Well I don't know why it worked but it worked.   I can confirm, that on my setup, turning on the following options in the Prepar3D.cfg file has made it so I can now fly from payware to payware with 75% AI traffic on (Culled to 80-100 planes total) with up to 6 full states of MegaSceneryEarth Photoreal scenery loaded with GSX active and PF3 ATC running the show.   I tend to land with about 400-500megs of VAS left at the gate.   My longest flight I have tested with this was from Taxi2Gate's KSEA to Flightbeams KPHX which was a 3 hour journey which included thick overcast and rain at KSEA (go figure lol).

 

[GRAPHICS]

ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1

 

[DISPLAY]

MaintainSystemCopyOfDeviceTextures=0

 

 

On the last 5 flights I did, I usually depart from my starting airport with about 800 megs left and it very very very slowly now bleeds down as the hours tick away to around 600 megs.   The cool thing I have noticed for me is that it seems to be loading BOTH payware airports into memory at the start of the flight rather than paging the arrival airport in as it comes into view.    So basically.. If my VAS says I have 550 megs left as I am approaching the airport..  that's truly how much I have left and I can expect no sudden VAS drop surprises that ruin the flight.    I am a happy pilot once more.

 

Tommorrow I am going to attempt LatinVFR's KRDU to FlyTampa's KMDW using Very Dense autogen and Scenery complexity and see if I can make it.    Autogen typically murders me, both in VAS and FPS.   My poor little i7 3930k combined with my GTX 980 just can't seem to handle millions of little trees and buildings everywhere...  at least not with 80 AI planes running around the place.

This is quite interesting... According to the Prepar3D guide by Rob Ainscough, the parameters 

 

[GRAPHICS]
ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1

[DISPLAY]
MaintainSystemCopyOfDeviceTextures=0

 

should assume the values shown above by default (if you don't specifically write the entries into your cfg). Since entering these parameters explicitly has made a difference for you, it must mean that the default value must be different. Maybe there has been a change between v3.3 and 3.4 in this regard (Rob's guide still refers to v3.3).

These values are usually not in the prepar3d.cfg but should be default. If they make a difference, it would indeed mean that something has changed in 3.4.

Well I don't know why it worked but it worked.   I can confirm, that on my setup, turning on the following options in the Prepar3D.cfg file has made it so I can now fly from payware to payware with 75% AI traffic on (Culled to 80-100 planes total) with up to 6 full states of MegaSceneryEarth Photoreal scenery loaded with GSX active and PF3 ATC running the show.   I tend to land with about 400-500megs of VAS left at the gate.   My longest flight I have tested with this was from Taxi2Gate's KSEA to Flightbeams KPHX which was a 3 hour journey which included thick overcast and rain at KSEA (go figure lol).

 

[GRAPHICS]

ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1

 

[DISPLAY]

MaintainSystemCopyOfDeviceTextures=0

 

 

On the last 5 flights I did, I usually depart from my starting airport with about 800 megs left and it very very very slowly now bleeds down as the hours tick away to around 600 megs.   The cool thing I have noticed for me is that it seems to be loading BOTH payware airports into memory at the start of the flight rather than paging the arrival airport in as it comes into view.    So basically.. If my VAS says I have 550 megs left as I am approaching the airport..  that's truly how much I have left and I can expect no sudden VAS drop surprises that ruin the flight.    I am a happy pilot once more.

 

Tommorrow I am going to attempt LatinVFR's KRDU to FlyTampa's KMDW using Very Dense autogen and Scenery complexity and see if I can make it.    Autogen typically murders me, both in VAS and FPS.   My poor little i7 3930k combined with my GTX 980 just can't seem to handle millions of little trees and buildings everywhere...  at least not with 80 AI planes running around the place.

Very interesting Brian  :smile:

 

Michael Moe

i see no difference

Interesting. Will return the client from 3.3.5 to 3.4.9. and put those in the cfg and see how it goes when i come home from werk

No issues on 3.3.5 version what so ever, with latest nvidia drivers on gtx1060 strix

Well I don't know why it worked but it worked.   I can confirm, that on my setup, turning on the following options in the Prepar3D.cfg file has made it so I can now fly from payware to payware with 75% AI traffic on (Culled to 80-100 planes total) with up to 6 full states of MegaSceneryEarth Photoreal scenery loaded with GSX active and PF3 ATC running the show.   I tend to land with about 400-500megs of VAS left at the gate.   My longest flight I have tested with this was from Taxi2Gate's KSEA to Flightbeams KPHX which was a 3 hour journey which included thick overcast and rain at KSEA (go figure lol).

 

[GRAPHICS]

ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1

 

[DISPLAY]

MaintainSystemCopyOfDeviceTextures=0

 

 

On the last 5 flights I did, I usually depart from my starting airport with about 800 megs left and it very very very slowly now bleeds down as the hours tick away to around 600 megs.   The cool thing I have noticed for me is that it seems to be loading BOTH payware airports into memory at the start of the flight rather than paging the arrival airport in as it comes into view.    So basically.. If my VAS says I have 550 megs left as I am approaching the airport..  that's truly how much I have left and I can expect no sudden VAS drop surprises that ruin the flight.    I am a happy pilot once more.

 

Tommorrow I am going to attempt LatinVFR's KRDU to FlyTampa's KMDW using Very Dense autogen and Scenery complexity and see if I can make it.    Autogen typically murders me, both in VAS and FPS.   My poor little i7 3930k combined with my GTX 980 just can't seem to handle millions of little trees and buildings everywhere...  at least not with 80 AI planes running around the place.

 

Really great news to hear this Brian and that you're able to fly again rather than just troubleshooting and feeling frustrated. I'm happy for you :smile:

 

What you say about how it feels like P3D loads both your payware airports already at start I don't understand the logic behind though. I do understand why you feel this is what happens since you start off with a rather modest VAS value and with no sudden drop once you reach your destination.

 

What I don't understand is how P3D would  know what airport you're going to if you have lots of payware airports installed? Because obviously it can't load all of them at start since that would most probably result in an OOM before you even had the chance to blink.

 

Regardless really great news and if the default values for these specific settings indeed did change in 3.4 I guess that would be an easy thing for LM to confirm.

 

 

What you say about how it feels like P3D loads both your payware airports already at start I don't understand the logic behind though. I do understand why you feel this is what happens since you start off with a rather modest VAS value and with no sudden drop once you reach your destination.

 

I had a similar understanding based on what I saw during my flights so far with 3.4. In many cases the VAS drop getting closer to destination is negligible. 

 

 

 

What I don't understand is how P3D would  know what airport you're going to if you have lots of payware airports installed? Because obviously it can't load all of them at start since that would most probably result in an OOM before you even had the chance to blink.

 

Good question....In my case I only activate departure and destination airport (using Scenery config editor), so in this case it might be simple, otherwise it is difficult to find an explanation.   

 

 

Good question....In my case I only activate departure and destination airport (using Scenery config editor), so in this case it might be simple, otherwise it is difficult to find an explanation.

 

That of course would explain things. I was assuming having everything in your scenery library enabled.

 

I know there were lots of discussions going on in the past if disabling things in the scenery library would allow you to improve things from a VAS perspective but as I recall it there was never a 100% conclusion if that was really the case.

 

If my memory serves some people said they did notice an improvement by disabling all airports except for the origin and destination ones where other people myself included did not see any difference where the explanation back then was that since the scenery isn't loaded until you get within a certain distance there's really no need to disable scenery you won't be close to during your flight.

Exactly!

 

I have EVERY scenery enabled. By this logic I would get an instant OOm after starting P3D.

 

 

[GRAPHICS]

ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1

 

[DISPLAY]

MaintainSystemCopyOfDeviceTextures=0

   

 

I've gave it a try, and on my system I've seen that with those lines added in my test scenario (Klax fsdt and ngx with asca and as16) I'm starting with about 580mb vas free, and I'm able to do a circuit and land with about 210mb free.

Without the lines, I'm starting with 100mb more of free vas and able to land with about the same free vas that I have with those lines in cfg. I'll try a full flight to check how things will go.

Another thing to try is to disable hyper threading if you have that enabled.

It has been reported in the past that the more photoscenery areas that are enabled in the Scenery Library, the more VAS is consumed at the start of a flight (even if that photoscenery is nowhere near the location of the user's aircraft). However, as someone pointed out to me recently, the photoscenery can't actually be loaded because it occupies tens of gigabytes of hard disk space!! So, I am curious to know what is actually happening here. What exactly is occupying VAS when photoscenery is enabled?

I turned off HT a long time ago.  It was the only way to achieve a stable 4.6ghz overclock on my Hexacore processor.   The heat build up is to great with HT on.

 

I only ever activate the states/city MegaScenery packs I am flying over for my flight plan and the departure and arrival airport.   Turning off airports really does't seem to help VAS all that much unless you are flying over a payware airport.   I just do it out of habit and that 'Just in Case' nag in the back of my mind.   The photo scenery though absolutely has to be turned off and on depending on your flight.   You will murder your VAS if you tried to turn the entire United States or Europe photo scenery on at once... not to mention you'll have enough time to go eat dinner and get back before it's down booting up the sim.

 

I realize those config settings are suppose to be the defaults but for some reason me setting them in the config file physically has made all the difference between a stable VAS flight and a dinging OOM mess.   I don't know what's going on under the hood but it is working for me.. at least with Photo scenery scenarios.   I am going to test an Autogen/Landclass scenario today from KRDU to KMDW with Very Dense autogen settings and see if I can make it without dinging to death.

It has been reported in the past that the more photoscenery areas that are enabled in the Scenery Library, the more VAS is consumed at the start of a flight (even if that photoscenery is nowhere near the location of the user's aircraft). However, as someone pointed out to me recently, the photoscenery can't actually be loaded because it occupies tens of gigabytes of hard disk space!! So, I am curious to know what is actually happening here. What exactly is occupying VAS when photoscenery is enabled?

I don'the know the answer to this but if you enable a bunch of photo scenery then switch to a top down view then zoom out... waaay out, you'll see scenery bits have been loaded (at the most basic level at least) many hundreds of miles from your current location. If nothing else, the practice of only enabling scenery you're going to use saves on loading time.