windows 8 but now that I have I’m afraid that if I reinstall Windows 7 I will further screw up my flight simulator. This is a question to be tackled later. I am happy with the responses thus far----and I will continue to pursue my questions about memory, FSX, and The Precision Manuals Design Group Boeing 777.