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

You probably have this in your FSX.cfg..Just in case you don't

 

HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

This goes into your [Graphics] section

 

  steve

 

My only longtime tip i can give you is to open task manager and  shutdown anything that you don't need.ie Java updaters ,true image files and so on..i usually start with 56-58 processes and when using FSX only have about 45 running in the background

"I have had memory issues in the past with the 737"
Not good.

"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."
I would have guessed ...

" liveried textures not installing correctly by this I mean that the aircraft would be missing parts"
Which livery?

"I bought $1000 processor "
Which one?

"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---"
You had these problems before the T7 .. correct?


You built the pc yourself?
What is you OS?
Motherboard?
GPU?

FPS in VC T7?
 

Hi Vonmar---I can not answer  most of these questions because I am not verycomputer savy---I am running win 8 64 bit--I have an intel I7 processor--my computer was built by my computer store owner/friend---this is an OOM problem I think but can not find the .bootini file in win 8 so I can modify the vas

 

Cheers

 

Dorn

I'm by no means an expert on this but fsx is a 32 bit program therefore will never be able to use more than 4gb of memory, there are several threads on this subject at the moment

From what I've read getting close to that 4gb will give you the problems you are getting, the solutions are also around the forum but basically you have to get the memory count down by disabling scenery areas ai aircraft scenery density etc and things like hd clouds in addon weather programs, its really what works for you and where you fly for me personally I don't fly much in the far east so I've got that disabled my cloud reduced from 4096 to 2048 and reduced the ai down a bit I can get from KPAE to EGPH using orbx pnw and orbx Scotland and uk2000 scenery and my fsx memory count gets to about 3.1gb so have a bit of spare

just look around the pmdg 777 forum they have loads on this

The "fix" you're referring to with the boot.ini file is only valid on older 32 bit OS's.  It does not apply to Win 7 or 8/64.

 

32 bit large address aware apps like FSX, when used in Win 64 systems have a maximum virtual address space (VAS) of 4 GB.  There is nothing you can do to change this.  Nothing.  Assuming your system is an FSX only machine, the physical memory you have is already more than sufficient.

 

Lots (and lots and lots) on the forums about VAS, OOMs and the T7.  I'd mine those a bit before getting too deep or making too many assumptions.

 

Scott

Is PMDG T7 ok with his Win8 OS?

RTFM.... say it over to yourself 10x... PMDG spent years getting it out to us, least you can do is read the equivalent of their release notes, the INTRO manual, ya that's the one. Why poll for second hand opinions when you can get it from the horses mouth??

If you are having memory issues with running the 777, then your settings in your fsx.cfg/display driver settings are set too high.  You could also have a bad tweak in your fsx.cfg.  Tweaks will bring down any high-powered system if not properly employed.  You need to rename your fsx.cfg to fsx.orig, restart FSX and let the config rebuild.  Now, with some very, very minor changes in the FSX settings (don't even touch the sliders!)(make sure the monitor resolution is correct and AA and AF are turned on; leave everything else at default).  Now run the 777 and see if your crashes continue.

 

You are not showing us any of your system specs (look at MyPC specs in the sidebar).  You do not tell us whether you are using Windows 8 64 bit or 32 bit.  If you are getting crashes, then you need to download and run AppCrashView - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/app_crash_view.html and paste the results of the latest crash here (everything in the bottom pane of the crash report).

 

Best regards,

Jim

Hi JFV

 

Where might one find the introduction manual---I have thousands of dollars’ worth of Hard bound PMDG Manuals around and read them all the time--I see no mention of any memory issues in the release notes or any other written material that arrived with my download---are they in some PMDG folder installed during the PMDG 77 Installation into the FSX?

 

Disable any scenery you're not using for each flight, especially photoscenery. If you have tx global, all your orbx airports are enabled in the scenery library. Disable those if you're not flying too them. Also if you enable say Orbx NA region in FTX central, all your other regions are still enabled. So disable those too. Scenery config editor is a nice program to manage the scenery library. You say you can't even program the cdu before an oom? Makes me think you have everything you've ever installed active in the scenery library. No single scenery, plane, or settings will use 4gb vas. Ooms usually happen towards the end of the flight as more scenery is loaded.

Hi JFV

 

 

Where might one find the introduction manual---I have thousands of dollars’ worth of Hard bound PMDG Manuals around and read them all the time--I see no mention of any memory issues in the release notes or any other written material that arrived with my download---are they in some PMDG folder installed during the PMDG 77 Installation into the FSX?

 

 Look in your FSX\PMDG\PMDG 777X\Flight Manuals folder and then have a good read of PMDG-777-Introduction. It explains a fair amount of what you're asking about.

I read the introduction---the team decided not to provide information for win 8 users

Well, theres a reason for that, Win 8 is not supported;

 

Minimum
OS: Windows 7 64-bit (older OSes such as Windows XP, 32-bit OSes, and Windows 8 may work, but we cannot guarantee compatibility or support)

 

Recommended

OS: Windows 7 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5/i7 Sandy Bridge/IvyBridge/Haswell series
RAM: 8GB+

 

I'm not sure how, but the T7 probably will take advantage of 8gb+ RAM somehow, but FSX VAS itself is limited to 4. I also have had some OOM issues with the T7, but only when going transatlantic routes. However, turning the texture slider down a notch, reducing the cloudtextures to 512x512(which actually causes the clouds to look better and way more realistic), limiting the texture max_load to 1024, disabling ALL scenery I'm not going to/from(with a sceneryconfig program for ease), lowering the UT2 AI to 40%, I managed a trip from KJFK to EGLL just barely pulling in to the gate(my VAS was 4.006.000 so I had about 90mb left and the dreaded FSUIPC-beep was going strong). Still, with minor tweaks, i went from OOM 100nm prior to EGLL to a succesfull landing and deboarding.

 

The fact that you already have some issues with OOM with 737NGX tells me that there is something wrong with your setup, and sometimes, eventhough its a big hassle, a reinstallation is the best way to go. I've done it 4 times in 2013 already and spend about 12-15 hours each time configuring it back to where I want it. So, instead of looking for gremlins in your system, I'd recommend a complete reinstall of FSX(and OS if you're up for it) and if possible, stick to Win 7x64. Its still the best OS for FSX.

Okay everybody here’s the latest.

 

I’m posting this on all the forms were asked my question so that everybody can see it.

 

After reading everything that everyone posted it appeared that scenery may have been the issue. I am presently flying United Airlines flight 664 a Boeing 777 from San Francisco California to Chicago O’Hare. I plan this flight using professional flight planner X and with the mega scenery 2.0 states of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois in the Chicago area. I have been able to take off using the control data unit in the FMC and utilizing radar contact for my ATC. I have stopped the program for moment to write this note but it present I have been able to climb to my eastbound flight altitude of 33,000 feet and then passing over the center part of the Sierras about 50 miles or so south of Lake Tahoe. I have disabled all my other mega 2.0 scenery as well as scenery in Europe and Asia we will see if this aircraft gets to Chicago without incident I will check back with more information later.