LM's intentions re: VRAM management

[GSalden 4,689]

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I recommend you try the option and decide for yourself ... too many user/system specific variables to suggest any meaningful disadvantage.

As far as I can see it the aircraft being used with its gauges also have a big influence on VRAM.

Everything is maxed out on my 2x 4K server with textures 2048, except :

-AG at very dense

- 2x SSAA

- 30 hertz

And VRAM never exceeds 7 Gb ( 3090 .... ) 

The only thing I can think of is my Prosim cockpit suite that runs outside P3D ...

[Yogipriester 11]

15 hours ago, CaptKornDog said:

Ooof, I sure hope buying a 3080 isn't going to cause me remorse in lieu for another $800+ for a 3090.

That is the reason why I am considering the Rx6800XT with 16GB for my next P3D PC. However, I am not sure yet whether AMD card is a good idea for a PC solely to be used for P3D and in addition, they are very hard (expensive) to obtain at the moment here in Germany.

[TurboKen 221]

5 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

This trigger seems to have been solved with the latest version I got from Collin, but need to discuss with him, still a couple of issues with it.

Cheers, Rob.

That would be awesome. P3Dv5 w/QW787 will crash for me, only fix was RealLight.DLL(.off), not a crash since.

[out 769]

5 hours ago, Chapstick said:

it might drop the texture of an AI right in front of you to a really low level

Not only AI. Also some ground vehicles. It clearly shows at Aerosoft EDDF where the animated ground vehicles get completely blurry with the option on.
It may have to do with mipmaps, as adding/removing them makes the difference.

[glider1 90]

3 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

What is your VRAM usage at when this happens?  If you have sufficient VRAM available this shouldn't happen.  I can't replicate, so I'd recommend you report to LM, a video showing your VRAM available and the textures going blurry up close will likely get more attention from LM.

Cheers, Rob.

Have a good Xmas Rob. Thing is you never know how much VRAM headroom is enough. Do you leave 1GB? 2GB? Then I've heard it around the traps that the actual amount of VRAM indicated is not representative of what is actually available because of fragmentation. Then on top of that the available VRAM will suddenly drop for reasons that don't make sense. For example I'll start the flight on my 2080TI with 10GB VRAM available even if I've used 5GB then for no reason I can work out without any background scenery loading shift-z shows 8GB available and nothing has changed in the sim and I've still used 5GB.

Edited December 23, 2020 by glider1

[Shomron 251]

7 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

What is your VRAM usage at when this happens?  If you have sufficient VRAM available this shouldn't happen.  I can't replicate, so I'd recommend you report to LM, a video showing your VRAM available and the textures going blurry up close will likely get more attention from LM.

Cheers, Rob.

It happens rarely but I think I had around 8/10.1 used.

 

3 hours ago, glider1 said:

Have a good Xmas Rob. Thing is you never know how much VRAM headroom is enough. Do you leave 1GB? 2GB? Then I've heard it around the traps that the actual amount of VRAM indicated is not representative of what is actually available because of fragmentation. Then on top of that the available VRAM will suddenly drop for reasons that don't make sense. For example I'll start the flight on my 2080TI with 10GB VRAM available even if I've used 5GB then for no reason I can work out without any background scenery loading shift-z shows 8GB available and nothing has changed in the sim and I've still used 5GB.

I have a 1080Ti and the avail is 10.1 but once I get into VRAM heavy situations a bit it drops to 9.9 for some reason. Not a big difference but still

[G-RFRY 1,715]

Funny how simmers have complained over the years how flight sims do not use the power of the GPU and CPU bound, now DX12 comes along and they still complain, and you have the MSFS users say they are getting a sim that you will not need a super PC to run then they start talking about getting a 3090 you will never please simmers. 

[Christopher Low 5,377]

To be fair, textures suddenly going blurry right in front of my VC would annoy the hell out of me.

[JeffChrisope 67]

I guess the conclusion I will draw from all of this is that they (LM) have made some progress for some people in staying under whatever their VRAM limits happen to be, but the user ultimately is largely still responsible for twiddling and tweaking to get to that point.  For me, who isn’t yet able to move to the latest and greatest graphics cards, this just drives all my settings downs lost to the bottom,  so I don’t crash every so often.  For the record, I have dual 980 Ti’s, and SLI doesn’t allow you to sum your VRAM, so I’m puttering around at 6GB VRAM.  Not much, but notably, still between minimum and recommended official requirements for P3Dv5.
 

My plan at this point, sadly, is I think to mostly turn my back in P3D overall for the time being.   My aircraft and scenery investments there are mostly due to FSX, and are mostly “of that era.”  Definitely stuff I’ll miss in there, but I feel like now is a good time to cut my losses and focus on fewer sims. Added to that is that my setup works *great* with both X-Plane and MSFS 2020.  I’ve had very few graphics-driven crashes from X-Plane (despite it too being in a lower level graphics interface, Vulkan/Metal), and in MSFS I can get 30fps on High settings with no crashes whatsoever (... well, no CTD’s traceable to that, at least 🙂
 

Maybe when I finally can get a 3090 I’ll revisit all this ... but for now, gotta use the software that actually works “properly”, and for my configuration at least, that ain’t P3Dv5.  

[glider1 90]

13 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Happy Holidays to you. 

The value from Shift+Z shows VRAM available to P3D and how much P3D is using.  So if you have 10GB VRAM on a 2080Ti and P3D is showing 8GB available (your OS or some other app running is using 2GB VRAM). 

I've encountered users that:

• Run Netflix while they fly (they do long haul flights)
• Have Photoshop open or some other image editing tool that uses VRAM
• Have conflicting GeForce Experience shortcut keys and while in sim and accidently hit a sim shortcut key that triggers GE Game overlay to start broadcasting, or recording etc.
• Rendering video while they fly
• On YouTube while they fly
• Weather engine open and running with map overlay to visual weather enroute
• Little Nav Map open while they fly
• Foreflight open
• AI Traffic app open 

I'm not saying this you, just what I've encountered from many users over the years.

I have to remember to make sure my Weather Service (HiFi) request shortcut key is not the same as my AI Traffic increase density shortcut key ... I've forgotten a few times so every time I request weather services I was also increasing my AI Traffic density.

The OS will consume some VRAM (but not much).  So if you have 10GB and you start P3D and it shows you have 8GB total available and using 5GB, you might want to find out what other apps/os is using up that 2GB.

Cheers, Rob.

Thanks for that. I think I expressed myself poorly though.

Say you are sitting at the scenario window with no shift-z. So you move sliders and load up the flight.

You get to the sim and shift-z says that you are using 8 out of 10GB. Then because of whatever reason say because of Little Nav Map now it suddenly reads 8 out of 8 GB.

You have dynamic VRAM enabled. Do you abort the flight for likelihood of "Device Hung" or keep going?

Edited December 23, 2020 by glider1

[G-RFRY 1,715]

If you have the sittings so high for your PC system that you are using 8GB of VRAM sitting at the airport after loading that`s not the fault of LM, you click option and lower your settings. 

Edited December 23, 2020 by G-RFRY

[glider1 90]

14 minutes ago, G-RFRY said:

If you have the sittings so high for your PC system that you are using 8GB of VRAM sitting at the airport after loading that`s not the fault of LM, you click option and lower your settings. 

Thanks and your cautious approach is good have a good holiday. But 8GB out of 8GB is valid with dynamic VRAM turned on and the sim loaded isn't it?

If it is bad practice then my original question is still open - how much headroom is enough?

[G-RFRY 1,715]

I have dynamic VRAM and have not hit 8GB with PMDG aircraft nearly all ORBX scenery and over 100 addon airports AS4 AI 100% .

[chapstick 2,760]

5 hours ago, glider1 said:

Thanks for that. I think I expressed myself poorly though.

Say you are sitting at the scenario window with no shift-z. So you move sliders and load up the flight.

You get to the sim and shift-z says that you are using 8 out of 10GB. Then because of whatever reason say because of Little Nav Map now it suddenly reads 8 out of 8 GB.

You have dynamic VRAM enabled. Do you abort the flight for likelihood of "Device Hung" or keep going?

First, it's not dynamic VRAM -- it's dynamic texture streaming. It doesn't change the total VRAM available in P3D. If your VRAM max is going from 10 to 8, then something weird is happening with your system. Unless you're literally playing another game or something, the max VRAM available to P3D should always be - using an 8GB card for example - 7.1, or maybe 7.0 if you've got Chrome running and YT playing. I don't know why Rob mentioned LittleNavMap as a VRAM user. It doesn't use any VRAM. Even Chrome/YT barely uses any VRAM.

As for headroom, I prefer to have at least 600 MB. So if I'm at 6.6/7.1, I'll probably lower the texture res to 1024 just to save the flight. P3D will absolutely crash if you're just under the VRAM max. 

[glider1 90]

1 hour ago, Chapstick said:

First, it's not dynamic VRAM -- it's dynamic texture streaming. It doesn't change the total VRAM available in P3D. If your VRAM max is going from 10 to 8, then something weird is happening with your system. Unless you're literally playing another game or something, the max VRAM available to P3D should always be - using an 8GB card for example - 7.1, or maybe 7.0 if you've got Chrome running and YT playing. I don't know why Rob mentioned LittleNavMap as a VRAM user. It doesn't use any VRAM. Even Chrome/YT barely uses any VRAM.

As for headroom, I prefer to have at least 600 MB. So if I'm at 6.6/7.1, I'll probably lower the texture res to 1024 just to save the flight. P3D will absolutely crash if you're just under the VRAM max. 

Thanks Chapstick for that guide right so it isn't touching VRAM just adjusting textures. I carefully observed VRAM usage using task manager during an entire VR flight in the Milviz Kingair on a 2080TI W10 HP reverb headset.

It went like this:

Boot to windows 0.1GB/11GB

Load Chrome 0.2GB/11GB

Load Little navmap 0.3/11GB

Load ASP3D weather 0.3/11GB

Load Pilot2ATC 0.3/11GB

Turn on WMR VR 2.9/11GB

Load P3D 5.1hf all the way to sitting in cockpit 8.5GB/11GB

P3D shift-z reports 5.9/10GB which is interesting...

Stays on that VRAM entire flight (out and back)

Shutdown sim and all apps except browser 0.8/11GB

Thanks again and will try to leave 0.5-1.0GB headroom.

EDIT: don't know why P3D sometimes reports only 8.5GB total instead of 10GB total.

Edited December 24, 2020 by glider1