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Thessaloniki X City Configurator [v3.0] (if you have OOM issues)


EmilG

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Keep in mind,I am not an expert as to how FSX renders scenery and/or the footprint it has on VAS.

The install size rule of thumb I have is only used as a rough guideline.

But you put a small scenery area (that LGTS is) and consider it's install size, then you factor in that it uses only one set of seasonal textures (as well as night like any other scenery), you know that most of that size will be used to render it in the sim, unlike LEPA that is a very large scenery area in comparison, or PANC as it has seasonal textures as well as seasonal photo real that won't be loading all at once.

I am sure each developer has their own set of techniques as to how they build and optimize a scenery. Not sure if any of them would be willing to explain how it works.

Maybe a good test to try is having a vanilla FSX CFG and load the default LGTS, then add the scenery to the CFG and load again, both times noting the VAS to see what impact the addon has..

OK, so now I did a test using the default LGTS and below is the result. I did the test by loading a flight today's date midday in a cold and dark NGX sitting at gate 13 at LGTS in the virtual cockpit just looking straight ahead with no weather (Clear skies) and no external addons like ASN etc running.

Default FSX LGTS - 2.03 GB available VAS

Aerosoft LGTS using LITE II mode (Thessaloniki X SC2 disabled) and all features like grass etc also disabled - 1.58 GB available VAS

Aerosoft LGTS using LITE II mode (Thessaloniki X SC2 enabled) and all features like grass etc disabled - 1.19 GB available VAS

So...looking at the numbers above this scenery in LITE II mode and with all it's features disabled will take some 800 MB of your VAS...quite a footprint if you ask me...

On the positive side though the scenery sure is a major improvement over the default FSX scenery as seen below ;) As you can see disabling SC2 not only affects the surrounding city but also the water so not that fun having to disable SC2 but if that is the only way I'll be able to use this scenery it still is better than default FSX for sure :D

FSX Default

LGTS%20default%20FSX.JPG

Aerosoft LGTS with SC2 disabled in the scenery library

LGTS%20Aerosoft%20with%20SC2%20disabled.

Aerosoft LGTS with SC2 enabled in the scenery library

LGTS%20Aerosoft%20with%20SC2%20enabled.J

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Flight ended with around 700MB VAS left, real Weather didn't have any impact on VAS compared to may flight without any weather.

That's a great value and some 400 MB margin until you're in the real danger zone.

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AXE at LGTS in its factory state (no lite), all options enabled in the LGTS manager, real wx according to ASN gives me a max. of 3.2 GB VAS. I have not disabled any scenery layers (so even 0.4 GB more to spare),

I do not use "global" addons - no FTX-G, no such night lighting etc. Instead I run Heli Traffic which injects extra helicopter traffic, on top of MT2010 (both sliders at 20%).

Thanks for your report!

I think what are the big differences comparing your setup vs mine are

- you're in the AXE, I'm in the NGX

- you're not using any global addons, I use both FS Global Ultimate Mesh, UTX, SceneryTech and FTXG

However I did try disabling all UTX entries for example but I didn't really see any difference looking at the VAS value so I'm still trying to figure out how much of an impact these global addons really do have on the VAS value.

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Someone mentioned the lighting in FTX-G as a possible, VAS-increasing factor?

I'm puzzled 'cause I was trying to back up Otto's flight - but I have more VAS left with LGTS default than Otto has with LGTS lite II.

Simply put, Thessaloniki X is (just :P ) for me ...

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Indeed!!! :dumb_me_s:

Yes, it is running outside FSX but ProcessExplorer shows it as a "child" as it was run from the FSX.

Wrote a simple test executable just allocating 3GB of memory (which proves it runs its own VAS) and run it via exe.xml.

Here is how it looks in the Process Explorer.

attachicon.gifVAS_Test.JPG

Very interesting test, thanks for sharing the result and this should clearly show how things work running internally or externally.

Since the new addons get more and more demanding all the time while we still are tied to this 4 GB VAS limit inside FSX I think maybe the best thing would be if the developers started try thinking "out of the VAS box" whenever possible and run as much as possible outside FSX as external modules.

Wouldn't that be a possible solution to these never-ending OOM issues? Because IMHO I don't think it's fair in the long run to ask from the users to decide if they want to use their favorite aircraft or rather have realistic weather...

If this technique could be used on a bigger scale to me it would be a great thing both for all addon developers as well as for the users - the developers don't have to think all the time what will fit in FSX's VAS and we the users would be able to enjoy amazing detailed addons without having to worry about OOMs.

Or am I just dreaming now...?

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Someone mentioned the lighting in FTX-G as a possible, VAS-increasing factor?

I'm puzzled 'cause I was trying to back up Otto's flight - but I have more VAS left with LGTS default than Otto has with LGTS lite II.

Simply put, Thessaloniki X is (just :P ) for me ...

:D

I'm happy for you but sure is a mystery how different this scenery runs on different machines!

As for the lighting in FTXG I'm not sure honestly, need to do more testing but so far to me it doesn't seem to do any real difference. I've tried disabling the so called 'Vector road lights' and if my memory serves that didn't do anything to my VAS value.

One thing I'm considering (if I find the time and can force myself going all this way for a single addon scenery...) is to completely uninstall FTXG and see what happens to my VAS.

I do know FTXG is known for doing some "things" to FSX that not all other developers are too happy about since these things not always follow the FSX developing guidlines sort of speak with the result that some other addon developers won't be able to co-exist with FTXG after FTXG changed or even replaced default FSX stuff that some other addons might be dependent on. Some even went as far as saying Orbx's way of doing certain things are like they are trying to get a monopoly.

Edited to add in all fairness that Orbx responded they needed to do some of these things to be able to bring FSX to the "next level" sort of speak. Obviously you can look at these kind of things from different perspectives, risk stepping on a few toes to implement brand new features never been seen or possible before or stay friends with everyone but at the same time by doing so not being able to implement new technique.

Another "interesting" thing about this was that when FTXG was first released people soon discovered that there was no uninstaller included with the product and at first it almost looked like if you ever install FTXG then you're stuck with it. However some other developers then came out with how to get rid of FTXG should you want to without having to perform a complete reinstall of FSX and after some additional time also an "official" uninstaller was released by Orbx. Still though these kind of things do smell a bit bad to me...

Sorry for sliding away again from the topic!

Sure is an interesting hobby this, we don't need any drama on TV since we get everything we need in here ;)

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Have you checked your VAS at the other airports (where you had departed from) and have you checked what happened to your VAS once you settled in cruise?

I did two separate flights (FSX shut down and restarted in between), one from EGLL (ORBX and UK2000), the other one from LGTS:

During both departures my VAS was "tight" (some 4.0 GB - I wanted it that way for testing purposes). Settling in cruise after departing EGLL my VAS usage reduced to 3.5 GB, after departure from LGTS it was "only" 3.2 GB.

So my EGLL departure gave me an additional "VAS burden" of 0.3 GB which I probably would have carried with me into LGTS on arrival. (In other words: Thessaloniki X seems to "unload" VAS in a more efficient way than some other sceneries.)

The LGTS efficiency has been mentioned before in this thread, but maybe less efficient departure sceneries contribute to your VAS findings here, when arriving LGTS? Have you checked your "VAS burden" you were carrying with you from your TOD, for example?)

This is actually a most interesting question!

Both flights that ended in OOMs was from Aerosoft ESSA. Since I do pretty much all my flights to/from ESSA I know I usually have some 1.8 GB free VAS when starting a new flight there. I also remember when I was about to start my descent I had some 1.0-1.1 GB free VAS or so if my memory serves and that of course explains why I get these OOMs when I get close to LGTS since my earlier test posted above shows that LGTS (with SC2 enabled, LITE II mode used and all features disabled) will grab some 800 MB of your VAS. That of course will end with me having only 200-300 MB VAS on final and then it's not long before...OOM.

What I of course would like to know is what happens to those 700-800 MB along the route? I wonder if I maybe should try playing around a bit more with Scenery Config Manager disabling all sceneries not needed for flying ESSA-LGTS. When I've tried SCE before I have been sitting on the same spot comparing the VAS value with sceneries enabled/disabled and seen very little difference but maybe (and likely) things might be very different on a 3 hours flight where I overfly some of these other sceneries on my way to LGTS. I wonder how close you need to be before an addon airport scenery start affecting your VAS? And if it's only on the horizontal axis or also on the vertical axis like when I pass straight over an airport but at FL300+.

Looks like I have some more testing ahead of me... I can only hope I'll remember how to fly the NGX spending all my time in forums and testing things rather than flying ;)

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I don't think FTXG is the cause of oom's. I own ftxg and vector, and i have no oom's at FSDT KLAX with ftxg enabled, vector and road lights enabled, ASN and PMDG 777 or even the NGX. Only in this scenery. FTXG, vector and road lights are not certanly the cause of OOM's

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I don't think FTXG is the cause of oom's. I own ftxg and vector, and i have no oom's at FSDT KLAX with ftxg enabled, vector and road lights enabled, ASN and PMDG 777 or even the NGX. Only in this scenery. FTXG, vector and road lights are not certanly the cause of OOM's

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It might be so but only way to know for sure what the real footprint of FTXG is would be to uninstall it and compare the difference in the very same scenario.

This of course is hard work so I'm not sure I'm willing to go all that way if I'm able to get LGTS to work using other methods such as disabling SC2, disabling all sceneries not needed for a certain flight etc.

On the other hand if this OOM issue will become more and more common with new sceneries released it might be worth the hard work if FTXG indeed has a bigger VAS footprint than we might think. Also what you say you don't have any issues at other airports such as FSDT KLAX that might simply be because FSDT KLAX doesn't need as much VAS as LGTS does and if lots of upcoming sceneries will need the same amount of VAS as LGTS you (and I and everyone else in our situation) will have this issue with lots of upcoming products unless we find a way to decrease how much VAS is used right from start using our setups.

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Didn't remember the link was also over in that thread but guess it's a good thing it's also mentioned in this thread since Mathijs closed that other thread to have all discussion regarding this issue in only one thread.

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Didn't remember the link was also over in that thread but guess it's a good thing it's also mentioned in this thread since Mathijs closed that other thread to have all discussion regarding this issue in only one thread.

Sure, it is.

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Yeah, and like i said before the main problem is in the airport. It's consuming to much VAS. KLAX is 5x bigger than LGTS and VAS consumption is not so high.

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I hear your and I agree this is not all about how pretty looks will always and necessarily consume lots of VAS but also about optimization and what the developer can do to use as little VAS as possible knowing many users also have lots of other stuff installed they want to be able to use.

With this I'm not saying Emilios did anything wrong. I don't know anything about developing FS scenery but just like you I still can't help finding it a bit strange why this small airport consumes this enormous amount of VAS compared to other airports I have also with great looks but with no VAS issues.

I know the explanation so far has been that this scenery does not only include a very detailed airport but also very detailed surroundings and a rather huge area but again just like you so far I had my issues when getting real close to the actual airport...not when overflying the surroundings. But since I don't know how large the "circle" is where FSX will fill up your VAS with the scenery around you it might still be the surroundings that causes our VAS issues although we don't see it until we get closer to the airport.

Did you pay attention to when exactly your free VAS started dropping? Were you all good all the way until you were established? Personally I've been too busy on my two attempts so far with online ATC etc and running through various checklists etc with the FS2Crew FO so I never really noticed exactly when my free VAS dropped to a dangerous level but will try to keep my eyes open for this on next flight.

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VAS started dropping when airport is not on my front. I forgot to mention one thing about los angeles. Before ftxg i used megascenery socal (one more reason to have oom's) and i didn't have any problems. So, making a comparision:

Los angeles area:

- FSDT KLAX (big airport)

- Megascenery

- ASN (with enhanced overcast in an overcast day)

- PMDG 777/NGX

- TML 2048

= No OOM

Thessaloniki area:

- Small airport

- No photoscenery

- ASN (with enhanced overcast but in a party cloudy day)

- PMDG 777/NGX

- TML 1024

= OOM

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Didn't remember the link was also over in that thread but guess it's a good thing it's also mentioned in this thread since Mathijs closed that other thread to have all discussion regarding this issue in only one thread.

For testing purposes, maybe try zero autogen as ORBX FTX uses it's own correct? (I do not own it)

I don't think FTXG is the cause of oom's. I own ftxg and vector, and i have no oom's at FSDT KLAX with ftxg enabled, vector and road lights enabled, ASN and PMDG 777 or even the NGX. Only in this scenery. FTXG, vector and road lights are not certanly the cause of OOM's

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I too can fly into FSDT KLAX in the NGX/777 with MSE Earth V1 and lots of AI (and everything else in my scenery.cfg active) with no OOM/VAS issue and.

While this might be true in the case of KLAX, LGTS is a beast on it's own. So something else is eating into your VAS if you disable everything else except LGTS and ORBX FTX and you're still having issues. Others have been able to get good results using just LGTS and you guys havn't. So something is different for you two.

I disabled everything and can use LGTS so I found my problem (too many active sceneries), you need to start eliminating stuff (for testing purposes) to see what the high VAS footprint is.

I am starting to think like WebMaximus and suspect ORBX FTX has a large VAS footprint (keeping in mine I do not own it and have no way of testing it).

It's a process of elimination.

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After excluding SC2 of LGTS and using SCE to disable every other airport addon I have except ESSA and LGTS I took off for a third attempt doing the ESSA-LGTS flight.

Unfortunately this time the flight ended already after an hour or so in the air with a BSOD with STOP code 124. This however has nothing to do with all we have been discussing in here but is a result after me doing some adjustments in BIOS to my voltages trying to lower them a bit but still keep my 4.6 GHz overclock stable. What I did check though before this happened was keeping an eye on my VAS and discovered this:

- at ESSA standing at the gate right at the beginning of the flight I had about 1.8 GB VAS left

- after running through all flows and checklists with the FS2Crew FO I had about 1.3 GB VAS left entering the active for t/o

- once airborne the VAS value stayed at 1.3 GB for the rest of the flight until the BSOD

This means that from starting the flight and taking off I already consumed about 500 MB VAS and I don't really understand what exactly it is that consumes this VAS at this stage of the flight. Must be the ESSA scenery which appearently is very bad in returning VAS once I leave the ESSA area probably in combination with FS2Crew as mentioned in a post above consumes just under 200 MB. Looking at FS2Crew that is one addon I think would be suitable for using some external modules instead but maybe it isn't as easy.

Will do more testing tomorrow after increasing the voltage a bit to avoid more BSODs and will be using my current settings hoping this will be enough to let me land successfully at LGTS and if not maybe next step will be to uninstall FTXG. I'm not that tempted though since I think the overall improvement using FTXG is huge! I also own GEX but I prefer the look of FTXG and I'm not even sure if GEX would be any better. Then we have UTX which also might consume some valuable VAS but same thing there...I'm far from tempted getting rid of that considering the improvement it provides for landclass.

To me this is the problem with a scenery like LGTS where the way it looks now seems that you might end up having to get rid of very useful and nice global addons. No matter how I try to look at this I don't really like this and would like to think there must be a better solution. If this is how new sceneries will be from now I guess I won't be buying any more sceneries as long as we're in a 32-bit environment because I won't permanently abandon any of my global addons. As I said before I wish developers would start looking into techniques running as much as possible outside FSX's VAS, that for sure would make things so much better I'm sure!!

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Got a reply from the head developer of ASN and I'm happy to let you know the ASN module running inside FSX will use 32 MB tops so that's great news!

He also told me how they've invested lots of time and thoughts how to make sure the memory management is the best possible, that memory allocated will be released when not needed anymore etc. So...in a few words ASN for sure doesn't appear to be the "bad guy" I'm looking for.

He also told me there's a great tool that can be used to track VAS usage and memory management in detail for any given dll called VMMap from Sysinternals. I found it here -> http://technet.microsoft.com/sv-se/sysinternals/dd535533.aspx and will have a look at it tomorrow. My understanding is this tool is like Process Explorer on steroids ;)

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Got a reply from the head developer of ASN and I'm happy to let you know the ASN module running inside FSX will use 32 MB tops so that's great news!

He also told me how they've invested lots of time and thoughts how to make sure the memory management is the best possible, that memory allocated will be released when not needed anymore etc. So...in a few words ASN for sure doesn't appear to be the "bad guy" I'm looking for.

He also told me there's a great tool that can be used to track VAS usage and memory management in detail for any given dll called VMMap from Sysinternals. I found it here -> http://technet.microsoft.com/sv-se/sysinternals/dd535533.aspx and will have a look at it tomorrow. My understanding is this tool is like Process Explorer on steroids ;)

I think the only thing ASN might do indirectly to the VAS is tell FSX to render lots of clouds if the weather calls for it. And if the said clouds are anything like REX HD stuff that could have a big impact I imagine.

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Guys aside from OOM issues what are the FPS like? lets say on approach in the T777 with sliders mostly maxed and external weather on higher end systems. I like the scenery but Its a waste of money if Im getting 8 FPS on approach

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Since I haven't been able to fly this scenery as much as I would have liked due to all OOMs I can't really say but what I've seen during testing and also read from many other users the FPS is really good especially considering the detail of the scenery.

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I think the only thing ASN might do indirectly to the VAS is tell FSX to render lots of clouds if the weather calls for it. And if the said clouds are anything like REX HD stuff that could have a big impact I imagine.

Yes, of course the weather itself inside FSX can have a dramatic effect and especially in overcast conditions for example. However I'm only using 1024 clouds.

I really want to believe I solved the OOM issue by disabling SC2 in the scenery library. Too bad my test flight tonight ended in a BSOD but I'm looking forward to a new attempt tomorrow!

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