MSFS Memory Leak

[EasternT3]

Has anyone noticed memory leaks over the course of a flight since the last Sim Update? For example today I took off from Maccosim's EGCC in the FBW A32NX and flew across the pond to LVFR's KBDL, as I was landing my FPS dropped below 15 and was really stuttering, then I closed the sim and restarted it at KBDL, in the 32NX and my FPS was back above 30 and smooth as it can be. I've noticed this on pretty much all my flights since the sim update which makes me think it's a sim/memory issue over the length on a flight. Has anyone else had the same issue or know how to fix it? Thanks

Edited June 4, 2021 by EasternT3

[Scott Harmes]

I haven't noticed any memory leaks as such, but haven't really measured the memory either.  I did hear third hand about a post on the MSFS forums where someone mentioned that upgrading from 32GB to 64GB made their sim a lot smoother and stopped a lot of micropauses and stuttering..  This would suggest to me some type of overuse of memory.  There would be more information on the MSFS forums about this.  I am curious too.  Unfortunately I bought 4 x 8GB sticks of RAM with my last PC, so an upgrade to RAM would mean a complete replacement up to 4 x 16GB sticks of RAM.  I really thought 32GB was futureproofing to some extent when I built my PC just a couple of years ago, but it seems now that more RAM may be beneficial with some programs, and apparently with MSFS.  Not sure if this is is a bug though, because requiring over 32GB of RAM does seem a bit of a stretch, and well above the sim's specifications.

[renault]

Hi Scott

 

You might find this little note I put together a while ago of interest. Ram allocation and  management in Win10 is far more complex than I

had initially realized.  Central to memory management by the OS is ram memory compression which I found had a significant impact at times on

MS2020 with 32 Gb ram. Memory compression is an integral part of the OS and cannot be disabled.

 

 

Of course individual mileage will vary, but in my case it wasn't a trivial expense to replace or expand RAM and I certainly couldn't justify the expense 

if I was only replacing RAM "because"  of MS2020.  Unfortunately , because of the world wide chip shortage, my experience was that replacing the faulty stick 

simply not possible as it was unavailable, which then led to the inevitable, what was available and how many $$$'s am I looking at.

  

However since I use my machine for other projects beyond flight simming, the extra ram was of benefit.

 

Since I changed out my system RAM I haven't had an issues with stuttering , pauses etc. This has been borne out by a

fellow Orbx member with whom I correspond regularly who is also using 64 GB system ram.

 

I have not seen any evidence of a "memory" leak affecting MS2020. However for the benefit of the original poster  the measurement techniques I used may be

of interest (they are available with Win10).  

 

I would speculate that if you have a true ML, over the course of the time frame mentioned

you should see RAM usage continually increase over time until the system then starts using paged storage in an attempt to compensate.

That would result in severe stuttering and you should see hard fault frequency increase significantly in response.

 

However, truthfully I don't have any experience with the direct problem and the only way forward I would suggest is to collect sufficient data for

representative flights which may give insight into what is happening.  Without data , I think we are only left with idle speculation which for me is not a constructive

activity for this type of issue.

 

I'm not sure any of this is of direct help,  but I do hope that it may give some direction for further checking if desired

All the best

Pete

 

@EasternT3

@Scott Harmes