PLEASE, someone tell me why my FSX keeps crashing!

Forgive the length of this post, but I have accumulated a lot of data while trying to isolate the cause of the (worsening) problem.

After a total crash of my 2012 PC last summer, requiring a new hard drive, etc., I had the local Big Box PC Store (MicroCenter in Rockville, MD) custom-build a PC that “would run anything FSX and add-ons could possibly throw at it.” (My specs are below my signature.)

After a reinstall of FSX, Acceleration, and some basic Orbx scenery (Global Base Pack, Global Vector), everything seemed OK, if not perfect. Over time, I added more Orbx regional scenery and a few fancy payware planes (e.g., Carenado Phenom, Flysimware Mitsubishi). Often, my flights, scenery, graphics, etc., have been beyond my wildest dreams. (I have been playing with FS since FS2 in the late 1980s.)

Sadly, however, FSX is crashing (the sim, not the planes!) with increasing frequency, in one of the following manners (with NO other programs open):

(1) The cursor turns to an hourglass, after which the sim closes and a “Windows Error!” notice says I am “out of memory,” and must shut down the sim and adjust the graphics;

(2) The sim simply shuts down all by itself and recycles to the Free Flight opening screen;

(3) upon changing situations (e.g., “Load . . . “ a saved flight, “Go to . . . ” an airport, open the map view from the cockpit, play a Flight Recorder .frc file, or even saving the damn flight), the graphics go “wacko,” and/or the planes turn into "ghosts" -- invisible in external view except for the lights and a few windows. (I was unable to upload jpeg screenshots to this forum, because it says my files are too big.) From this, there is no recovery; it requires exit and reopening of FSX -- or sometimes even a reboot of a totally frozen PC.

All of the above often occur even when my FPS are at the preset max of 30.

Have I tried experimenting? You bet. While these crashes are more likely to occur in high density scenery (e.g., Orbx England or S. Cal) and with detailed aircraft, they can even occur in sparse scenery, with the FPS running at 30 FPS. (Once, the sim crashed when I was parked at the gate with the engines off, and tried to load another flight!) Sometimes, FSX is basically unusable, even in unchallenging settings; on other days I can complete a flight in dense twilight scenery (e.g., SE England) at FPS 30, smooth as silk! As I say, the symptoms are inconsistent.

MicroCenter and others seem to agree that I have plenty of memory. (So why those Windows error notices?) And the Orbx user docs claim that slider settings even higher than mine “will run well on most PCs . . . .” With FSX in Windows mode and the Carenado Phenom cruising over Orbx regional scenery, Task Manager says my PC is only using about 30% of its available memory, including all the Windows background garbage.

Thanks all,

Mac6737

i7-8700 3.7 GHz

GeForce GTX 1070 Ti; 8GB onboard

AORUS Z370 Gaming 5 LGA 1151 ATX motherboard

16GB RAM

2 TB hard drive

27” MSI gaming monitor, set at 2550 for FSX

What version of Windows are we looking at here? Since you mentioned a "rotating hourglass", probably 7, but we need to know that.

Are all your device drivers up to date, including those for your motherboard?

Jorgen

The out of memory errors have nothing to do with the amount of physical RAM installed in the system. Give the link below a read on what they are and some tips on how to deal with them. A quick summary is that FSX itself can only access 4GB of virtual address space, and the more add-ons you add to the sim, the more address space it will use. Every system and FSX is install is different, so what works for system may not work for another. The suggested Orbx settings may work on many systems, but you will need to balance the settings for your specific system. There is a link at the top of the forum here with tips on how to setup FSX that may be of use too.

https://support.precisionmanuals.com/kb/a108/vas-management-stopping-out-of-memory-oom-errors.aspx

Hi Mac6736,

1. With what kind of ERR is your FSX crashing ? You will find the ERR display if you open your

Win control menu and navigate to the event display services. Here a shot how the display looks like:

Sorry, my PC has a German Win version, so you have to navigate to the corresponding display function

via your control panel. As you can see on the pic the FSX crashed by a g3d.dll error.

In order to understand more about this ERR you have to look into the Crash To Desktop documentation available by AVSIM.

Here the link for the latest version:

https://www.avsim.com/files/file/93-avsim-ctd-guide/

2. Clean up your PC from unused files, old software installs etc. . Run a registry cleaner tool like CCeaner for example.

3. Just do a simple deactivation of all your scenery ADDONns on the FSX scenery setting screen, and go from there.

4. Re-Name your current FSX.cfg ( e.g. to Test_FSX.cfg ) and start FSX with all settings to default and check how your system is is now doing.

OK, so far my comments. Hope it helps.

Dietmar

Zippy, you give me too much credit. Apparently I have NOT put the proper tweaks into my sim. The driver uiautomationcore.dll is in my System 32 folder. R U suggesting I simply copy it and paste into the FSX root directory? (Sounds simple enough.) As to the FSX.cfg suggestion: where do I add the code? Anywhere?

Thanks for your help.

Mac6737

Jorgen,

Windows 10, installed in a new PC this past August.

I have no idea whether my drivers are up to date. Like Zippy, you give me too much credit.

Mac6737

Zippy, you give me too much credit. Apparently I have NOT put the proper tweaks into my sim. The driver uiautomationcore.dll is in my System 32 folder. R U suggesting I simply copy it and paste into the FSX root directory? (Sounds simple enough.) As to the FSX.cfg suggestion: where do I add the code? Anywhere?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Mac6737

No, do not touch anything in your Systems32 folder! I'll look for an appropriate download. HIGHMEMFIX=1 under [Graphics].

https://www.dropbox.com/s/adxsx0mxb6wztil/UIAutomationCore.rar

This is a .rar file, so once you have it downloaded then right-click on it and say "open with" 7Zip or Winzip and extract it as UIAutomationcore.dll.

Thanks, loki. That is indeed a helpful article.

Mac6737

mrzippy,

Thanks again. I was able to put that driver in my Dropbox account and install. Of course, like everything else in computers, there were a few zigs and zags. It took me a while to give myself permission to modify the FSX root folder, and after I did it still said "Unzip unsuccessful." Nevertheless, the dll is where it should be, with the actual date of the insertion. So, looks to me like it was in fact successful.

I have also added HIGHMEMFIX=1 (whatever that does) to the GRAPHICS section of FSX.cfg.

I will continue to experiment and take notes.

Mac6737

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:

I read loki's linked article on VAS Management, and did several things it suggested -- such as DLing MS Process Explorer. OK, so I now get that when FSX gets close to 4GB, you're likely to soon have an OOM event. But does the 4GB refer just to FSX, or to ALL the stuff running in background?

Here's a screenshot of Process Explorer. See FSX at the top of the "Virtual Size" column? I believe that's the correct number to look at, but it seems odd to ignore everything else. Am I right?

In any case, I will now run different FSX scenarios and see what variables tax my system to the max, and whether fixes (e.g., temporarily disabling scenery I am not currently using) have any good effect.

Mac6737

https://kostasfsworld.wordpress.com/fsx-oom-and-addon-vas-usage/

When you start it up, press on the Process column, to sort the processes after their names, alphabetically. As the next step, in the menu -> View -> Select Columns -> [Tab] Process Memory -> [check] Virtual Size -> OK. Additionally you can deactivate any other columns that are displayed by default, if any. In the main window, press onto “Virtual Size” column, to sort after the virtual size. This will always put FSX as the first when running.

FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:

 

I read loki's linked article on VAS Management, and did several things it suggested -- such as DLing MS Process Explorer. OK, so I now get that when FSX gets close to 4GB, you're likely to soon have an OOM event. But does the 4GB refer just to FSX, or to ALL the stuff running in background?

Each 32 bit program gets its own 4GB of address space independent of any other running applications.

Each 32 bit program gets its own 4GB of address space independent of any other running applications.

Phew! I was worried! Thanks for the info.

BTW, I have been running MS Process Explorer in an open window next to FSX. I have yet to see anything even over 3 GB, let alone 4. And yet, sadly . . . tonight I went to full screen (in TweakFPS VFR mode), with FPS way up there . . . and the damn thing CRASHED to Opening Screen.

No harm done, of course. But, like a clock that strikes 13, it casts doubt on everything that has gone before. This thread and its links persuaded me that OOMs were due to the inherent FSX limit of 32 bits. But, then, why would it be crashing WAY before approaching the 4GB limit of VAS?

(Granted, in full screen, I can't see the Process Explorer status. But I doubt that going to full screen from Win mode DOUBLES your VAS consumption.)

Thanx KKilo. I'll try that in the morning.

Night all.