Why is P3D handling VAS so poorly?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

I was led to believe that P3D handled VAS far better than FSX. Well I'm not convinced and I hope the attached image proves my point.

I'm using P3D v3.4, FS Labs ConcordeX and two Aerosoft Airports - Mega Airport Oslo and Heathrow Xtended. My P3D settings are in line with those recommended by Rob Ainscough in his support document. Hardware in my sig.

On loading a saved flight with Concorde cold and dark at Oslo the remaining VAS is around 1200Mb. That fine. However after passing FL260 I've past the Norwegian coast heading out into the North Sea and accelerating to Mach 2. I would expect to see P3D recover a reasonable amount of VAS but a measly 100Mb is recovered.

As I descend I turn towards England and you can see VAS increase further and then as I approach London it goes as high as 3700-3800 and warnings are issued. However, the graphics don't break up as is often the case in FSX when the sim is about to OOM and I manage to land and park with just 300Mb remaining.

Now whilst P3D seems to be able to run with very little VAS why does it not recover more when I'm out over the North Sea? Is there some secret settings I have missed that handles it better than this?

I had 500-600Mb of VAS remaining with FSX:SP2 than P3D as I approached Heathrow. How can that be right?

[fluffyflops 1,856]

I imagine you didn't see all the posts about the ndivia drivers??  

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

2 minutes ago, tooting said:

I imagine you didn't see all the posts about the ndivia drivers??  

I have seen discussion about possible VAS leakage with some drivers but hasn't that been solved with the latest? I'm running 381.89.

[sultanofswing 57]

What are your settings?  I know you say you went off Rob's guide but Rob has a a different machine and settings need to be tailored to your own PC.

[GSalden 4,656]

Ray, with your drivers , your P3D settings and your addons you experience poor VAS handling.

Orbx Vector , PMDG 777 and perhaps some other addon aircraft have a big influence on VAS usage.

You have to try finding a balance that is working for you.

[Schlotterknie 35]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

However, the graphics don't break up as is often the case in FSX when the sim is about to OOM and I manage to land and park with just 300Mb remaining.

300MB left after parking the aircraft at Heathrow is just wonderful... I don´t get the problem...
You´re flying a detailed aircraft from a very detailed airport (Oslo) into the area of London Heathrow which is very well known VAS-killer. I would understand if you complained about getting an OOM but leaving your virtual Concorde with 300MB VAS still available after approaching Heathrow is what I would truly call a happy end.

However, if you´re really unhappy just because you don´t have tons of free VAS after anyway succesfully approaching EGLL extended I´m not getting tired to recommend following these 5 major points:

1. Disable Hyperthreading...
2. Use GeForce driver 381.65 or above (! clean install !)
3. Disable shadercache and multithreading in the Nvidia driversettings (control panel or inspector).
4. Leave "OPTIMIZE_PARTS=0" in your cfg.
5. Make use of "ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1" in the cfg in the GRAPHICS section.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Ray,

Try the 382.05 driver set.

I've been fooling around this afternoon in P3D for 2-3 hours (wife and I enjoyed the sun on a day trip out yesterday so I earned a 'day off' ). During that time I monitored VAS usage with projectFLY's clever little VAS utility while jumping around randomly all over the globe. Previously this would be a strict no no without mandatory P3D restarts in between flights to reset the VAS. This time I survived throughout and VAS barely climbed above 3GB!

I ended up under autopilot enjoying a flight above an amazing cloudscape while cruising south from Welshpool in Wales. Here's a screen capture from the flight:

I have to say I'm impressed with these drivers but for one reservation: the frequent non-appearance of the NCP item in the mouse right-click context menu which is a nuisance. I thought it had something to do with the ASUS AISuite III but I've got that working correctly now and the NCP problem persists. It's possible that it may not happen to you.

Give it a try, you never know!

Regards,

Mike

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

57 minutes ago, sultanofswing said:

What are your settings?  I know you say you went off Rob's guide but Rob has a a different machine and settings need to be tailored to your own PC.

I'm not going to paste multiple screenshots of my settings. Suffice to say they are close to Rob's high-end PC. I have changed Autogen from Very Dense through Dense to Normal and Sparse. The remaining VAS doesn't change that much.

Frame rates are not the problem. It's the inability of P3D to release VAS once away from a built-up area. The remaining VAS hardly ever increases even when over ocean. That just isn't right. It appears to still have the airport scenery and 150 Ai aircraft in its memory.

I am currently conducting a test to see how P3D handles VAS. Slewed up to 1500ft at Heathrow in Concorde and turned to 180. Slewing due south at 320kts. No change in VAS as I crossed the English Channel.

I'll perform the same test in FSX and compare results.

[Silicus 878]

Ray, 

I feel your pain!

No matter how we sugar coat it: P3D.3x's underlying technology is 12+ years old - that is the middle ages when it comes to today's technology. The two simply don't match, for getting the best out of it. All we do is fiddle and diddle to make it work.....

Hope you find some good settings as a compromise!

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

15 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Ray, with your drivers , your P3D settings and your addons you experience poor VAS handling.

Orbx Vector , PMDG 777 and perhaps some other addon aircraft have a big influence on VAS usage.

You have to try finding a balance that is working for you.

I have downloaded the 376.33 drivers to try tomorrow. Those are the last 'good' drivers before these VAS problems started.

Concorde consumes around 500Mb of VAS. I don't have Orbx Vector or the 777. Just FTX Global, UTX Europe and Concorde. UTX Europe consumes around 300Mb.

But I had these products in FSX SP2 and VAS remaining was much higher. That's why I suspect P3D rather than drivers.

[Schlotterknie 35]

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I have downloaded the 376.33 drivers to try tomorrow.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

7 minutes ago, Schlotterknie said:

300MB left after parking the aircraft at Heathrow is just wonderful... I don´t get the problem...
You´re flying a detailed aircraft from a very detailed airport (Oslo) into the area of London Heathrow which is very well known VAS-killer. I would understand if you complained about getting an OOM but leaving your virtual Concorde with 300MB VAS still available after approaching Heathrow is what I would truly call a happy end.

However, if you´re really unhappy just because you don´t have tons of free VAS after anyway succesfully approaching EGLL extended I´m not getting tired to recommend following these 5 major points:

1. Disable Hyperthreading...
2. Use GeForce driver 381.65 or above (! clean install !)
3. Disable shadercache and multithreading in the Nvidia driversettings (control panel or inspector).
4. Leave "OPTIMIZE_PARTS=0" in your cfg.
5. Make use of "ENABLE_MEMORY_OPTIMIZATION=1" in the cfg in the GRAPHICS section.

I appreciate what you're saying but I had around 500Mb remaining with FSX:SP2. I would have expected P3D to be better than FSX.

I'll check which of those suggestions I have already done. I'm reluctant to disable Hyperthreading and will try different drivers with the same test. I don't use Nvidia Inspector at all.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

1 minute ago, Schlotterknie said:

I'm not an emoji expert. What does that mean?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

11 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ray,

Try the 382.05 driver set.

I've been fooling around this afternoon in P3D for 2-3 hours (wife and I enjoyed the sun on a day trip out yesterday so I earned a 'day off' ). During that time I monitored VAS usage with projectFLY's clever little VAS utility while jumping around randomly all over the globe. Previously this would be a strict no no without mandatory several P3D restarts to reset the VAS. This time I survived throughout and VAS barely climbed above 3GB!

I ended up under autopilot enjoying a flight above an amazing cloudscape while cruising south from Welshpool in Wales. here's a screen capture from the flight:

I have to say I'm impressed with these drivers but for one reservation: the frequent non-appearance of the NCP item in the mouse right-click context menu which is a nuisance. I thought it had something to do with ASUS AISuite III but I've got that working correctly now and the NCP problem persists. It's possible that it may not happen to you.

 

Regards,

Mike

 

Thanks Mike. I'm on those at present. That aircraft is not going to affect your VAS usage much.

I need to have a consistent test with just P3D settings or Nvidia drivers changing. That way I can properly judge the impact of any change.

[Schlotterknie 35]

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I'll check which of those suggestions I have already done. I'm reluctant to disable Hyperthreading and will try different drivers with the same test. I don't use Nvidia Inspector at all.

You won´t get better performance with FSX/P3d keeping it enabled. That more than 10 years old FSX/P3D-engine just doesn´t know how to make use of it. Even with a modern, properly optimized application the performance gain of HT is to neglect. HT is not much more than a marketing gag by Intel. I really recommend you at least to try it, it´s just a switch in your BIOS. Takes a minute do change it. Disabled HT saves 300-500MB of VAS on my system with absolutely 0 performance loss.

To disable your shadercache and multithreading of your driver (saves about 100MB) you don´t need to install NV inspector. You can do that quick and easy with the Nvidia control panel and it´s also without perfomance loss.