v2.1 OOM test: three conclusions

[Brian Doney]

There doesn't seem to be a memory leak with the veggies, but they do take up RAM.  They may take up enough to put you over the limit if you're flying a complex aircraft that also uses lots of RAM. 

 

Hook

 

Indeed.

 

I'd go so far as to say that anything above Dense will be unusable for most situations, and with truly complex aircraft, Normal might be the limit.

 

You just simply cannot have your 4096 textures, REX clouds, over the top autogen, and complex aircraft all at the same time.

 

If you actually intend to fly anywhere, that is.

[Guest Novation]

(although I have a completely clean V2.1 install with no addons beyond my own aircraft).

 

Hi Anthony... Do you have any idea why I no longer see either pilot or passenger in your Tiger Moth since updating to v2.1?

 

It really is my favourite aircraft, and though it doesn't affect flying it, it does prevent me taking nice external shots using it.

 

Sorry for possibly being OT... though it may have relevance of some sort.

[Brian Doney]

Hi Anthony... Do you have any idea why I no longer see either pilot or passenger in your Tiger Moth since updating to v2.1?

 

It really is my favourite aircraft, and though it doesn't affect flying it, it does prevent me taking nice external shots using it.

 

Sorry for possibly being OT... though it may have relevance of some sort.

 

Those things are likely (certainly) all XML coded, and are not being parsed. 

[Guest Novation]

 

 

Those things are likely (certainly) all XML coded, and are not being parsed.

 

I did wonder if it related to the above conversation, not that I know anything about such things.

 

Its freeware and I have no expectation, but it would be lovely  :Praying:  if Anthony updated it if these issues do relate to the latest version of P3D.

[Brian Doney]

I did wonder if it related to the above conversation, not that I know anything about such things.

 

Its freeware and I have no expectation, but it would be lovely  :Praying:  if Anthony updated it if these issues do relate to the latest version of P3D.

 

Of all the issues that have been reported, this issue is by far the most important. Unfortunately, LM haven't yet said much if anything as to what, if anything, they might do to address the issue.

 

I don't think they've commented at all on it, which is a shame.

 

If P3Dv2 will succeed long term, we can't have "surprises" like this popping up with every point release. Why would any developer have confidence in the platform if they might have things like this sprung on them with no warning ?

 

Is that a bit dramatic ? Maybe...but I do think it is far more important for the platform than anything else that has been reported so far, including the bug I reported, which is certainly important to me.

[n4gix]

Brian, with all respect to my fellow developers, what this tightening of the XML parser has actually accomplished has been to expose our collective errors in syntax, which previously have gone unnoticed because they were either being ignored or auto-corrected.

 

We have simply been observing the operational results in situ, and as long as what we expected to happen did, we were happy...

 

...but also blindly unaware that our collective boo-boos were being masked by a loosey-goosey XML parsing engine!

[Brian Doney]

Bill,

 

Yep, I totally get that, and have hopefully been careful in my own wording here and elsewhere, as while technically the issue may indeed lie with the addon content, it really isn't appropriate to "blame" developers that were blindsided by the recent changes.

 

That's not to say that LM shouldn't make such efforts, or that cleaner code isn't obviously a good thing. I only mean to say that the Surprise! nature of the change is a bit disconcerting.

 

I hope I'm not speaking out of turn.

[n4gix]

Brian, I don't think you are "speaking out of turn" at all. My main point is, that although "sloppy XML syntax" may not have caused problems in FS9 or FSX, tightening up the syntax parsing was definitely a "dash in the face with a bucket of cold water" so to speak! There's no argument there.

 

As for L-M not warning developers ahead of time, I truly believe that they had no idea whatever themselves that the changes were going to have as widespread an effect that it has... :lol:

[LHookins]

Bill, I agree 100%, but this has the potential to break every aircraft out there.  Many of those cannot be updated because the XML is baked into the model file and we can't get access to the original to fix it.  In some cases the originals may no longer exist.  That flies in the face of backwards compatibility.

 

Hook

[Brian Doney]

As for L-M not warning developers ahead of time, I truly believe that they had no idea whatever themselves that the changes were going to have as widespread an effect that it has... :lol:

 

I'm not so sure that isn't worse !  :lol:

 

In any case, you have my support, as much as that matters. If you ever need someone that is good at breaking things to lend a pair of eyes, please don't hesitate to give me a yell.

 

Hobby ? What hobby ?  :lol:

[anthony31]

Hi ya

 

It looks like I will have to go through all my old aircraft (inluding the Tiger Moth) and make updates for V2.1 (god knows when I will be able to get that done though).

 

Honestly though, I think LM could loosen up the XML parser a wee bit to prevent these problems. It seems to me that with the FSX XML parser if it read a line and found a syntax error it would just discard the rest of the line from the point of the syntax error and then continue onto the next line. It seems that with the V2.1 XML parser if it finds a syntax error it throws the baby out with the bath water so to speak.

 

A small change in the P3D code would save hundreds of developers having to issue updates.

 

Of greatest concern though is the memory leak problem this causes in XML code in the model files. A syntax error in XML code shouldn't bring the whole P3D program down.

 

It's cool though that P3D have the error logging system which allows developers to find these problems and sort them out before releasing any new products.

[n4gix]

Ant, I agree with the last. As a matter of fact I've now moved my entire development testing onto the P3Dv2.1 platform.

 

After all, if I can 'clean sheet' the entire project as "free of errors" that can only help insure that FSX releases are as efficient as possible, eh? :Applause:

[anthony31]

Agree with you bill. I'm using 2.1 to check for eroors and it is great for that. Its already spotted some errors which I never noticed with Fsx.