FSX still need /userva switch even on x64 OS's?

[Guest Nick_N]

You are welcome jimJam!Well, its like anything else when it comes to tweaks and advice

[Guest JIMJAM]

With my system and considering the addons I have "all of them" I am not really after more fps or performance.I think Ive sucked all I am outta what I have.However,I am one of those poor souls that suffered from the dreaded Nvidia "Menu Crash."I tried all your suggestions and any others I could find and after reinstalling drivers and FSX many,many times, have given up.I reverted back to 169 drivers and a older Nhancer.I do not get the MENU CTDs anymore.However, sometimes in some planes the tool tips are black boxes. While taxiing, the runways,taxi lines are a scrambled mess. Yet while looking "down" the runway or flying looking "down" as if on final, they are straight.Its a any angle lines go crazy.Just does not make any sense but at least I can finish a flight.I would just assume thrust hot irons into my eyes than reinstall FSX with all my addons again so this is it until I either rebuild a new machine or something craps out on me as did a 2 month old Raptor.I again appreciate your time and effort.

[Guest Nick_N]

Menu CTD has been a problem for some time. That one has no cure-allI have seen a few things posted about fixes. Usually setting up Nhancer to handle AA as listed for both profile and global does the trick with the 8000 series cards and up but the 7900 series cards still seem to be plauged by itI have not seen any of the other issues you describe in DX9. I dont use Vista or DX10And just so you know.. tool tips have been an issue since day 1 with Nvidia. The advice has always been to uncheck the feature in the aircraft tab. Switching from VC to 2D with tooltips enabled causes a pause and a flash on the screen with most systems so that is why every settings list I post has that disabled.Swimming lines indicate AA and Vsync issues. Another reason why Nhancer must be set the way I listed, and, the Nvidia driver control set to Vsync ONin Vista with the Vista SP1 service pack you must be on driver revision 174.60 or above or Vsync will be disabled. The SP1 service pack introduced a flag change, the VSyncPowerSaveAware flag in the DXGK_VIDSCHCAPS structure and a registry change which the driver maker must manipulate in WDM released drivers or twitching lines and 'tearing' can appear because Vsync is not and can not be enabled without correct driver support.http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/WDDM_VSync.mspx

[cat 2]

Thanks for that, Phil. Much appreciated!Peter Sydney Australia

[Guest Nick_N]

MikeI find the setting has value for any 32bit OS even if the system does not have >2GB of memory however I usually do not suggest the switch edits be made unless an issue appears. It can however benefit any system on FSX SP2 just not in the way of performance I do not agree with your assesment of memory use. The app will in fact use the memory although I do not see much use for greater than 4GB in a 64bit OS until such time as developers launch 30-60cm (or greater resolution) texture replacements and multi-resolution autogen layouts along with massive cloud textures and over the top aircraft in highly detailed city/airport replacements. At that point you will be darn glad you have more than 4 on x64 but I dont see that happening for some time.People on 32bit OS's will eventually feel the pinch at 4GB but that is a still a ways off on the horizon IMHO32bit OS's is known for false report on memory use. Its using the memory regardless of the readout.

[Guest JIMJAM]

I am XP and in no hurry at all to switch to Vista.I use a 32 inch Sharp Aquos running at its native 1920x1080.Following your post with the latest 174s and Nhancer, I MUST run windowed. Full screen I MUST load a default plane and not touch the menus.I had to exit each flight in windowed or it CTD.Everything had to be done windowed other than flying or CTD. In windowed, I could not get ANY aa/af at all.Or, do as I did and revert back to old drivers and at least get the menus and some resemblence of aa/af.Another tid bit is that if I use ANY negative bias to reduce tree shimmering via Nhancer,Rivatuner ect,the menus corrupt and ATC text becomes scrambled.Are we having fun yet!

[Guest Nick_N]

JimJamThere is something in this system that is not right assuming your description is accurate.I assume you are on decent hardware such as a modern motherboard, CPU you may be clocking a bit and good DX10 video cardRegardless of what you read the 8800GTX/Ultra are still the best bang for the buck in FSX.You say you have reinstalled the OS from scratch with the same result, I also assume you are making sure DX is updated and all the OS updates are installed, including all the Windows Updates for .NET Framework which is required for correct Nhancer use and not just the base install of the .NET productIf that is so and you have all updates installed then my advice around a problem like this would be to do something you do not want to hear: a clean diagnosic install of only the OS, the most current motherboard drivers you can download from the motherboard website and all Windows Updates, NOTE: Go to Windows Update manually and continue to go back over and over until WU tells you no other updates are available (Except WMP11, you can skip that.Also, make sure you are on the most recent version of the BIOS for your board and check to see if there are issues with the video card you are using and the motherboard/BIOS. From there install the video drivers, last and then Nhancer and set it up as listed. Make sure you have DX updated.Then install FSX in this order:RTM (DVD)after install boot FSX. Set ONLY the graphics up for resolution, AA disabled and AF set to trilinear. Then boot the default flight (cancel the initial movie intro flight and boot the default free flight shown) and once booted to the runway, exit FSX and reboot the computer.Install SP1 (NOTE: If you have acceleration install it now instead of SP1) once completed boot FSX and the default flight. Once on the runway exit FSX and reboot the computerInstall SP2 (NOTE: If you installed Acceleration skip this step as SP2 is already installed) Boot FSX and the default flight. Once on the runway exit FSX and reboot the computer.Boot FSX and make the following settings:http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=149607#149607Except.. set AL and GA traffic to 25, Cars to 10, ships and boats to 20. Set autogen to 'dense'. Make sure every other setting and checkbox is exactly as I listed.Exit FSX and open the FSX config file. Make the following edits:{DISPLAY}TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=70 NOTE: This value may cause stutters. Experiment with values between 40 and 80. The default is 40 and you may want to leave it on 40 however many find raising this to 70 can help smooth things out and keep ground textures sharp.WideViewAspect=True (FALSE if you do not have a wide screen monitor){MAIN}DisablePreload=1 Save and close the config.. Defrag the system correctly and reboot between passes. I am not telling you to use O&O or the list I posted however that will help. Right now just make sure to run a few defrag passes to clean up the system. You will not have any AV or other software installed at this point so your startup system should be pretty clean.Once maintenance is complete, boot FSX, set up a flight in the default Baron at KSEA mid-day on RWY 34R. Set weather to CLEAR SKIES for now.NOTE: Set FRAMELOCK to UNLIMITED for the KSEA test flight however outside of the city area (20nm or more) set frame lock to 30.After the flight boots, pan around the exterior of the aircraft and allow the scenery to load, then set up and take off hold course strait out. Level off at 3000ft and maintain a strait heading for approx 15 miles, then turn around and land back at KSEA on RWY 16LIf you still have the same exact issues after a clean and correct diagnostic install then there is something wrong with your hardware. I suspect a chipset register/BIOS issue but I can not be sure of anything remotely. However if your flight and run is good but you see stutters in turns, add this to the config file:{BUFFERPOOLS}Poolsize=nNOTE: If your video card is 512MB, set n to 15000000. If your video card is 640MB, set n to 30000000, if 768 set n to 60000000NOTE: in some cases this setting can cause stutters, if they are worse, remove it completely from the config and do not use the tweak.Also, work with TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=n as well like I posted above. That setting will assist with keeping textures sharper but if the setting is too high stutters will start to appear. You are loking for the value which displays the clearest textures without 'snaping' sharp in front of the aircraft (clear fairly far out) and no stuttersIf everything tests good and you feel you are set up and working, start installing software and check periodically to make sure FSX is still working correctly.. if not, something you installed caused a problem, backtrack and find out what it was.

[n4gix 4,947]

>jimjam>>you do not add the entire line.. you only edit the single line>in the boot.ini file>>please review my instructions here:Nick, actually the purpose of having both lines is to allow the user to select which of the two .ini entries they wish to use when booting.This was recommended because there are some (few) programs that don't get along well with the /3GB /userva=2560 settings... ;)This is fully explained on my Wiki page:http://forums.flightsim.com/fswiki/index.php/OOM_ErrorThis entire article has been vetted by Phil Taylor and is recommended by him on his blog... ;)

[Guest Nick_N]

I understand the reason for the entry and the selection option and if one finds it crashes with other apps running and a suitable tweak value can not be established to make all apps happy, then I would I go the boot option route as a last resort. It is not common to see such crashes in every system. It also eliminates a user making a wrong choice at boot or the timeout selecting the wrong line and the user must reboot and start over... or discover in the middle of a flight or use of another app OOM or crash comes up because the wrong entry may have been selected by mistake or automatically selected in timeout because of the user not watching the boot routine.Since most users probably wont need 2 options unless the issue comes up and can not be resolved I typically advise the single line until such time as a selection boot.ini may be deemed required.Also, most users would prefer access to their extended memory should they have 2GB+ installed for apps like photoshop, etc without the hassle of rebooting should they be using the wrong entry It eliminates more user inflicted problems and hassles until deemed absolutely necessary and required to make the one or two app's happy.And yes, I should have elaborated on that ;-)

[tf51d 284]

You do not add another entire boot line, you edit: /3GB /Userva=2560 INTO the line.Nick. I add a new line for this myself creating a dual boot option. I do this, because on a prior system it didn't like the /3GB switch, even though I had 4GB memory and it wouldn't boot. I also had trouble booting it back in safe mode, but it finally did, removed the /3GB switch and all was well again. Since then I always create another boot entry when I add this switch, just as a precaution.

[Guest D17S]

I'm a little concerned we're still relating this issue to the amount of physical ram installed. This 3 gig switch (or 32 v 64 bit operating system determinants) have NotHinG to do with the amount of physical ram installed. That MS article link was interesting. One claim to fame for the 64bit op system will be it's ability to address a Vastly increased amount of this stuff that we might call Virtual memory. The 32 bit systems can only address 4 gigs. Again, this is NoT physical memory. This "V-memory" is split half and half between the operating system and the program (AkA "Process"). The 3 gig switch moves the split point so the process (program) gets 3 gig and the op system gets 1 gig. This is old news. The 64 bit system can address a total of 16 Terabytes of this V-memory stuff. Once again, this is NoT physical memory. This is also spit half and half between the operating system and the process (program). 8 terabytes are available to the op system and 8 terabytes are available to the program. Geeze, you'd think that ought to do it. But wait! This 64 bit scheme only works if the 64 bit op system is ALSO running a 64 bit program. If a 64 bit op system is running a 32 bit program, it can allocate a Full 4 gigs to the process (program), - but that is All - . If a 32 bit program running on a 64 bit system went on up to 4 gigs of this (forecasting) V-memory stuff, it'd probably act just like a 32 bit OOM event (but without the ballon?). Again, the physical ram installed is ComPleteLy irrelevant. The article didn't state where a 64 bit operating system allocates those extra 15.096 Terabytes when running a 32 bit program. However we might assume that if the process (program) used its entire 3.99999- pre-crash allocation, the operating system must be using something, somewhere.We might (just) need a 15.096 Terabyte switch to get the 64 bit operating system to open up its resource to a 32 bit program! We're right on the edge with the capacities and requirements of these 32 bit programs. We really need to get this 64 bit (program) show on the road.

[Guest JIMJAM]

XP,SP2,m2n32 sli Deluxe MOB,Amd FX-62 DUAL@3.0,2 gigs HyperXDDR2800,Raptor 150,x-fi Sound card. BFG OC 512.FSX is the ONLY game on my system but I have a TON of processes.Runnng the setup and O@0 defrag procedures per Nicks which I have tried in the past , I have NEVER solved certain vid related graphic anomolies and CTDS.Last might I added the /3 switch. Running at 1920x1080 with all sliders full except water and traffic with GEX.FEX.UTX,MytrafficX and X-graphics,Nhamcer per Nick, Im getting 15-25 fps set unlimited.This is with the Iris F-20 Tigershark which has CRTS.This plane is good on fos but worse tha defaults.I am surprised with the scenery and autogen at full I was getting the fps but it was not as smooth. No Bad though.....BUT.......When I load a free flight, when the bottom bar slowly gets to 100%, the FSX ICON minumizes to the task bar. Clicking it, using task manager to open it does Nothing.Then eventually on it own, the screen will load.I deleted Nhancer and the few flights I flew went well but the aa/af is still not right. Runways,taxiways,straight lines ec are still a little wavy.Still, considering all the extra baggage I am carrying around in the way of addons and my machine is well over a year old, the performance is acceptable but I CANNOT solve the graphic wierdness and occassional CTDs from entering and exiting full screen.I have swapped out cards and memory so its not them.My good freind who built it owns a computer store so I think its time to visit him. This time I am going to build a Intel based machine.BTW- Call me crazy but ALL this started with SP2.With SP1, I never had a CTD.

[tf51d 284]

No I realize we are talking Virtual Address Space vs Physical Address Space. I was just pointing out that there may be systems out there that doesn't like the /3GB switch and if you just edit the existing boot string, and it won't boot, as it did mine, your only fall back would be a safe boot, but as I pointed out, I had trouble with that also. Luckily I had Linux installed, and was able to correct it through that. So now I create a dual boot entry in XP on my systems (At least initially) that way if it doesn't work, I just boot up with the original. My current system (Which has only 2GB Physical RAM) works great with the /3GB /USERVA=2560 combo. Before it, I couldn't fly the PMDG 744 trans-atlantic without an OOM, now I can fly the queen anywhere, and I have yet to have another OOM crash since. The sim though obviously will lose some performance as you use more memory if you have less than 3GB physical memory, because you will be paging memory addresses more often in your slower page file. That's why I end up with a little slower (FPS) at the end of a long flight, vs at the same location/conditions if starting it. So adding the extra physical memory will help, since you won't be paging as often, but it will still work even if you only have the 2GB memory. You do have to make sure you have enough page file space allocated. You can allow the system to manage this for you, or you can set it yourself. I set mine with 4GB. Also this file needs to be contiguous, so the best time to set this is after a defrag, and then defrag the disk again, preferably with a good 3rd party defrag program such as O&O as Nick proposes, or Ultimate Defrag (Especially the new 2008 edition).

[McCrash 3]

I read the following in the MSDN about this subject.http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb613473(VS.85).aspxIf you read starting at title '4-Gigabyte Tuning', it states that /3GB will work with Windows XP Pro.The following quoted statement doesn't state that the /Userva switch will work with Windows XP Pro."The /3GB switch makes a full 3 GB of virtual address space available to applications and reduces the amount available to the system to 1 GB. On Windows Server 2003, the amount of address space available to applications can be adjusted by setting the /USERVA switch in Boot.ini to a value between 2048 and 3072, which increases the amount of address space available to the system. This can help maintain overall system performance when the application requires more than 2 GB but less than 3 GB of address space." I have tried the /Userva=2560 switch but have no way to verify that it is actually working.Comments welcome!

[Guest Nick_N]

>I have tried the /Userva=2560 switch but have no way to verify that it is actually working.What do you expect to see?Were you crashing with 'out of memory' errors before making the change?If the answer is NO then you wont see any change in how the system runs