Memory Leaks?

[dho112 17]

Has anyone else noticed this program behavior?

I can fly any of the aircraft from the small commuter planes up to the dreamliner and A320, and the longer the flight, the more my system bogs down (reduces framerate)  It's more severe with the longer range aircraft, but it appears to have to do with how long the flight lasts rather than the distance covered.  Which leads me to suspect it's some kind of system resource that is not being released as the plane session goes on, and that leads to slower and slower performance over time.  Either more and more memory is being used and not released, or more and more system tasks are being created and not stopped when they are no longer needed.

I can take off from KSFO and be hitting around an easy 50-60 FPS with all settings pegged at Ultra (except ambient occlusion and motion blur which I set to zero) and by the time I land at KLAX and am taxiing, It's chugging along at 30-35 FPS.  If I save the flight during taxi at KLAX, and restart the program and reload the save, I reappear at the same location and am running at 50-60 FPS again (I typically wait a minute or two for all the generated aircraft to reappear at the airport before measuring) 

Thinking it might be the scenery at that particular location, I will start the flight from LAX, again with a solid 50-60 FPS at taxi and takeoff, fly to KSFO, land, taxi and be getting around 30-35 FPS.  Again I will save at SFO during the taxi, restart, reload and then get 50-60 FPS again.

Here is the absolutely confounding kicker to the whole thing.  My video card (all aspects of my system are in my signature) is running very warm (for me) at about 68-72 Celsius when I start, and then when I land and am taxiing, it runs very cool (around 53-55 Celsius) even at the busy graphically intensive airport.  I don't get it...

It only makes some sense in that when it is running hot, I'm getting the high frame rate and when it is reading much cooler after I land, it's when my framerates suck,  So it's as though the video card itself is just deciding not to work as hard for some reason.  Could the problem be with how the video card itself is handling FS2020?  Instructions somehow piling up in the stack that the card handles and then bogging down the rest of the system to a slower framrate and thus a lower v-card temp?

It's extremely frustrating at this point to have a decent system only to have it revert itself to acting like a 10 year old system during every flight.

Does this happen to anyone else?

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by dho112
grammatical fixes

[psolk 3,108]

Do you see your memory consumption going up and not being released.  Is your memory usage climbing and climbing until your system stops? 

We are seeing people complain of degraded performance on flights but why people keep calling it a memory leak is beyond me, especially if you are able to complete your flight into a busy graphical intensive airport.   

We have seen people say this is fixed by turning traffic on/off, flipping dev mode on/off, disabling/re-enabling online data etc etc.  So in short there does not seem to be a known fix for people experiencing the issue sadly however if MSFS had a "Memory Leak" we would certainly know by now...   

Has a single person reported their system running out of memory resources?  Just because you have degrading performance does not mean you have a memory leak.  

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by psolk

[steve 86 287]

i found turn off live ai then turn it back on and fps goes back to normal 

[wims80 121]

I can't say I have experienced this, but then again I'm not using AI or the ATC

[DescendDescend 25]

Happens to me too although not necessarily a leak:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/performance-degradation-after-extended-period-of-play/434197

[fppilot 4,436]

3 hours ago, psolk said:

Has a single person reported their system running out of memory resources?  Just because you have degrading performance does not mean you have a memory leak.  

Why haggle about terms?  Degrading performance indicates running out of resources somewhere?  I'd bet a nickel that those experiencing it just want it identified and cured.  

Perhaps instead of some leak it might be the opposite, a dam! Perhaps toggling traffic or developer mode or other stated recoveries is opening up spillways on that dam. A multitude of flyers are experiencing it to some degree or another.  

[psolk 3,108]

16 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Why haggle about terms?  Degrading performance indicates running out of resources somewhere?  I'd bet a nickel that those experiencing it just want it identified and cured.  

Perhaps instead of some leak it might be the opposite, a dam! Perhaps toggling traffic or developer mode or other stated recoveries is opening up spillways on that dam. A multitude of flyers are experiencing it to some degree or another.  

Because a memory leak is probably one of the most serious coding issues outside of a security vulnerability.  In critical server environments memory leaks can take down an entire estate. 

The terms memory leak and degrading performance are not synonymous and I see nothing wrong with pointing out what a memory leak actually is and why it is not the case here when the title of the thread was

Quote

Memory Leaks?

 

[fppilot 4,436]

31 minutes ago, psolk said:

The terms memory leak and degrading performance are not synonymous and I see nothing wrong with pointing out what a memory leak actually is and why it is not the case here when the title of the thread was

 

Then perhaps everyone can together on "degrading performance"  and then we can continue on.....  The issue itself has not changed, call it what we may.

[abrams_tank 7,532]

1 hour ago, fppilot said:

Why haggle about terms?  Degrading performance indicates running out of resources somewhere?  I'd bet a nickel that those experiencing it just want it identified and cured.  

Getting the terminology right will help to diagnose the problem better. Also, other people in AVSIM reading this thread may give advice to others in the future, perhaps they may give advice for this very same problem.  So for people reading this thread, it helps to explain to them what an actual "memory leak" is, so users of the MSFS forum in AVSIM are better educated, which will help to resolve problems faster for everyone in the MSFS Avsim forums in the future.

Degrading performance, including a drop in FPS over time, may not necessarily be related to resources running out, including memory.  Certainly, if memory is running out because there is a memory leak, there is a good chance that performance will degrade (hence, the OP needs to check the task manager to see if the memory is running out). But there could be other reasons why the FPS is dropping over time.

Edited September 28, 2021 by abrams_tank

[fppilot 4,436]

24 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

But there could be other reasons why the FPS is dropping over time.

Or why it is happening to some and not to others.

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

Live traffic is responsible for the lost of fps over time. 

[CarlosF 1,258]

I agree with Claude, I have live traffic off and do not suffer from loss of frames over time and I've flown the DC-6 for more then 7+ hrs.

[dho112 17]

Turn live traffic on and off and that alleviates the problem?!  Thank you!  I'm going to do another of the exact flight and try that right now!  *Fingers Crossed* because that is a totally painless, non-immersion breaking fix!  Good news.

Apologies for calling it a memory leak.  I was focusing more on the frustration, then the terminology.  I realize its important to call a thing by it's proper name, but my confusion as to what the heck is responsible contributes to my confusion overall, and I just used a general term which a lot of people associate with "computer program not working right"; kind of analogous to saying you're taking a "Pain Reliever" when it's actually a, "Oxygenase Inhibitor", or "COx Antagonist" 🙂  I've even read several bug update fixes over the years for games where the developer said it found a "Memory Leak" in the program that might lead to a CTD or "Diminishing Performance".

I was also just thinking about the aspect of my trouble that involved the decreasing video card temperature as well...  And assuming it might have something to do directly with the card itself.  In many sim titles, the graphics card is the bottleneck in the system and the CPU waits on the frames being drawn.  Maybe if the trouble is calculation or programmatically based, the graphics card is slow and "cooler" because it is waiting now on the CPU which is getting bogged down or delayed by something else? and the Video card is running cooler and pushing fewer frames not because it is bogged, but because it's "waiting"?

Edited September 28, 2021 by dho112
grammatical fixes

[dho112 17]

Of course it had to happen! LoL!  I made the KLAX - KSFO flight just now in the same A320, and HOPING it would start slowing down when I arrived so I could try the easy, shiny new fix 🙂  But it held rock solid 60 FPS the entire time from cold and start to at the gate and cold and dark LoL!

The System probably knew exactly what I wanted it to do and did the opposite.  Ah Well, I'll keep flying routes with the fix in mind and report back at the next slowdown if the fix indeed works as people say.

Thanks everyone! and happy flying!

[Snuffleupagus 328]

8 hours ago, FSUK_86 said:

i found turn off live ai then turn it back on and fps goes back to normal 

I had this issue today and before even coming here, I tried this and it worked. Glad it’s a simple “fix”.