I don't know about X-Plane, but when it comes to OpenGL or a platform other than Windows, avoid AMD like the plague.

Isn't that kind of what happened in the switch to 64 bit?

Absolutely not! The whole rendering engine was compatible to X-Plane 9 and even sometimes X-Plane 8. Even most of the planes had no problems if they didn't need plug-ins. With such a fundamental change the whole rendering system would change. You could probably save the planes, but every scenery that was made beforehand would be unuseable..

Absolutely not! The whole rendering engine was compatible to X-Plane 9 and even sometimes X-Plane 8. Even most of the planes had no problems if they didn't need plug-ins. With such a fundamental change the whole rendering system would change. You could probably save the planes, but every scenery that was made beforehand would be unuseable..

I don't know..... I've tried an awful lot of freeware planes and things that no longer work, and many plugins as well.....

 

In fact, there are things that stopped working as late as the last update.

 

We could debate scale, but not that it doesn't happen.

 

(And now we are wandering really far afield)

I don't know..... I've tried an awful lot of freeware planes and things that no longer work, and many plugins as well.....

 

The plug-ins, certainly. Everything that used a plug-in needed an update.

Most freeware planes without a plug-in were salvageable if they were loaded into planemaker and saved again. And there were some changes in setting interpretations but those were mainly small changes. A new rendering engine would mean much deeper fundamental changes. They made some changes for X-Plane 10 and you know how X-Plane 10 looked when it was released. But you would no longer have the possibility to load many airports from X-Plane.org since everything inside would no longer work.

No OpenSceneryX and so on.

The plug-ins, certainly. Everything that used a plug-in needed an update.

Most freeware planes without a plug-in were salvageable if they were loaded into planemaker and saved again. And there were some changes in setting interpretations but those were mainly small changes. A new rendering engine would mean much deeper fundamental changes. They made some changes for X-Plane 10 and you know how X-Plane 10 looked when it was released. But you would no longer have the possibility to load many airports from X-Plane.org since everything inside would no longer work.

No OpenSceneryX and so on.

I'm not so sure its that black and white that changes that used memory better would break things that drastically, or that something as extreme as an entire new rendering engine would be required to do it. If that was the case, it would kind of imply that the current engine is at maximum efficiency, and that nothing more could be wrung from it without losing compatibility.

 

I would be surprised if that was the case, and honestly, shortly after that, I would expect to hear the announcement of X-Plane 11

Isn't that kind of what happened in the switch to 64 bit? From what I have read, LR has not exactly been shy historically about changing things that subsequently break other things for 3rd parties.....

 

Oh well.

 

 

Its just..... When I see things like this, I get very curious about how the sim is using memory, and where on earth its all going, and under what circumstances. I've been experimenting a lot, changing settings and etc, trying small alterations again and again (mostly playing with AA) to see what happens..... and something about how XPX handles textures/memory seems..... unusual. For instance, why does it require extreme, memory gobbling texture settings just to get an un-blurred runway????

 

It just makes me go Hmmmmmmmmm.....  :unsure: 

 

Because you have a low  AF setting - AF works to correct a flat texture viewed at low angles (Runway being a perfect example). No real reason not to run at 16x

Because you have a low AF setting - AF works to correct a flat texture viewed at low angles (Runway being a perfect example). No real reason not to run at 16x

Those aren't my settings. That picture was posted by a user in another thread discussing X-planes use of memory, and I posted it as an example of low settings that nonetheless were consuming large hunks of VRAM apparently simply from the choice of extreme texture resolution.

 

It's not a bashing question, I just want to know what all that ram is actually doing, and if it could do the same things without requiring all that memory, which seems a bit excessive for what I am actually seeing on screen, especially since I have seen other programs throw around even more polygons and effects with nothing near the same overhead.

It's not a bashing question, I just want to know what all that ram is actually doing, and if it could too the same things without requiring all that memory.

Not really. Part of the memory are simply object libraries, so that the card can place this object in a wanted location.Since reloading would take a lot of time it will pretty much hold many objects in VRAM.

It can't simply drop an object out of the memory when it becomes invisible since it could become visible in the next second. Internally it might render in a much higher resolution which also consumes memory.

And the basic problem: It has to handle lots and lots of simple objects not a few objects with very complex textures and forms, that could be described and handled with complex algorithms. 

Simple objects can't be optimized effectively and if there are many objects the loops become big and it is impossible to eliminate objects early from consideration.

Not really. Part of the memory are simply object libraries, so that the card can place this object in a wanted location.Since reloading would take a lot of time it will pretty much hold many objects in VRAM.

It can't simply drop an object out of the memory when it becomes invisible since it could become visible in the next second. Internally it might render in a much higher resolution which also consumes memory.

And the basic problem: It has to handle lots and lots of simple objects not a few objects with very complex textures and forms, that could be described and handled with complex algorithms. 

Simple objects can't be optimized effectively and if there are many objects the loops become big and it is impossible to eliminate objects early from consideration.

 

It seems logical put that way, and I have a better mental image now of how it might work, but it brings up the question that if that's how X-plane is operating, Why does increasing the number of objects and roads carry so little overhead, memory-wise (at least on my card) while changing texture resolution carry's an enormous memory hit?

 

In fact it seems to be the biggest hit you can give the sim besides default clouds or silly-high levels of AA

It seems logical put that way, and I have a better mental image now of how it might work, but it brings up the question that if that's how X-plane is operating, Why does increasing the number of objects and roads carry so little overhead, memory-wise (at least on my card) while changing texture resolution carry's an enormous memory hit?

The GPU doesn't have to copy the objects multiple times. It simply references parts of the library objects and this area is copied into the internal image object that will be later reduced to the real image resolution.

So if you have 1000 objects of the same type it doesn't work with 1000 copies, instead you have 1000 tiny descriptions.

But if you increase the resolution the library becomes considerably bigger.

I wrote a long reply but then what you were saying snapped into place. The trick is keeping the amount of ram being swapped back and forth out of main memory about equal to the amount of available Vram..... (I think) 

 

Which still imply's the sim does not in any way "need" the 4gb cards everyone wants if you actually balance your settings to work with what you have. The best/easiest way is probably to turn down texture resolution?

 

Hmmmmmm....... But with a 4gb card the amount that can be swapped is larger............... Which could lead to Xplane swallowing nearly 8gbs of ram in extreme situations? (thinking out loud) That might also help explain whats eating the memory of Slayers Titan.....

 

I still hear X-plane 11 in the distance. Or X-plane getting more efficient at figuring out exactly what it needs in memory on the fly and dumping the rest smartly.  :unsure:

I wrote a long reply but then what you were saying snapped into place. The trick is keeping the amount of ram being swapped back and forth out of main memory about equal to the amount of available Vram..... (I think) 

 

Which still imply's the sim does not in any way "need" the 4gb cards everyone wants

Not quite. The problem is much more complex. The bus already has some swapping to do. The mesh, photo scenereies, landmarks and so on. And compared to the internal speed of the graphic cards the bus is very slow. If an object is not inside the VRAM when even a tiny bit of it is needed you have a problem. And lets face it is the number of different objects that impresses us. OSM buildings, autogen buildings, plants, traffic lights, cars, trains, ships, planes. Many airports increase the number of objects that are visible at the same time, together with good meshes and sceneries, the instruments of the plane.and and and. The more different objects you have, the more memory you need. And we are currently seeing regularly situations where 2 GB VRAM are no longer sufficient, in fact even 4 GB are sometimes in extreme resolutions not enough. There is nothing we can do against it. People always demand more types of buildings, not less.

If you don't need this amount of memory today, you will need it tomorrow.

Otherwise you will feel the loss. You have to use more and more restrictive settings to get a fluid result.

I know when Pilot Balu changed to the Europe OSM+Autogen maps and suddenly I had to restrict the settings extremly to keep it running with 1 GB VRAM, but then we got a new beta and suddenly I found even areas in Canada where the settings were too high...

No argument there.

 

I just wonder about the huge ram hunger XPX and now P3D are showing when other programs throwing around numbers of polygons and effects that make these two seem like toys are not requiring these enormous ram budgets. Something seems askew, and the old saw about Sims requiring more power because of intricate Flight models is getting weaker and weaker, if it has any relevance at all nowadays.

 

If XPX and P3D! truly requires those sort of ram budgets then something seems wrong. Somebody else said it better.

 

http://8f5fd8f1af.49.mycloudproxy.com/showthread.php?t=1648445&page=2

 

 

I don't totally agree with this (especially the comment about lazy programming) But I really am skeptical about the amount of ram these programs are swallowing.

 

X-Plane has always been very VRAM/RAM hungry compared to ESP/FSX, the main reason being this lack of dynamic LOD, and no internal downscaling (mip-mapping) of textures. This works fine for first person shooters where the "world" is maybe 1x1km, but it becomes a big problem when you have to deal with 100 miles of visibility and lots of custom scenery. 

 

FSX does not have this problem, since it has a very powerful system for dynamic LOD. The problem with FSX (other than "blurries" when the sim engine can't switch out the low resolution textures for high-res ones quickly enough) is instead that old scenery data is never removed from RAM, causing the sim to exhaust the available address space on long-haul flights where you cover a lot of ground. RAM usage just keeps going up for every mile you fly.

I kind of wandered off; I've been playing with the sim and trying even more things, which can be frustrating because of the time between restarts.

 

I asked in another thread if XP had mip-mapping, simply because as I played with it, it behaved as if it didn't, which I assumed had to be wrong, but kind of explains the texture settings choices and a lot of other things.

 

Yikes.

 

 

And we are currently seeing regularly situations where 2 GB VRAM are no longer sufficient, in fact even 4 GB are sometimes in extreme resolutions not enough.

 

I saw yesterday that my vram usage was 2GB compared to 700MB for ex. in Flightgear with the new experimental textures. But even that doesn't seem to influence my FPS, as it stays always around my monitor settings. Hence I guess visual is only much less and the other memory stuff loads in the background. So it shouldn't make matter at all if you have 2GB (see my profile) or 4GB in your graphics card. I consider this simply a container where you fill in on top and xp takes it on the bottom.

But anyway it would be interesting to hear Ben or another expert on this topic.