wingsoffire

Getting fed up with this. Its happening too often mostly at weekends ! Also fed up with being told that the 'servers aren't down' and the issue is at my end. I've just tried REX - downloaded metar OK and the demo version of Opus - also no problem. If I they don't fix this in the next coule of weeks I am going to buy opus and ditch AS2012. All I need is good textures for OPUS and REx will do for that.

You all need to Listen to PfPeter. I jave 64bit WIN7 Ultimate, I have 16GB of RAM, a good graphics card and I still get OOMs with sliders maxed out . FSX was developed as a 32bit programme. It can only address 3.5gb of memory. You can't change this unless you re-write FSX. So even if you ran FSX on a nitrogen cooled Cray supercomputer with a gazillion GBs of RAM, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference - you would get OOMs because of the programme limitations - nothing to do with the hardware. 64 bit Windows and additional physical RAM only helps in freeing up the 3.5GB on start up that FSX actually uses - it can use no more. Most memory errors are actually caused by virtual address space problems not the amount of physical RAM installed. Beacause FSX is a 32 bit appllication and can only address 3.5gb of RAM it manages memory by moving stuff in and out of a virtual address space on the hard disk. Sometimes this gets fragmented and or corrupted - also if you place heavy demands on the system such as having all your sliders set to Max - it struggles to find enough contigous virtual address space to park the stuff that it moves in an out of RAM so you get an Out of Memory message. Some things that might help are 1) putting HIGHMEMFIX=1 in your FSX config file. 2) Changing your windows swap file size from automatically managed to manually managed and setting it to be equal equal 1.5 times the size of your physical RAM (techniocal reasons for this- cant go into here). 3) Enure your LOD setting in FSXConfig is not set higher than 4.5 4) moving your sliders down. autogen takes up a lot, traffic setting take up a lot, so do tool tips and aircraft labels 5) Checking your graphics card. Unlike most modern games/simulations, FSX doesn't care to much about your graphics card - it is essentially a CPU bound application. Aces designed it this way because at the time of release, graphics cards weren't that powerful. The upshot of this is that the 3.5gb of space that FSX uses includes the memory used by the Graphics card. To cut through all the technical details if you have a 3GB Graphics card, FSX will include the 3GB memory on the graphics card in with its 3.5GB limitation leaving only 0.5GB for FSX to run in. So you could end up with bags of RAM a good CPU and the latest graphics card and still get OOMs. So a graphics card with a lot of on board memory isn't a good idea for FSX. If you have one, there is a fix you can put into the FSX config file to limit memor usage to 1GB - which is the maximum recommended. Having said this, you will see some improvements with the latest graphics card but the biggest improvement you make to FSX is to get a fast CPU and, if you know how to overclock it, do so. With a combination of a fast graphics card with no more than 1Gb of on board RAM and a fast CPU you can eliminate the bufferpool setting in FSX config and get a really smooth experience with good framerates (the framerates will have to be locked at 30 to do this - but anything over 30 is a waste of time because the human eye cant discern more than 30 frames per second). Good luck

MS pitched this 'flight simulation' at the 'general gaming community' . However, I strongly suspect it is unlikely to appeal to average 'microsoft gamer'. Why? Because of its very nature. If I take the opinion of my son ( an avid 'general Microsoft Gamer') and his friends (who have all tried Flight) , 'Flight sucks' because it is 'boring' and nobody is going to spend hard cash on add-ons for a 'game' that 'sucks'. Unfortunately the decision to chase this particular, largely uniiterested, commmunity, by offering a dumbed down FSX has aliented the hard-core simulation community who are, and always have been, the main market for FS9 and FSX over the years and remain the major purchasers of add-ons (I have over 2GBs) . This smacks of a serious misjudgment by MS regarding the core-market from flight simulation products- but time will tell. To add insult to injury MS they also screwed up the licensing arrangments for developers. Nobody begrudges Microsof from wanting to make a few bucks from its platform, the problem is how they proposed to do this. Most of the developers they were pitching to are not huge multinantional companies earning millions of dollars a year. However, MS effectively required them to hitch their entire future to MS in general, and the Flight platform in particular - in effect turning them from independent companies into vassels of the MS state only able to sell what MS permits them sell at a price dictated by MS through channels determined by MS, no other retail sales allowed. This smacks of a attempt at corporate bullying and If I had bult a company from scratch such as PMDG and as was presented by an MS lawyer with a contract like this I would tell him to take a hike, which is exactly what most developers, including PMDG, have done. If the sales were going to be astronomical maybe I would reconsider, but MS have provided no evidence to back up their sales figures other than wishful thinking . Why should I hand over my company to MS for a product that isn't even proven? This again demonstrates a serious misjudgement by MS who genuinely thought that they could coerce companies to 'toe the MS line' and I suspect it was something of a shock when developer after developer turned them down. To simmarise MS have got it wrong on two counts, Firstly, they have targeted the product at the wrong market - a market that doesn't buy flight simulation products and secondly their draconioan licencing arrangements have aliented just about every developer out there. In my view, the success of Flight is going to be largely dependent on the flexibility of MS on these two counts. If they want to sell to general gamers they are going to have to make it alot more appealing to the average gamer and they want serious simulation enthusists to buy it and use it they will have re-engineer aspects of the product and get some serious third party developers on board which will mean changing the licensing arrangements. I doubt they will do either, I have tried Flight but as a serious simmer and a real life pilot I don't care for it, the aerodynamics and aircraft handling characteristics are way off, FSX isnt perfect but with suitable add-ons it is way, way better. I am not worried howeve,r as I suspect that over time other companies such as X-Plane will take up the slack and we will all continue to sim long after Flight has expired.

I now look forward to logging into this forum and reading 'are we there yet?' posts every day for the next six months (.....sigh).

Not as old as the pogo stick!

Take care what you buy. Video memory is included within the Virtual Address space FSX alocates which means that the more video memory you have on the card the less is availble to FSX. FSX has a limit of 4GB so whereas a BIG card with BIG memory seems like a good deal (and it would be for Skyrim) it could create more problems than it solves for FSX.. People have reported a lot of problems with FSX CTD when using video cards above 1GB. Ryan has commented on this before in the PMDG forum because PMDG were getting lots of support calls which turned out to have their origins in this problem. It is not the fault of the ACES team who programmed FGSX in 2006 when 1GB of DDR5 on a video card was a distant dream. There is a tweak you can add to the FSX.cfg file to limit the amount of video RAM used buy I'm not sure how effective it is.Thw 580 will work fine provided you don't go above 1GB limit, but remember FSX is a processor based application. In the words of Lady GA GA it was 'born that way' so you will see a bigger difference with a faster processor. With a fast CPU and a fast card you should be able to run with Buffers pools =0 which will give you smooooooth framerates. The alternative is to buy a cheaper card and overclock it with MSI afterburner. I run an an overclocked 570 which gives me the same throughput as a 580. Couple this with an overclocked i5 at 4.5ghz and some basic Config tweaks FSX runs really well. I have frames extyernal;ly limited to 30fps (the human eye can't make out anything faster than this) most sliders turned up and a ton of addons. As long as your cooling is good you'll be OK.If you want cheaper bangs for your buck go for ATI but Nvidia still has advantages because of Nvidia inspector which enables you to optimise the card for FSX. Hope this helps.

PMDG have always been the tops for me not only in terms of depth and the sheer quality of everything they produ,e but the customer service and professionalism of their staff is first class. I hope Robert keeps it so because this company is a class act.Level D did a great simulation but as everyone else has commented its looking dated now. The Flightsim Labs Concorde is fantastic . The Maddog MD80 is also a great in-depth simulation although I have had a few issues with it in FSX. I don't think anybody has mentioned the Flight1 ATR - yes I know its a port from FS9 but it is still very good.I genuinely believe that PMDG have raised the bar with the NGX and I can't wait to see the triple 7. I am also keen to see the FSLABS Airbus. I know I'll probably be shot because of all the Boeing fans on this forum (I like Boeing honestly) but nobody has yet produced a decent Airbus for FSX and given the number of A320 - 60s in service its a HUGE gap in the market. I know its really tough to properly simulate FBW airbus laws in FSX, Airsimmer tried and failed, but I think FSLabs may the ones to pull it off.The other thing I would like is a decent Cessna 172SP - I am learning to fly in real life and would like to practice between lessons but the default Cessna really doesn't handle like the real thing far too jittery.

I've used ENB in the past but for whatever reason I had more instabilty with it installed than without. I have now replaced it with a payware utilty called 'shade'. It does the same thing but I it seems to be much moire stable.

Whatever anybody tells you, there is nothing inhernetly wrong with running FSX upon a laptop but there are however pros and cons which you need to consider carefully.Pros are1) you have limited space2) you want to use FSX on the moveCons are1) It may not have the 'grunt' - this is certainly true of netbooks but an Alienware overclocked i7 should be OK. I don't think that overheating is an issue as t Alienware systems are bult for it. It will be is desgned to run with overclocked i7 and they have beefy ventilation and cooling fans to cope (althoughthe kit might be noisy.|). THats what you are paying a huge premium for.2) The screen may be too small - particularly at higher resolutions. If you wnat a bigger screen your only option is free standing monitor (which kinda defeats the point of having a laptop) ditto for addons like Joysticks/Yokes/ruddser pedals etc.3) Cost - generally a suitably specified laptop is a lot more expensive than a similarly specced desktop machine.4) Upgrading is a nightmare. About the only thing you upgrade on a laptop are the batteries, the HDD and the RAM unless you are particulrly handy with a soldering iron and don't mind blowing your warrenty because everything else is likely to soldered to the motherboard (which will inavariably be propriatary). - but if you don't regularly tear your systems apart and upgarde them (like I do) it won't be a problem.5) Anything that goes wrong outside the warranty period will cost an arm and a leg to fix (unlike a desktop where you may be able to swap out standard components). The motherbord in my tower went recently and I swapped it out in an afternoon..As far as Graphic cards are concerned Nvidia always used to be the recommended option for FSX and this was largely due to the architecture being more suited to the way FSX works, but nowadays graphics cards are so fast it doesn't really matter.The one advantage you will have with Nvidia is something called Nvidia Inspector (downloaded for free) which enables you to tweak settings and optimise graphics in FSX - I believe Ryan over on the PMDG general Forum has listed the optimal settings. ATI has something similar but I never seen settings for the ATI version posted on any forum. I am not sure ATI recognises the existence of FSX because its an old piece of software but the card will work with FSX and I have used ATI in the past.The one thing you DO have to remember is don't, for the love of God, opt for any card with more than 1GB of video memory. There are very good reasons for this concerned with the way that FSX handles its Vitual Address Space. FSX is a CPU bound 32 bit application which means that can only ever handle 4GB of memory even if you stuff your laptop to the gunnels with RAM. Critically, any Video RAM you have is incluided within this. limit. The net result of this is the more video RAM you have the less VAS is availkable for FSX and you are heading into Blue screen of death territory. Many people are shocked to find out that despite having spend huge sums of money on systems with top of the range graphic cards, FSX runs like a dog with three legs and CTDs every two seconds. The culprit is often a card with huige amounts of vido memory - A BIG card with BIG memory is good for a BIG ego and possiblely SKYRIM but it will be lousy for FSX. There is a tweak youi can put in the config file to limit the vido ram used in VAS but its a faff and I am not convinced it works.With a fast processor and a fast graphic card with modest video RAM you should be able to switch off the buiffer setting in the FSX config file and it will give you smooth framrates with next to no microstutters.If you have 8gb of RAM the laptop will come with64bit WIN7. When you install FSX don't under any circumstances install it on the C Drive under programes86. This is the default location where windows wants to put all 32 bit applications. You don't want to do that because you don't want to create a world pain for yourself with the infamous User Account Control that M$ thouight was a good idea. Put it anywahere else - under the root of the C drive for example. It will run smoother, better and you wont have UAC issues with every single add-on you buy. .When you have installed it also remember to put the 32bit VISTA version of the UIAUTOMATIONCORE.DLL into the FSX root directory. This will stop random crashes. Ignore any rubbish you read on the Internet about 'registering' this dll or removing the version of it in the Windows sytem directory as 'advised' in countless forums If anybody tells you to do this, ask them whether they are a Microsoft Certified Engineer. It isn't necessary and it is downright dangerous. Such advice displays nothing but a deep and profound ignorance of the way Windows actually works.Have fun

Having had FSX stable for several months I am now getting OOms during practically every flight. The start of it seemed to coincide with my use of Active Sky 2012. I have no idea why. I have a huge number of add-ons. I've tried the FSUIPC autosave option and whereas it doesn't seem to stop FSX bombing out it does at least allow me to reocover the flight at a fixed point and seems to reset the VAS.Well if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...... it seems to me to be a classic to me like a classic memory leak problem. Whether it is the fault of ACES and their coding is a different issue, I do know that C++ should operate in managed mode whereby memory release for objects is automated (i.e. you don't have to specifically code the release of memory in object handling ) but I am also aware that this doesn't always work. If this is the root cause, you could point the finger at almost anybody that develops for FSX.I have 16gb of physical RAM on a 64 bit systenm so have just tried Petes Reg fix (after creating a restore point) and it will interesting to see whethr it makes any difference.There seems to be an awful lot of duff information in the forums about this issue with all sorts of snake oil suggestions - but it would be good to get a more focussed group on this as it affects so many people (at lets face we are hardly likely to collectively move to M$ 'Flight' anytime soon as M$ are pitching this at the gaming commuinity not the hard core simmer).Having seen all the 'utilities' being pedddled on Simmarket to give your FSX 'go faster stripes' its a pity no developer has bent their mind to this one. If they came up with a viable 'OOM be gone' utility they would clean up !

Airsimmer grossly undertestimated the amount of work required to program a realistioc FBW system in FSX and stopped oincew they finished the eyecandy- Flight Sim labs have an airbus project underway. They did a damn good model of concorde so I reckon they may just pull it off.

What did you use for the RAM diagostic? Memtest 86 sometimes lies (I think modern Bios systems attempt to compensate for bad RAM) I've just had a spate of problems with a new PC build. I initially thought it was a RAM problem. Tested it with Memtest 86 and no errors shown. Iwas g to RMA the Mobo and then decided to boot one stick at a time (I have 16gb RAM 4gbx4 modiules) . Booted fine with three modules qand then I got to the last one advice is that if you have more thanm one module try it one stick at a time to see. Other potentioal; causes of blue scvreens of death could be a CPU overheatging (FSX is VERY CPU intensive) if the TEmps are too high under load the CPU will shut down. This sometimes happens if the PC is dirty dusty inside (blocks airflow) or the thermal; past on the CPU has failed. A graphics card overheating could cause the same problem or the mobo could be failing (cheap VRMs are often the culprits). Personally I reckon its a RAM problem.

Well good luck because once you go down that route and they tie you in contractually they will own you and they call ALL the shots. You no longer have your own company becuase you have mortgaged it to M$ - better hope they don't dump you when something bnetter comes along.

You don't negotiate with Microsoft - they own all the toys and they dicatate how you will play with them. I work for a large Global Bank with turnover in tens of billions of dollars. We are one of M$ s biggest corporate customers and we can't get them to the negotiating table, How do you thing PMDG are going to manage it? M$ argue that if you want their products you play by their rules - end of story. These developers are being told to morgtage the companies have painfully built up over many years on the basis of a busines model where M$ holds all the card with vague unsubstantiated promise of 'jam tomorrow' - if it were you and it were your business would you agree to it? Remember If it doesn't work out M$ will walk away without a scratch but the small developers will be out of business. If you really want to preserve the future of simming and not see it turned into another XBOX shoot-em-up you should be encouraging all quality developers to walk away from this debacle as fast as possible.

I got a an introductory pack from the wife which pays for my first six lessons towards my PPL. I start with Skytrek flying club in Januray learning the ropes on a Cessna 152. Saving the pennies now to finish the course !