This is very interesting, I have never heard of this effect before.  Do these tricks work multiple times? For example, can you see that you are running out of VAS and then resize the window, regain vas, and then run out again, but resize the window again to gain more?

This is very interesting, I have never heard of this effect before.  Do these tricks work multiple times? For example, can you see that you are running out of VAS and then resize the window, regain vas, and then run out again, but resize the window again to gain more?

 

No. You won't gain VAS each time you do it. The first time gains you the most. I got 210Mb back today after turning Filtering off and back on. Subsequent actions retrieved little or none.

Many of you might be aware of this already but for those who aren't I've found a way of reclaiming up to 200Mb of VAS which may be the difference between getting an OOM and not. This is with the MS version of FSX.

 

Flying FS Labs Concorde-X out of Fly Tampa Dubai the VAS available dropped down to 500-600Mb. As I flew away from the city I selected Options - Settings - Display and changed Filtering from Anisotropic to Off. Pressed OK and then went back into the menu and set it back to Anisotropic again.

 

The net gain from this was around 200Mb. I'm enroute to HESH and available VAS is now up to 1072Mb. That's more than enough for my approach and landing.

 

Hope it works for you. :smile:

 

Great tip, Ray !

 

However, I never 'dip' into the Display Settings whilst FS is running as it has a tendency to reset certain display parameters back to their defaults if they have been modified directly from within fsx.cfg.

 

So I'm wondering if there's any potential to assign FSUIPC keystroke(s) to this operation without the need to enter into the display settings menu - any thoughts ?

 

Regards

 

Gary

Gary,

 

I guess you're talking about the LOD value being reset. No, I don't know of an alternative way to toggle Filtering other than via the menu.

 

You could still try toggling in and out of windowed mode or resizing the display.

 

 

No. You won't gain VAS each time you do it.

 

Guys,

 

I've been using this for several years now, and communicated this to Pete Downson about 4 years ago (there are posts in his forum about this).

 

Regarding the regaining of VAS, it's variable.  Sure, the first time you do it you'll get a nice piece of VAS back, which suggests that what's happening is some type of VAS defrag.  Now we're into contiguous memory, which also explains the the variability in how much VAS one gets back doing this time after time.

 

Example:  During a medium to long flight, you're on approach and get the FSUIPC VAS warning.  You resize you're window ever so slightly (which causes a very short pause, also suggestive of a VAS defrag), then you go a little further, do it again, and again.  Sitting at the airport for an hour and resizing the window (just easier for me) after having the VAS waring during approach, I've seen small and large chucks retrieved.

 

It's just variable.

 

Hope this helps.

Certainly an interesting tip to try. Thanks for sharing!

 

(I, for one, am eagerly waiting for the next Concorde X patch that was rumored to address some VAS usage after their A320 is released. I bought it last year and attempted to fly LHR-JFK or vice versa 10 times with the most basic graphics settings. I was successful only twice without an OOM for me. 20% completion rate of this classic route left me beyond frustrated. Tried to return the boxed version to no avail. So, now it's just gathering dust in my virtual hangar.)

Hi,

 

Anyway to setup a timer to have P3D and/or FSX automaticly turn on/off Anti every so often, then we can set it and forget it. 8-).

Hi,

 

Anyway to setup a timer to have P3D and/or FSX automaticly turn on/off Anti every so often, then we can set it and forget it. 8-).

That would be awesome. Please don't make me pay $30 for it tho...

What this appears to be a display related change that causes the data already loaded into VAS to be defragged.  I've testing display setting changes, switching between Full Screen and Windowed mode, and slightly resetting the Window is Windowed mode and they all accomplish the same thing (same recovery).  It never unloads anything already loaded into VAS - that type of things has proven elusive.

 

With that in mind, there is no need to change graphics settings, just swap between Windowed Mode and Full Screen or slightly resize the Window FSX is running in.  Does the same thing.

 

Discussed automating this with Pete Downson a few years ago, but he didn't think that was likely, and I'd much rather have control over when it occurred.

 

 

Discussed automating this with Pete Downson

Pete Dowson.

 

 

Pete Dowson.

 

Yeah...  I can't spell...  I live by Spell Checker!

 

 

 

(I, for one, am eagerly waiting for the next Concorde X patch that was rumored to address some VAS usage after their A320 is released. I bought it last year and attempted to fly LHR-JFK or vice versa 10 times with the most basic graphics settings. I was successful only twice without an OOM for me. 20% completion rate of this classic route left me beyond frustrated. Tried to return the boxed version to no avail. So, now it's just gathering dust in my virtual hangar.)

 

Kyle, the best way around this is to save the flight at a suitable point. I suggest 300 miles from JFK. Exit FSX and then reload your saved flight. You'll have plenty of VAS for the remainder of the flight. Probably not an option if you're a VatSim pilot but otherwise it works fine for me.

Thank you Ray and Jim for your "how to" tips and information.  I look forward to trying them very soon.

Best to all,

Ken 

So it is the actual changing of full to windowed back to full that results in some relative gain or less loss of VAS?

 

I went from full screen to windowed mode and stretched the borders so that it appears to be full...I've had no problems with VAS since...might be a placebo but it seems to work for my setup...no OOMs in months.  Tons of scenery/airport/aircraft addons..also running UT2 at 30%...limit spawns to 80 aircraft.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

Rich Perry

Rich,

 

You can do as I suggested in post 1, toggle windowed mode or toggle window size. No need to do all three.

The biggest gains seem to be once you have departed a complex area like airport or city. Over the ocean or sparse landscape is the ideal place to do this.

 

And it's not a placedo. Monitor the VAS offset via FSUIPC logging and you will see the available memory increase.

 

You will still get OOMs if you fly from/to complex airports. But I have been able to retrieve sufficient VAS to fly from a complex to a less complex airport which without doing this I would have probably run dangerously low on VAS.