P3D V3 CTD No error messages

[Derpinson 0]

Addons Installed:

 

FTX Global

FTX Vector

FlyTampa Dubai

FlyTampa Copenhagen

FlyTampa Sydney

Wing Creation Narita

PMDG 777

PMDG 737 NGX

Active Sky Next

IVAP + IVAO MTL

FlightSim Estonia Migration Tool

GSX

Rex Soft Clouds

 

 

 

I'm pretty much at a loss now. I tried everything, but to no avail. (This happened with P3D V3.0)

 

It started when I was doing a flight from Narita to Copenhagen, in IVAO. After 10 hours, I contacted Sweden control, but P3D froze, and turned transparent white (like what happens when it doesn't respond)

I then closed P3D, and reopened it to load the flight back up (had FSUIPC autosave enabled) I did this before with the PMDG 777 and the NGX, it worked fine, never had this happen before.

 

Once loaded, I waited until the panel/systems loaded (waiting 23 seconds for it all to load) but soon after I switched to the frequency of Sweden control, P3D crashed to desktop. No error messages, just quit. I looked in event viewer, but there was no event. I looked in appcrashview, but no crash log there either. I restarted my computer, and when I tried to open P3D, it would show the box where it says "Prepar3D Academic" but a few seconds later, it quits. It doesn't even get to the scenario setup. 

 

At this point, I was a little ######, because P3D crashed after a 10 hour flight online, and would not start back up. I uninstalled all my addons and then I uninstalled P3D, deleted all folders related to it, in ProgramData, My Documents, and deleted any left over contents. I then ran CCcleaner for a registry clean, and reinstalled P3D, and after installing P3D, (no addons, just P3D itself) the same thing happened. But this time, it would generate a new scenery file, it generates new scenery indexes, and after that is all done, it quits, like before. No error messages in event viewer. 

 

What else can I do, apart from a full Windows Reinstall? (Last resort)

Any help would be appreciated.

[Jim Young 2,356]

It's obviously caused by the Estonia Migration Tool (maybe, perhaps).  P3D works great out of the "box" and then you begin to add addons that were not made for P3D and P3D freezes or crashes (whichever comes first).  IMHO, you should never ever fly a 10 hour flight with a product that was added using the EMT.  Not even a flight longer than 2 hours as you will be frustrated.  If there was no event in the Event Viewer, then that means it was caused by your computer system.  Your system cannot handle what is being thrown at it.  It cannot render textures fast enough.  It does not have the virtual address space to accomplish a task.  Of course there will be no Event as there was no memory available for your computer to record the event.

 

You simply ran out of VAS and the AVSIM CTD Guide provides some solutions for running out of VAS like turning down all of your settings.  You had everything running for 10 hours with no problems whatsoever so you can be almost assured none of your addons, alone, caused your crash.  You just ran out of VAS.  I run out of VAS after 2-3 hours as I begin my descent about two hours out and I'm flying into a storm and hi res airport scenery.  I get an OOM 99.9% of the time.  There is no fix for this problem for me other than to turn off ASN and use a default weather setting and turn down my P3D.cfg settings.  I have REX too and you cannot use 32 bit textures with much success as it can bring your system to its knees pretty quick.  There is currently no computer in the world that can run P3D or FSX for any length of time with high settings and lots of eye-candy like addon scenery and commercial weather engines.  I think you should only use ASN for local area flights to place flying in rough weather but never any long flights.  Again, this is not P3D's issue, this is a computer system issue and it occurs in FSX and FSX-SE too.  Microsoft only provides 4 GB's of virtual address space (VAS) with their operating systems.  When VAS runs out or gets very low, your application will freeze or crash.  You can monitor the amount of VAS usage by following the instructions in the AVSIM CTD Guide using a freeware utility called FSUIPC.

 

Best regards,

[Derpinson 0]

Thank you, I did have to re-install Windows, but I didn't install Migration Tool, and ever since then, everything worked like a charm. 

 

I did use Process Explorer and Process Monitor to see my VAS usage, and the VAS doesn't hit 4GB, not even 2GB when P3D loads. 

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

I did use Process Explorer and Process Monitor to see my VAS usage, and the VAS doesn't hit 4GB, not even 2GB when P3D loads.

 

I've never seen my VAS hitting 4GB's.  My VAS after loading P3D, is not even 2GB's but it appears it stays at that level for most of the flight and begins to shrink only when landing or getting near a airport.  Still, P3D appears to be trying to keep at least 400 MB's of VAS.  But this scenario is thrown out the window when I have several addons enabled, like ASN and GEP3D and UTX.  If you can, turn off cloud shadows, especially if you are going to have a long flight.  I think cloud shadows are nice but only for VFR flights or short flights.  At FL330, there's no reason to have the shadows enabled as you are up in the clouds yet your sim is using the resources for cloud shadows.

 

Autogen is particularly hard on resources by P3D optimized those textures and the way autogen is loaded and it has seriously gotten better.  Instead of running Process Explorer and Process Monitor, set up the VAS usage report in FSUIPC.  It works for the registered or unregistered version.  I have the guidance for setting it up in the AVSIM CTD Guide around page 4 or 5.  What I like about this monitor is the fact it logs your VAS usage throughout the flight and, when you complete the flight and shutdown P3D, you can go to the FSUIPC folder and open up the FSUIPC.log (I have made a desktop shortcut to this log).  It will then tell you how much VAS was used just to load up P3D, how much VAS used after loading your flight, and then a running counter of VAS all the way to the end of the flight.  It will also show you your average FPS during the flight and the high/low amount of VAS usage.  What I do with these logs is save them after a flight as something to indicate what flight the log was for, such as KORD_KSTL.log.  I can then go and fly the same route, but this time change the aircraft or take away the weather program, etc., etc., and then see what the log says after this flight.  Lots of hard work but everyone is trying to tweak and get the best settings possible for their personal computer system and doing less and less flying and this method of seeing what is taking up all of your resources is a way to have some fun and maybe solve some of the problems hitting your system. 

 

When we finally get to a 64 bit P3D, you can then turn up your settings as you will basically have unlimited VAS for a flight (there will still be limits but the amount of VAS space will be almost impossible to exceed).  Then what are we going to do?  No more OOM's and we can enjoy a full flight?  What kind of fun is that!!  LOL

 

I'm glad my tip on the EMT tool worked for you too. 

 

Best regards,