Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
james42

OOM with low VAS?

Recommended Posts

Hi everyone, my flight sim has been very stable since I got my new computer a few months with only a few CTD's and no OOM's. But over the last few days, i have been running out of memory on every flight. This happened first on a flight between Miami and Quito. The new Quito airport is not present in the flight sim so i downloaded some simple freeware scenery online. During the flight, i left my desk to grab something to eat and I came back to find the dreaded OOM message. I just clicked ok and the sim closed in the usual way. I put it down to something being wrong with the free Quito scenery i downloaded, so i removed it. My next flight was between New York and Anchorage and after around 3 hours with no warning, another OOM. A few days later i decided to do a BA flight between LHR and JFK which again ended in an OOM.

My next flight was going to be LHR to ORD, on this flight i was going to make sure i monitored the VAS very carefully. On the ground at the gate with nearly 100% AI traffic it was holding steady at around 3.6GBS's. Before pushback i decided to be safe and turned the AI off, it then went down to around 3.3GB's and remained steady (bear in mind I was using the pmdg 747 with uk2000's EGLL). I taxied and took off and climbed to Fl350 with no issues at all. By this point, VAS was down to about 2.6GB's so i turned the AI traffic back on which didn't affect it. As i was crossing the Atlantic, VAS remained low until crossing into Canada where it jumped to around 3.0GB's. Then a short while later with no warning with VAS at only 3.4GB's, the dreaded OOM message pops up.

The strange thing is i have not made any changes to my sim at all over the last week or so this has been happening. The only change was downloading that freeware Quito scenery. Plus, i don't use any global scenery add-ons, everything is default. I do use some freeware add-on clouds, but I've been using them for years with no problems. 

What could be causing the OOM message to display with VAS so low? Any help appreciated with this strange issue.

 

 

      

 

 


 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It is entirely possible to run out of VAS if something in your setup requests a memory block that is larger than available - in addition to usage, you need to look at the largest free block. FSUIPC (registered) will do this very neatly. Obviously, something has changed in your setup if you are running out of VAS on every flight. It's kind of up to you to figure out what because there is no magic answer. For example, did the simple freeware you installed put some very large texture in the global texture folder?

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I can barely do a flight in the PMDG 777 from FSDT KORD to FlightBeam KIAD (about 2.5 hours).  Turn on real weather using AS16 and, depending on the weather, it's pure luck if you land w/o an OOM.  The killers of VAS are AI and autogen.  I remember when P3D was first released and everyone was testing it and trying to make it crash with an OOM.  Turned up Autogen to the max and within 30 minutes of flight, an OOM.  Turn off autogen, and no OOM. 

Of course you will have absolutely no problems at FL 240 or 360.  Heck, not much to render when you are that high.  No nasty weather, clear blue skies.  FS is suddenly fun and enjoyable!  Then you begin the descent and things start getting serious with the VAS monitor from FSUIPC.  You have almost 2GB's of VAS at TD and, by the time you get to the approach phase, in nasty weather and to a detailed airport like FB's KIAD, things start to deteriorate fast and, by the time you land, you might, if you are lucky, have 200MB's of VAS left and perhaps enough to get your virtual passengers to the gate.  But unlikely.  You won't see the gate.  The descent phase is the critical part of the flight as you are usually coming into more AI, autogen, nasty weather, and lots of AI in and around a highly detailed airport (you're not going to try and land at a default airport in the middle of the desert are you?  No a very highly detailed airport). 

So that's why you are running into OOM's....

During the descent, you might want to turn down AI and turn off autogen.  That might help.  If you are getting really low on VAS, you might consider turning off AS16 and just have some nice clear weather in the area.  Your only real solution is to go to a 64 bit application like P3D or XP11 where you have unlimited VAS (well, you will run out VAS after around 7TB's and that's more than most storage space on any computer system).

Best regards,

Jim

  • Upvote 1

Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

Submit News to AVSIM
Important other links: Basic FSX Configuration Guide | AVSIM CTD Guide | AVSIM Prepar3D Guide | Help with AVSIM Site | Signature Rules | Screen Shot Rule | AVSIM Terms of Service (ToS)

I7 8086K  5.0GHz | GTX 1080 TI OC Edition | Dell 34" and 24" Monitors | ASUS Maximus X Hero MB Z370 | Samsung M.2 NVMe 500GB and 1TB | Samsung SSD 500GB x2 | Toshiba HDD 1TB | WDC HDD 1TB | Corsair H115i Pro | 16GB DDR4 3600C17 | Windows 10 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
17 hours ago, james42 said:

The only change was downloading that freeware Quito scenery.

Perhaps it might be worth uninstalling Quito and then repeating some of the failed flights to see if things are any better. Some freeware (and unfortunately some payware!) scenery can be poorly optimised and this can cause VAS issues but the odd thing is Quito was quite far away from most of your flight tracks.

Bill

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I have subsequently removed all of my recent scenery installs. If I don't click ok on the OOM message, the sim will continue to run but will no longer load any outside textures. Is this normal for an OOM situation? I'm about to start a flight between LHR and JFK and will report back with my findings.    


 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have not had an OOM since switching to P3d v4.1.   I was at a point that EVERY flight in FSX was ending or being interrupted with an OOM.  I was ready to give it all up, but pulled the trigger on P3d.   I've never been happier and now I fly every day with scenery as far as the eye can see that is clear and non-blurry. Above all....I fly the whole flight and have satisfaction like I had back in the good old days.

 

Stan

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's the beauty of a 64-bit process Stan...you'll never have an OOM again. Whoopie..........Doug


Intel 10700K @ 5.1Ghz, Asus Hero Maximus motherboard, Noctua NH-U12A cooler, Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 3200 MHz RAM, RTX 2060 Super GPU, Cooler Master HAF 932 Tower, Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU, Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit, 100TB of disk storage. Klaatu barada nickto.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The flight ended with another OOM. But this time I had almost 2GB's of VAS to spare. I've now removed all of my add-on scenery so my sim is basically default. I'm going to be upgrading to P3D in the summer so if all else fails, I guess I'll just have to reinstall the sim. Thanks for your suggestions everyone. 


 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

May be worth trying the flight again (if you have the patience!)  using just the default setup to see if it happens again. It's odd though as you really shouldn't be getting an OOM error report if you have 2GB of VAS to spare. What are you using to measure VAS usage? FSUIPC?

Bill

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As ubersu says above, a possible candidate for the cause of the OOM is badly fragmented memory, Although relatively rare, one cause of excessive memory fragmentation is having a RAM stick go bad. It might be worth while to take a couple of minutes to check the RAM. One way to do that can be found here:  https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff700221.aspx  . A Google search will yield other methods..........Doug


Intel 10700K @ 5.1Ghz, Asus Hero Maximus motherboard, Noctua NH-U12A cooler, Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 3200 MHz RAM, RTX 2060 Super GPU, Cooler Master HAF 932 Tower, Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU, Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit, 100TB of disk storage. Klaatu barada nickto.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I usually just use FSUIPC to measure my VAS usage, but since I've had this problem I've been keeping process explorer open on my second screen so I can monitor it more closely. I think you guys are right, I definitely have some kind of memory issue here. I ran the windows memory diagnostic utility but it didn't find anything wrong. I've never had any problem with VAS before as I like to keep my sim relatively simple. I think I'm going to contact the guy who built my pc tomorrow and see if he can shed any light on this.         


 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm really curious as to the cause of this problem. Let us know what you find from the builder.........Doug


Intel 10700K @ 5.1Ghz, Asus Hero Maximus motherboard, Noctua NH-U12A cooler, Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 3200 MHz RAM, RTX 2060 Super GPU, Cooler Master HAF 932 Tower, Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU, Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit, 100TB of disk storage. Klaatu barada nickto.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Obvious question

You have 64bit OS right?


| FAA ZMP |
| PPL ASEL |
| Windows 11 | MSI Z690 Tomahawk | 12700K 4.7GHz | MSI RTX 4080 | 32GB 5600 MHz DDR5 | 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD | 2x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 | EVGA 850W Gold | Corsair 5000X | HP G2 (VR) / LG 27" 1440p |

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Obvious question

You have 64bit OS right?

 

Yes, Windows 10 pro 64 bit. 


 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/31/2018 at 5:12 AM, james42 said:

The flight ended with another OOM. But this time I had almost 2GB's of VAS to spare.

I would be curious as to what the figures were that made you say you had 2GB's to spare.  I do not see any possible way you could have an OOM with at least 2GB's to spare.  Even if one of your memory simms was unseated or went bad and you only had 4GB's or 8GB's of RAM.  The FSUIPC shows bytes and you have to go a converter.  I GB = 1,073,741,824 Bytes.  As you can see 10 digits or more of bytes equals one GB.  2GB's =2,147,483,648 Bytes (wow!  That's a lot of digits!).  See http://whatsabyte.com/P1/byteconverter.htm.  If you only had 200MB's left (which could cause the OOM), it would show up in the FSUIPC monitor as 209,715,200.  When you see the 209, you might assume this means you have more than 2GB's left when, in reality, you only have 200MB's left and the FSUIPC utility would have a dinging sound to warn you that you are running out of memory.

In the Modules folder, there should be a fsuipc4.txt document after every flight that will show the amount of VAS remaining at the end of your flight.  It will also show you how much you had at the beginning of the flight to the end when you crash or quit FSX.

As I stated above in my earlier post, when you are descending for a landing, that's when your VAS will be used the most.  If it is a long flight, the likelihood of landing w/o an OOM will be slim.

Best regards,

Jim

  • Upvote 1

Jim Young | AVSIM Online! - Simming's Premier Resource!

Member, AVSIM Board of Directors - Serving AVSIM since 2001

Submit News to AVSIM
Important other links: Basic FSX Configuration Guide | AVSIM CTD Guide | AVSIM Prepar3D Guide | Help with AVSIM Site | Signature Rules | Screen Shot Rule | AVSIM Terms of Service (ToS)

I7 8086K  5.0GHz | GTX 1080 TI OC Edition | Dell 34" and 24" Monitors | ASUS Maximus X Hero MB Z370 | Samsung M.2 NVMe 500GB and 1TB | Samsung SSD 500GB x2 | Toshiba HDD 1TB | WDC HDD 1TB | Corsair H115i Pro | 16GB DDR4 3600C17 | Windows 10 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...