Is it worth waiting for a patch/update?

[VLJ510 16]

 

 

where I say "my experience",

 

And you also say, provided you are willing to accept that it is a "fair sky plane". I accept the sky is blue and grass is green.  But not that the T7 can't land in adverse conditions.  I do accept some can't by either PC limitations or over zealous settings.

 

You might not have mint that, but I read it as if you were relaying it being a certain fact to expect not being able to fly in bad weather.  And aggressive stands!  Really?  My comment was aggressive?  Thin skin there buddy.  My comment wasn't harsh nor aggressive.  I only pointed out that I didn't get this "fair weather plane' you have and provided examples.  And that you shouldn't be telling people to accept what you told them to accept and I was attesting to it not being just a "fair weather plane". 

[VLJ510 16]

Sure you can. With low radius, low resolution clouds, lowered scenery and autogen sliders... what's the point of that? Some of us spend a few thousand dollars on a system specifically to run fsx, why would I degrade the visuals just because one addon is designed to push everything to the limit? Is it really worth the dozens of animations, the useless virtual cabin, or maybe the reflections of the strobe lights on the ground?

I get what you're saying. I never leave the VC so somethings could've been left out. Totally agree sometime there can be too much in some places to make room for other elsewhere! But not everyone is like me or you, or that dude in the corner. Some I'm sure spend just as much time looking at there T7 from the outside as I do the inside. However I don't sim FSX just for the eye candy or pretend I'm a airline captain (well kinda), I like planning, procedures, and then following through and have found a nice balance for good performance and good eye candy that I'm happy with while doing my flights. Also that balance came with lots of testing and adjusting my tweaks so that FSX and T7 ran smoothly as well OOM free. I love details but sometimes (for me) there can be too much. Overkill. Take ORBX, good looking stuff. But do I really need know know the brand of HVAC unit behind the hanger. To me this was not marketed to me but rather more VFR prop flyers. Just my opinion. Look at a Level-D sim, not like they're landing a LD sim at LAX and you're seeing the traffic on the 110 or 105. I'd love to have a sim that ran smooth as butter and everything was maxed and 100% realistic but its FSX and as time (and age) move forward I became more realistic and understanding. But devs also pushed limits harder too.

 

You say some spent 1000's on a system, as if I haven't myself, or wouldn't want to see more details. I think I forked out close to 1000 each on just my CPU and SSD when they first released. I've learned before throwing cash at a problem doesn't always fix or make it better. I did have to back my clouds down to 2048 from 4096 and my LOD back to 4.5 from 6.5 as well knock my autogen back down one. Where as the NGX can do that no problem without risking OOM errors. But you know what things still look good to me (key word, me) but that may not please you. We all want or expect something different outta the sim or just demand more. Hell some just can't be happy. To each their own, but I'm happy to back somethings down a bit in the give & take that is FSX and don't even really notice it as I'm not "greedy" with my settings. Backing a few things down I promise won't make it feel like FS98 or even FS9.

 

Also for those that spent 1000's and can't run the T7 I feel sorry you can't/refuse to find a good middle ground that likely exist, that you throw money at FSX without reading up, testing & tuning, or sadly just can't be happy with what you've got because no one is likely running FSX (the whole host of other scenery add-ons) and the T7 in a ideal perfect PC/sim fashion.

[3-2-1-Now 126]

Evening all,

 

Since the release of the triple 7, I have been waiting for the right time to buy and fly this baby but wanted to wait until all of the "bugs" etc have been removed. I note that the list of issues that have been fixed is getting longer, and was wondering whether it is worth waiting for PMDG to release a patch to fix all these bugs or are they things you rarely even notice?

 

Thanks for your times Guys.

 

Regards,

Danny. 

 

 

I get great perf, flown a 21 hour long-haul without problems, and apart from an issue with FMC step climb size (freezes the sim) I haven't found any "show-stoppers".

 

PMDG are investigating trim behavior in normal flight, which can be a nuscience when hand-flying, but otherwise, knowing what I know, I'd still buy it within an hour of release.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

[aceridgey 330]

The guys at PMDG are working on something to address the mouse issue anyway :-).

 

Also, putting the navigation screen to 08fps, markedly improves my sim's performance. I think that needs to be addressed as well.

 

 

It's a nice plane, I would personally wait for the expansions as the LR is hard to fall in love with, very powerful with not many real world examples.

 

 

• p.s Anyone else want the engine animations to be addressed to make them look like they're spinning faster than a couple of rpm's?

[coryb13 102]

I would definitely not wait to buy if you're concerned about bugs. There are certainly no show-stoppers or anything close in the current version. The only thing I notice is a couple of the nuances with panel states, which are more like little annoyances than things that impair the operation.

 

Like Kyle already mentioned, if you are getting worse frames with the NGX, it is highly likely that is because of how your own system is configured. I'm not sure why some people think there will be some magic change that fixes the performance; from what I saw in the poll, the majority of people get the same or better frames, and user configuration is a huge factor in that.

[ctstech25 5]

On my modest rig I get the same performance as with the NGX, no changes necessary. I have not had a single OOM. The bugs related to the startup state is easy to fix just by making my own state. No brainer, just buy it, it is awesome.

 

Ditto

 

Norman W. Henderson

[kevinh 409]

Sure you can. With low radius, low resolution clouds, lowered scenery and autogen sliders... what's the point of that? Some of us spend a few thousand dollars on a system specifically to run fsx, why would I degrade the visuals just because one addon is designed to push everything to the limit? Is it really worth the dozens of animations, the useless virtual cabin, or maybe the reflections of the strobe lights on the ground?

You really don't gain much by selecting very high LOD. Just how much distant detail can you perceive at practical monitor resolutions anyway? As for high cloud resolution, for me the only choice is 2D or 3D clouds. I can still use 3D clouds with the 777 which I find more than good enough. I can't see the point of very hi res cloud textures in FSX, to be honest. The default 3D clouds look more than good enough.

 

You can make a big VAS saving by deselecting high resolution VC. With the 777 that's still a hi res VC by normal standards, you are in effect removing some of the very fine detail PMDG included. There are no more animations on this addon than any other, they hit the same FSX limit as they did on the NGX. You can make a very significant VAS saving by disabling the RAAS option, not every 777 has that any way. The virtual cabin is only there because of the open windowed exterior model. Without it the interior would be obviously empty. It's very low res and consumes few resources.

 

So you can still have the detailed external details if you want. The main thing is to disable scenery you aren't going to fly to (it won't make any difference at 35000 ft) and not put sliders beyond the point you can no longer notice the difference. Do you really need 3D clouds drawn beyond 60 miles for example? Setting 110 miles could nearly quadruple the resources required. Beyond the selected distance FSX will render the clouds it generates as a 2D image and at even 60 miles that should be good enough. Do you really need animated road vehicles, ships, ferries and sailing boats? Setting all those to zero has a beneficial effect on VAS.

 

The only FSX settings reductions I make for the 777 VAS issue is deselecting hi res VC and reducing mesh complexity to about 40. Scenery complexity remains at maximum, autogen unchanged (I always use "normal" setting). I have a separate config saved for the 777 so it's easy to switch between that and everything else. I'm running FSX on a 32 bit system, so I'm much more restricted by this than someone with 64 bit windows. My maximum VAS is just over 2GB, not 4, because everything else needs space too.

 

In packing in more modelling depth and visual detail PMDG are pushing the limits that FSX can achieve in the 4GB limit. This is not something PMDG can do anything about except by providing more tuning controls for detail levels, something they have hinted they will do. I happen to think modest FSX settings reductions are a compromise worth making to have such a detailed addon to fly. Especially flying at night or in cloud where the exterior visuals are mostly hidden anyway.  The 777 is certainly not a "clear skies" aircraft for me, quite the opposite.

[Morvious 43]

I am running the 777 between 22 and 30 (locked) frames on the highest setting on airports like EHAM, EDDF, OMDB, KJFK and KORD for example. Never had one single OOM crash (didnt even come close yet according the log). I only had the long freezes before but the last 45 hours of flying I did not experience it anymore.

 

This plane got me back to FS and Ill take any oppertunity to fly it. I enjoy this plane so much in almost every 100 hours so far (fsx crashed twice on flights > 11 hours real time which offcourse wasn't that funny).

 

To say it short, I think you should buy it.

[fro2do 10]

Ive flown the T7 in plenty of overcast weather, thunderstorms, fog, etc and has not been a slideshow here.  In face the NGX performance is not as good as the T7.  In all about 350 hours in the 777.  All at detailed add-on airports like fog at IAD, overcast at MUC, heavy haze at LAX, thunderstorms at HGK, and even a sandstorm at DXB.  Always above 20 FPS.

 

All I know is between all the hardware combinations matched with software settings such as FSX settings, weather settings, tweaks used, texture sizes, etc etc any T7 user mileage will vary.  And therefore IMO unfair to tell someone such as you have told them of being a fair weather aircraft as if no one here has ran it reasonably well to very well in poor weather. 

 

What you're saying is like saying you went out on a difficult hiking trail only putting in 15 miles that day and anyone else hiking it must be willing to accept they won't do better then you.  Their pack maybe lighter (softer used settings) , be in better shape (better PC), etc.  Again mileage will very with T7.

I have almost the exact hardware as yours if you don't mine can you share your fsx.cfg

when you have time.

thanks

[DarrenLiewWY 2]

U sure? FS X crashed at the end of my flight from Doha to Melbourne. How frustrating was that after the 14 hours flying.(On 8 times compression) Or just after take off from Brissie then the whole FS X crashed. What was that microsoft thingo to install again? SOme claims that after installing that the PMDG becomes more stable.

 

Regards,
Darren Liew

The fact is the biggest problem with the 777 are the OOMs due to the VAS size limit in a 32 bit application. Getting around this problem is up to the user to configure their FSX options. PMDG can't do this for you. There is no conflict between the 777 and FSX. The 777 is a more complex sim and needs more memory. The 777 is pushing the limits that FSX can handle. That isn't a bug. You are right about one thing: it's not your hardware configuration.

Other bugs are very minor and don't make the sim unusable. PMDG have been very honestabout all this and never claimed it would be a bug free release.

[Sam 68]

Commenting on performance as only bug i see is the view change lock up of the virtual cockpit which is fixed by changing views. (I use the long cockpit state - so I do not see the master caution thing)

 

The 777 has equal or better performance on my system

 

Yes - total vas is higer (Longer flights anyone?)

 

Have yet to experience an oom on this system

 

Addon list is long(basically any EU aerosoft, flytampa and dd design) but break it down to

OpusFSX with Rex textures 2048

Aes

I run everything locally

 

System:

 

I5 2500k@4.5

Gigabyte z68

2 SSD ( Crucial m4 128 gb for fsx -256 gb for win 7x64)

8 gb of ram

Gtx 560Ti stock

[VLJ510 16]

I have almost the exact hardware as yours if you don't mine can you share your fsx.cfg

when you have time.

thanks

Sure, no problem.  Also I'll  say during my testing I adjusted tweaks to the point FPS dropped.  So I deleted the FSX.cfg and started over.

 

The tweaks I use for my specs in my signature are as follows, I'll try to list them all as well you can scan over the FSX.cfg itself from the link below.

 

First on a clean FSX.cfg I ran Bojote's tuning and tweaking tool  http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

It dose a lot of tweaks once ran.

 

   My 980x has Hyperthreading off so I selected the 6 core option

   I selected my series graphic card 

   DId not apply vSync fix

   And pick normal optimization pref 

   (It also can place the BufferPools tweak listed below)

 

From there I read over a few guilds, the AVISIM one in the Hardware threads I think it is and Word Not Allowed's guild 

 

The big ones are,

 

   TEXRURE_MAX_LOAD=2048

   HIGHMEMFIX=1     (placed by Bojote's tool)

   STABLE_BUFFER_THRESHOLD=2147483647

   TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT= 60    (was 40 - I tried 80)

   UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30      (my system use to only want unlimited frame-rates but seams fine now locked)

   FIBER_FRAME_FRACTON=.15      (did lowest of .10 witch worked on my first few tweaking runs but had to raise it)

   UsePools=0

   PoolSize=85000000

 

I think those are the biggest ones used for stability, but you can have a look though yourself.  I also used the Nvidia Inspector setting in the AVSIM guild but with lower AA settings.  They say x8 or x16, I picked x4.  In the guild they use Trilinear and I use that as well.  Also in Active Sky I use 1024 clouds and don't run any any traffic (air, road, or sea)

 

Still a work in progress but these have gotten me with takeoff and landings at detailed airports with over 20 FPS and generally closer to holding 30.  No shutters whatsoever.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/r68mbnx5ott177w/fsx.CFG

 

EDIT: Add-ons use are PMDG 777-NGX, Active Sky, GEX, UTX, and detailed airports from Flightbeam, FSDT, FlyTampa, Megaairports you see at the Aerosoft shop, and ImagineSIm VHHH/WSSS.

[regisb 18]

Thanks.

[kevinh 409]

U sure? FS X crashed at the end of my flight from Doha to Melbourne. How frustrating was that after the 14 hours flying.(On 8 times compression) Or just after take off from Brissie then the whole FS X crashed. What was that microsoft thingo to install again? SOme claims that after installing that the PMDG becomes more stable.

 

Regards,

Darren Liew

No "microsoft thingo" can get around the mathematical certainty that FSX can only use 4GB of address space. You have to reduce the amount of data FSX loads to avoid the 777 pushing that over the limit. I think you might have seen suggestions about how to stop the freeze problem that the 777 is prone too. Someone posted that adding a version of UIAutomationcore.dll to the FSX root folder can stop the freezes. It won't improve the VAS situation though. That is a result of FSX being a 32 bit application.

[pete_auau 1,163]

version of UIAutomationcore.dll to the FSX root folder can stop the freezes

 

This is used manly for the alt  tab  and excess use of  the menu  use,  don't think its got nothing to do with the cure of freezes of the t7 I could be  wrong though