OOM Error. How is this possible?

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Steve, have you looked at the Avsim "FSX Hardware & Software Guide v1.0.4.8"? It's an excellent summary of current thinking on tweaks and so on, and a number of people to whom I have recommended it have been able to solve their problems after reading it (or one of its predecessors). And since Avsim revise it regularly, it has so far stayed up to date.

 

You can find it here: http://forum.avsim.net/files/file/1-fsx-hardware-software-guide/

 

Good luck: I sincerely hope you can nail whatever it is that's causing you all this hassle!  

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

[Mistwalker 3]

I you're spot on about Autogen and treescapes, Christopher. I'd forgotten about that. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

Thanks for the heads up, Brian. You'd just been pipped to the post by an email I just recieved mentioning the same thing. What I've done is let FSX load up a shiny new cfg file and then changed my basic fsx settings to some suggested by Brit. I'm going to do some flying for a day or two at those settings to get a feel for how things are running and then i'll start wading through that very detailed document you just linked to and start tweaking a bit of a time. Hopefully I can then find what works and improve things step by step.

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

<grin> Twice is better than nonce: I hope you find what you need in there!

 

Incidentally, after page 18 it gets a it weird — going into a lot of depth about DX10 and then a technique called delidding for taking a razor blade to your processor  <gulp> : if you stick to the first 18 pages, though, you should be safe enough!   

 

(It looks a bit intimidating at 46 pages, but when you realise you're actually looking at 18 it isn't quite so bad).  

 

> "What I've done is let FSX load up a shiny new cfg file..."

 

Good thinking. A fresh start is a great way of getting rid of all the dubious things that you tried once and then forgot to take out.  (<blush> — talking to myself there, you understand...). The other good habit which I'd suggest is using the // instruction for fsx to ignore the rest of the line, so you can then add comments to remind yourself what you changed (and the previous value), and why. I also put a // on its own line just before each [sECTION HEADING] to add a space, which I find makes it easier to locate the different sections.

 

Best of luck!

 

Brian

 

[flybytes 34]

OOMS are pretty much a thing of the past on my un-tweaked system since switching from Vista 32-bit to Win7 64-bit. I can force OOMS to happen by not switching my pc off for a few days (allowing it to go into sleep mode when not used).

 

Having followed various discussions on numerous forums over the last few months, one thing I have never seen mentioned is doing a fresh full cold start-up of the pc before embarking on a relatively long FSX flight.

 

For pc reliability it was recommended to minimise switching it off, unfortunately the best way of freeing up system memory is to power it down completely. PC's today, particularly their power supply units are so much more reliable that switching them off is not such a problem.

 

Ray.

 

[Christopher Low 63]

I can't understand why some people do not suffer from OOMs when flying detailed payware planes around super detailed airports and scenery regions at maximum detail settings. What is it about some people's systems that stops this from happening?? Do you have your sliders to the right, Ray? What AA/AATransparency/AF settings do you use?

[flybytes 34]

Christother,

 

As far as I can gather, perhaps I'm a not a user of lots of airport trafic. I used much addon-traffic in fs9 but have cut back it's use in fsx as I found it very resource heavy!

 

We have very similar pc systems and fsx setups - between Luton & Heathrow or Gatwick  I don't have OOM problems

 despite using London VFR,  UK  Heathrow Xtreme, UK Gatwick Xtreme & London City Xtreme, GenX photo scenery, Treescapes & FSX Power Project which on occasions does cut down frame-rates to 12 fps.

 

[Mistwalker 3]

Well there's definately something wrong with my setup. Right now, even with my graphics set nowhere near as high as they were before, I'm still getting OOMs inside of ten minutes. To check my system wasn't at fault I loaded another game, 'Cliffs of Dover', went into a mission that put me over 1940 London and spent the next 30 - 45 minutes happily flying around/over/through London at low level without so much as a stutter. I double checked my GPU driver and setup a GPU monitor. Whilst in FSX my GPU temp never went above 52c degrees, fan never above 1200rpm and GPU load never above 33%.

 

As Brit has suggested to me today, it may be time to install a fresh instance of FSX and load my addons 1 at a time. Something I REALLY don't want to have to do, especially as the current installation is only 3 months old but if that's what I gotta do I'm just going to have to bite the bullet.

 

Thanks for the tip about using the // in the cfg, Brian. That definately looks like a good idea to me so I'll be using that in future, myself.

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Hi Steve!

 

A few other things to check:

 

• Are you sure you have HIGHMEMFIX=1 in the [GRAPHICS] section of your fsx.cfg?

• Are you sure you have the Vista uiautomationcore.dll copied into your fsx directory (but not registered, regardless of what some well-meaning but mistaken folks suggest)?

• Have you set up a fixed ("custom") size paging file on a disk that doesn't have your fsx installation?

• Have you applied the Desktop Heap Limitation registry patch?

 

(I regard all four of the above as essential — as in "don't go simming without them" — but YMMV. The last two are specifically anti-OOM measures, incidentally. I'm fairly sure all four will be covered somewhere in the first 18 pages of the Avsim document, but if not don't hesitate to give me a shout).

 

[Later edit: I've just checked, and they are — on pages 14, 17, 10, and 11, respectively].

 

And before you subject yourself to the whole reinstall thing, did you consider trying an fsx Repair install? (Insert your fsx DVD, select Repair and click Next). It might work for you, although be aware that it only fixes fsx's *default* files, so if it's Something You've Added that is causing your problems, it can't help. On the positive side, though, you won't have to reinstall your add-ons, afterwards.

 

(I have to admit that if it's humanly possible I avoid reinstalling everything. For example, last time I looked, I had over 300 areas in my scenery.cfg file.....      )

 

Before you do uninstall, though, I would also suggest making backup copies of some of your directories, in case they get changed or damaged during the process and you want to refer to them afterwards. If you look at the bottom of page 11 of the Avsim Guide you will find a list of directories to copy away somewhere safe. I made up a batch file, that I run prior to any change to my fsx installation, which copies my fsx directory and all those directories away onto another disk — but then I'll do anything to avoid a reinstall!  

 

Good luck with the investigations,

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

 

[Christopher Low 63]

What's this "uiautomationcore.dll"? Should everyone have that in the FSX directory? With respect to AI planes, I do have quite a lot of these (civil and military) flying around, so maybe I need to do a few tests with all of them disabled, and then gradually increase the number? The problem is that I like lots of AI planes! I hate to think that I am missing some, particularly the airliners.

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Christopher,

 

Putting the Vista uiautomationcore.dll file into your fsx directory prevents a common problem whereby too many accesses to the fsx top menu bar, for example, result in a condition whereby the sim locks up visually even though it continues operating (as you can tell by the sound) — but you have no way of getting back in and usually have to reboot. Very frustrating, and there is a simple fix (once it was discovered). The existing (64-bit uiautomationcore.dll files in the Windows directory should be left alone — they are needed for use in various apps — and this is also why the Vista additional 32-bit version in the fsx directory should be simply copied in and should not be registered, otherwise those other apps may crash.

 

So to answer your question: if you haven't (knowingly) experienced that specific problem, then you may not need that solution. On the other hand, it can do no harm, and an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.   

 

But it has nothing to do with AI aircraft, AFAIK.

 

OOMs seem to affect some people and not others, and also seem to arise spontaneously and cause problems even when there has been no such problem before (which happened to me about six months ago). All I can say is that since I implemented all four of the recommendations in my previous post, I have been troubled with them no more.  

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

 

 

[flybytes 34]

Christopher,

I have all my scenery sliders at max except autogen (normal) which should not be relevant with GenX photo scenery, water effects (Low 2.x) & Mesh resolution (5 m).

 

Perhaps I'm tempting fate, I don't have any OOM'S without any s/w modifications to prevent them - I'm a 'If it ain't broke don't fix it' guy.

 

I do use Win 7 Pro, but doubt that its memory management is any better than the standard version. Microsoft's memory management, from version 3.1 to present day has never been brilliant. Having used many other operating systems, including Hewlett Packard's (much favoured for military flight simulation) or Acorn's RiscOS memory management never seemed to be an issue.

 

Cheers,

Ray.

 

[Mistwalker 3]

Hi again, Brian.

 

To answer your questions, I did already have the correct version of the uiautomationcore.dll installed already and had added the HIGHMEMFIX=1 yesterday after it was suggested to me by Brit. I hadn't however done the page file size or the desktop heap fixes you mentioned but have now. I did a FSX repair including the service packs a week or so ago so I would hope that repair is still good.

 

On the plus side, since making the above changes, I'm now able to fly my test route over Shawbury Fields for 75 mins at texture max of 4096 as against yesterday where I could only manage 7 mins on texture max of 1024 so we're heading in the right direction thanks to you guys. I think I've now got to start at the top of that PDF tweaking file and work my way down steadily and see if I can screw any more cooperation out of FSX. Thanks again, guys.

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

    RESULT!!

 

That's great news, Steve — well done!  Hopefully, you're now on the up and UP!  

 

All the best,

 

Brian

 

[brett 2,314]

Sometimes I think if you took two PC's that are exactly the same in every way and installed FSX on them, that the program would still work differently on them.

[Mistwalker 3]

Couldn't agree more, Brett. As I've mentioned previously, I gave up on FSX a little over a year ago because my old system suffered badly from the OOM error. I was convinced when I bought this new system that this prob would be a thing of the past so I was crushed when I eagerly launched FSX on my new rig for the first time just to see it raise it's ugly head again, especially as I've seen so many ppl here with almost identical setups NOT suffering with it. Gotta love Winblows, right?

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Speaking with all the scar tissue of someone with over 40 years' experience in the software industry, I think the main problem with Windoze is that a lot of its complexity comes from trying to hide its own over-complex nature from the users. I have used many O/Ss over the years, most of them ending in -IX in recent decades, and none of the rest of them have had shedloads of "security updates" every few weeks to try and patch the broken nature of their security design.

 

But Operating Systems are complex beasts by their very nature, and what may seem to be random differences are in fact a consequence of dozens of threads all running independently and in parallel, each one of which may encounter a bottleneck or a busy signal from a hardware device and may therefore have to suspend itself until the condition is cleared, so that there are many possible interactions and therefore they probably run in a slightly different sequence each time. For example, as part of my Windoze startup I end up with three apps on my desktop awaiting input, and guess what — they never appear in the same sequence twice. (Well, very seldom).

 

But hey — it's not all bad. And for most people it probably beats typing very long and obscure-looking instructions into the command line.   

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

[Mistwalker 3]

I hear what you say, Brian and it raises the question of why MS stopped supporting their flightsim when it was and probably still is the most popular flightsim available. It strikes me that they want their cake and eat it. They don't want to be bothered supporting it and yet continue to sell it. Why not make the entire software public domain and let the indie developers sitting in their underpants in their basements get to grips with it and make it better? I'm sure there are plenty of flightsim fanatics with coding knowledge who would love the opportunity to roll their sleeves up and get under the bonnet for a looksee.

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

   Ah, but Windoze has proved to be a reliable cash cow for Micro$oft over the years, whereas dear old Flight Sim wasn't. Instead, Micro$oft had to look on from the sidelines grinding their teeth whilst lots of independent developers made a reasonable living out of it. So they had lots of meetings and decided to junk fsx and invent "Micro$oft Flight", in a fairly transparent attempt to lock the punters in. But the punters didn't want to play ball, so 'Flight got junked, too. 

 

No doubt the bean counters who drive these decisions defended them as being "justified by commercial realities", but did they factor in the cost of alienating the whole flight sim community, I wonder.....  

 

Hey ho.

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

 

 

[brett 2,314]

I'm sure they factored it in and decided that we weren't worth the effort.

[britfrog 180]

Not to worry there are 2 new simulators being worked on as we speak details of which should be coming out in quarter 3 or 4, I have it on good authority .

[Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142]

Well, I've just worked out roughly what I've spent on fsx since it came out, and it turns out that there's no way I could afford to start again with another sim. Anyway, we've mostly tamed fsx now, so starting again with a new set of bugs somehow lacks appeal, TBH.

 

So it looks as though fsx and I will be growing old disgracefully together, I reckon.   

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

[Mistwalker 3]

I must admit I've been toying with the idea of saving my pennies for P3D. I'm just wandering how many of my addons would be useable on it. Now Brit has thrown a spanner in the works with the mention of more flight sims on the horizon. Oh decisions decisions.

[brett 2,314]

Check out the pinned treads in our P3D section here at Mutley's for what will and won't work. You can bet that most of the new stuff work's on it.

[allardjd 1,853]

P3D is looking like the way forward and most of the FSX stuff works with it.

 

Microsoft screwed the pooch with FSX - built it too far ahead of the current hardware at release time.  When they rolled it out there wasn't one PC in 50 that could run it adequately and so the product just got better and better for the users as the performance improvements to PC hardware marched on. That, coupled with their lack of follow-up with anything to replace it for the next six years (a lifetime in the software business) resulted in their FS revenue stream drying up.  MSF was supposed to re-invigorate the FS genre but it was a clean miss.

 

If they had not taken quite so big a step going from FS9 to FSX or had not rested on their laurels for quite so long, they could have sold us FSX in 2006 and FSXI in about 2009 and could still be raking in revenue on FSXII now.  We'd have bought them in the tens of thousands. 

 

MS being jealous of the FS-related aftermarket entrepeneurs is like an auto manufacturer being jealous of those who sell sporty wheels and other custom accessories for cars.  It's probably not a part of the business they really have any business being in anyway.  Others with lower overheads can do it better.

 

Making FSX as advanced as they did is not the only mistake they've made since 2006, but it's one of them.  The product life cycle curve for FSX was far too extended from a commercial point of view.  As users we may see it differently, but if you're an MS bean counter...

 

John

[britfrog 180]

P3D is looking like the way forward and most of the FSX stuff works with it.

 

Microsoft screwed the pooch with FSX - built it too far ahead of the current hardware at release time.  When they rolled it out there wasn't one PC in 50 that could run it adequately and so the product just got better and better for the users as the performance improvements to PC hardware marched on. That, coupled with their lack of follow-up with anything to replace it for the next six years (a lifetime in the software business) resulted in their FS revenue stream drying up.  MSF was supposed to re-invigorate the FS genre but it was a clean miss.

 

If they had not taken quite so big a step going from FS9 to FSX or had not rested on their laurels for quite so long, they could have sold us FSX in 2006 and FSXI in about 2009 and could still be raking in revenue on FSXII now.  We'd have bought them in the tens of thousands. 

 

MS being jealous of the FS-related aftermarket entrepeneurs is like an auto manufacturer being jealous of those who sell sporty wheels and other custom accessories for cars.  It's probably not a part of the business they really have any business being in anyway.  Others with lower overheads can do it better.

 

Making FSX as advanced as they did is not the only mistake they've made since 2006, but it's one of them.  The product life cycle curve for FSX was far too extended from a commercial point of view.  As users we may see it differently, but if you're an MS bean counter...

 

John

 

I am afraid I disagree with you John,

if P3D was looking to earn money from Joe public which they currently are not allowed to do, they would be working on a 64 bit version, which according to my source, who is in contact  with p3d they are not considering at all. They are simply looking at all the professional uses that they can create so they can charge big bucks for it. There are a lot of flying schools and training establishments that today use fsx for professional training which is strictly against the eula. These places will migrate to P3D however LM are more likely to bring out an updated version of combat flight sim for pros as this  and undersea simulations is where these guys perceive they can charge mega bucks for their program. We the hobbyist dont enter the equation as they can earn more money from selling one sim prog to some foreign country than they would if there were a million simmers worldwide buying 10 P3D progs a month.

 

X plane is a non event as it is not possible to create scenery for it as there is no possibility to  "flatten"  hence their current scenery looks like fs2002 gone wrong.

 

so the ball park is open for a new team on the block , however it isnt going to happen overnight FSX will get better over the next 3 years

and it isnt totally impossible that a company that already has long standing agreements with M.S. as well as a deep understanding of the fsx product may well enter an agreement to take the fsx franchise to the next level-------    FTX take a step forward.