Yesterday I decided to rename prepar3d.cfg and let the sim build a new one. This locking up problem hasn't existed all the time I've had this new PC. Only in the last few weeks. So I asked myself what had I changed in that time.

It was changes made after seeing black buildings and runways at complex airports. I did some searching and discovered MAX_TEXTURE_REQUEST_DISTANCE was set at the default of 1000 when higher values would cure the problem.

I set it to 100000.000000, That solved the problem of black buildings etc but I'm now wondering if it's causing these lockups. I had another one this morning within 10 mins departing Helsinki. After a few minutes P3D recovered, then locked a second time before recovering a second time.

All these lockups have occurred when over land. Never over ocean. I'm wondering if there's a link.

I've had my distance set at 320000.00 for a long time and never had a lockup.

Do these lockups occur with just the 737? If so, maybe reinstall the aircraft. Or, check over at PMDG support.

A setting of 320000, or 100000, on the max texture request distance is overkill.

I simply doubled mine to 2000 and rarely have the momentary black textures like I did before.

Keep in mind that every increase in graphics settings puts more of a load on the system and increases the chance of a glitch/hiccup/bottleneck somewhere.

Dave

45 minutes ago, newtie said:

I've had my distance set at 320000.00 for a long time and never had a lockup.

Do these lockups occur with just the 737? If so, maybe reinstall the aircraft. Or, check over at PMDG support.

I completed the Helsinki-Heathrow flight with no further lockups. I then had a look at a FSUIPC log from yesterday when I flew a Vertx DA-62. There were a couple of lockups in that but so brief I never noticed them.

Same again today flying the Xtreme Prototypes Lear 25. Too brief to notice.

So it's definitely linked to autosave but why only at the start of a flight and never later? I might disable Autosave and see if things change. Can't blame John Dowson. It's Microsoft being over aggressive with Virus protection. I've added a few more file types in the hope I can cure it.

@dave2013 I have 1000000 set and VRAM is fine. It may be overkill but the 4090 can cope easily.

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I completed the Helsinki-Heathrow flight with no further lockups. I then had a look at a FSUIPC log from yesterday when I flew a Vertx DA-62. There were a couple of lockups in that but so brief I never noticed them.

Same again today flying the Xtreme Prototypes Lear 25. Too brief to notice.

So it's definitely linked to autosave but why only at the start of a flight and never later? I might disable Autosave and see if things change. Can't blame John Dowson. It's Microsoft being over aggressive with Virus protection. I've added a few more file types in the hope I can cure it.

@dave2013 I have 1000000 set and VRAM is fine. It may be overkill but the 4090 can cope easily.

I stopped using Autosave years ago. My sim improved back then, and this new idea of turning off AV has helped me even further with this sim.  The more I hear about all these various tweaks and changes made to our flight sim computers, the MORE I'm convinced that we will all never have a sim that functions like the sim of others.  Think about it...each one of us has totally different hardware constructed in a very specific way, and each one of us has a myriad level of software on our computers that is definitely different from each other. We all have so many plane, software, and utility addons that interact with our specific systems. We all set up our sim's configuration, display, brightness and other parameters very differently from each other. 

Simply, there will never be a tweak or change to one simmer's system that will necessarily work for another simmer.  There are just too many variables in every one of computers. It is virtually impossible to replicate flight performance EXACTLY like the performance someone else experiences. We all will have totally different experiences. FACT.

Having quite a few courses in Statistics in college, it is quite easy for me to confidently make these statements regarding variation among samples. Still, I am happy that we attempt to help each other hoping to have that "Eureka" moment.  

Stan

Edited December 12, 20232 yr by spilok

Stan, do me a favour and turn it back on for your next PMDG flight. If you get a significant pause it confirms autosave is clashing with the OS protection.

Here’s what I posted to John Dowson earlier…

The fact it’s happening with all aircraft only became clear today by checking the FSUIPC log after a DA62 flight. At half a second I was never going to spot that delay.

The flight out of Helsinki this morning in the PMDG737 had Ai well below the limit of 160 so we can discount that.

I forgot there’s a Radar Contact file (rc4) saved too so I’ve added that to the exclusion list.

I had turned off Live Virus Protection last week and went 3 days without a problem but then it returned so I turned it back on. Strange it would happen with that off.

I’ll add the extra logging and hopefully that will reveal what is causing the issue. But if nothing else I can live with it knowing where the problem lies. But it would be nice to fix it since the sim and computer is great in all other respects.

I’m going to turn on extra logging in FSUIPC tomorrow and monitor what happens.

Although I rarely get a CTD having autosave available is a safety net otherwise the whole flight is wasted.

Autosave has always created long pauses when I've used it.  Some time back, I wrote a lua script that triggered saves at particular points in a flight--e.g. when the power was first advanced over 70% during the power-up for takeoff, when the plane levelled off at cruise, and when it started descent from cruise.  That way the save-related pauses occurred when nothing else was going on and it didn't distract too much.

Bob, did you call the standard save scenario command? John Dowson says that’s what he does so autosave should be identical to your Lua call.

Now that I know autosave is the problem I’m determined to identify what specific file is causing the problem. I’ve added lots to the exclusion list so in theory it should be seamless. I think I may have missed one.

My thinking behind it always occurring in the first 10 mins of a flight is that one file type is checked by the checker and that’s what takes the time. Thereafter on subsequent auto saves it’s identified as okay so doesn’t cause a delay.

19 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Bob, did you call the standard save scenario command?

What other command is there?

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

What other command is there?

I don’t know which is why I asked. I will try a manual save tomorrow when taxiing out. Autosave only kicks in for me when airborne.

There is no other kind - you just call SimConnect and say "save the flight". Every implementation ultimately goes through that route. I believe there's a callback within the SDK that allows add-ons to notice that a flight is being saved and do their own work.

Given that this only happens with PMDG, I'd really want to ask them what specifically they do on a save, especially around I/O. Collecting the data into memory isn't particularly onerous, and most importantly doesn't affect any anti-virus. Only the disk writes do.

Cheers

 

@Luke, the save routine for PMDG aircraft also includes the panel state. The position of every switch is recorded so if you load from a save they’re correctly set.

Still shouldn’t take 3 minutes as shown on this screenshot. Strange that after the first two autosaves with delays no further ones occurred in a long flight.

 

11 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Luke, the save routine for PMDG aircraft also includes the panel state. The position of every switch is recorded so if you load from a save they’re correctly set.

I think you overestimate how expensive this is. For me to get it as an add-on is a single SimConnect call for every single switch and knob. Fetching the state is dirt cheap and most importantly doesn't involve the anti-virus. It's the writing to disk where things go sideways, and only PMDG knows what they do there.

What I can say is that CaptainSim for their 757 and 767 have no issues at all, and they have about the same number of switch and knob states to persist.

Cheers

33 minutes ago, Luke said:

I think you overestimate how expensive this is.

Expensive? Don’t understand. Do you mean expansive?

In addition to the standard files saved there is also a rc4 one. This is for Radar Contact v4. I’m wondering where that call comes from. Probably via autosave but the question no one has been able to answer is why wasn’t this aggressive intervention by Windows present on every autosave? It’s bad enough to break the link between FSUIPC and P3D.

It’s only happening on the first couple of saves and not every x minutes. It’s that inconsistency that’s puzzling.

6 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I have 1000000 set and VRAM is fine. It may be overkill but the 4090 can cope easily.

My 3080ti handles 320000.00 easily.

I use hi res ground textures too.