Hello everyone,

 

So, over the weekend, I finally bought this unbelievable airplane.  Once again, what an excellent job by PMDG!!!

 

This is sort of a "new world" experience for me.  I've been a regional "tubeliner" my entire FS life.  So I've only flown flights within NA or EU but never across oceans/continents before.  So, to have the entire world within reach now is really cool!!  This is both good and bad though.  The bad side is the credit card is really going to take a beating past the purchase of the T7 as now I need(want ) all these excellent 3rd party renditions of all these international airports that I've never been to before.

 

Having said that, those of you that have been flying it now for a while, are you able to take this beautiful plane between any high quality airport pairs or are there airports where you can only have one high quality on either the departure or arrival side and that's it or otherwise you will OOM?  For example, can you fly from FSDT CYVR into Aerosoft's LFPG or FSDT Zurich for instance?  If there are these pairs out there that no matter what our settings are will result in OOMs, what are they?  Hmmm, that has me wondering too, maybe there is a list of VAS usage out there for all add ons?  I'll have to check after this.

 

Anyway, my first flight was FSDT LSZH to KATL(ImagineSim is it?) and I didn't OOM but started to hear the warning from FSUIPC on short final.  Luckily I was able to park and shutdown without incident.  After that, I lowered my LOD down to 4.5(from 5.5) and reduced AI from UT2 to 20%(from 60%) and haven't heard the warning since but haven't done that route again either.  Though, I was able to do KATL-EDDM(Aerosoft) with no problems so hopefully the setting changes really helped.  I have not added any photoreal scenery into the mix yet as I know that can really eat the VAS too.  But, I would really like to be able to use it.  What's your experiences with photoreal and the T7?

 

Those that have yet to have an OOM with this plane, care to share your settings?  I have a 560Ti 1G card but still use the bufferpools=0 which I think means that FSX isn't going to duplicate video memory in it's VAS space, right?  Or will it anyway?  Would going up to a higher card eliminate any issue with this?  The reason why I ask this is on the first flight, when I arrived in KATL, FSX's usage was at 2.9G with the warning sounding from FSUIPC.  I know I may not actually have a full 4G available but shouldn't FSX be closer to that before I hear the warning?  Or, is it because FSX is still allocating or duplicating video memory in it's VAS?  Is that a DX9 thing?  I can't remember.

 

As always, I'm sorry if the answers to these are out there already.  I have done some searching and of course see stuff related and I will continue to look around.  But, I appreciate anyone taking the time to answer(again) here.

 

Thanks!!!!

The PMDG B777 is the most VAS-consuming plane in my hangar.

 

I have defined four different graphics profiles and, when flying the T7, I need to load a "lower-profile" ... profile.

 

Easily done as the T7 is my star during those flights, and not the scenery. If I want the scenery to be the star, I choose a GA plane ... and a different profile.

Easily done as the T7 is my star during those flights, and not the scenery

 

Yeah, I've more or less had this view too when I bought it as I knew it was not going to be something I was going to be able to run with beautiful stuff to look at out the window.  I love photo real so to lose that hurts but I'm ok with it because the plane and the exciting new destinations is definitely the reward here.  But, I would at least like to have better than default airports at both ends.

 

It's such a shame that we have to make these compromises all the time.  How nice it will be to see this plane in a 64-bit platform.

I completely agree. I've been saying that for a long time!

Update:

 

I performed an extreme test of SCE (Scenery Config Editor) with my FSX installation. I grouped all my addon scenery together (making all these addons a single group), except for the one (or two) I wanted to fly between.

 

Then I compared VAS usage with this scenery group activated versus VAS with this group deactivated: 400 MB difference in VAS!!! (I use a lot of photoscenery, admittedly.)

 

So:

 

• Get SCE (it's free!)
• Test for yourselves to find out about your personal VAS benefit
• Divide your addon sceneries into different groups in the way that makes most sense to you (you could build regions, for example, like ORBX have done with FTX Central).
• Configure your scenery.cfg via the SCE before your flight
• Enjoy the T7 at higher graphics settings without the fear of an OOM!

I fly nothing but the 777.

 

I love flying from the best airports out there. But for me

 

MSE2 in desert areas, with KLAS KPHX takes some beating, I have LOD @8.5 no VAS problems at all.

South Cal with KLAX/KSAN to KLAS or KPHX and soon KDEN and Aspen along with MSE2 for that area.

Breath taking.

 

All other parts of the world I use FTX Global with LOD @6.5 Auto gen one notch back no VAS problems.

Update:SCE (Scenery Config Editor)

So:

 

 

• Get SCE (it's free!)
• Test for yourselves to find out about your personal VAS benefit
• Divide your addon sceneries into different groups in the way that makes most sense to you (you could build regions, for example, like ORBX have done with FTX Central).
• Configure your scenery.cfg via the SCE before your flight
• Enjoy the T7 at higher graphics settings without the fear of an OOM!

Thx Olli,

 

I was just about to ask how you switch between your four different graphics profiles :-)

Thx Olli,

 

I was just about to ask how you switch between your four different graphics profiles :-)

 

 

Rob,

 

they are two different "switches":

 

• SCE allows you to activate or deactivate a group of scenery layers by a single mouse click.
• My graphics profiles were defined in the graphics options of the FSX menu, and then saved as *.cfg files. (See the 'load'/'save' commands under FSX/Display/Options.)

 

So my graphics profiles don't require changes in the scenery.cfg. But a "lighter" scenery library allows for a "heavier" profile.

 

I have SCE it's great I have found the group area option great however if I update a scenery or install a new one, I lose all the group areas I created can you advise how to stop that happening please.

Thanks

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Ah ok, so you just Save/Load FSX slider settings as different profiles.

 

Never done that.

Moving the sliders to where I need them is not that much work I find.

I have SCE it's great I have found the group area option great however if I update a scenery or install a new one, I lose all the group areas I created can you advise how to stop that happening please.

Thanks

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

 

Judging from the SCE manual (yes, there is such a thing!), the 'Generate from directory' command in the 'Actions' menu should do the trick. Haven't tested it yet, though.