This is a new one for me - out of memory errors

[JimmiG]

I've been spared from Out of Memory errors in the past, probably because I've been running an older system so I've naturally kept many sliders a few notches to the left. Another factor is probably that I've avoided flights from one detailed FTX airport to another, because the frame rate was typically only good enough for departing, where as landing was more enjoyable at some remote airfield in the mountains.

 

However after flying from FTX 2W3 to W16 in the Carenado HD C210, with REX 4096x4096 clouds, most sliders turned fully up, and almost all boxes checked for both FTX airports as well as nearby Harvey, I got one. I quickly checked Task Manager just before the Prepar3D.exe task got killed, and it was using close to 3GB. I guess it had already thrown out about 1GB worth by then.

 

How common are they on high-end computers with everything turned up? What are the most effective options for reducing the amount of logical address space that FSX/P3D uses? Would it be enough to go from 4096 to 2048 clouds? Or do you have to disable entire nearby FTX airports that you don't plan to land at? I get a feeling I only need to reduce it a small amount, since I was able to complete almost the entire flight before it struck.

 

Not so much a support issue as a general discussion, since it isn't really OrbX specific.

[cvearl]

I went into REX long ago and set the computer for Medium. So what is that. 1024 clouds? I cant really see the difference when I fly. Then i reloaded my favorite REX texture theme. I keep water at 2x low. I use Very Dense Scenery Complexity and Dense Autogen. That seems to be my systems sweet spot. I can go higher and usually be ok but I hate "Fatal Errors and CTD's". I want to fly my JS41 in all weather in all manor of airports without remembering to jump in and out of settings all the time to adjust for it.

 

Charles.

[kiwi stu]

I am similar in my slider settings..i have a pretty high end system,but have never aspired to have all my sliders full...i dont even think FSX was designed with that in mind.With all the fantastic Orbx/REX/Opus addons around i feel there is no requirement for trying to push all sliders to the right !!.

For example..When i fly my iFly 737 say in or out of Melbourne or Brisbane i set my scenery to dense and auto gen to normal..this setting gives me smooth FPS with no stutters or crashes.

When I fly my Quality wings Avro RJ,or my ATR72 to same airports i can have scenery on very dense and autogen on dense...same thing..no stutters and FPS  around 20 coming and going on all aircraft. 

And when i fly any sort of light aircraft to anywhere other than those big FPS eating airports..i can and sometimes do put my sliders to the right and i get FPS up around the 70 FPS mark 

So in my opinion you have to be prepared to move your sliders around a bit..and dont try and find one setting for all..it just wont be there.

Cheers Stu

[Ken Terry]

Make sure you click off "aircraft shadows on itself"

Ken

[Gaiiden]

Best bet would be to reduce cloud draw distance. This cleared up the first-ever OOM error I got, which was while flying over FranceVFR's Haute-Normandy with all the autogen. The heavy weather really took a toll on my system (8GB RAM). More recently I got consistent OOM notices while flying past Manhattan X, a thing I've done dozens of times before with out ever a problem. These OOM errors persisted until I noticed REX was updating the weather very frequently. When I flew without allowing REX to update the weather after the initial load at the start of the flight I was fine again. So try setting the REX update area to a larger value.

[JimmiG]

Well, did some more testing today.

 

It's hard to re-produce results consistently, since the usage depends on your flight path, any AI that happens to be in the vicinity, the amount of clouds etc. etc., but I think I found a good way to stress test. I set the Carenado C210 to circle over S43, because if you have W16 and S43 installed, I think that is the worst as far as Virtual Address Space (since the two FTX airports are so close together, and you also have Seattle nearby).

 

I then used the right-click, Air-Traffic menu to hop between various AI aircraft, wait for the scenery around them to load, and then hop back to my own spot view. This really makes VAS usage shoot through the roof. With my original settings, I wasn't able to trigger a crash, but virtual size in Process Explorer was right around the 4GB mark and FSUIPC kept "dinging" constantly. I then did the following:

-Installed REX 2048 clouds instead of 4096

-Renamed my trafficBoats.bgl and trafficCarriers.bgl files in Scenery\World to ".OFF".

-Reduced AI traffic to 50%

 

I think this lowered VAS to around 3850 - 3900 MB. I was then actually able to trigger a crash, by sheer bad luck. The AI aircraft I hopped to happened to be parked at FTX Jefferson County, so I essentially hopped instantly from S43 to 0S9, which is of course impossible during actual flying. I think if you actually fly from S43 to 0S9, the sim would have time to unload scenery behind you as you go.

 

I also finally registered FSUIPC for the auto-save functionality. Such a great utility. So even if the worst was to happen, I would still only lose 1 minute of progress rather than having to start over.

[ShawnG]

Unscientifically,  but noted by others than me,  DX10 mode has made *most* of my OOM's a thing of the past (I still have them occasionally, but usually flying in Europe)  High end rig for me too, I waited years to be able to run with good frame rates with all sliders right, and I can, but got the OOM's!  dx10 still has plenty of warts but I'm not going back at this point.

[Chancezilla]

I was getting OOM's also with a high end system.  Finally I switched to DX10 and I really don't have them anymore after the switch.  There is a whole thread on DX10 on AVSIMs forum website that can assist and help with your configuration.  Just insure you read the DX10 notes that are pinned.  Likewise you may want to have different settings saved for different areas (i.e. rural vs heavily populated or graphically demading scenery).  I hope this helps.

[flyinion]

Unscientifically,  but noted by others than me,  DX10 mode has made *most* of my OOM's a thing of the past (I still have them occasionally, but usually flying in Europe)  High end rig for me too, I waited years to be able to run with good frame rates with all sliders right, and I can, but got the OOM's!  dx10 still has plenty of warts but I'm not going back at this point.

 

That reminds me, I need to check my VAS usage under DX10 mode now that I'm there.  I don't think I've hit above about 3.2GB  (not sure why that number is sticking, maybe it was more like 2..  I did reduce my REX textures to 2048 though and haven't really noticed (yes I do have the proper texture size set in fsx.cfg ).  Also gotta agree with the suggestion to reduce cloud draw distance.  I used to try to run around 90-100 but since I dropped it to 60 I get better performance and with real weather at normal cruising altitudes (in the 30K's) I haven't really been able to see the edges of the clouds when it's really cloudy out.  Actually even up to the low 40's in my Citation X.