VAS Usage Prepar3D with FlyInside

[damiech]

Hey guys,

i recognized, that with FlyInside the available VAS is about 1,8 GB with medium Settings and Resolution with the Default Flight.

Without FlyInside ( that means with my regular TFT ) the available VAS with the same Settings is around 2,8 GB.

What do you think about that fact? Is a difference of 1GB VAS reasonable ?

Thanx in advance

damiech

[aurel42]

http://wiki.flyinside-fsx.com/index.php ... y_.26_OOMs

FlyInside and virtual reality also increase memory usage beyond that of standard flight simulation. Virtual reality means high resolution, which means increased memory usage. FlyInside needs multiple buffers to ensure smooth VR, which also increases memory usage. This means that if you have your flight simulator tuned to just within limits for on-monitor flight simulation, it will probably run out of memory with FlyInside. Adjust accordingly.

Various factors contribute to memory usage. Decreasing these settings will help you avoid OOMs:

Texture Resolution
Scenery Complexity
Auto-gen Density
FlyInside's Resolution
Add-ons
You'll need to balance your various settings and add-ons a little bit more carefully than on-monitor to avoid running into OOM errors.

[airwolf]

I have read that wiki page so many times. I have no idea on how I missed the "vas usage" section for some odd reason. Even I was thinking why is my VAS being consumed that fast. Looks like no AI (mytraffic 6a) for me in Orbx FTX regions.

Thank you for posting the link.

[Joby33y]

Guys -
Whats the recommended tool to measure VAS usage ?

Thx,

[aurel42]

Whats the recommended tool to measure VAS usage ?

FSUIPC can handle that (display and logging of VAS usage), I think it needs to be registered, though.

[damiech]

Thanx for the replies!

@aurel42

I´ve read the wiki page, my question was, is 1GB less VAS reasonable ?

@Job33y

FSX VAS Monitor is one of several Freeware Tools.

[aurel42]

I´ve read the wiki page, my question was, is 1GB less VAS reasonable ?

I don't know. The number seems to be highly dependent on settings and aircraft. I have an issue with a specific aircraft, and for that I did some tests with different aircraft in the same scenario. Let me share the numbers with you, perhaps there's some insight to be found.

I created a default scenario using the LM Baron 58 at my home base (with some static scenery) and clear skies. I copied prepar3d_flyinside.cfg to prepar3d.cfg to use comparable settings in my tests. I loaded the scenario and waited until VAS had stabilized (ie. didn't change significantly in the 10s interval that FSUIPC displays the value at).

B58, no VR, no GTN:
166063 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 2205844
180203 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 54 secs = 121.7 fps

B58, 1.52, no GTN:
77906 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 1867268
82016 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 33 secs = 83.8 fps

With the settings I used, and a P3D default aircraft, the difference in VAS was below 400 MB in 1.52, and with 1.6 it was even less:

B58, 1.5213, no GTN
76703 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 1895100

So this is with the RealAir Lancair Legacy v2, same scenario, now starting cold and dark, but same scenery and settings:

Legacy, no VR, no GTN:
96469 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 2088032
101469 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 42 secs = 89.8 fps

Without VR, the Legacy only shows 200 MB more VAS used than with the B58 under the same circumstances.

Legacy, 1.5213, no GTN:
135985 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 779356
142094 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 54 secs = 67.2 fps

Okay, the Legacy already eats way more VAS in 1.5213 on its own than expected. More than a gig is missing in action. Let's enable the GTN750 using the Legacy config panel.

Legacy, no VR, with GTN750:
106687 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 1967704
109375 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 39 secs = 92.3 fps

In "flat", this looks kinda healthy. Difference in VAS to the B58 w/o GTN is only 300 MB and there's little difference to the Legacy w/o GTN.
And here is where it all collapses, same situation as before, Legacy with GTN750, in 1.5213:

Legacy, 1.5213, with GTN750 :
66703 **** WARNING! Free memory is very low!
66719 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 249408
…
126875 Monitor IPC:024C (S32) = 810884
130922 Sim stopped: average frame rate for last 52 secs = 68.2 fps

So, judging from those numbers, there seems to be a bug in FI that affects at least this aircraft and eats a lot of VAS, and that got worse between 1.52 and 1.6 (I left out a few numbers for 1.52 above to shorten the post a bit, but that's what the numbers said). Dan is aware of it.

I can only speculate whether what you are seeing is related to this issue, or if it's just a result of different, more demanding settings.

[admin]

I tracked down a bug with FlyInside 1.6, VAS, and complex aircraft cockpits. The next patch (coming next week) improves VAS use with complex aircraft like the Legacy

[aurel42]

To loop back to what this thread was about, the 1GB difference between FI and P3D/flat with the default flight, I tested with the F-22 at Eglin AFB and identical settings for P3D/flat and P3D/FI (and a whole bunch of addons).

P3D/flat with nice settings (too high for VR on my system) settles on 1687 MB available VAS a minute after loading the scenario.

P3D/flat with the FI settings settles on 2373 MB available VAS.

P3D with FlyInside without the VAS bugfix: 1614 MB available. So on my system the difference is ~760 GB.

P3D with FlyInside with the VAS bugfix: 1697 MB available. With the bugfix, the difference shrinks to 676 GB.

I guess that means that 1 GB difference that damiech is seeing isn't unreasonable with 1.6, depending on P3D and FI settings, but that difference will shrink a bit with the next release, even for the default flight, thanks to Dans heroic bug hunt.

[maorgr]

I too am experiencing significant VAS usage when running p3d with flyinside on compared to running p3d without it.
Even lowering the resolution in FI didn't help reducing the VAS