Hello,

After tweaking/changing settings, now my FSX:SE performs very good, very smooth. The only problem I have is VAS. I have tried several things to reduce but I do not know if I have done all or I am missing something. Almost all my flights I restart sim before TOD but after landing I still use around 3.8 - 3.9GB VAS (using major airports from FSDT/Flytampa/Taxi2Gate/Flightbeam/LatinVFR).

 

Addons:
PMDGs/FSLabs A320X

ORBX Global

AS16 + ASCA

Chaseplane

 

For now, TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=2048. Use Simstarter NG to active only the airports that I use for the route. FSX settings as below. FSUIPC max AI to 10 aircrafts only, no vehicle/boat/ship.

 

 

 

 

Any help would be very appreciated! I do not mind lower the settings because I only fly IFR and look from VC. I just do not know which setting that affect VAS.

Cheers
Hoang Le

Hoang,

 

The biggest contributor to high VAS is large sized textures and vector programs.

 

I'll give you a list of things to do that should lower VAS.

 

1. In ASCA lower your cloud resolution to no more than 1024 and use DXT clouds not 32 bit. Personally I use 512 for cumulus and 512 for cirrus.

 

2. In the FSX menu lower the 2048 texture max load to 1024.

 

3. In ORBX Vector limit the amount of secondary roads and other items that you don't find necessary when flying airlines.

 

4. You may not have the willingness, time, patience or fortitude to do this but it's something I've done since I started with FSX back in 2008 and to this day I've never once had an OOM with all the addon she I run. What I do is take any of my 3rd party sceneries and check the texture files and resize ANY textures that are over 1024 in size and resize them to 1024. I also add míp maps and convert them to DXT5, 3, or 1 depending on if they have alpha channels. Yes, it's a lot of work and you need to be careful when done by it (make backups first) but it can significantly reduce VAS and improve general performance. You might just do one scenery per week or per day depending on how quick you are or your willingness to improve performance. You might ask, if I reduce my TML to 1024 then why resize textures? From what I understand is that if you have a texture sheet that is 4096 x 4096 and have the TML set to 1024 is that the video card will still load the 4096 sheet into memory but FSX will only display the 1024 sheet map but the rest will still be loaded into memory.

 

I'll put it this way. For years I ran FSX on Win XP 32 bit with 2gb of system RAM and a 512mb video card and ran the PMDG NGX with tons of scenery and never had an OOM using this formula. So if it works for a 32 bit system with 2gb RAM it will work for a 64bit operating system with 8gb RAM.

 

That why people who run FS9 rarely complain about OOMS is because FS9 can't display textures large than 1024 and most sceneries are made for FS9 using 512 and 1024 sized textures as well as the same for clouds. There's no short cut on 32bit programs.

No way around it Hoang.   You are going to have to pull back the LOD and set autogen to Normal with Heavy Iron PMDG aircraft.   Lowering resolution on clouds will help like mentioned above.     You are flying a jet liner.    Until the day we see 64-bit on the ESP engine, when flying such memory hungry aircraft, give way to the aircraft first, scenery second.   As an airliner pilot you really don't need 40 million Autogen trees and buildings everywhere.   You don't.   I know you want it but you can't have it.   Pull back those sliders a notch and go from there.

Hoang,

 

The biggest contributor to high VAS is large sized textures and vector programs.

 

I'll give you a list of things to do that should lower VAS.

 

1. In ASCA lower your cloud resolution to no more than 1024 and use DXT clouds not 32 bit. Personally I use 512 for cumulus and 512 for cirrus.

 

2. In the FSX menu lower the 2048 texture max load to 1024.

 

3. In ORBX Vector limit the amount of secondary roads and other items that you don't find necessary when flying airlines.

 

4. You may not have the willingness, time, patience or fortitude to do this but it's something I've done since I started with FSX back in 2008 and to this day I've never once had an OOM with all the addon she I run. What I do is take any of my 3rd party sceneries and check the texture files and resize ANY textures that are over 1024 in size and resize them to 1024. I also add míp maps and convert them to DXT5, 3, or 1 depending on if they have alpha channels. Yes, it's a lot of work and you need to be careful when done by it (make backups first) but it can significantly reduce VAS and improve general performance. You might just do one scenery per week or per day depending on how quick you are or your willingness to improve performance. You might ask, if I reduce my TML to 1024 then why resize textures? From what I understand is that if you have a texture sheet that is 4096 x 4096 and have the TML set to 1024 is that the video card will still load the 4096 sheet into memory but FSX will only display the 1024 sheet map but the rest will still be loaded into memory.

 

I'll put it this way. For years I ran FSX on Win XP 32 bit with 2gb of system RAM and a 512mb video card and ran the PMDG NGX with tons of scenery and never had an OOM using this formula. So if it works for a 32 bit system with 2gb RAM it will work for a 64bit operating system with 8gb RAM.

 

That why people who run FS9 rarely complain about OOMS is because FS9 can't display textures large than 1024 and most sceneries are made for FS9 using 512 and 1024 sized textures as well as the same for clouds. There's no short cut on 32bit programs.

Hello,

Thank you for your help. I just download TextureManager from Stuff 4FS and I will convert the airport textures to DXT5 1024.

I set back TML to 1024 and ASCA Clouds 512 DXT(it was 1024 DXT). I do not use Vector yet, people complain about VAS a lot when using it.

 

No way around it Hoang.   You are going to have to pull back the LOD and set autogen to Normal with Heavy Iron PMDG aircraft.   Lowering resolution on clouds will help like mentioned above.     You are flying a jet liner.    Until the day we see 64-bit on the ESP engine, when flying such memory hungry aircraft, give way to the aircraft first, scenery second.   As an airliner pilot you really don't need 40 million Autogen trees and buildings everywhere.   You don't.   I know you want it but you can't have it.   Pull back those sliders a notch and go from there.

Thank you, I just change some sliders to the left, will check later after converting the airports' textures.

 

Cheers!

Hoang Le

Hello,

Thank you for your help. I just download TextureManager from Stuff 4FS and I will convert the airport textures to DXT5 1024.

I set back TML to 1024 and ASCA Clouds 512 DXT(it was 1024 DXT). I do not use Vector yet, people complain about VAS a lot when using it.

 

Hoang Le

Sorry, my mistake about vector, I misread your opening where it says Global.

 

Just be careful using mass texture converters as you don't want to accidentally upconvert textures that are smaller than 1024 to 1024. Some stuff might already be the correct size. You can use image tool in the SDK to check texture sizes but you can kind of tell by looking at the file sizes. Also don't mess with env maps or light bmps hat are used for real runways, approach lights and stuff like that. Also if textures are already DTX1 with no alphas don't make them DXT3 or DXT5 and stuff that is DXT5 or 3 don't convert to DXT1 unless there is no alpha channel. You might want to read up on the differences before you go crazy converting stuff, but make sure to back up the texture folders before doing anything that way you can revert after you test in FSX and make sure it looks ok.

 

Personally I convert all my textures one at a time, which takes a lot more time to do, but it allows me to check each texture to see if it has an alpha channel and if so can I use DXT5 or DXT3. Once you've done them all then it's easy after you buy a new airport to check them.

 

Also, stay away from converting FSDT or FlightBeam airport textures because some of their 4096 textures are ok to leave alone as they are used to reduce draw calls by using one 4096 texture sheet to texture multiple objects. Reducing these will make the scenery blurry.

Sorry, my mistake about vector, I misread your opening where it says Global.

 

Just be careful using mass texture converters as you don't want to accidentally upconvert textures that are smaller than 1024 to 1024. Some stuff might already be the correct size. You can use image tool in the SDK to check texture sizes but you can kind of tell by looking at the file sizes. Also don't mess with env maps or light bmps hat are used for real runways, approach lights and stuff like that. Also if textures are already DTX1 with no alphas don't make them DXT3 or DXT5 and stuff that is DXT5 or 3 don't convert to DXT1 unless there is no alpha channel. You might want to read up on the differences before you go crazy converting stuff, but make sure to back up the texture folders before doing anything that way you can revert after you test in FSX and make sure it looks ok.

 

Personally I convert all my textures one at a time, which takes a lot more time to do, but it allows me to check each texture to see if it has an alpha channel and if so can I use DXT5 or DXT3. Once you've done them all then it's easy after you buy a new airport to check them.

 

Also, stay away from converting FSDT or FlightBeam airport textures because some of their 4096 textures are ok to leave alone as they are used to reduce draw calls by using one 4096 texture sheet to texture multiple objects. Reducing these will make the scenery blurry.

Hi,

Thanks for the tip. Most of the time my VAS is high at FSDT/Flightbeam airport, but besides that surprisingly almost all of my addons airport are DXT 1024.

 

What about AI traffic? Will convert them from 32bit to DXT5 helps? I only limit up to 10 aircrafts so I think it would not affect VAS.

 

Thank you.

Hoang Le

 

What about AI traffic? Will convert them from 32bit to DXT5 helps? I only limit up to 10 aircrafts so I think it would not affect VAS.

Thank you.

Hoang Le

What AI traffic package are you using? Most AI traffic packages are already DXT format textures, however some of the WOAI packs that are listed as FSX come with 2048 or 4096 sized textures. Typically AI doesn't consume much VAS. I loaded Heathrow once with 100% UT2 traffic, measured VAS, then turned traffic off and measured it again and saw only about a 300mb difference in VAS usage.

 

I didn't notice prior in your FSX menu, but try this.

 

Turn off the following as these take extra passes to render.

Lense flair

Light bloom

Aircraft casts shadows on itself

 

And set the texture resolution to 30cm from 7cm. I think it's 30cm, it's whatever setting is just right of center.

 

Also in the FSX cfg make sure your LOD radius is 4.5, no higher.

 

Test and see if this helps.