Out of memory

[Venge]

Had FSX shut down on me today due to being 'out of memory'. First time it has happened. My PC is fairly grunty (quad core, 9800GT) but still using XP so can only see a portion of my RAM. What settings would you suggest I turn down first/ I have it setup pretty much as I have seen people suggest. Frame rate has never been a problem either.

[pilot.masman]

first of all, how much RAM do you have. and secondly, what was running in the background?

[Venge]

RAM = 6 or 8, I forget, but Control Panel/System only shows the 3.5 or whatever that XP can recognize. GPU Memory is 1gig

Background = TrackIr, REX2, Teamspeak, MSN, Norton 360, Logitech Profiler, and Steam.

[Chairman]

What were you flying ?

I've had the same problem with newer addons that were developed specifically for fsx - the PMDG J41, and the F1 Mustang. Apparently it's because they are so complex that while windows might physically have enough ram to run them it doesn't have enough memory addresses to remember everything. The solution seems to be either to reduce the compelexity and thus how many addresses are needed (aka turn something down) or move to a 64 bit version of windows which can handle rather a lot more memory addresses than a 32 bit version (aka turn something up).

One other thing that has been suggested is this, I don't know how good the suggestion is but here it is : Run in windowed mode and have the task manager open as well somewhere you can watch how much ram fsx is sucking while you are using it. Keep an eye on that memory figure, every time you change to a different view and it has to load new textures apparently the memory usage goes up. Never down. always up. Eventually the inevitable will happen, keep the ram that was in use at the time in the back of your head. Now repeat the exercise, still in windowed mode, but when the ram usage starts to get up there minimise the fsx window then restore it and keep flying. You should find that minimising it dumped all the stored textures and reset the ram usage, and so long as you remember to do that periodically before it gets to the point at which fsx laughs and shuts down you should be right.

Personally, I'm picking up my copy of Win7 HP 64 tomorrow afternoon ........ Itr's still close enough to the purchase of the beast that I can count it as part of the cost of upgrading

Gary

[Venge]

I was flying Aerosoft's Twin Otter.
I am just being patient for Win 7 as sooner or later I will get it free through my wife's work. I set up this PC for 64 bit OS and just haven't installed one yet. Have to see to that ASAP.

Edit: Hmm, can't seem to spot where I can set it to play in Windowed Mode.

[Chairman]

alt-enter normally does it ...

[Venge]

QUOTE (Chairman @ May 25 2010, 09:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

alt-enter normally does it ...

That did it, cheers. I was looking for an in game menu setting

[s0cks]

You can use a boot switch in XP to make it recognize all your memory. Add the switch "/PAE" to your boot.ini in C:\ drive. If you're not sure how to do this then google is your friend

[Kahu]

with a set up like yours you might be better to install Windows 7

[Chairman]

Err, make that Win7 *64 bit*.

Been there, done that. Win7 32 bit doesn't seem to be any better at handling memory than XP, if you go to a 64 bit version it will all be happy. Good luck finding a retail copy of win7 64 HP - I could only find Ultimate on the shelves in a 64 bit version.

Gary

[Venge]

Ok, went out and upgraded to 64 bit Win 7. Will see how that goes