Fed up with OOM. What system should I look for that will run both PMDG T7 and demanding scenery?

[flabberjabber 0]

I have been experiencing OOM for a while now and was hoping SP1 would possibly solve the problem and that probably is a good indication of my understanding.  I occasionally had them with the NGX but they were infrequent.  I have tried removing all my photo scenery and reducing the sliders back to less demanding levels but still they occur.  So if there is anybody out there that can give me a spec that will enable me to continue with this passion, sliders to the right demanding scenery including photo-realistic please let me know.

 

My current system is an Alienware I7-3770CPU@3.40 Mhz 3.40 Mhz, 16 GB Ram running Win7 64bit and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX555. I use ASN FS Booster 2103 and TrackIr.  I have most of the FlyTampa scenery along with a lot of European Aerosoft and UK2000 airfields.  I was using Just Flights UK Photo-realistic scenery but have it disabled because of the OOM issues.  All help gratefully received I am extremely frustrated by not being able to enjoy PMDGs excellent aircraft.

[AirborneZed 168]

- Disable any scenery you don't plan on flying into via scenery library

-Change your Texture_Max_load to 2048 or below in FSX.cfg

-Never use high res clouds ( 1024 or 512 only)

- And the all time best way, Save flight at cruise, restart FSX and load the save.

[voodoo101 21]

Your problem is not that you have a system underpowered to run FSX, it's the fact that you have the power.

 

When FSX started, PC's had trouble running it, tweaks were made and FPS improved. Overtime PC power improved as did the quality of add-ons, however always keeping optimised for FPS. Take a look a look at the quality of aircraft back in the day, even at the external texture quality of the PMDG MD11, internal quality great but blurred textures on the outside.

 

Then PC's got to a stage that FPS became a non issue and developers continued to push the limits. Unfortunately FSX has an Achilles heal which is that it is a 32bit program and has a VAS limit.

 

When I had my old system I was limited to the amount and type of add-on's I ran, because I needed the power to keep up the FPS. I now have a more powerful system and have added extra scenery, more powerful aircraft and fantastic textures with good FPS, however all this takes virtual memory, something I can't add.

 

So what can you do to help, well the first thing to do is to check the VAS level you have. Then you need to turn off any scenery that you do not need for your flight, for example, turn off airports you will not be needing.

 

If you have REX, lower the texture sizes down, this will save the amount of memory needed.

 

Extreme measures: Reduce the texture sizes of scenery and aircraft. The PMDG 777 uses texture sizes of 4096. You can reduce these to 2048 or even 1024. They will lose quality but as if with FSX, you have to make some sacrifice. If you decided to do this then back up your textures before you change them.

[flabberjabber 0]

Thanks for the reply.  I think I have done all but the save flight in the cruise.  I will recheck the High res clouds and texture max load.  I do realise that OOM are likely regardless of the spec of the system due to the limitations of the VAS but how frustrating is it when you see the post that states they never get them because they have their system set up properly.  Thanks again.

[wanabflyer 53]

Another thing that can get you into trouble is the Bufferpools=o tweak. Although (if you have a decent GPU) you can use this to get better FPS, you have to set your water slider to 2x high to avoid artifacts. No matter what you do, FSX will get ya.

 

Regards,

[Michar83 7]

I'm sorry to hear of your trouble. We all know how frustrating this can be.

 

Whenever FSUIPC warns be of almost full VAS, I dial back autogen 1 or 2 steps in sim.

I also have found that messing with LOD_radius at a too demanding setting will increase VAS a lot.

 

Their are better PCs out there then yours, but you should be able to run FSX an a decent level, i would believe.

Have you tried that VAS monitor tool that Tabs has informed us about a while back?

[pedwards 20]

I too have been suffering from OOM errors. I've downloaded Process explorer and really had to strip FSX right back to the bare bones and even then suffered OOM crash at OMDB gate after a flight from EGBB. The visual size was around 3.6 - 3.7 during the flight. It made me recall the scene in Apollo 13 where they were trying to keep the amps below their maximum. After the flight I switched to Steve fsxfixer and the virtual size has not gone above 3.0 even with all the sliders maxed. I would not pretend to know or understand the reason, but I know that it works for me.

 

Regards

 

Paul

[flabberjabber 0]

Gents thanks for the info, I will look for Steves FSXfixer I tried the FSPS Process Explorer on demo and it made little difference.  I use FSPS Booster already.  I need a really talented 'Boffin' to come upi with a way of beating this.  I am hopeful that P3d will find a solution or develop a new version that we can all jump across to.  Then he woke up!  Thanks again.

[MichaelTurner 5]

FSX Fiber Accelerator will probably do the trick. Try the latest demo version (5 x 60 minute sessions) but be sure to read the manual beforehand

[voodoo101 21]

FSPS will not help with VAS as it is just maintaining frame rates. VAS is not related to frame rates, just texture size and load. Lowering the autogen and scenery density will help, if you have Orbx Europe and Vector installed, you will not notice much of a difference. Ensure that your LOD distance is not set on anything above 4.5, even bringing it down to 3.5 will help. You will find that if you have add-ons that change the weather textures, waters, ground and other textures, you do not need to move the sliders all the way right to get a decent view.

 

AI traffic also makes a big difference so try turning that, road traffic and other ground traffic off. Turn cloud coverage down to 60 and try that.

 

I tried DX10 fixer and found that it made no difference to my FPS or my VAS usage. The only thing it did was cause problems at Aerosoft airports along with a few others, but that is my system which can be a bit weird like that. Many others have said that it's better. The reason is because DX10 offloads some of the texture load to the graphics card, although it is not perfect because FSX is not 100% DX10 compatible.

 

P3D will help when DX11 is fully implemented by all add-on developers, however it is still a 32bit program and has limitations. X-Plane 10 is 64bit and now that it is on Steam it may progress a bit quicker in becoming the perfect step up.

[pracines 823]

We would not have this problem if we had a P3D in 64 bit. In a sensible viewpoint, simmers don't buy highly detailed scenery, airplanes, and other utilities, just so they can reduce sliders. What is the sense in having a high detailed Atlanta International airport if there are only a few other planes and a couple ground vehicles? The whole point of a busy airport is for it to be busy, bustling with lots of activity and even danger.

 

I see all these youtube vids of the latest sceneries/airports, but I have never seen a full length flight from two highly detailed airports in a PMDG aircraft with a massive amount (+80%) of ground/air/sea traffic. Autogen is always cut back, cloud coverage is sparse, and most of the time the scene is quite blurry. I see no point in boasting about such a scenario. Flying into a major airport should be very busy and hectic. The point is, it does not matter how powerful a PC is, a 32 bit flight simulator just can't handle the reality of a major international airport, and all the realities that come with it. A 64 bit simulator could handle it. I invite anybody to prove me wrong about this and post a link to a full length flight as described (non stop - not edited) video in FSX.

 

I'm sure that if we had a 64 bit platform, then ATC programs, and AI programs which are very intelligent would be developed eventually, and all that could be run no problem with todays (and tomorrows.....lets grow up sometime) high-end hardware. There would finally be a good reason to buy all the detailed sceneries and aircraft. As it is now, simmers who buy detailed scenery and detailed planes are fooling themselves because they cannot be fully realized/utilized as long as we are stuck in 32 bit.

 

Personally I stick with detailed planes and AI/ATC/weather utilities. To add details to the scenery is too much for 32 bit because I like busy airports and default FSX airports are good enough until 64 bit is realized.

[wanabflyer 53]

I don't agree that with today's machines (and I'm not talking ultra killer machines) you can't have good accurate renditions of airports like those put out by Flightbeam and FSDT to name a couple and fly from one to the other without OOMs. Sure if you are going to crank all sliders to the right and use all HD textures at 4096 with ultra detailed clouds etc etc.

 

I don't want to park in front of a shoe box for a terminal building and the likes of FSDT, Flightbeam, etc have put together these great airports with performance in mind. It is up to the simmer to be sensible in his expectations. Just because they are highly detailed it doesn't mean that that detail has to be at the highest definition.

 

Regards,

[voodoo101 21]

I like the way you stand on a box and preach to the crowd about something everybody agrees about. Nobody is in doubt that we need a nice 64bit flight sim with top quality scenery, top quality aircraft, intelligent ATC, thousands of AI aircraft sitting at gates and flying in the air, however you are using a 32bit program that was built before quad core processors, graphic cards was top of the range if they had 512mb of memory and monitors had great big backs to them. Even the operating system was 32bit and DX9 so it did not matter. When FSX was released it was a big thing to have ATC and gates that moved, a pushback tug and baggage belts. Some of us on here remember flying into an airport with no 3D cockpit, landing at a strip that was two lines and buildings was wire mesh. We learned to wait until a new version was released to get what we want and was happy with it. Trouble is that people buy FSX, see all the add-on's and set it up as if it has been made in 2014 and can compete with the graphics like the latest Call of Duty, it can't because it was not built with quad core processors, 16gb of memory and CPU's that have more memory then the PC's it was built to run on.

 

P3D will never be released on an entertainments licence as they are not allowed to, they don't care that you want to run PMDG or whatever, as long as it does what LM want then they are happy. Whether it will ever be 64bit is any ones guess. Whether the new owners of FSX with ever release a 64bit FSX is anybody's guess. All I know is that there is a 64bit sim called X-Plane.  

[z06z33 763]

I have been experiencing OOM for a while now and was hoping SP1 would possibly solve the problem and that probably is a good indication of my understanding.  I occasionally had them with the NGX but they were infrequent.  I have tried removing all my photo scenery and reducing the sliders back to less demanding levels but still they occur.  So if there is anybody out there that can give me a spec that will enable me to continue with this passion, sliders to the right demanding scenery including photo-realistic please let me know.

 

My current system is an Alienware I7-3770CPU@3.40 Mhz 3.40 Mhz, 16 GB Ram running Win7 64bit and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX555. I use ASN FS Booster 2103 and TrackIr.  I have most of the FlyTampa scenery along with a lot of European Aerosoft and UK2000 airfields.  I was using Just Flights UK Photo-realistic scenery but have it disabled because of the OOM issues.  All help gratefully received I am extremely frustrated by not being able to enjoy PMDGs excellent aircraft.

Are you running in DX9 or DX10 mode? DX10 looks better and manages memory better as well. I can run 2048 REX clouds,Very dense autogen, and almost every other slider to the right. At any of the payware airports I have FSDT,Flightbeam or Fly Tampa in the 777 with the terran LOD set at 7.5 never go above  2.8 to 2.9 VAS. I can honestly say I've never had an OOM on DX10

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Dave-

 

These guys are giving you some very good advice.  (I learned a few things too, in fact.)

 

One piece of advice I have for you- is to use ProcessExplorer to monitor VAS use.  Pick an airport and start experimenting with various things to see what causes VAS to increase dramatically.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE:  After you have Process Explorer running, go to VIEW, SELECT COLUMNS then click on the PROCESS MEMORY tab, and click WORKING SET SIZE.

 

WORKING SET SIZE is going to show you VAS...  you will see FSX in the list- and it will constantly display VAS in the WORKING SET SIZE...

 

That is the number you want to see...

 

Play with it a bit and you will see how VAS load changes.

 

For fun you can make changes to the SOUND settings in the FMS and have the airplane preload selectively, all or none of the sounds and see what it does to your VAS load.

 

You and I have very similar hardware- and I occasionally hit the VAS ceiling because I like to fly in and out of complex airports with lots of traffic..  I have learned to monitor VAS- and if it starts climbing- I'll save the flight and then start looking forward to reduce it.  (Occasionally, saving, killing the sim, then reloading the saved scenario helps too...)

 

VAS is coming to the front as a major issue because so many developers are learning to really push the detail levels beyond what was ever anticipated for FSX.  Unfortunately- if an airport developer pushes VAS use through the roof- they start killing off 777 users...   We have invested months of work into VAS research to see how we could minimize use in your favor- and that effort is ongoing.  The 777 does use slightly more VAS than the NGX- but not that much more...

 

Good luck David- don't give up... we can all sort this stuff out cooperatively.