active P3D 5.1 VRAM crash at EGLC London City Airport

[petakas]

Hello,

I was using Prepar3D 5.3 until I realized what I was missing from Orbx when I tried to reinstall also P3D 5.1 and then saw what Orbx Central had available for 5.1

 

So now with 5.1 I reinstalled I purchased

Product: EGLC London City Airport

Transaction ID: 61cd6b954dbc6

 

I already read the Orbx-eglc-user-guide-c54e3d.pdf that comes with the product.

The graphics settings recommended were already to high so as not to crash the GPU after landing in London City so I even reduced the graphics settings to a "Medium" level as seen in the attachments but, still, I get problems once I enter the airport apron.

The problem I have is that, even with the moderate graphics settings I have, (attached below) and even with a strong PC is use, London City crashes my GPU.

 

I attach also a video of a circuit around London City with the PMDG 737.

https://youtu.be/uEn1kmCH238

 

As you can see towards the end I get the VRAM troubles even though I did not fly in from another Airport (scenery), just with a circle around the airport.

When I enter the apron after the landing you will see the issues where P3D 5.1 makes the switch to non EA atmospherics to save some VRAM.

On previous full fright from EHAM to EGLC the simulator just crashed as soon as I vacated runway 27 after landing in London City.

 

Even though I have EU England in my purchases I do not enable it so as to save some VRAM at London City.

 

Is there any chance I could save my troubles with some other tweak ?

 

I have tried to follow TJ Pilot's settings https://youtu.be/U-_o4ODGDj4

 

[petakas]

Note on the VIDEO past point 14:34 when I call for GSX ground services with VRAM 6.2 out of 6.8 available, how P3D detects the lack of memory and disables EA mode going back to Legacy graphics. On the last two flights before the one of the below video, P3D 5.1 crashed completely once I vacated runway 27 the same way like the below video but "RETRY" did not work in that case, P3D5.1 had completely crashed.

On that previous (crash) flight I had departed from (add on) Amsterdam so I guess there was a little bit more of VRAM consumed.

 

In the below VIDEO's scenario I just make a local flight around the pattern without other scenery being involved so I guess with that somehow less VRAM consumed I JUST made it to the apron.

 

So in practice its almost impossible to fly to London City, even with medium settings, from another add on scenery airport and EA enabled.

The recommended graphics settings in the product manual are not in Medium ethos but higher, towards the Dense side of sliders.

 

For these flights I even have my Add On EGLL Heathrow scenery removed from Add Ons just in case it would consume more memory so this is not the case.

 

Am I doing something wrong ?

 

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by petakas

[petakas]

The P3D graphics settings in post above are the settings AFTER the crash.

Below I attach my original settings BEFORE the crash.

 

[petakas]

@Russell Linn@Mark Silvester@Russ White@Karl Hoybye@Greg Jones@John Venema@Ed Correia@Ben McClintock

Please have a look above and advise, no rush.

Thank you in advance.

[Bullfox]

Try it with a very simple aircraft like the b170 and see what your vram is.  Maybe also there might be settings with the 737 that will help with vram.

[F737MAX]

@petakas
Part of the problem is that you are running an 8 GB VRAM GPU on a 3440 * 1440 monitor.  That's a lot of pixels for P3D v5 to display and use up your VRAM.
I was struggling with my widescreen monitor and an 8 GB GPU before I exchanged it for a 12 GB video card. That said, I could just about run medium settings for TrueEarth GB South, while flying a payware airliner into Aerosoft's Heathrow with weather and AI traffic on my old GPU.
It requires a balance of settings to not exceed the VRAM budget.

 

I think the latest version of P3D (v5.3 hotfix 1) is slightly better at VRAM management than previous versions.

Just for your information, the PMDG 737 uses lots of VRAM. PBR textures, complicated instruments and the EFB will use up a lot of your budget.
GSX also uses PBR textures, so will take another part of your VRAM, as will changing views - especially internal to external or vice-versa.

I noticed in your video that you went from 7.1 GB VRAM used to 6.6 GB. Try shutting down any unnecessary programs and process outside of P3D. Windows take some of your VRAM (usually at least 0.9 GB of your card) to run other processes.

 

Some suggestions for your P3D settings pages.

• Uncheck the 'Dynamic 3D Autogen Vegetation' box
• Turn off 'Dynamic Lighting' during daytime
• Check the 'Mipmap VC panels' box
• Cloud resolution to 'Low'
• Water detail to 'Low'
• Uncheck 'Clouds' under reflections for Water
• Shadow quality to 'low'
• Road vehicles traffic slider to 0%

You should then be able to perform the same flight as in your video and be able to complete it without a crash.
If so, you may be able to start increasing the details in your P3D settings.


Here are my settings from when I was running three monitors on a GTX 1070 GPU - although admittedly well before the introduction of Enhanced Atmospherics under weather settings (which also uses a lot of VRAM).

https://i.imgur.com/3QRYxlm.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/089siOC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/zR1GaTK.jpg

And this is what that looked like in my sim:
https://i.imgur.com/r1WHBxv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lKz14W2.jpg

 

Running P3D v5 on an 8 GB VRAM GPU can be done, but as always with flight simming, one needs to make compromises.

Edited January 10, 2022 by F737NG

[Bullfox]

F373NG has some excellent suggestions.  I am going to suggest that you consider a new video card.  I went from an 8 gb card to a 16 gb card.  I have no more vram problems.  The new card was expensive but I sold the old card on EBay for twice what I paid for it two years ago.  Perhaps a lot of simmers hold off on video card upgrades because new cards are so expensive now.  Used cards are significantly up in price also.  It might be worth looking into what you can get for your old card.  In my case selling the old card took care of about 75% of the cost of the new card. 

 

The other thing is that P3D does a pretty good job of balancing the work load between the CPU to the GPU.  So with an upgraded card you can eliminate the vram problem while running at higher better looking settings.

[Nick Cooper]

10 hours ago, F737NG said:

Running P3D v5 on an 8 GB VRAM GPU can be done, but as always with flight simming, one needs to make compromises.

 

May I thank you for one of the most comprehensive and helpful posts that I have seen on this subject. 

[speedshuttle]

About to upgrading GPU from GTX 1060 6GB to RTX 3060 Ti 8GB.

 

Will run P3Dv5 at 4K, and I do not expect any ultra-high with this new GPU, but expect it to work much better than the GTX1060.

 

With the VRAM issues, will it be better to downgrade the RTX 3060 Ti 8GB to a cheaper and slower RTX 3060 12GB?

 

[F737MAX]

7 hours ago, speedshuttle said:

About to upgrading GPU from GTX 1060 6GB to RTX 3060 Ti 8GB.

 

Will run P3Dv5 at 4K, and I do not expect any ultra-high with this new GPU, but expect it to work much better than the GTX1060.

 

With the VRAM issues, will it be better to downgrade the RTX 3060 Ti 8GB to a cheaper and slower RTX 3060 12GB?

You can run v5 on an 8 GB GPU, but displaying at 4K will probably cause you to exceed the VRAM budget quite easily and give you lots of OOMs.
Also, I imagine that running P3D at 4K, you wouldn't want to put your P3D settings to 'low'. Therefore, it probably makes more sense for you to go for a slower card with more VRAM.