active Friday Harbor - Out of Memory errors in FSX

[banjoman1960]

13 minutes ago, FreeBird said:

 

I have the same feeling. Ever since installing it my performance has changed and I get allot of pauses wile flying. Never had them before vector and this is happing in Full fat regions. Josh

+1 also get this at some places in p3dv3 now.............

[Ripcord]

 

I am seeing several theories here.

 

Quote

 PNW and the Seattle area, which is, as previously mentioned, a load and a half anyway, is the only one of all the Regions, (and I have all available for the world) in which I've run into this.

 

This is one -- it is a tough region, which is alludes to legacy objects made a LONG time ago by the ACES team for FSX.  This is a big part of our problems in Seattle and I think there is something similar at work here in the San Juan Islands areas.  Remember FSX starts you off there in free flight, there place isn't totally devoid of default FSX scenery.

 

Quote

None of the other Regions has the concentration of high detail AP's close together like PNW and I think that's why I don't run into this elsewhere. The number of high detail AP's in this area is maxed out for my hardware and settings.

 

Maybe. I'm not convinced however.  I think if put the same half dozen ORBX offerings in another region, say NZ or SAK or Ireland, you would not get this.  But that's an opinion with no data or even observations to back that up -- except perhaps that you will find some folks that have issues at Southampton, and some of the ORBX airports around London.  That is yet another really tough spot in the sim.

 

Quote

Ever since installing it (Vector) my performance has changed and I get allot of pauses wile flying. Never had them before vector and this is happing in Full fat regions.

 

Some suggest removing secondary and tertiary roads in Vector Config Settings.  May or may not help, some claim that it does.  I turned off tertiary and for a bit I also thought there was a few FPS of improvement.  A lot of testing would be needed to prove that, but it is another theory that bears looking into, as people do their testing.  I don't imagine it is a primary root cause here but it might be a contributing factor.

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi Ripcord, very interesting theory and I agree with it.

I wonder what would happen if ORBX decided to "redo" the entire Seattle area to THEIR standards instead of having to deal with ACES's mess.  It seems to me that as ORBX replaces scenery from ACES things improve not only visually but performance wise too.

 

Last night on my test in the Q400 to Friday Harbor which is a short 70 miles away all was well until three miles from landing, I could see the PAPI's and thought I'd land as I didn't get the OOM chimes but no, I got a complete and total CTD which I haven't gotten yet in my new system.  I wonder if I approached  KFHR from a different area than Seattle  it might have been different.  I  had been going back and forth from KORS to KFHR with no problems, even in the Q400.

 

I have to give ORBX a LOT of credit though, they have to be the most supportive company in the FSX world.  That's why I buy all their stuff, their support is amazing.  Kudos to Holger for helping me yesterday and I KNOW you guys are very busy.

 

Best regards,

 

Jack near KATL

[Ripcord]

 

Hey Russ

 

What is this file about here, in scenery/world/scenery folder?

 

trafficBoats_KFHR.bgl.KFHR

 

Looks like AI boat traffic but why is it off?  And why is it over 2MB?

 

Mark

 

 

 

[Ripcord]

2 minutes ago, JS07 said:

I wonder what would happen if ORBX decided to "redo" the entire Seattle area to THEIR standards instead of having to deal with ACES's mess.  It seems to me that as ORBX replaces scenery from ACES things improve not only visually but performance wise too.

 

They did, actually.  Best they could.  There were some things they couldn't remove, but there is a thread here somewhere in which Holger went into this.

[Jack Sawyer]

I mean if they replaced Seattle completely with a stand-alone airport like the others.

 

[Ripcord]

It is a full-fat FTX region.  They redid each and every airport.  And when Neil does these, he starts by creating an exclusion to remove the default airports. 

[Greg Jones]

14 minutes ago, Ripcord said:

 

Hey Russ

 

What is this file about here, in scenery/world/scenery folder?

 

trafficBoats_KFHR.bgl.KFHR

 

Looks like AI boat traffic by way is it off?  And why is it over 2MB?

 

Mark

 

 

 

Hi Mark,

 

That's the modified default boat traffic file that includes the updated San Juan Island ferry type and positioning. I've taken the default ferry schedule and positioning and shifted it slightly so that that it lines up properly with new the new dock model.  You can enable the file in the control panel at which point your current default will be backed up.

 

The reason for making this an option is so that any existing user customisation to the file is not lost.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Greg

[Ripcord]

Perfect.  I bet that helps having your traffic enabled and the default stuff off.  Will test that in a bit.

 

Thanks Greg.  Merry Christmas to you and your family.

 

 

[Greg Jones]

10 minutes ago, Ripcord said:

Perfect.  I bet that helps having your traffic enabled and the default stuff off.  Will test that in a bit.

 

Thanks Greg.  Merry Christmas to you and your family.

 

 

And to you.

 

Actually, it won't make much, if any difference, to performance as our version is basically a copy of the default but with a couple of the entries modified. 

 

G

[Chunk]

I don't think it has anything to do with having a few ORBX airports so close together. As the OOM CTD I encountered was in P3D v3, and KFHR is the only airport I have installed there right now. I have PNW active also. I have Global and Vector, but they should be off when the full region is active. It's either that particular spot in PNW, or the airport addon, that is causing these issues.

I flew out of KORS, before installing KFHR, and the frames were steady in the 30's, with VAS not even coming close to causing an issue.

[Jordan King]

Thats very strange. I tested again in P3D V3 and it performed as well as it did in my Friday Harbor youtube video. In FSX I increased the LOD to 6.5 with PNW activated and it ran about 50 fps @ 2560x1440 4xSGSAA in DX10 with 4096x4096 textures and AI traffic activated. Goes to show how fickle this sim is. I hope everyone gets their issues worked out. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTqPScJlqiw

[Russell Linn]

The cause of an OOM can be different for each user. Just to clarify, I'm not putting the fault down to nearby airports, just that it's another possible variable that doesn't help.

 

Just an update, we've been doing VAS tests "in-house", comparing to various other airports and even with no addons or regions installed. The results of the tests is that the area memory usage is actually fairly high without Orbx KFHR installed. Here's an example of my results earlier today:

 

KEGE area with Orbx KEGE installed = 1.6
KFHR area without Orbx KFHR installed = 1.8

 

Summary - The VAS usage in the KFHR area WITHOUT any sceneries installed is actually higher than most areas WITH sceneries installed.

 

We're doing what we can to save memory every where we can.

Thanks,
Russ

[Penzoil3]

Thanks Russ.

[Russell Linn]

20 minutes ago, Penzoil3 said:

Thanks Russ.

You're welcome

[Chunk]

So it is the area. Is that a legacy FSX issue, or something that can be patched in PNW?

Thanks for the detective work, Russ!

[Roger Dodger]

I posted a few days ago, in this thread, about the impact AI traffic was having on my system around Friday Harbour, despite forcing a reduction with ActiveTrafficManager. Sometimes I feel it is helpful to provide an update even when things are going well.

 

Since then I have undertaken many test flights around the area with MyTraffic off at all times, utilizing ATM and using an Alabeo C172RG instead of an A2A aircraft. I then introduced ASN weather back in and used my TrackIR headphone setup. Other than the stutters at the end of runway 16 and temporary frame drop everything seems to be settled down. I can maintain around 30 frames, the weather is crappy, overcast and raining, the guy in the tower still needs a break but other than that I am thoroughly enjoying your excellent work Russ.

 

Thanks for a great job, Merry Christmas.

 

Regards,

Roger

 

[Bluebear]

I have same probs as many users at KFHR with my FSX Acc.
stuttering sim at Friday Harbor with some oom's.
tried different settings with no success.
I have discovered in my AppData / Roaming / Microsoft / FSX / dll.xml
there are no entrys from KFHR .(ObjectFlow or s.e.)
the last entry are from FTX_AA_KMRY that i have installed befor.
Is that correct ? 

cheers
Bluebear

[kdfw]

haven't yet installed kfhr yet due to the oom complaints, but will give it a try later this week.

 

as for the seattle area performance being bad by default, don't know if if it's some legacy fs coding or what.  easiest test would be to overlay a completely flat area over downtown seattle and ksea, devoid of autogen and 3d objects and see if performance improves.

 

whenever parked at 74s, looking south to seattle seems to hit the frame rate rather hard.   

 

[Ripcord]

3 hours ago, Chunk said:

So it is the area. Is that a legacy FSX issue, or something that can be patched in PNW?

Thanks for the detective work, Russ!

 

My thoughts as well.

 

If ORBX released KBFI Boeing Field next week, we'd have all the same issues.  FSX has left us with some bad ju-ju in this area.  Only thing I can think of are those WA state ferries...

 

 

[Chunk]

As far as the ferries go...I have them turned off, and still had the OOM CTD.

[Larry_R]

This may or may not have bearing on the OOM issue but I thought it worth mentioning. If you are using my PNW AI ferries, the WSF AI ferry MV Issaquah will dock at the Friday Harbor ferry ramp to a fair approximation as my replacement traffic file is currently configured.  (There is another AI ferry that goes to Friday Harbor also.)  However these boats as well as the  others are quite complex and it's conceivable that they may contribute to OOMs in the Friday Harbor area.

Larry

[Ripcord]

First I turned off the KFHR boat traffic file and still I got a CTD.  Then I removed the ferries from my simobjects folders and started in my flight from KBVS.  Over Anacortes I just turned off all boat traffic (sliders to zero) and kept on going.  Frames improved a little, I noticed.  And for the first time in a 6-7 attempts, I made it all the way, around the patter at KFHR and landed (crashed but still landed).

 

So what can we infer from this?  Maybe I have so damn much boat traffic going that it is just too much, along with the PR scenery, in this area.  Maybe there are some FS9 port-over objects hidden in there that are the main offenders.  More testing is required, but this is as good of a lead as I've had so far.

 

 

[Ripcord]

3 minutes ago, Larry_R said:

This may or may not have bearing on the OOM issue but I thought it worth mentioning. If you are using my PNW AI ferries, the WSF AI ferry MV Issaquah will dock at the Friday Harbor ferry ramp to a fair approximation as my replacement traffic file is currently configured.  (There is another AI ferry that goes to Friday Harbor also.)  However these boats as well as the  others are quite complex and it's conceivable that they may contribute to OOMs in the Friday Harbor area.

Larry

 

Larry I do not have yours installed right now, or I don't think I do (I believe in fact I did at one point).  But I do have Henrik Nielsens AI boat traffic installed -- all of it, worldwide.  He has no shortage of shipping going in and out of Puget Sound.

 

I also have Holger's Victoria Plus and Vancouver 3 installed so we have those ships moving about as well.

 

[Ripcord]

 

I would love to narrow this down to one or two 'main offenders' but I am inclined to believe that it is really more of a cumulative effect in this area.

 

Let's hear from the others here that have run into OOMs.  Tell us what kind of boat traffic you have installed.

 

[Roger Dodger]

Mark (Ripcord),

 

I wonder how much AI boats are a bigger factor than we realise.  I seemed to have solved my stutters believing AI traffic coming into and out of the 'area' was causing  problems. BUT, when I posted that my system had settled down I had forgotten I still had boats in ATM set at zero. Narrowing it down I believe boat traffic also has a major impact, in his area.

 

Regards,

Roger

[Ripcord]

 

Well I did manage just now to complete a flight from Schoolhouse to Roche Harbor in a PA-38 Tomahawk.  Settings are pretty good using DSR, I loved it.  I think I solved the blurries, but this is a heavy area to fly in, still rife with OOM trouble.  I will say that this last flight I did turn my boat traffic back on (even saw a schooner) and still managed OK.  So I think the AI boat traffic is just one more contributing factor, like weather and AI air traffic -- it all adds up fast.

 

One thing I do get, and not just in this area, is I run in a real hard stutter, almost a good 1 sec pause, but only every few minutes.  So I am still working through my settings, closing in on what is optimal for my system.  Perhaps if I get to a point where I am rock-solid in terms of stability, I might find that I can manage alright in the San Juan Islands.

 

Think I'll head off to SF Bay area and see what I capable of down there - another tough area to test in.

[Ripcord]

I think I have finished my system optimization.  I still have Victoria + installed, and also Vancouver 3 and FSDT Vancouver, and all other goodies in the area, and I made it into KFHR without incident (bad landing skills aside).

 

BTW this seem to have made a real difference for me. 

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/108178-ai-ship-traffic-on-us-west-coast/#comment-973344

[FLighT]

I seem to have my OOM's under control at KFHR, It all boiled down to LOD @ 4.5 with my hardware and the graphic settings I like. And being primarily a low and slow flyer so I can see the scenery I've spent my money on. Some items like vehicle and boat traffic, weather conditions, config settings of  AP's in FTX Central, and some other features had an effect on smoothness, but had not on OOM's as far as I can tell. LOD 4.5 allows me to run Autogen at max without any OOM's, but smoothness suffers a bit especially around the AP itself, but one notch down is fine.

 

I can only guess that at 4.5 the hardware isn't being stressed trying to load stuff I can't see anyway from the island, like the stones throw distances to KORS, 74S, KBVS, and a few others across the area. And this is with A2A 172 with GTN 750 and 650 installed and running a flight plan, and with TrackIR and ASN, and running a cfg with Bufferpools=0 and some other CPU/GPU crushers .

 

The trade off of course is more autogen pop ups at closer range, but the lower I fly the less noticeable they are. With live weather and the generally polluted skies in so many places around the globe anymore, the visual haze tends to mask the softness of detail in the distance. I've never had an issue with blurries that some do. I can induce them by slewing at Mach 3 at 500' off the deck and suddenly stopping and waiting for the scenery load to catch up, but otherwise I never see them.  I expect things will get even smoother for me with the 1st service pack adjustments. I'd been running LOD 6.5 for so long everywhere I was flying (generally in rural settings) I didn't realize how much it impacted my rigs performance. I get away with it when bush flying, but not here.

 

[Steve Colbert]

On December 23, 2015 at 4:52 PM, Larry_R said:

This may or may not have bearing on the OOM issue but I thought it worth mentioning. If you are using my PNW AI ferries, the WSF AI ferry MV Issaquah will dock at the Friday Harbor ferry ramp to a fair approximation as my replacement traffic file is currently configured.  (There is another AI ferry that goes to Friday Harbor also.)  However these boats as well as the  others are quite complex and it's conceivable that they may contribute to OOMs in the Friday Harbor area.

Larry

 

Hi Larry and All -

 

What are these PNW AI ferries you speak of?  Sounds interesting as I've loved riding these on vacations with my wife - models or just traffic files?

 

For what it's worth, I had an OOM issue too, but only after turning my global texture to Maximum.   Prior to that, no issues at all for me - but.....

 

I'll also mention that I'm just getting back into this hobby after an almost 10 year hiatus and running Orbx FHR, ORS and PNW on some $400 AMD 2.2 MHz with integrated graphics HP "all purpose" until a proper 4.0Mhz i7 With Nvidia card arrives on Wednesday.   Even then I'm falling back In love with FSX and these gorgeous Orbx products - even though I'm running at the lowest possible resolution (but mid-sliders on most things actually) and 10 fps as I land at ORS !

 

I'm glad I found these products and this site and it's very clear that there are some great expert users and developers here.

 

Steve

 

PNW, North California, KORS, KFHR, Vashon Island (and more to come).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Larry_R]

Hi Steve,

There is a long and probably by now impossible to follow thread about the PNW ferry system here:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/85273-na-ai-ferries-and-terminals-for-southern-bc-and-puget-sound/

Also you can check the blog linked in my signature lines.  I'm afraid however that your current rig might not like the level of detail at all. I'd recommend getting all the Orbx stuff you want working flawlessly for a fair period of time before looking into the ferries, and only then if it's a real interest and you are willing to put up with the manual install.

Larry

[Steve Colbert]

59 minutes ago, Larry_R said:

Hi Steve,

There is a long and probably by now impossible to follow thread about the PNW ferry system here:

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/85273-na-ai-ferries-and-terminals-for-southern-bc-and-puget-sound/

Also you can check the blog linked in my signature lines.  I'm afraid however that your current rig might not like the level of detail at all. I'd recommend getting all the Orbx stuff you want working flawlessly for a fair period of time before looking into the ferries, and only then if it's a real interest and you are willing to put up with the manual install.

Larry

 

Thanks Larry!!!

 

That is some great work you've done - and good advice I'll wait until I can get more than 10 fps before I look deeper into ferry installations.

 

Steve

[Kilstorm]

Man I feel for you guys who are having an issue.  I brought and installed KFHR but have yet had a chance to check it out and after reading this thread was almost 100% sold I was going to see and have an issue but that was not the case.  I loaded up the A2A C182 with the GTN750 on my second monitor and did a flight from one end of the island to the other and had no issues.  I could tell I was flying over some demanding scenery but had I not read this thread of post it would never of crossed my mind that others are having an issue.

My computer spec are in my sign but my system is 3 years old and I was running on med high settings. 2048, dense auto-gen, med water settings, plenty of shadows and AI. This is in P3Dv3. I really have no solid tips or advice as to what Im doing differently from others and I did notice a slightly longer start up but once in the sim flying in both default weather with its coulds and then switching to real ASN weather I saw nothing but frames in the mid 20's and no OOMs which I can get flying the Dash 8 Pro between CYVR and KSEA with those addon fields and clouds coverage high with 2048x2048.

I know this might not help but I did recently update my video drivers? Before I did I had no runway lights in P3Dv3 and after I did that I do as I read that was an issue so just something to think about that perhaps when was the last time you update your video driver as in my case the older driver did have a direct affect on the sim in an unthinkable way. 

[davidbos]

You can add me to the list of folks experiencing OOM errors at KFHR. Took a short flight from Vashon Island to KFHR and at around 10 miles from the airport things started to get strange. First, most of the autogen trees near the airport distorted, and suddenly stretched upward to infinity. I tried to get a screenshot, but got a "can't take a screenshot" error (first time I've ever seen that). That happened twice in short succession. I also started experiencing stutters and a huge hit in FPS... I'm locked at 30 FPS and anywhere other than the greater Seattle area I average 25-30. As I crossed the threshold to land I got the OOM. I wasn't even sure what it was at first, as I've never experienced this before. I have all AI cars and boats turned off, with UT2 running AI aircraft (set at 20%). I'm running FSX;SE with FS Global 2010, FTX Global, and FTX Global Vectors. Installed ORBX airfields are KORS, Anacortes, Jefferson Co., KBVS, Darrington, Concrete, Sequim, and others not in the immediate area. For this particular flight I was in the A2A C182 (equipped w/ F1 GTN750). 

 

I've done a few flights departing KFHR and remaining in the area without much incident (FPS hit aside), except I did notice a couple of what look like fence posts (?) hovering to the East of the runway at about 100' or so. I did manage to get a shot of those (attached).

 

I know the ORBX team is working away at this issue, and it's appreciated. I'll be avoiding the KFHR area for a bit while things get sorted out. 

 

Regards,David

 

 

 

 

[Steve Colbert]

I've done a lot of flying around FHR now and can say I've had no issues whatsoever (other than the floating AI at the airport and fence posts mentioned in David's post above).  Frame rates are in the high 30s to low 40s with Orbx recommended fast PC settings.  I have Orcas and Anacortes installed and no traffic other than Orbx AI at 16 percent.

 

The white (but not the yellow) runway markings also seem blurry like smeared chalk on a chalkboard when viewed from the cockpit for some reason?

 

No OOM errors but I've not been monitoring VAS.

[Chunk]

Well, I had two OOM CTD's today, both on flights from KFHR to W16.  This is in P3D v3, flying the A2A Comanche.  The first one occurred when I was on final at Firstair, and the second occurred just as I was passing Paine Field at my 3 o'clock.  The lowest FPS I observed the entire flight was 26.  Otherwise, it hovered between 35-40, and was just buttery smooth.

 

I used two different graphics settings, and the "lighter" graphics setting actually crashed sooner that the "heavier" load.  So I think it's actually one of two things.

 

1. There is an issue in that part of the PNW that is eating memory like there is no tomorrow.  (I hope this is the case and can be remedied.)

2. We have come to point in this line of sims, where we have maxed out what a 32-bit application can handle.

 

I think we may just have too may things to make the default sim nice, and it can only handle so many add-on's.  My PC specs are in my signature, and here are the add-on's I have running.

 

OpusFSI

REX 4 w/Soft Clouds - 4096 pixel textures

Shade sky textures

A2A Comanche

The graphics settings I was using are what Froogle uses as his own settings, and hey can be found online.

No CFG tweaks at all.

 

This part of the map is the only area where I have run into this issue with P3D.

[Russell Linn]

7 hours ago, Chunk said:

Well, I had two OOM CTD's today, both on flights from KFHR to W16.  This is in P3D v3, flying the A2A Comanche.  The first one occurred when I was on final at Firstair, and the second occurred just as I was passing Paine Field at my 3 o'clock.  The lowest FPS I observed the entire flight was 26.  Otherwise, it hovered between 35-40, and was just buttery smooth.

 

I used two different graphics settings, and the "lighter" graphics setting actually crashed sooner that the "heavier" load.  So I think it's actually one of two things.

 

1. There is an issue in that part of the PNW that is eating memory like there is no tomorrow.  (I hope this is the case and can be remedied.)

2. We have come to point in this line of sims, where we have maxed out what a 32-bit application can handle.

 

I think we may just have too may things to make the default sim nice, and it can only handle so many add-on's.  My PC specs are in my signature, and here are the add-on's I have running.

 

OpusFSI

REX 4 w/Soft Clouds - 4096 pixel textures

Shade sky textures

A2A Comanche

The graphics settings I was using are what Froogle uses as his own settings, and hey can be found online.

No CFG tweaks at all.

 

This part of the map is the only area where I have run into this issue with P3D.

You're correct. I've disabled KFHR in my tests and still experienced high memory usage. Unfortunately, the more add ons you install the closer to an OOM you're gonna get. Unfortunately, in FSX/P3D, you don't get anything for free.

 

For now, all we can do is trim as much fat as possible, and believe me, me and Greg have a lot of development experience having developed over 30 airports together so the isn't much fat there in the KFHR scenery.

 

That said, we're also looking in to what the source of the problem in the area (without the scenery) could be. Apologies for it being a bit slow. We've had a lot of personal commitments over the Christmas holidays as I'm sure you can understand.

 

- Russ

[Ripcord]

 

Again I will point this out: I have had similar issues in and around KORS, long before KFHR.  There is something amiss in that area in FSX.  Not even sure that it is FTX PNW, it might be something left over from FSX.

 

I have been able to find optimal P3D settings now that have enabled me to make some good flights in and out of KFHR.  FPS isn't the greatest but it isn't a slide show either.  It is nice.  Last flight I did there I started at W16, overflew literary every island in the San Juan Islands, got a VFR look at every airport in the KFHR package (didn't land) and continued on over Port Angeles and Sequim before landing at 0S9.  Great flight, no troubles.  Had all the third-party scenery for Victoria and Vancouver enabled, as well, even FSDT Vancouver.  I think for me the issue was boat traffic.  Got that under control now with the FSX default WA state ferries deactivated and I seem to do OK.  More testing might well disprove that theory though, and I am keen to trim fat in this area however we can.

 

Thanks again Russ for your efforts.  Happy 2016 to you and your team.

 

[Chunk]

Russ, just to clarify, I don't think this is a problem that Friday Harbor introduced, but something that's been there the entire time with FSX/P3D. It's just gets exacerbated with PNW and the airports.

Unfortunately, I can't imagine what's going to happen when all of the airports are P3D v3-ready. I have KORS and 74S, which are all in that little vicinity that is, IMO, causing these issues.

[nigelgrant]

Yet more grist - sitting at Orcas I get an OOM after about 15 minutes, I have all the ORBx sceneries in the immediate area plus FSDT- CYVR, Vancouver+, Victoria+, Don Grovestine's Boundary Bay and Abbotsford.  Sitting at Abbotsford I also get an OOM after about 15 minutes.

 

But if I replace my scenery.cfg file with the default scenery.cfg, ie no addons, I do not get any OOM's!

 

Nigel

Vancouver