FSX Out of memory when landing

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Hey guys, 

 

Recently I've been having a lot of trouble with my FSX. I had it running fine for about 2 years without a single error, then PMDG released their 777 then that's when all the issues started. To put it simply, I can't fly any long haul flights due to the fact that I get the dreaded 'Your computer has run out of memory' error when around FL060. I must emphasize that even when I'm monitoring the VAS usage when descending and I notice it's getting to the 3.7/8 mark, Lowing settings literally does nothing at all. I have done a few tweaks that have allowed me to just about complete flights such as the bufferpools=0, texture resolution=1024 and so on. This issue has driven me to do a complete re-install, even onto a separate partition on my drive to see if that helps, and still no luck. I've asked PMDG about this and they insist it isn't their plane doing this (which it is).

 

I have only the addons I'm using for the flight since the others would be pretty pointless and I've heard drain performance (which again, disabling them does absolutely nothing). Also might I add that I have FTX GLOBAL, VECTOR and ENG installed and running in Hybrid mode, also UK2000 (now this is where I can't land due to the amount of VAS usage that seems to build up.)

 

Any help guys would be greatly appreciated! Literally my last hope since everyone over on the Avsim forums seems a little obnoxious about my post regarding the same issue....

 

Best regards

 

Ben  

 

 

 

[J G 927]

I have had the same issue with a PMDG add on. A few years back now.  My solution was to ebay the ad don and vow never to buy another PMDG add-on again.

 

Having said that the spec of my current setup is much higher than it is now, so I might not get the problem if tried it now.  I don't think that is your Issue judging by your system's spec.

 

Have you looked at your HDD setup? I tend not to trust the 'Allow windows to manage your page file option' Windows Vista and 7 seem to need a much bigger page file allocation than XP.  If you have the space manually manage it an make it big.

 

I have mine set to 24474 MB on each drive.

 

J. 

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

OOM are well known with FSX; there is no official solution for this other than

reduce your autogen sliders, and uncheck any unused scenery

and reduce your texture res back to 1024 or do no exceed 2048

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Thanks John, 

 

I love PMDG products, but their product support only offers the basic of advice then it's "try a re-install".....pain in the backside. I've tried allocating my own amount on the pageing file side of things, but i'll try again; I wouldn't hurt. Thanks for getting back and I'll be back tonight with results since I'm going to avoid long hauls in and out of FTX ENG, instead I'll be flying from LOWW-OMDB. 

Also Chris, I've tried that and to no prevail, looks like more hours of searching for a solution 

 

Regards

 

Ben

[britfrog 180]

Hi Ben , firstly welcome to mutleys hopefully you wont find us like the other rabble that you have mentioned.

You and I have similar specced computers and I never have the problem that you describe with PMDG stuff except if I am running fsx scenery and using a LOD of higher than 4.5 (normally I use an LOD of 8.5)

Sadly there is no golden arrow that anyone here will be able to offer you to cure your problems, the 777 does have some issues  but  from what I have heard your p.c. should be able to cope.

Initially the best info I can offer you is to work your way through Kostas list , firstly his oom stuff then his pc suggestions, they work for me,

http://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx-oom-and-addon-vas-usage/

http://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx-software-and-hardware-guide/

However initially I used this, http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html to set up certain parameters in my cfg file then I followed Kostas suggestions, the result is I can fly for hours on end using aerosoft airports  but not ftx  stuff using a  texture max load of 4096 and a LOD of 8.5, however Nowadays I mostly use dx10 and that in itself reduces crashes enormously . However as you no doubt have already discovered there are no 2 simmers that have arrived at nirvanna the sane way and no 2 simmers will agree on how you can setup your p.c  to get it to run perfectly.

some people swear that they modify their cfg file very little, I have massacred mine, you will also need to use nvidea inspector to set up your graphics card correctly, plus the dodge above mentioned by John which also helps , if you want I can send you a copy of my fsg to see if that helps.

But hand in there one day without warning your p.c. will start working properly.

btw I use the pmdg 737 and have flown that across the pond and landed at a highly detailed airport ( miami) with no probs, so it is possible the 777 may be different but I dont have that

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

i have few friends who bought the latest PMDG 777 and are experiencing the same issues your describing

the biggest contributor to their issues with the 777 (aside from the 777 itself) were FTX Global textures

essentially you gotta clear memory room for the new 777 heavy textures; from your previous baseline

 

as Nigel said; there's is no global stable solution to FSX OOM; other than waiting for P3D 64bit platform

 

you can use process explorer to monitor your VAS usage;

maybe you can gain some insights on whats causing your OOM

 

as for cfg changes; my best advise is

dont use online systems to modify your cfg file

do it manually, one by one

and the one by one is crucial for successful setup

always examine your surrounding for the changes you made;

and only when your happy move to the next parameter change

it helps to read about each config what it does before your making the change

i also recommend to use the same recorded flight for testing

 

its a pain in the a$$ process

but well worth the effort in the end

 

 

[Christopher Low 63]

I can easily suffer OOMs with a LOD setting of 4.5 in very dense scenery areas. I really don't understand how some of you get away with ludicrous settings like 8.5, unless you are using reduced slider settings. I run everything at maximum (apart from water at Mid.2.x).

[jaydor 345]

I don't suffer what you are saying and I do not use any card tweaks or the like. But what I have done and nothing else is,

Use the correct UIA found at the linc below. Just follow the screenshots to install.

http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php/files/file/2382-uiautomationcore/
 
The UIA above is the one that was used by the ACES team when they made FSX. No other will work tidy.


The other is, I have increased my virtual memory to half the recommended to use by the size of my hard drive.

To change the virtual memory follow the screenshots:

 

First, right click the "My Computer" icon on the desktop then select Properties at the bottom:

 

On the bottom screen below, after you insert the size click the set button before you click OK





Just do the simple 2 items above and any other tweaking through the FSX settings panel only. It will work..

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Thanks guys for all the help, I think I'll just do my tweaks one by one like you mentioned, since online tweaks didn't really respond well to my last install of FSX; this time I thought it might be different...(obviously not) haha. Also thanks to James for the paging file tip, I allocated my C: drive to system managed but my FSX partition didn't even have one set, so hopefully that'll make a difference! last nights flight was a pain, running at 3.6/7 at LOWW (Fly tampa), PMDG T7, FTX global and OMDB (Fly tampa). Which probably isn't normal, since I have no traffic set (I was online). So i'll delete the FSX CFG and do it manually.

 

Apart from the basic tweaks such as HIGHMEMFIX=1 and Bufferpools, which other tweaks do you all suggest? (since you all have similar spec PC's, maybe it'll run better)

 

Thanks again guys 

 

Ben

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

Hi Ben!

 

OK, I'm not wishing to disagree with m'learnéd friends above, since most of they've said is true as far as it goes (except that there *is* a global stable solution for OOMs), so here's a minority report.

 

To get rid of OOMs, get yourself a copy of Steve's DX10 Fixer and run your FSX in DX10 mode. This means that your GPU takes the strain, and also your VAS doesn't need to accommodate an area of RAM to map your graphics card's memory. Result — no more OOMs at the end of a flight.

 

You can fiddle with your fsx.cfg parameters for ever, but that's just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic — the reason that you get your OOMs on landing is simply because that's when VAS is at its maximum in DX9: moving to DX10 gets rid of the problem (or it does for most people who've actually tried it, assuming that there might be one or two simmers somewhere who remain silent about the fact that it didn't work for them?).

 

Anyway, no more chat needed here — if you're interested in the details about this solution, you can find them by following this link: http://www.mutleyshangar.com/reviews/bc/dx10/dx10.htm  If your setup satisfies the six criteria at the start of that review, then you should be on your way to being home and dry. Here's an extract to whet your appetite:

 

"DX10 mode is not merely a modification of DX9, it’s a completely different animal. Perhaps the most obvious difference lies in the way in which the graphics information is processed. With DX9, graphics handling is shared between the CPU (think i5, i7, or whatever) and the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on your graphics card. In DX10, on the other hand, the GPU handles the graphics all on its own. There are two very obvious and immediate consequences of this:

    a) Some of the load is removed from the CPU, so you may get more frames per second. Some people benefit more than others, but nonetheless performance should potentially improve.

    b) Because the GPU now handles the graphics natively, this also frees up some memory that was previously used to map the data into the GPU’s RAM. In simple terms, your VAS usage declines, perhaps dramatically (though this may depend on the amount of memory on your video card)."
 

Bottom line: it works for me, and for very many others.

 

Good luck,   

 

Cheers,

 

B.

 

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Thanks Brian, that's worth looking into! since I can imagine DX10 for FSX would not only look nicer but run too!

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

I have to admit: I'm a fan. I only fly PMDG aircraft, mostly long haul, and usually into complex airports. For me, Steve's Fixer has taken the fear away.  

 

(Not the Fear of Flying, the fear of landing....!).

 

Cheers,

 

B.

 

[britfrog 180]

I can easily suffer OOMs with a LOD setting of 4.5 in very dense scenery areas. I really don't understand how some of you get away with ludicrous settings like 8.5, unless you are using reduced slider settings. I run everything at maximum (apart from water at Mid.2.x).

 

Chris I asure you, I run my p.c. with all sliders maxed out except water at 2x high but with autogen in the middle , If you are ever in my region you are welcome to se it. if I use dx10 i can run lod 9.5 with impunity, and i have to admit i use dx10 most of the time, i dont use a/c shadows or building/tree shadows , I can run 8.5 all day long in dx9 except if I am, using ftx scenery , then I need to back it down a bit depending on what a/c I am using. If I am using ftx and pmdg occasionally I can get away with 6.5 but to avoid any mid flight ctd's I use 4.5. Brian and I have different ways of setting up our sims , that is why i say there is no golden arrow to follow. some people dont like the venetubo autofix, thats cool, I do and found it helped my system tremendously I then followed each step mentioned in kostas blog and I have arrived at where I am, when i reinstalled fsx a few weeks ago on another drive I simply copied my .cfg file across and made the same mods in windows and that drive now works just as well, but unlike some I dont say my way is perfect, i am perfectly happy with my setup, but I do still experiment to try to make it even better especially with nvidea inspector. if one night you want to see it run over skype I would be perfectly happy to give you a demo except , i just realised, skype is on another hard drive in the same p.c. but i could use my mobile phone if you want.

 

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

DX10 does improve performance dramatically via its architecture

the premise for this improvement  - DX9 keeps all VAS cache; while DX10 purges some of it!

i highly recommend Steve's DX10 Fixer (with Bloom sliders tweak!!! and bloom turned on in fsx settings)

 

as far as this being the solution for OOM; i don't want to start a full discussion about this

but its pretty presumptuous to call this a permanent solution to fsx's native 32bit architecture flaws

 

 

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Where can I find this bloom slider tweak? I've been looking all over the web for an ENB for DX10  

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

@Ben

 

At present, anyway, you'll not find a DX10 version of the ENB series mod, since it was explicitly coded for FS9 — so much so, that just having its d3d9.dll in the fsx directory will cause a crash in DX10 mode. On the other hand, if you want to experiment with bloom settings, the Fixer will certainly allow you to do so (the following is quoted from p.44 of the DX10 Fixer manual):—

 

 

"You can tune the strength of the DX10 bloom settings. In version 2.0 there are now five sliders and a number of options.

 

Bloom is applied in two phases. Firstly the model/light is brightened as it is drawn then in post processing a glare effect is added to bright areas of the final image.

In FSX there are four categories of bloom:

•  Reflective (specular) this is the bloom that you see on for example aircraft wings as the sun shines on them.
•  Emissive Bloom – this is applied to scenery models that are use emissive lighting (FTX Global Lights are an example)
•  Headlights (Bloom Copy) – the only example of this that I know is car headlights.
•  Lights (Alpha/Halo) – this applies mainly to effect style lights, PAPI Lights, runways lights, navigation lights etc. It is also applied to the Sun. In some rare circumstances it can be applied to scenery and aircraft – e.g Bergan airport.

The first four sliders control the first phase but in most cases this is sufficient to inhibit the latter glare effect as well. The fifth slider allows you to independently reduce the glare effect.

 

The sliders control a percentage factor which can range from 0 to 100%. In each case 100% corresponds to the default DX10 setting for the effect and zero means that the effect is minimized.

 

With the last two types of bloom the brightening occurs in DX10 even if Bloom is turned off. This seems a mistake as this does not occur in DX9.

 

The setting in these two cases lets you choose from 3 options

 

 Always On - this is the default DX10 setting – the light is always brightened and enlarged – only the glare is controlled by the in game bloom setting.
 Always off – the brightening and enlargement are disabled which will reduce the glare as well.
 Switchable - the brightening and enlargement are controlled by the in game bloom setting."

 

Have fun!   

 

 

@Chris

 

> "...its pretty presumptuous to call this a permanent solution to fsx's native 32bit architecture flaws"

 

Perhaps it's even more presumptuous to try and put words into my mouth that were never said. What I in fact said was that "there *is* a global stable solution for OOMs". (The DX10 Fixer is widely confirmed as providing a cure for OOMs at landing, as described by the OP). OOMs, however, are only one consequence of the limitations imposed by  FSX's 32-bit architecture.

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

 

 

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Thanks Brian and everyone else that's responded. I know there's a tonne of these types of threads with different answers, my system just wants to be fussy! I'll report back when I finish a flight tonight!

 

Good day!

 

Ben

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

Where can I find this bloom slider tweak? I've been looking all over the web for an ENB for DX10

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/422790-bloom-my-way-25-fps-improvement/

 

 

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Thanks, Chris. I've enabled the bloom but there's not much difference....Maybe a tweak somewhere. Since I cant use Sweetfx

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

the difference is only noticeable with Steve's updated shader

the second image shows the setting that should be applied inside Steve's DX10 Fixer, the first is the matching settings in FSX (these work together)

 

im not sure whats preventing you from installing DX10 fixer; but its well worth re-evaluating

 

as for other tweaks;

try locking your frames to 30, and un ticking AA in fsx settings

set AA via Nvidia inspector (use the built in FSX profile to start with)

here is a good article by NickN on setting this up

http://www.simforums.com/Forums/drivers-nv-inspector-fsxcfg-complete-guide_topic36586.html

 

cant really advise further without seeing your cfg

 

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

Well guys, DX10 didn't work....Switched back to DX9 since it's not making a difference....:/ I have a feeling it's something to do with FTX global and EU running together. I was looking online and came across someone that had the same issue with FTX PNW, then when Orbx eventually released it was buggy they released a patch for it...I'm all up to date so I guess it's a waiting game

 

 

Any other ideas? haha 

 

ben

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

you will find this in my early post - my colleges have found FTX textures to be the OOM culprit with their new 777

 

as expected, DX10 should only help the issue, not fix the imposed 32bit memory limitation

its a band aid for a broken leg; but it works

[Tactical_Carrot 0]

well I managed to do a full 3 and a bit hour flight from LAX-MCO (http://www.vataware.com/flight.cfm?id=13363611) without any errors or OOM. Figured that UK2000 V3 and FTX ENG just doesn't want to work with each other. Although my VAS usage on this flight was on about 3.7 when on the ground with KMCO scenery and FTX Global then the T7 - http://prntscr.com/321qsj . Not much of an improvement but it didn't crash....Maybe FTX ENG has a leak somwhere

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

to get back to normal frames, im afraid its not enough to just deactivate FTX global

you will need to completely revert back to fsx before FTX global

you will than have allot less OOM if any with the 777

 

the issue is the new textures FTX introduced, these are at higher res and consume a greater amount of memory to run

compounded with a long flight = OOM

dont forget the 777 is also heavy with textures, REX clouds!

the older default fsx textures are less pretty but also don't consume so much memory to load

 

this isn't a question of throwing more money at your sim and it will run better

this is an architectural limitation for 32bit applications

there is nothing you can do to allow FSX consume more than 3.9GB

you need to manage your scenery accordingly to this limitation

this means you want to fly with FTX textures, and a long flight

than give up the 777, and use something less demanding

or any way you wish to shuffle your scenery

this was just a random example

[britfrog 180]

What Chris says is correct

to avoid problems I plan where i want to fly from and to and activate those airports only and the photoscenery that i want to fly over. I do not  use any ftx scenery on my photscenery drive except a couple of their UK airports , no global and no uk scenery.

If I want to use my uk ftx scenery then i have that on another drive with a different version of fSX.

I found a couple of years ago that if I wnated to use ftx brisbane scenery with the NGX i would have to cut the LOD back to the default 4.5 and even then had the odd ctd if I flew for too long, consequently as much as I like the ftx scenery I got rid of it all except the UK. FTX is very VAS hungry and I believe global is also to some degree but I could be corrected here, but you have to be very careful what you combine it with, I think the 777 with global and FTX uk plus an FTX airport is a definite no go. If I use ftx scenery I mostly use small less complex a/c (VFR) and enjoy their uk stuff, but since binning their excellent aussie and PNW stuff that I had , touch wood I have had no issues.

 

I am surprised that you have given up on DX10 because as it sends the graphic info direct to the gpu it frees up a load of VAS so gives you the opportunity to run more heavy scenery. I must admit when I started dabbling with DX10 a couple of years ago I kept going back to dx9 for no other reason than it worked  ok, and to be honest I could not see any difference in the graphics worth talking about.  however after persevereing with DX10 and seeing that I can get away with much more , I now use it all the time

 

this microsoft fix must have been mentioned at some point so I apologise  if it has

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947246#LetMeFixItMyselfAlways