SP1c

[ahuimanu 50]

I'm guessing he is on the test team for SP1c and therefore knows it wil not be releasing on the date it was set for release. I'm fine with being told upfront by Kyle that it won't be releasing, but I would still like to hear from PMDG if missing the date for release is just for minor touch-ups, and when we can expect SP1c. I hope we are not in for another month of waiting around without any updates...

 

Paul

 

Fair enough, and respect/kudos for the service the gentleman provides. That is not my point.  My point is that there is a culture of "pseudo representation" on this forum and an answer from the team (who I realize don't touch those posts with a barge pole on most days) is perhaps the "word" being looked for.

 

The thing with PMDG is that they speak to us on "ground of their own choosing" as the military term goes.  Which is fine, they are who they are, create state-of-the-art artisanal work and are really a cornerstone of the hobby.

 

I think the lack of steady diet of info from the team (they are not chatty about weekly progress as other developers - at least those in other genres - can be.  Lacking that succor, the testers become deputized.

 

That's all fine and well.  Avsim, and other sites, will tell me when the management speaks here.  Other than that, artisanal work is what it is - craft that happens on craft schedules.

 

It at least keeps the conversation going when someone closer to the inner circle gives a tidbit.  It's a minor issue and the tester's (who are volunteers who are giving of their time) have every right to provide whatever leadership they care to here.

 

I've learned to wait until the master speaks is all.

 

Continue on... nothing to see here.

[ahuimanu 50]

If you only have an hour or two,why not just do an hour or two flight till the time it gets fixed. You really don't have to fly long haul to enjoy it. It's still better than circuit flying.

Take it up to 34000 ft.100 miles away. Shut down the engines and glide it back to the airport.fail each system and try to get it back to the airport. So many things to try and learn till some of these things gets fixed. Unless you are only interested in flying A to B doing the regular approaches

 

Let me make a contrary argument which can't refute yours, but offers a perspective.

 

First, let me offer that the beauty of the sim (as it ever ages - I am only on FSX due to PMDG staying there at the moment), is that you can DO WHAT YOU WANT. So let me get that out of the way to be sure.  Fly loops under the Golden Gate Bridge, land it on a carrier, do what you want with it, it is your, you bought it.  HOWEVER, the premise of the sim is that it is a high-fidelity and high-crafted work of perfection and art completely designed to facilitate the REAL operational aspects of this aircraft.  This is such a profound source of joy for me that I'll put up with anything from PMDG to get my fix (and there really isn't much to put up with other than impatience).  I know that these aircraft are VERY DIFFICULT to craft in the manner that PMDG does and their workflow is challenging given how much they have to fight the underlying simulation to get us the experience we crave.

 

And here is my point: look at what Boeing says about their own product: http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/777family/pf/pf_lrproduct.page

Look at the typical city pairs... I want to fly those city pairs. So, faulty time compression or a tendency for the plane to be so dicey with other add-ons that your VAS situation is nearly a dice-roll when attempting to do 1:1 longhaul is incredibly frustrating.

 

So many analogies come to mind: I CAN use Formula 1 car to drive to work, but it is so mis-purposed in that role it would be comical (although fun as well if I could keep from spinning out as soon as a breathed on the accelerator); I can use a Tractor on a Formula 1 race, but that is boring and again mis-purposed; I can use a self-propelled artillery piece like a tank (something like the British AS-90), but it is far better purposed for the long-range artillery mission (and the shoot and scoot tactic) than to close with other vehicles and act like a tank.

 

Here is a passage form Wikipedia (as of 09/30/2014 at least) on the mode:

"The 777-200LR ("LR" for Longer Range), the C-market model, became the world's longest-range commercial airliner when it entered service in 2006.Boeing named this aircraft the Worldliner, highlighting its ability to connect almost any two airports in the world, although it is still subject to ETOPS restrictions.It holds the world record for the longest nonstop flight by a commercial airliner, and has a maximum design range of 9,395 nautical miles (17,400 km).[88] The -200LR was intended for ultra-long-haul routes such as Los Angeles to Singapore."

 

 

I of course respect the nature of which the advice was given and intended: make do until things get better.  However, if my rifle is broken and I have to "fix bayonets" to continue the fight, it has ceased being an instrument of its primary design and devolved into a spear/lance.  I accept that it can be both, but I want the long range of the rifle.

 

Thus, one quickly gets the blues as the 777 seems to behave only in the most sterile environment when VAS is concerned and has other broken aspects with regards to enjoy the intended mission profile of the bird.

 

I am going to put the following in my signature moving forward from this post:

 

"Yes, I have read pages 30 to 34 in the manual on the topic of VAS and the use of the product.  While the guidelines are valid and a good start, I'd certainly like to see (and participate) in a longitudinal study of the profiles under which owners of the PMDG 777 series operate to divine the most promising variables from which VAS management can be controlled."

 

Anyhow, *wah wah wah* I just want reliable long haul back.  The only way I've found reliability is extremely vanilla FSX.  It is a most unsatisfying experience.

[BIGSKY 316]

I have over 600 hours  on the PMDG 777,and she is perfectly flyable.

[Wothan 173]

 

Let me make a contrary argument which can't refute yours, but offers a perspective.

 

First, let me offer that the beauty of the sim (as it ever ages - I am only on FSX due to PMDG staying there at the moment), is that you can DO WHAT YOU WANT. So let me get that out of the way to be sure.  Fly loops under the Golden Gate Bridge, land it on a carrier, do what you want with it, it is your, you bought it.  HOWEVER, the premise of the sim is that it is a high-fidelity and high-crafted work of perfection and art completely designed to facilitate the REAL operational aspects of this aircraft.  This is such a profound source of joy for me that I'll put up with anything from PMDG to get my fix (and there really isn't much to put up with other than impatience).  I know that these aircraft are VERY DIFFICULT to craft in the manner that PMDG does and their workflow is challenging given how much they have to fight the underlying simulation to get us the experience we crave.

 

And here is my point: look at what Boeing says about their own product: http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/777family/pf/pf_lrproduct.page

Look at the typical city pairs... I want to fly those city pairs. So, faulty time compression or a tendency for the plane to be so dicey with other add-ons that your VAS situation is nearly a dice-roll when attempting to do 1:1 longhaul is incredibly frustrating.

 

So many analogies come to mind: I CAN use Formula 1 car to drive to work, but it is so mis-purposed in that role it would be comical (although fun as well if I could keep from spinning out as soon as a breathed on the accelerator); I can use a Tractor on a Formula 1 race, but that is boring and again mis-purposed; I can use a self-propelled artillery piece like a tank (something like the British AS-90), but it is far better purposed for the long-range artillery mission (and the shoot and scoot tactic) than to close with other vehicles and act like a tank.

 

Here is a passage form Wikipedia (as of 09/30/2014 at least) on the mode:

 

I of course respect the nature of which the advice was given and intended: make do until things get better.  However, if my rifle is broken and I have to "fix bayonets" to continue the fight, it has ceased being an instrument of its primary design and devolved into a spear/lance.  I accept that it can be both, but I want the long range of the rifle.

 

Thus, one quickly gets the blues as the 777 seems to behave only in the most sterile environment when VAS is concerned and has other broken aspects with regards to enjoy the intended mission profile of the bird.

 

I am going to put the following in my signature moving forward from this post:

 

"Yes, I have read pages 30 to 34 in the manual on the topic of VAS and the use of the product.  While the guidelines are valid and a good start, I'd certainly like to see (and participate) in a longitudinal study of the profiles under which owners of the PMDG 777 series operate to divine the most promising variables from which VAS management can be controlled."

 

Anyhow, *wah wah wah* I just want reliable long haul back.  The only way I've found reliability is extremely vanilla FSX.  It is a most unsatisfying experience.

 

 

Not sure whats wrong the with Your setup...

 

I have the following installed:

FSX SP2

Orbx Global Base

60 Various European airports (Mega airports, German airports, Scandinavian etc..)

Orbx PNW

Orbx SAK

Orbx PFJ

Orbx NRM

Orbx CRM

Tongass Fjords

24 Orbx Airfields / Airports for the above regions

Victoria +

Vacouver +

Orbx NZSI

Orbx NZNI

 

I also use Active Sky Next Beta 5

 

I have not had any Out of memory erros yet flying the PMDG Boeing 777.

 

Here are some tricks, though I don´t disable airports myself:

 

The only way to "adjust" VAS usage is by reducing Your FSX dipaly settings and don´t use higher resolution textures i.e preferable keep the FSX.cfg default entry:

 

[GRAPHICS]

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024

 

You might be able to set it to 2048 though.

 

 Don´t set:

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=4.500000

 

Higher than 4.5 !!

 

Some tweakers will tell You to increase it to 6.5, but this will definitly increase Your VAS usage alot.

 

 

In FSX Settings: Display:

• Keep Autogen at either "Normal" or "Dense" and not higher.
• User Water=Low 2x and not higher
• Keep AI Traffic lower than 30%.

The biggest impact is Photoreal scenery. This takes up alot of VAS and due to a defekt in FSX this will allways be loaded, regardless if You are on the other side of the globe.

 

 There is a great utility called "Scenery Configuration Editor" which can be found here: http://fs-sceditor.s...et/install.html

 

It can be used to group Your scenery and disable airports and scenery You won´t use for a flight, f.ex if You want to make a flight from a US airport to Hawaii, then You can disbale all European, African and ASION ddon Airports and sceneries.

 

FSX has a problem with VAS usage when flying above Addon Airports and sceneries. Let´s say You plan to amke a flight from Copenhagen to Dubai. As You fly along, even at cruise altitude and get into range where the Addon airporst below You are loaded, then they will use VAS. As You get out of range, FSX does not do a good job flushing out that scenery and VAS usage accumulates over time.

 

By disabling all those airports You know You will pass enroute, You will reduce VAS usage alot.

 

Another tip is to periodically save You flight and then reload it. Doing so will make FSX flush out used VAS. On long flights do this every hour and Your more likely to reach Your destination without getting an Out Of Memory error.

 

 

 

It is true that the 777 is rather hard on VAS, but the main problem is definitly the long trips it most often will fly in FSX, picking up more and more that takes a toll on VAS and that isn´t released by FSX again.

 

One thing that is important to know is that high VAS usage doesn't mean that performance will suffer. You can have very high FPS and then suddently get the OOM. Therefore it´s important to recognaise that even if You have very good performance with FSX, it might still require You to lower some settings inordfer not to deplete all VAS.

 

Questions You need to make is:

• Is it really important for You to use 4096x4096 textures ?  2048 or even 1024 might look a tad more unsharp, but You will save alot of VAS.
• Do You really need to have that nice photoscenery enabled that placed on the other side of the globe ? - Note that FSX will always load Photosceneryfor the entire globe even if it´s far far away from Your position or flightpath.
• Do You really need autogen set at Very or extreme dense ?- When 90% of the flight is at 30.000 ft + autogen should not be that important, better reduce it to normal. Same goes for water - Low 2x is still looking good.
• Reduce traffic, FSX ATC has problems anyway to handle large amount of AI aircraft, just increase traffic to the point where You get adequet life at Your airport.

 

Take similar thoughts on other settings, and I´m sure that the 777 should be flyable for You also with more detailed scenery than the default FSX scenery.

 

FinnJ

[elmucki 32]

its my SP1C and i want it now lol (famous words of some commercials)

[PerWel 23]

FYI

I have seen many times the VAS go up /increase after departure and then going down and up several times during the flight. So on my system it looks like FSX is releasing

memory. Sometimes I have more VAS on approach then I had on departure.

 

I am on WinXP 32-bit Professonal. Maybe the way FSX is coded works better on old 32-bit systems.

[PRE-CISION 0]

its my SP1C and i want it now lol (famous words of some commercials)

As do I! What concerns me most about the upcoming (or at least I hope...) release of SP1c is that we were given a date of release. Typically when PMDG actually gives a specific date (September 26) they deliver on that date. In this case, PMDG has missed the date and has said nothing as to why. This isn't a case of "it'll be done when we're happy with it", this is we have the plane where we want it to now, and you can expect it by the date given.

 

I also think the very long process of finally releasing SP1 only for it to introduce a new issue of which we now seem to be in the same situation as the initial SP1 release (waiting and waiting with very few to no updates on progress and reasons for delays) is what is testing my patience most. I am staying patient thanks mostly to the NGX.

 

Paul

[Wothan 173]

FYI

I have seen many times the VAS go up /increase after departure and then going down and up several times during the flight. So on my system it looks like FSX is releasing

memory. Sometimes I have more VAS on approach then I had on departure.

 

I am on WinXP 32-bit Professonal. Maybe the way FSX is coded works better on old 32-bit systems.

 

FSX does release some VAS, but not all of it.

So while it will go up and down the trend will always be increasing.

 

But it really depends on Your settings and the addon sceneries You have installed and wheras You will overfly or getting near to them.

 

Generally Win7/8 is way better at managing memory than Win XP and with a 64bit OS the entire 4GB will be available for FSX.

 

FinnJ

[PerWel 23]

FSX does release some VAS, but not all of it.

So while it will go up and down the trend will always be increasing.

 

But it really depends on Your settings and the addon sceneries You have installed and wheras You will overfly or getting near to them.

 

Generally Win7/8 is way better at managing memory than Win XP and with a 64bit OS the entire 4GB will be available for FSX.

 

FinnJ

 

What I said was that it does NOT increase in the end. It goes down and up during flight and sometimes I have more free VAS on approach then on after dep.

That is not an overall increase of used VAS.

 

I have not upgrade to Win7 yet, first is that I need new hardware for it. My core2 is to slow even though it can run a 64 bit system.

Second it that I see a lots of post of very crazy errors/problems on Win7 and FSX. In one post someone said that after upgrading from WinXP to Win7 he started to have lots of

crazy errors that he never had during several years with FSX on WinXP. Win8 is just junk, forget it. Have several friends that works as developers since 25 + years and all have

tested Win8 and dumped it. It is just crap. Until all present software is ported to it.

 

The main reason is an old statement in software business, "If it works OK. Do not touch it. Why change something that works?" I follow that.

 

I have no problem at all with  OOMs and VAS.

 

I will do a flight across whole Europe (one single go) to Asia somewhere with the T7 just to see if the free VAS goes down in overall. Some people say that on long flights

used mem is added up and in the end (after several hours) you get an OOM. I really would like to test that.

 

I would like to document what happens.....

Does anyone know about any good screen capture software, making movies??

[Wothan 173]

What I said was that it does NOT increase in the end. It goes down and up during flight and sometimes I have more free VAS on approach then on after dep.

That is not an overall increase of used VAS.

 

I have not upgrade to Win7 yet, first is that I need new hardware for it. My core2 is to slow even though it can run a 64 bit system.

Second it that I see a lots of post of very crazy errors/problems on Win7 and FSX. In one post someone said that after upgrading from WinXP to Win7 he started to have lots of

crazy errors that he never had during several years with FSX on WinXP. Win8 is just junk, forget it. Have several friends that works as developers since 25 + years and all have

tested Win8 and dumped it. It is just crap. Until all present software is ported to it.

 

The main reason is an old statement in software business, "If it works OK. Do not touch it. Why change something that works?" I follow that.

 

I have no problem at all with  OOMs and VAS.

 

I will do a flight across whole Europe (one single go) to Asia somewhere with the T7 just to see if the free VAS goes down in overall. Some people say that on long flights

used mem is added up and in the end (after several hours) you get an OOM. I really would like to test that.

 

I would like to document what happens.....

Does anyone know about any good screen capture software, making movies??

 

Try FRAPS: http://www.fraps.com/

 

Weird that You got problems with Win7. I guess most uses FSX on win7 today without any problems. As said - win7 is much beter at controlling memory that win XP and with 64bit You will even get 1 GB extra VAS for FSX.

I concur that win 8 isn´t the greatest OS, but with 8.1 it´s very much like win7.

 

Looking forward to see Your report.

 

FinnJ

[Nyxx 6,993]

"I do not suspect the SP1c testing will take very long- and perhaps we will have this version into your hands before the 26th. (Possibly by next friday? This is our goal, but I am leaving some slack room in the schedule... stay tuned...)"

 

"Slack room" what! Would about 3 months due? Or is "slack room" the new "soon" soon as we know from PMDG is anything, even runs into years!

 

777 in Q14 P3D of this year, just place a bet at the book makers it want happen as you can imagine the odd were not on my side.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

*eyeroll*

 

Sorry.  We'll just stop testing them and just release them directly to you so that you can pick them apart and manage all of the test builds...

[Nyxx 6,993]

it was not me who the quote was from was it I, i eye roll at any "you will get your hands on...." "Soon" if it so was not close to ready why say "26th" etc.

 

Just an update with how its going would be fine. PMDG not give "release days" but they love hints and " possibles " and there always weeks, months out.

 

Keep testing and get it right before we get it for sure am all for that, unlike the silly "in your hands soon" PMDG said that about the DC9 close to 2 years ago come Feb. Do they think people just forget these things?

[whoispankaj 51]

 

 

HOWEVER, the premise of the sim is that it is a high-fidelity and high-crafted work of perfection and art completely designed to facilitate the REAL operational aspects of this aircraft.

Sometimes I just wonder when people contradict themselves. The real operational characteristics of the aircraft doesn't allow it to fly in time compression mode.

So if you are ok to take that time compromise(for whatever reason you have i.e being bored) then you can certainly make a little compromise for sometime and fly shorter routes for time being.The aircraft is perfectly flyable and if you take care of some advice given by others with respect to VAS management you should be good to fly 8 hour routes.