default fsx is actually pretty good in a lot of places, the vector data and mesh is very useable in many areas of North America, Europe and Japan.  go elsewhere though, it just doesn't measure up.  also the Desert Earth phenomenon had me looking for addons from the moment it was installed.  but if you fly in the good places and are happy with what you've got,  you are ahead of the guys with $2000 of scenery addons who are miserable with various small insignificant details not being absolutely perfect, like we hear on these boards ad nauseum.

 

to other points,  it seems to me that many simmers expect to "set up" their simulator and leave it alone, and expect to be happy and problem free no matter what or where they are flying.  they are just looking for a single point where they can just leave it alone and be happy.  This is a source of unhappiness, because FSX with popular addons cannot be all things to all people.  I've heard many people try to make permanant sacrifices because of a misunderstanding of how to prevent common issues from occurring in different types of flight.  I use complex airplanes,NGX, ORBX, FTX GLobal and Vector, UTX, GEX, FS2CREW, RC and tons of detailed airports quite happily with very few issues because I completely change the setup of my sim for every flight.

 

If I'm going for an NGX flight, the LOD drops to 4.5,  I disable every scenery region that I am not flying over, and only enable the detailed airports for departure arrival and possibly alternate.

 

If I'm going low and slow, the orbx regions get re-enabled (but only the one I'm flying over) the FS Global ultimate mesh gets turned back on (In place of lower res FSG for tubeliners) and I crank the LOD back up to 6.5

 

I can't say I never get into memory trouble, but I keep an eye on process explorer,  and only very rarely have an issue.  I have various groups set up with scenery config editor that allow me to setup all changes in less than three minutes, and because only 20% at most of my scenery library is active at any time,  my sim loads much faster than when I was trying to have everything active all the time.  so the time factor is basically a wash.

 

yeah it doesn't enable me to be quite as spontaneous, and I spent several days setting up my config editor and system to do it,  but it is well worth it for me.  I used to rage about "spending more time tweaking than flying"  but if you accept that this is part of the hobby and something that we need to learn and do it makes my flying time much more enjoyable.  Think of this as preflight activity (I have a checklist as well )  

Holy cow, I just wrote a checklist after setting up Sceneryconfig editor. Does it really make that much of a difference?

Wrong again. I have a 4 year old computer, use a ton of add-ons, and have NEVER had an OOM, even flying 12-14 hour flights.

 

Jim, you're wrong to state that Jaime is wrong here: Jaime's proof immediately followed his statement:

 

(...), but then again even the best computer in the world will have OOM issues with FSX because of the way it was designed. It won't matter if your machine has 192GB of RAM, FSX will never use more than 4GB because of being a 32bit application. That's not the case with X-Plane 10, which will use "all" of your hardware to the limit.

 

 

(Just replace "RAM" by "VAS".)

What is his proof that "even the best computer in the world will have OOM issues with FSX because of the way it was designed"?

 

My proof is in my useage.

 

Such blanket statements such as this one need to stop because they just aren't true.

 

Are there some instances? Yep

Jim, you're wrong to state that Jaime is wrong here: Jaime's proof immediately followed his statement:

 

 

 

(Just replace "RAM" by "VAS".)

130 hours on the PMDG 777, all the major addon airports and scenery packs.  I fly mainly 8 to 12 hour routes, not a single OOM or issue.

 

It is down to how you configure and use the sim. If someone jumps in & out of the flightdeck all the time to enjoy the view, has AI maxed at a high level, applications running in the background etc.. how can they not expect the sim to crash?

 

Probably one of the simplest way's to keep FSX or FS9 stable is to use a cheap laptop networked. Offload everything to that laptop and keep your FS machine clean.

 

I have even flown Frankfurt to Hong kong, left the sim running for 24 hours and then flown the 777 back to Frankfurt.  All with heavy weather and addon scenery.

 

Probably one of the simplest way's to keep FSX or FS9 stable is to use a cheap laptop networked. Offload everything to that laptop and keep your FS machine clean.

 

Couldn't agree more, I do that myself. For consulting the charts, checking the weather, or watching a movie while cruising! And the FS machine I leave it in windowed mode and I'm always in the cockpit view.

 

To be honest I haven't had an OOM yet, but I haven't flown much on FSX either. 

 

 

This is an excellent tutorial.

Nice one, Jaime. Always wondered how it was done.

(...)

It is down to how you configure and use the sim. If someone jumps in & out of the flightdeck all the time to enjoy the view, has AI maxed at a high level, applications running in the background etc.. how can they not expect the sim to crash?

(...)

 

 

Rob, I fully agree  to that: I nearly managed to fly the PMDG T7 out of and back into Aerosoft Thessaloniki X (750 MB of VAS usage - on its own!) with decent graphics (missed that goal by a mere 100 MB in VAS, lol!). Then I disabled all my other addon scenery via SceneryConfigEditor (400 MB of additional VAS available) and the "circuit" worked like a charm.

 

Jaime's point is, FSX is 32bit and those 32bit limit the available VAS to 4 GB. Nothing wrong with that statement.

 

But if you manage your scenery and your FSX settings there's still a lot of eye-candy, systems, sounds etc. in those 4 GB!!!

yep disabling the bulk of my addon scenery gets me back most of the the VAS that I lose by running the NGX (which is by my testing about 500mb more than the default cessna on initial load)  LOD as noted, is a real VAS killer, as is lots of autogen (I run 'dense' in the NGX and "max" when I am GA)  

 

DX10 helps a lot too,  but it's not a magic cure,   If your setup uses a lot of VRAM by offloading to the videocard (bp=0 and the like) and you have a big videocard, DX10 will help a great deal since VAS is no longer mirroring your VRAM usage, like it does in dx9.