I was about to say the same thing. When i went through the manual PMDG stated to keep LOD at 4.5, i fallow what they suggested i was OOM free. I started balancing everything out to see if i would still get OOM. For example i would set LOD at 6.5 but i would use texture at 1024. I completed a 6 hour flight no OOM. I still don't trust those setting, but i didn't get no OOM at all. What i discover two things that causes OOM for me is LOD & Texture resolution , 4096 or even 2048 depending on the LOD.

 

This has been discussed countless times before, The biggest contributors to VAS use (other than add ons) are:

 

- LOD radius

- Texture resolution

- Autogen density

- Cloud layers

 

I probably forgot some important elements though. It is no secret that the biggest VAS hogs are FTX Vector (+partly Global), the PMDG T7 and a selection of airports. Aerosofts EGLL and FlyTampa Copenhagen are without the worst users of VAS on my system, which is why I (and many others) find it strange that other high-complexity megaports such as Flightbeam and Taxi2Gate airports have such remarkable low VAS use.

What LOD radius does exactly do in P3D? How I can tell the visual difference? Can someone provide an example? 

This has been discussed countless times before, The biggest contributors to VAS use (other than add ons) are:

 

- LOD radius

- Texture resolution

- Autogen density

- Cloud layers

How many cloud layers is optimal? I think I'm using 2 set in ASN.

 which is why I (and many others) find it strange that other high-complexity megaports such as Flightbeam and Taxi2Gate airports have such remarkable low VAS use.

 

You know what really surprise me that Flightbeam & Taxigate both use high resolution texture and i don't seem to get OOM with them.

 

 

Add FSDT into this league.

How many cloud layers is optimal? I think I'm using 2 set in ASN.

I have it set to 5 .... , but I do not use autogen or car traffic at all.

How many cloud layers is optimal? I think I'm using 2 set in ASN.

 

5 is default for ASN but is unnecessary really.    In the real world you will rarely have more than 3 layers of clouds.    Personally, I have seen very little difference between 5 layers and 3 layers in visual impact but I do see a VAS impact.    I also go the extra mile of setting my cloud draw distances and viewing distance to what you would see iRL rather than the unrealistic 120 mile view in all directions.    I use a draw distance of 80 miles and a cloud draw distance of 83 miles.   That 3 mile buffer between the haze layer and the edge of the cloud draw distance masks the creation of the clouds so I never see them POP into existence... they fade in out of the haze layer like it happens iRL.   As a result, the simulation looks much more realistic to my eyes, the FPS is great in bad weather situations and the VAS usage is reasonable while still providing a highly detail cloud and viewing simulation.

You know what really surprise me that Flightbeam & Taxigate both use high resolution texture and i don't seem to get OOM with them.

 

 

They are really good at this BUT I still go into their texture folders and do texture compression work.  The first thing I do on ANY new payware airport is convert all the textures into DXT5 or DXT1 DDS files at a resolution of 1024k.    This has a DRAMATIC impact on some airports for both FPS and VAS.   Taxi2Gate's KMCO Orlando is a great example of an airport that is just nasty on VAS usage out of the box but when I gave it the 1k texture work over the airport stopped being the cause of OOM's on final and the FPS improved greatly as the airport was now properly mipmapped and compressed into a resolution that has very little visual impact loss but has a huge benefit on FPS performance and VAS usage.

 

 

I use a draw distance of 80 miles and a cloud draw distance of 83 miles. That 3 mile buffer between the haze layer and the edge of the cloud draw distance masks the creation of the clouds so I never see them POP into existence..

 

Hey, I also decided to use 3 Layers as the VAS improvement is huge.  I am wondering about that statement.  I assume you have cloud draw on sim at 80 miles and in ASN min & max cloud draw at 83.  Am I correct on that interpretation?

 

Thanks

Kuragiman :

They are really good at this BUT I still go into their texture folders and do texture compression work. The first thing I do on ANY new payware airport is convert all the textures into DXT5 or DXT1 DDS files at a resolution of 1024k. This has a DRAMATIC impact on some airports for both FPS and VAS. Taxi2Gate's KMCO Orlando is a great example of an airport that is just nasty on VAS usage out of the box but when I gave it the 1k texture work over the airport stopped being the cause of OOM's on final and the FPS improved greatly as the airport was now properly mipmapped and compressed into a resolution that has very little visual impact loss but has a huge benefit on FPS performance and VAS usage.

 

- mip mapping/resizing textures is a very good help in fighting OOM. But first take a look at the texture before resizing it.

Some 2048 textures might display every part of a large building while others might only show a small part of a building.

The last one is the one to resize.....

Some 2048 textures might display every part of a large building while others might only show a small part of a building.

The last one is the one to resize.....

Clarification please - are you saying that if 12 2048 textures comprise 1 building to just resize the LAST (#12) rather than all 12?

 

thanx,

 

Vic

I had OOMs until I switched to DX10 preview and installed Steve's DX10 Fixer. Now I fly photoreal + autogen scenery without OOMs, landing at major payware airports with traffic in heavily urbanized areas, and still have 0.5 to 1GB VAS available to the gate.

I also gain 4 to 5 FPS using the Turbo Mode of TuneUp Utilities (switching off most services).

Happy landings.
Bernard

I use 3 layers for clouds and I feel it is pretty realistic.  I just climbed out of New York city heading for detroit and have been checking my VAS flying the A320 , with UT USA and it runs around 2.5 gigs. Now if I started buying all kinds of extra scenery and airports that probably would go up drastically, but I am looking for smoothness more than anything and no OOMs. 

Hey, I also decided to use 3 Layers as the VAS improvement is huge.  I am wondering about that statement.  I assume you have cloud draw on sim at 80 miles and in ASN min & max cloud draw at 83.  Am I correct on that interpretation?

 

Thanks

 

No, Max upper vis is 80 miles,   Max cloud draw is 83 miles.   I want the clouds to be created behind the haze layer so I don't see them popping into existance.      Minimum vis is 0 (default), Max Surface is 40 miles,  Max Upper is 80.

 

Cloud draw is 83 miles period.    Here is what 3 layers of clouds with my settings looks like from the surface.   Looks pretty real to me without hogging VAS.

 

Agree!! FDST is much better than Aerosoft in many ways, and lately I have found FlightBeam to be just about the best thing out there. I also like Taxi2Gate and I have many others and none are as bad as Aerosoft at hogging the VAS pie. PANC is worse than EGLL.

It's no secret that FSDT and Flightbeam are probably two of the best airport designers at optimizing their sceneries and not using older design techniques from FS9 and prior that a lot of designers use in FSX to this day.

 

As mentioned, since Aerosoft is publisher and doesn't actually make a lot of what they sell, it's a mixed bag of developers and it's a crap shoot on what you might end up with when you purchase an airport from them.

 

 

 

 

They are really good at this BUT I still go into their texture folders and do texture compression work. The first thing I do on ANY new payware airport is convert all the textures into DXT5 or DXT1 DDS files at a resolution of 1024k. This has a DRAMATIC impact on some airports for both FPS and VAS.

With regards to the newer FSDT sceneries that use 4096 textures you need to be careful doing this or you will end up with a lot of blurry graphics on buildings, hangars and ground textures.

 

What your doing no doubt will save VAS, but not in the way you think it will.

 

What FSDT is doing when they use 4096 texture sheets is cramming more building and object textures into one sheet rather than using many 1024 or 512 sheets. By doing this they are greatly reducing draw calls and improving performance. So, even though it's a 4096 texture sheet, some of the buildings included in those sheets are essentially really only displaying 256, 512, or 1024 sized textures. When you resize one of these sheets you're then making some of the buildings display really small texture which will be pretty blurry in the sim.

 

Not knowing what FSDT'S reasoning was for the 4096 originally when they released KLAX, I went in and promptly resized all the 4096 down to 1024 thinking I was going to really improve VAS, which it did, but most of the buildings were so low res looking that it wasn't worth it for me. Once Umberto explained the reasons why they used the large sheets it made sense and I went back to the original sheets.

 

Now if you look at other designers who use many, many 4096 sheets assigned to one building and not to reduce draw calls, then it makes a lot of sense to resize. Some of the earlier ORBX airports like Melbourne and Brisbane were like this and had 20, 30, or more 4096 textures in the texture folder and we're assigned to single buildings or objects and people wondered why this two airports were VAS hogs and performed so miserably.

Clarification please - are you saying that if 12 2048 textures comprise 1 building to just resize the LAST (#12) rather than all 12?

 

thanx,

 

Vic

Hi Vic,

What I meant is that I first look at what is being displayed on the texture and then decide if that one has to be resized or not.

 

Eg : If a 2048 texture only shows a door then the door is in HD in Fs. If every texture from the same building is like this then the whole building uses lots of textures and it will consume a lot of VAS. Then I resize those textures.

 

If on the other hand every part of a building is on the same texture I do not resize it as it takes just 1 texture for the whole building...

And in Fs the building might show up not sharp after having been resized.