Here I am..having continuously flown in Orbx's PNW...in the Carenado Bonanza, for over 2 1/2 hours(!!!!), and no CTD, no freezes...NOTHING. Perfect performance of this 32 bit software.  Truly, I see that there is no need to convert to 64 bit, merely to 'overcome' the VAS limit of 32 bits.  It was VAS that would bring FSX crashing down to the desktop, if I was lucky to get 20 minutes of of it. 

 

So...the puzzlement. I thought it was imperative that an MS-based flight sim, had to migrate to 64 bit, for we were loading up with add-on programs such a burden , that a 32 bit program (any 32 bit flight sim) would be overwhelmed in memory resources...and fail to the desktop or freeze.

 

P3D 2.2 has, through hours of continuous and reliable operation...proved this to be a false notion.  I don't see LM under any pressure to now go 64 bit, and have anybody lose legacy and present use of compatible 32 bit programs and add on's.

 

That was my own personal 'urgency' before adding P3D to my hard disk.  LM proved that a 32 bit MS based flight sim, could be stable, and this is wonderful to see played out, each and every time my 'dialed' in copy of P3D takes to the skies...

 

So pleased with this beyond all description.

 

Back to the flight...just rubber necking, doing touch and go's...and as usual, having a blast doing it.

 

Thank you LM...for taking this project on...and making the M.S. franchise at 32 bit deploy...stable!

 

 

Mitch,

           I haven't run into the OOM problem in P3Dv2 yet, but I haven done any long haul flights in a graphic intensive airliner. Add the PMDG NGX or 777 to the mix, that might change things. We won't know until it happens.

Mitch,

           I haven't run into the OOM problem in P3Dv2 yet, but I haven done any long haul flights in a graphic intensive airliner. Add the PMDG NGX or 777 to the mix, that might change things. We won't know until it happens.

 

+1

 

In addition, due to the memory limits, continued developement as a 32bit application will slow down progress, and limit quality. Sooner or later 64bit will be mandatory for any application, simulator or game.

Ding dong the OOM is dead.  Which old OOM?  The wicked OOM!  Ding dong the wicked OOM is deaaad!!

DX11 helps reduce the chance of an oom but wont remove the threat of it happening, having a larger address space is the way to go when we demand HD this and that from the developers and the more we add to the sim the greater the chance of an oom event happening.

 

v2.2 is good though and i hope 2.3 will be a lot better when its released

Win7 - 64bit will let you utilize all of your memory - up to 4gig in FSX/P3D 32bit

P3D 64 Bit - will let you utilize a tremendous amount more of memory, depending what you have installed on your pc.

I remember when Flight Simulator ran in a 128K Mac.

 

Relevancy?  When memory is tight developers code tight. When memory is, to all intents and purposes unconstrained (64bits) developers, being competitive, will find a way to use it up. In other words although we will enjoy the added eye candy and realism it brings, in only a short while we will find ourselves back to where we were under 32bit.   :blink:

I remember when Flight Simulator ran in a 128K Mac.

 

Relevancy?  When memory is tight developers code tight. When memory is, to all intents and purposes unconstrained (64bits) developers, being competitive, will find a way to use it up. In other words although we will enjoy the added eye candy and realism it brings, in only a short while we will find ourselves back to where we were under 32bit.   :blink:

As we said years ago, when memory was expensive, code needed to be tight. When memory was cheap the code was bloated

 

Bob

Sorry to be a party pooper but I have had several OOMs with 2.2 (although this was in very highly detailed scenery with most sliders towards the right). Past experiences with cloud shadowing have also provoked OOMs.

 

Although this is a wonderful product (thanks LM) work still remains to be done and I look forwards to each new iteration keenly. 64 Bit is still a worthwhile goal for the (distant) future.

Sorry to be a party pooper but I have had several OOMs with 2.2 (although this was in very highly detailed scenery with most sliders towards the right). Past experiences with cloud shadowing have also provoked OOMs.

 

Although this is a wonderful product (thanks LM) work still remains to be done and I look forwards to each new iteration keenly. 64 Bit is still a worthwhile goal for the (distant) future.

+1

Mitch, you aren't taking into account all the nice new features that could be done that weren't done because it's a 32bit platform.

 

LM have worked miracles and continue to work more miracles with the 32bit address space but you also need to consider the LOD Radius is capped at 6.5 in P3D ... compare this with FSX where I managed to hit LOD 15 once 10 seconds before I hit OOM.  The 6.5 LOD limitation is most notable in mountain regions ... but if LM allowed us to increase LOD levels beyond 6.5 we would most certainly be back in the land of OOM.  This is were 64bit is really needed.

 

But all in good time, I'm pretty confident LM will eventually get to 64bit.  What they are doing now, is getting us a nice stable (well performing) 32bit platform which I hope gives them the time they need to bring out a 64bit platform in the future ... keeping in mind that there would still be TWO viable platforms so the migration can be a slow and gradual one allowing for 3rd party content to catch up.

 

64bit would really open up the door for many 3rd party content providers (from airport services to you name it).

 

I enjoy your enthusiasm, but don't get too carried away

 

Cheers, Rob.

Optimizing in 32bit is absolutely essential before moving to 64bit.  If you don't understand your throttles and chokes in 32, you won't in 64.  64 = 32 * 2.   Not magic.  (printing presses, parallel processing, all the same, you can't go fast if you can't keep the paper from breaking)

 

If I don't wear my glasses LOD 16.5 works just fine.

I thought it would be good to explain for some folks what the differences are here.  The maximum allowable memory addresses that a (standard) 32 bit application can use is 2^32 or 4,294,967,296 = 4Gb.  The maximum addresses that a standard 64-bit app can use is 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 or 18,446,744,073Gb.  (Note that I said, "Standard".  There are ways, as has been done in the past, to add a "shift" bit to tell the program to address the "shifted" memory.  It's not optimal but it does get used sometimes.)   Truly, when it goes 64 bit, for a long time, memory optimization will go out the window...there's a lot of waste when there's a lot of room to work with.  Nothing to be done about it. 

 

Right now, however, the 4Gb limit is the hard limit.  Apps, like Prepar3D, can get more efficient, use and release memory more efficiently but they have to live within that limit.  Developers have to optimize and you have to make choices to keep your sim below that limit.  There are trade-offs made...autogen is reduced, textures made smaller or optimized, functionality is trimmed back.  But more and more people are bumping their heads into that limit. 

 

Gregg

Here we go again.  

 

It's not about the memory.

 

It's about bandwidth.  Today, in 2014, we don't have Graphics Hardware that is truly capable of doing anything special with 64bit memory space.   You can have your Cake as big as you want, but your mouth isn't getting any bigger, and you're gonna choke on it if you don't learn how to get it down.

 

All good programmers are lazy, except when it comes to tracking memory usage.

Your CPU and GPU Get HOT because of bandwidth issues, not because you don't have enough memory.  Running P3D2 I have had my CPU (delidded 3770k @ 4.6Ghz - sometimes 4.8 if radiator is clean)  pegged at 100% and my GPU (780 around 1100Ghz) pegged in the 90's.  Memory will not help that, other than running 2400ghz (people forget to max this out).  

So, if they're not trying to optimise the code, what do you think LM is doing?

for now, 32-bit is the most limiting factor for a lot of simmers. If and when P3D goes 64-bit, your reasoning may start to make sense, denali, but right now... It doesn't really.

A lot of FSX simmers, especially the guys flying long flights with pretty demanding planes and scenery, adjust their settings so that VAS is not exceeded. So yes, the limitations we have currently, are restrictions imposed by the 32-bit software.

Our mouths may not be that big, bet we're not eating a whole piece of cake at once, we're barely eating french fries here. Nobody is talking about using ALL the memory 64-bit has to offer at once. But getting rid of those pesky OOMs for good is not going to happen without 64-bit support, and the add ons that are on the table right now, and are still being developed.