FSX-MS How to ignore OOMs almost completely...and keep flying!

[sloppysmusic 206]

Tell me if you all know this already but you need not lose a flight/approach/landing because of a pesky OOM turning up like a...well you know what I mean.

The OOM is NOT an FSX crash. It's FSX telling you WOAH you reached your VAS limit boy we are not going to load ANY more scenery objects, sounds or whatever. You may as well shut the sim down by pressing this big button down in the middle of your screen.

Except you don't have to. In full screen you have no choice. But in windows mode or in my case full screen windowed mode ( I use the excellent Background Gaming app to do this) all you need to do to keep flying is to click on the main screen outside the OOM box and it disappears and you can keep on flying. Of course it does not actually disappear but just loses focus. Example, I just finished a flight into Gold Coast OrbX with the PMDG 747-400. On approach I got THREE OOM windows cascading on my screen. I ignored then and continued flying. Because at the point of the OOM hitting FSX had already loaded up the airport completely I landed (dealt with overheated brakes), taxied back to gate, and shut down the plane calmly and fully as usual then saved the flight. I switched to my outside view and panned round the aircraft enjoying the scenery. Now remember what I said about not being able to load any more scenery/objects? Well as I had not panned all round my plane in flight ONE of the views had a partial skeleton showing with the passenger seats visible. Big deal! The OOM had been 'defeated'.

Of course this is most useful on landing when the airport loads and the OOM hits. This is because like me you have probably already got all or most of the airport loaded so we are in good shape. If your VAS management is so poor that it runs out mid flight or even on taxi before take off we are not so lucky. We can still fly all the way to our destination but unless you happened to be flying at night already your whole flight will be a green blob below and a blue one above. You can still reach cruise then save it though, to return later.

I landed once at OrbX LOWI, a LARGE user of VAS in the FSW Learjet 35A. As I turned into the valley for the last 10 miles of approach i got several OOM windows in front of me. I ignored them as usual by clicking on the screen above them but because FSX had not yet loaded LOWI itself BEFORE the OOM the nearer I got to the landing the blurrier the textures got until I finally landed on a bunch of Microsoft Blue default textures. Bizarre indeed but at least I had completed the long flight without having to quit and reload (IF I had a reload that is ready to go). I took a screen shot of this which I sadly deleted as rather embarrassing but I can at least still fly after such VAS abuse!

OK, once again if this is common knowledge I apologize! I am sure this trick does NOT work in regular full screen. You MUST be using windowed or full windowed mode for it to work. I love full screen windowed mode because there are no menus to kill the immersion and I can easily move my mouse over to my second screen and look at charts and other usual stuff like ChasePlane and Little Nav Map.

Ignoring the OOM is literally just a click in the right place away(anywhere other than on the OOM warning window on your main sim screen).

Background Gaming, the utility I use has breathed new life into my massive FSX collection of scenery. I still use Scenery Config Editor to keep my VAS in control but if I don't quite get the numbers right I still get to finish every flight as normal, barring a few anomalies because the key point here is that FSX will load ZERO textures/sounds/objects after that OOM. So what you got loaded at the time is what you get to keep until the end of the flight or until you decide on a good place to save and continue.

Thanks to all at AVSIM for this massive depository of info and advice, I hope this advice helps others like me who love our FSX and don't want to start all over. 

 

[speedyTC 195]

I get the warnings, I ignore them and at some point FSX just shuts down. I also fly in fullscreen windowed mode.

What magic sauce are you using, Russ?

[sloppysmusic 206]

I'm not going to spend 1 single word arguing in defence of my chosen simulater here. It would be off topic and in the wrong forum. I chose this forum deliberately for a post that took me half an hour to write when I I could have had more fun flying said sim. I have known for a while there were people here who look down on others and their personal choices , but have not let it affect me. In fact I have posted recently in the other camps forum, the one that belongs to them (as supposed to a communal one we can all feel we belong to), and offered help with problems that don't require me to own their product. I have enjoyed AVSIM for years precisely because of the unilateral love for simulation flying and the community that has existed here. I find it utterly depressing that free speech can be stifled by simply starting an argument in a thread that you want rid of. A sad reality of the current polarized world that I and others seek shelter from in here. Want a thread gone? Post comments like I have read today making sure to offend enough to get a response then smile with satisfaction when the thread is closed and drops off the bottom of the list into oblivion. As long as my chosen sim is supported by AVSIM I shall remain a member and treat the choices of others with respect and comment always and only for the benefit of all not the few. 

[sloppysmusic 206]

On 2/13/2019 at 4:23 AM, speedyTC said:

I get the warnings, I ignore them and at some point FSX just shuts down. I also fly in fullscreen windowed mode.

What magic sauce are you using, Russ?

I'm not sure how many warnings you can ignore Tony before windows takes over and shuts FSX down. Last night I flew all over OrbX new Zealand North Island using 4 airports in one FSX session. NZGS and NZWR (full add-ons) plus NZRO and NZWN (region addons ) with the FlySimWare LearJet 35A. Running at LOD 6.5 and very high scenery settings (Autogen set to 1 notch down from highest) I made it all the way to flying over NZWN for the course reversal before the first OOM warning came. As I had already loaded the scenery I ignored it and flew the approach and parked the plane with the beautiful scenery unaffected by the OOM at all. This was because I was only flying over scenery that FSX had already loaded. If I had diverted then it would have looked rubbish. I will make a video at some stage because with quick and careful scenery choice before flight using SCE and this full screen window tip OOMs do not stop me flying anymore, or landing. 

[RRVyper 34]

On 2/13/2019 at 3:23 AM, speedyTC said:

I get the warnings, I ignore them and at some point FSX just shuts down. I also fly in fullscreen windowed mode.

What magic sauce are you using, Russ?

Although I have moved to P3D, I had the same experience as you. Sometimes I could continue with the approach, fingers crossed, hoping for the best, and the sim would not crash. Other times, not so lucky. What I ended up doing was using FSUIPC to monitor VAS and used it's AutoSave function if things didn't go my way. 😉

Randy

[speedyTC 195]

Thanks for replies, guys.

In my case I use the Scenery Configurator and just load the airports I need for a given Point A to Point B flight. One caveat though. I usually fly with the FSL bus and I know that is a "heavy" add-on. My settings are fairly conservative (scenery-wise) as my aging machine is showing signs of kicking the bucket. I usually turn off the FSUIPC autosave function when flying the Bus as a reload of a saved flight has never gone well. Besides, short to medium haul are feasible for a retired old codger like me. When I use the T7, however, Autosave is turned on (but just a single one saving the situation every 10mins or so and overwriting the older one) and that works well.

P3Dv4 is in my future but as I want to do it clean and right that means building a new machine. Eventually. 🙄 So, for the time being, I am still enjoying what Old Faithful (FSX) can give me.

Cheers!

[Jim Young 2,356]

I too like to limit my flights from 1-2 hours (sometimes using 4x acceleration).  I have found the descent is the time to be watching the VAS and it sometimes gets very difficult when on the final approach with heavy rainstorms outside.

[sloppysmusic 206]

With me the only thing I change for each flight is the scenery itself in Scenery Config Editor and the LOD in Steve's DX10 fixer. FSX with Dx9 and non-steam version I could not handle these days.

I have a simplistic formula to decide my pre flight LOD setting.

I start at 8.5 with an OrbX region with included airports using a non-vas heavy aircraft (in my case the FSW Lear) and lower it from there.

-1 for each mid size OrbX addon airport.

-1 for complex plane like A2A Accusim/PMDG

-2 for each major OrbX addon airport.

So for example KSAN (major) to KPSP (mid size) using PMDG 737 would be 8.5 -2 -1 -1 = 4.5 LOD

If I arrive with more than 500kb (.5mb) VAS left I feel I got the calc wrong and could have had a larger LOD. The LOD to me makes the difference to me whether I look out the window at the amazing scenery or just climb up high and dont care. I'd say 1/4 flights I actually get a single OM near the end and that to me is fine as long as I have the airport loaded up. It's a failure in my calcs if I see ONE Microsoft blue texture!

Of course, I'm the guy who has always been kind of nuts with pushing my system to the limits. Back in the day it was the PMDG MD-11 and JS4100, neither exactly VAS friendly, running on an old PC with no addons except some mesh and photo scenery( big VAS killer!).

I would be running at LOD 2.5 or 1.5 and all my flights would be at night for obvious reasons! VFR has been a recent thing for me. I could get up to 4.5 with the RealAir dukes but I felt so at home with night flights (a bad scenery view ruins the whole flight for me) that I would still only fly at nights. It's why my VOR/ADF nav is like second nature to me I could do it blindfolded...the knock on effect from those years is that even when I fly the PMDG jets now I still ONLY use VOR nav and the MCP to navigate.

OK I'm off topic now but where there's a will there's a way to get impressive flights out of FSX. That's the whole point.  

EDIT Some scenery from OrbX IMHO should be labeled as P3D ONLY as the VAS usage is ridiculously high and therefore a waste of good money and a source of frustration for us FSX users. 

ESSA is huge, LOWI also but better optimized than the former so usable. Orlando City Scene...well that's bordering on false advertising saying it's usable in FSX...

I can only use LOWI and ESSA AND get pretty scenery on approaches IF I take off and land from the same airport. Not exactly a bad option for a scenic trip anyway but otherwise you HAVE to save mid flight and change scenery!

58 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

it sometimes gets very difficult when on the final approach with heavy rainstorms outside.

As Jim says here, weather addons might look sweet but there's another VAS hit. IF weather forecast is 'interesting' I will always take another -1 off my VAS calculations above!

Edited February 18, 2019 by sloppysmusic

[Jim Young 2,356]

42 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said:

As Jim says here, weather addons might look sweet but there's another VAS hit. IF weather forecast is 'interesting' I will always take another -1 off my VAS calculations above!

Yes, there was several times where I saw my VAS dwindling and shutdown the weather and disabled AI.  Rather do that than face a crash after a 2 hour flight!  

[sloppysmusic 206]

8 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

Yes, there was several times where I saw my VAS dwindling and shutdown the weather and disabled AI.  Rather do that than face a crash after a 2 hour flight!  

Absolutely!

"Captain we low on fuel we need to ditch the excess baggage if we gonna make the airfield! OK buddy, throw the weather and the other planes out the sky. That should do it. We GOT to make that landing. The whole world depends on us!"

😄

Been there done that sir! At least FSX regains VAS if it does not have more to load after we leave an area of great VAStness. So we can still carry on. Anything but a quit and reload..that never feels right...!

[sloppysmusic 206]

To push the limits of my theory (tested and working!) tonight I broke my LOD rule and used 7.5 LOD for 2 OrbX airports. I ran out of VAS 10 miles out BEFORE the airport had loaded. Ignoring the OOM message as usual by clicking on the main window I landed and taxied to the ramp and then saved the flight. Obviously you would not want this to happen but these screens are proof you can still finish your flight even if the airport never loaded. Get the math right first though and you can land after the OOM (after airport has loaded) and visually everything still looks great. Full screen window mode thank you very much!!

Note: FSX wont let you take screen shots after VAS has run out (try it!) but I actually gained 200k after landing so it WAS possible to take them. FSX will RECLAIM VAS after an OOM but as I mentioned before will NOT let you load any more objects.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by sloppysmusic

[TextRich 88]

Out of curiosity, what airfield were your screen shots taken at, Russell?

Edited February 19, 2019 by BF Bullpup

[sloppysmusic 206]

2 hours ago, BF Bullpup said:

Out of curiosity, what airfield were your screen shots taken at, Russell?

The clue is in the tiny ATC text but for those without magnify glasses it's Orbx Canberra. YSCB plus Canberra Cityscape. You can see the cityscape loaded in the background before the OOM.  Loaded up the airport again right after and it's glorious. The OrbX Australia airports were generally there earlier ones so not so VAS optimized. I had to use LOD 6.5 to get to my next 2 airports. That Lear is ironically one of my fave VFR planes too. Great for scenery watching and fast as heck when I need to skip over some desert! 

[TextRich 88]

Cheers Russell.

Russ or anyone else who has posted recently, can you please once again link to AVSim's OOM guide?  I didn't think to click on it before and now I want to use it to help another FSX user.  I found a couple of guides related to FSX off Jim Young's signature but I don't know if they are the OOM guide referenced in recent FSX OOM threads.  Thank you!

[Jim Young 2,356]

Page 36, AVSIM CTD Guide shows a section on OOM's.  Also, if you have a PMDG aircraft, they posted information starting around page 21 of their Introductory Guide.