Eduardo-

Have you tried deleting the FSX.cfg file in the user name/app data/roaming/Microsoft/FSX folder? Even though you reinstalled the program, this step may be useful and certainly easy to do. Remember to save your old copy like fsx.cfg.save. The cfg file is dynamic and sometimes it can be corrupted which accounts for most if not all of my FSX hangs. Let us know what you find. The PMDG products are the mother of all resource hogs, that's probably why the problems show up when you run them (sorry PMDG). Also take a look at the MS WIndows updates, sometimes they don't play well with others. Did you run CHKDSK when you reformatted? Reformatting, especially the quick one doesn't remove all hard drive data and there may be some legacy code that PMDG's low level calls wake up. To reiterate other good advice, go to the CTD forum and download the guide. It has a wealth of information borne of many, many sleepless nights.

 

(Any one else have one of those "I'll just try this one last fix and then I'll call it quits" ordeals?)

Rick-

 

No need to be sorry- but being factual is usually beneficial.

 

If you compare the amount of VAS used by our products, vs. the default aircraft, then your supposition is true.  Our products use significantly more resources than the default airplanes- but they also deliver significantly more simulation value.

 

If you compare the amount of VAS used by our modern products compared to our legacy products, then your supposition is only slightly true.  The 747-400 v2.0 will use slightly more VAS than the original 400X that we released in 2007.  The increase is just slightly incremental on VAS use, but we are managing to provide a significantly more robust and visually appealing simulation platform for that very small investment in VAS.  (The 744 might actually clock in with less VAS use than the 777... if not less- then it is going to be in the same neighborhood...)

 

If you compare the amount of VAS used by our modern products with the vast majority of scenery developers, your supposition is entirely and completely bogus.  In fact, if you take the time to measure the cumulative impact on VAS use based upon how a product is used, you find that our VAS use is actually pretty economical compared to others.  (Some scenery packages can pull 1.6G of VAS use just while being loaded, for example... which is more than 200% of the amount of VAS used by the 777.)

 

I state very clearly time and again that this doesn't mean the scenery developers are to blame- it just means that in combination, the aircraft, weather, scenery, utility (traffic etc) developers are asking more of the sim than it was designed to be able to provide with it's broken memory management processes.  Ultimately- users need to make smart decisions about what they load and how they use their sim.

 

Having someone bloviate and finger point at one developer or product isn't helpful because all it does is misiniform- it doesn't help folks to make better decisions to minimize the impact that all the increased visual goodies bring to the sim.  If you want to have the finest scenery available running at maximum density along with custom cloud textures and a fully customized weather engine with AI traffic at 100%... you probably shouldn't choose to fly the 777 on that segment. 

 

At PMDG you will notice that our guidance is designed to help people make decisions that strike a balance so that they get the most enjoyment out of their sim.

I apologize for the unfortunate choice of words. What I meant to say and should have said is that the T7 pushes the envelope on what a 32 bit program can deliver. That's a good thing because reality is expensive but when delivered as by the T7, resources (and money) are well spent.

 

I absolutely agree that the VAS issues are a product of the aircraft and the environment (ie, FSX). I'm sure that the original developers would be blown away by how much we can actually squeeze out of the sim. The problem is that some developers get a little lazy optimizing resource usage and spend little time analyzing the effect of their offerings on other products and on FSX itself. It's understandable to a certain degree because the evaluation truth table would truly be a sight to behold. Fortunately PMDG and other main stream developers do take the time and a hell of a lot of effort to tighten up their products.

 

The problem is there is no one supporting FSX at the system level, nor is there anyone evaluating after market addons for their effect on the sim nor on other developer's products. As you stated, the result is that FSX is being asked to do way more than it was ever designed to do.

 

Also, maybe there are just too many tweaks available and no real way to completely evaluate there effect on the sim. There is also a mindset in the community to push FSX way too hard. Rather than settle for relevant range performance that is "good enough", we opt for performance that pushes way too close to the envelope. How many times have you seen someone pushing for 60-80 fps frame rates when the human eye can only process twenty four? The truth is the sim will never provide visuals comparable to Aerial America.

 

Again, I'm sorry if I left the impression that PMDG was somehow irresponsible when the opposite is really the case. In fact, the 737 NGX and the T7 are the only aircraft I fly.