ODD PROBLEM

[garymbuska]

lately I am getting the old error message stating that my computer has run out of memory and FSX has to shut down. Now as you can see by my signature I have 12 gigs of memory installed on my system so why all of a sudden am i getting this message? Now i recently purchased the PMDG737NGX from PMDG and that is what I am flying at the time of the error and the flights seem to be happening on flights over one hour
now this airplane uses a fully working FMC. I am also running Active SKy 16 and Active Sky Cloud art as well. so is it running out of memory or is ther something I am missing.

[Sprocket]

lately I am getting the old error message stating that my computer has run out of memory and FSX has to shut down. Now as you can see by my signature I have 12 gigs of memory installed on my system so why all of a sudden am i getting this message?:

Gary, the OOM, OUT OF MEMORY PROBLEM, has nothing to do with the amount of RAM you have per sè: It is actually run out of address space, called VAS. (Limited to 4Gb by virtue of FSX being a 32bit application)
This article may help to explain. Apparently, the LOD_RADIUS setting can be a culprit.

Best read here: https://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx ... vas-usage/

Jan

[Jetranger]

He hit the nail on the head !!!!

what I been saying for years !

like trying to SHOVE 10 plate fulls of food in your mouth at once, and also a Big Fat Double Cheese Burger and 10 Milk Shakes & Ice cream cones

Your mouth will FILL UP pretty Quick faster than a person can swallow

and end up 1 big mess all over your shirt !!

That's why I stick to Flying French Fries

No katsup, mustard or pickles, just Salt

" So, I’d like to urge everyone, before you start yelling at developers that their scenery is causing OOMs, reflect upon your system and see ""how many OTHER stuff you have running"" and question yourself which one is the biggest culprit and where can you optimize" !!!!

""how many OTHER stuff you have running"" ????

Lets see, a High Quality PMDG or whatever

Rex Essentials

Active Sky

ORBX / FTX Scenery

and 5 or 10 other whatevers

and sliders all maxed out too

Ummm,,, can't understand what De' problems is

Try eating Smaller Salads

[garymbuska]

He hit the nail on the head !!!!

what I been saying for years !

like trying to SHOVE 10 plate fulls of food in your mouth at once, and also a Big Fat Double Cheese Burger and 10 Milk Shakes & Ice cream cones

Your mouth will FILL UP pretty Quick faster than a person can swallow

and end up 1 big mess all over your shirt !!

That's why I stick to Flying French Fries

No katsup, mustard or pickles, just Salt

" So, I’d like to urge everyone, before you start yelling at developers that their scenery is causing OOMs, reflect upon your system and see ""how many OTHER stuff you have running"" and question yourself which one is the biggest culprit and where can you optimize" !!!! 2
""how many OTHER stuff you have running"" ????

Lets see, a High Quality PMDG or whatever

Rex Essentials

Active Sky

ORBX / FTX Scenery

and 5 or 10 other whatevers

and sliders all maxed out too

Ummm,,, can't understand what De' problems is

Try eating Smaller Salads

That is what I thought was happening.
the strange thing about was that it was crashing just before approach and Naturally I have a payware for kjax by CLIOSIM

I prefer a little salt with my fries but not a whole lot.

[FabioL]

The issue is as stated above, and sadly there isn’t an easy way around it.

When FSX was released, no add-ons in the form of detailed scenery, weather related add-ons, or capable aeroplanes existed, the maximum allowable address space of 4Gb VAS for 32-bit systems was sufficient (and for a very long time it stayed this way).

More recently, heavyweight scenery packages and complex aircraft mean that VAS limits are reached more quickly, especially all those glorious textures that we so enjoy.

The problem lies within FSX’s (ancient) coding insofar as it is quite happy o load scenery but it is unable to then unload it, so what enters into VAS stays, meaning you have less and less to play with. As your fly over other scenery packages, they too are loaded into memory and not released, even if you don’t land there.

When you get to a few hundred Kb’s left out of your 4Gb maximum allowable, the sim is by then stuttering, not drawing correctly, and eventually “BANG!”, that dreaded OOM message appears.

This issue will not go away, but there are preventative things that you could try, such as using “SceneryConfigEditor” to better manage your scenery areas by activating and/or disabling scenery that you need for your flight as anything else is superfluous.

Another thing you can do is to monitor the FSX VAS in use, as this may help you determine which areas are eating into your VAS and how much you have left at that moment in time.

The concensus is that when it gets low, you should save your flight to then restart it because the available VAS will be higher for you to continue onwards. The problem here is that not all aircraft support saved states (save my aircrafts configuration in this precise state so that you can later load it in that way). You’d need also to save the flight under FSX too.

If you have FSUIPC (full) then follow this link to see how to add VAS monitor within FSX’s window frame:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/4316 ... c-and-fsx/

If you use FSX in a windowless state, then you could run a stand-alone VAS monitor:
https://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?C ... LID=194150

If you run full screen, then there are options to run a VAS monitor using WideFS on another linked PC, but you’d need to Google that.

A 64-bit system will offer practically limitless (read exponentially greater!) VAS, and is why FSW, P3D4, and XP10/11 are all the rage these days (and 64-but predecessors such as MS Flight and Dovetail’s Flight School). LM attempted to rewrite much of the core FSX code with P3D3 with the intention of it releasing used VAS by unloading scenery, and some users reported better success with this than others. Essentially, the old core coding of FSX from the ESP family of products is the core of the problem.

Sorry that there is no real answer to this issue. It’s a limitation that won’t go away, so the real decision that you face is whether to continue to invest in 32-bit FSX or whether you move forward with a 64-bit platform such as P3D4 or XP11.

Yes, you’d need to buy the same things all over again, but the performance gains and graphical capacity are exceptional. Developers will for now be happy to sell 32-bit add-ons knowing that at some point you’ll probably wish or need to move up a gear into the 64-but arena.

To this end, should you decide to stick with FSX, then buy products that include FSX, SE, P3D1-3, and P3D4, but for the more capable aircraft, scenery or weather add-ons there is likely to be more profit in making 64-bit products, even those based on existing FSX 32-bit products, standalone for extra cost.

Keep us posted!

[garymbuska]

The main reason I bought the PMDG737NGX was the fact that it could run on Steam. Now so far the only times I have got this message was when I was flying into Kjax from a distant airport such as Kabq to Kjax & Kjfk to Kjax
so that tells me that the problem lies with the scenery at KJAX
for now I plan on sticking with FSX as I just can not see paying for PREPAR3D I think it is to expensive for what I want and than I would have to buy my other software for PREPAR3D I would also loose FSMAP as it does not work with PREPARD3D
Who knows I am still hoping that another company will come out with a respectable flight simulator but so far nothing. To me FSW is a joke

[FabioL]

There is no need to move, and there are very many happy FSX users out there.

At least knowing what the problem and understanding it empowers you handle the situation in a more prepared way.

I made the call to switch because sooner of later FSX will fall off the grid in the same way as FS9 is going, but in so doing loads of add-ones have had to be shelved because they’re not P3D4 capable.

Just saying I made the switch as P3D4 came out, as further expenditure on a the ageing 32-bit FSX platform would essentially be wasted money.

An alternative is X-Plane as I fly this as well, and it’s a fine platform that can be made to look great out of the box for free, and the default 737-800 can be upgraded by the free ZIBO mod and sound pack, and I absolutely promise you that the ZIBO 737 it is as good as it gets.

The flight dynamics of XP are simply exceptional, and outstrip FSX/P3D in every possible way, and then there are XP scenery, aircraft, and weather packages that are truly outstanding. You get great freeware scenery and airports (often as good as payware FSX) and there are one or two sublime freeware or ex payware airliners and GA too.

It’s all food for thought, but hopefully you’ll find a happy way around the OOM, just don’t go spending more for FSX as the problem will absolutely never go away (32-bit apps can address a maximum of 4Gb VAS, full stop).

Good luck!

[garymbuska]

There is no need to move, and there are very many happy FSX users out there.

At least knowing what the problem and understanding it empowers you handle the situation in a more prepared way.

I made the call to switch because sooner of later FSX will fall off the grid in the same way as FS9 is going, but in so doing loads of add-ones have had to be shelved because they’re not P3D4 capable.

Just saying I made the switch as P3D4 came out, as further expenditure on a the ageing 32-bit FSX platform would essentially be wasted money.

An alternative is X-Plane as I fly this as well, and it’s a fine platform that can be made to look great out of the box for free, and the default 737-800 can be upgraded by the free ZIBO mod and sound pack, and I absolutely promise you that the ZIBO 737 it is as good as it gets.

The flight dynamics of XP are simply exceptional, and outstrip FSX/P3D in every possible way, and then there are XP scenery, aircraft, and weather packages that are truly outstanding. You get great freeware scenery and airports (often as good as payware FSX) and there are one or two sublime freeware or ex payware airliners and GA too.

It’s all food for thought, but hopefully you’ll find a happy way around the OOM, just don’t go spending more for FSX as the problem will absolutely never go away (32-bit apps can address a maximum of 4Gb VAS, full stop).

Good luck!

You are 100% correct on that. It took me some time to switch from a 32 bit OS to the 64 bit OS I now have. I keep hoping that something else will come along and be a 64 bit program.
Like you stated 32 bit programs will eventually stop working. Anyone still using a 32 bit OS will have to make the switch at some point in time. Now when that date will arrive is any one's guess.
I honestly think it will be the hardware that will force the software to come around because of the drivers that a device needs will not be on a 32 bit system and even if you can find a driver for the device it will not work on a 32 bit system. It has to do with addressing but I do not want to go into that as it is to technical for most people.

[BROGY]

I'm running Win10 64 bit. Is it a good idea to reinstall my Win10 with the 32 bit ? It isn't funny anymore that FSX:SE stops working due to the lack of memory

[FabioL]

The OS won’t make a difference (W10 is 64 bit, Windows 7 comes in 32- and 64-bit flavours).

It’s FSX (& FSX:SE) that is a 32-bit application because it is old and fine back then; 32-bit apps can address a max of 4Gb RAM, period, and nothing can change this, full stop.

Back then, detailed complex scenery, complex environments/weather, complex aircraft with AI, and eye candy peripherals such as GSX simply didn’t exist, so 4Gb was fine.

It was enough to cope with one or two add-ons, but 4Gb cannot manage with the host of extras in FSX today, all the more so because of FSX’s unequivocal inability to release memory as your flight progresses.

There is no answer to this conundrum other than to monitor your present VAS usage, so you’ll know when your at the limit.

Further investments in 32-bit platforms and add-ons must be questioned, because there is NO WUESTION that 64-bit platforms such as X-Plane 10/11 and P3D V4 are the future (to a lesser extent FSW as this has fewest add-ins available for it at this time).

It’s not funny, agreed, and it never was. I made the switch to XP10/11 and P3D4 when the realisation of this issue truly dawned on me.

As I said, the OS system will make no difference.

[Jetranger]

Quite a while Ago like in last year I also had a pop up come up that I was out of memory , BUT, NOT while using Flight Sim all the time

Think once or twice it did while in FSX

Well I Discovered that one of my VIDEO Editing progams that I use to edit and make Videos to post to YOU TUBE, was saving pre-processed Video files somewhere on my computer, aside from the actual VIDEO's I was working on.

So over a period of time it had saved tons of pre-processed video files , and eveytime I was in the video editor program or maybe in FSX , up would come this pop up box saying I was LOW on memory.

Once I DELETED all those un-necessary files that the VIDEO Editor had secretly stored on my computer, I've never ever had another issue as far as memory issues.

I've got 1 PMDG Product the 747-400 V.1 and several Captain Sim Aircraft and Carenado and Alabeo complex aircraft.

I can also do long flight now, unlike before, - where before after about 30 minutes to 45 minutes it would pop up with a memory issue.

When I went to delte those un-necessary video pre-processed video files it took like 30 to 40 minutes to delete them,,, that how many files it had saved that I didn't know about, so it was using up tons of space and memory & VAS useage.

Haven't had any issues since, thankfully !!!

[FabioL]

The thing is that the temporary video files will have taken up hard disk space as opposed to RAM (VAS) so it is unlikely to be the same issue.

It’s not the number of addons you have installed but entirely to do with thosevthat you are running.

Hard disk and general PC maintenance includes deleting unused temporary files and defragmenting hard disks (NB. not SSD’s), and in turn this will free up hard disk space rather than memory; please don’t confuse one (RAM) with the other (HD space).

Very glad to hear that you are running without issue, though I put this down to what you are running in your simulator and where you are flying.

HOWEVER, there is (or was) such a thing as disk swapping when RAM was once at a premium, when programs contained within the PC’s RAM were swapped out to a volatile swap file on the hard disk in order to make way for price crossing of other programs.

We used to watch that little HD LED flashing like mad as volatile RAM memory was temporarily switched in a volatile file on the HD as you fired up a Word or Excel at the same time as IE and/or PowerPoint.

If you were low on disk space, then your machine would slow, or it would just slow down anyway as electromechanical HD’s were (and still are) slower that electronic RAM.

Anyway, this was then a bigger problem than it is today.

[FabioL]

I didn’t mean to suggest that RAM equates to VAS, BTW.