FS2004 crashes loading Gatwick with Norwegian AI

After hours of converting each and every Norwegian FAIB texture for FS9 use, although the textures seem to work fine, loading up Gatwick or even getting to close to it causes the simulator to give me an "out of memory" error.

 

It's a huge fleet in one bgl, with over 120 different aircraft.... I tried to reuse repaints for the 737 fleet so that only about 10 were used (an underwhelming amount), basically just repeating certain AC#XXX, but even that didn't work, and boiling it down even further by only having the longhaul fleet and MAX, going even further and just using one repaint per type, that still wouldn't work. Thankfully that means the problem may not be the volume of aircraft. I figured maybe a certain texture wasn't working, but the MAX and 787 fleet work fine as seen on other airports, and the longhaul fleet doesn't include the 737NGs, and still crashed.

 

I also attempted to put an AFCAD for EGKK to help the sim keep aircraft parked and not flying around which hurts memory.

 

"Faulting Module Name: MFC70.dll"

sounds more like your issue is with the gatwick scenery or other scenery neat gatwick. have you tried disabling AI and flying near gatwick to see if the problem persists?

Yup, disabled Gatwick, still no good.

 

Actually I thought that maybe having more available parking would help the sim by not having a lot of aircraft airborne or ghosting. I experimented with and without addons.

 

I’m considering doing one aircraft repaint at a time, or modifying the number of different aircraft in the aircraft.txt file instead of just duping AC#XXXs in the flightplans.txt file, when I get the chance.

If you set the AI slider to 0, does this fix it? If so, it's probably a bad texture on one of the AI planes.

What are your auto gen sliders set to?

Just so you know, given your original post, every AI aircraft loads as a new instance so there is actually no saving by assigning less aircraft to the same schedules.

 

You mention "out of memory" error - have you checked to see how much memory the simulator is using at that moment? It could be that you are pushing FS beyond its (or your computer's) abilities. Unless you have modified your base FS9.exe to handle more, the memory limit can just simply exceed the game's abilities at large airports.

 

John

If you set the AI slider to 0, does this fix it? If so, it's probably a bad texture on one of the AI planes.

 

Still crashes. Although I loaded a different airport and there is still traffic. I think it's how AIG is programmed though; it's all set to 1% (so shouldn't it all be gone when set to 0?!).

 

What are your auto gen sliders set to?

 

Set to maximum.

 

Just so you know, given your original post, every AI aircraft loads as a new instance so there is actually no saving by assigning less aircraft to the same schedules.

 

You mention "out of memory" error - have you checked to see how much memory the simulator is using at that moment? It could be that you are pushing FS beyond its (or your computer's) abilities. Unless you have modified your base FS9.exe to handle more, the memory limit can just simply exceed the game's abilities at large airports.

 

John

 

I'm able to upload massive airports like ATL, DFW, ORD, etc. with no issue, also considering I have addon sceneries for those. I'll try loading default Gatwick without Norwegian traffic installed.

 

Yep it still crashes.

 

I've been getting that error more often, usually on really long flights (8+ hours, towards the end, but feel this may be attributed to FSRealWX also running) but it continuously occurs when going to the London area. I'm concerned this isn't the only area where I will experience this.... I feel like a reinstall might work.... but I feel like there's a better solution that directly addresses this rather than the nuclear option.

 

I mean just now without the simulator the C: is constantly 90-100%. (I have the FS9 installed there...). Memory is at 46%, CPU is around 9%. Now C: is very low and things were clicking smoothly in FS9. Loaded EGKK without any addons, even removed the afcad file..... still no good, even zeroed out traffic. Computer seems to be running pretty good now though. Earlier ago C: was very full, now the simulator at least loads quickly. I don't know what to attribute it to though, since the sim keeps crashing at Gatwick. Servicehost:superfetch was a big culprit earlier ago (very high but now it's slowed down).

 

And now even Frankfurt (without the Norwegian AI).... which I've flown into many times without incident (no recent changes).

 

 

Ugh.

 

Deleted the Norwegian ai entirely from the sim and it still crashes in Gatwick. I feel like the AI did something to the sim or maybe this was something already growing from before. I only see a sudden spike in C: drive performance, other than that everything else is running just fine. If it's being affected by other stuff I may just have to reinstall and hope for the best.

Edited June 20, 2019 by TheRedBadger

Forgive my words, but you quote my post but then don't really address the points I made.

 

How much memory usage in percentage is irrelevant, because FS will not use it all - it cannot. Go toi Windows Task Manager and watch the figure under Processes. If necessary, run FS in windowed mode so you can watch this. "Out of available memory" almost always indicates that you are asking too much of FS.

 

Landclass files in the wrong place can also cause this issue. Locating them is a problem that is a bit tricky for anybody to identify remotely, but the potential issue is having them in a directory structure where they are in a scenery directory that has a parralel texture directory.

 

If you have been using an add-on scenery for Gatwick, LC files may (and most likely will) have been placed in a separate directory structure so disabling the Gatwick scenery in the Scenery library isn't necessarily going to achieve the desired effect.

 

You have not said whether you are running the out-of-the-box FS9.exe or a modified version which allows increased memory usage. The latter is really quite beneficial if you have a lot of add-ons and AI.

 

I doubt FSRealFX has any effect, it is a separate piece of software that simply injects weather into FS at intervals. The memory it uses is quite separate. Behaviour should be the same in short or long flights.

 

John

 

Set to maximum.

 

 

Start turning the autogen sliders down one notch at a time until hopefully the crash goes away. I had this same issue time and time again just flying into certain areas. All other areas were fine, but on approach there, BAM! instant CTD. So I started turning the sliders down one notch at a time and it fixed my issue.

 

Keep in mind that if this is the source of your issue it's just a local thing. So if you fly somewhere else you should be able to crank the sliders back up. That is until you hit another area where the Sim will crash. I just leave my sliders to medium I think it is. Somewhere around there. I have to get on my desktop to check.

 

Read my Sig on OOM errors as well. I had a VAS issue after I installed a giant New York add-on. On approach the Sim used all 4 GB of RAM and an instant CTD. So I ran the Scenery Config tool and disabled a handful of areas I wasn't using and then I was able to fly into NY without a crash. It's because the Sim loads all areas whether you fly there or not and so your RAM can be taxed in no time. So for me, I keep the NY scenery deactivated until I fly there, and if I do, I then enable it and disable other areas so I don't surpass the 4 GB hard coded limit for a Sim coded in a 32 bit environment. This isn't the case with Prepar3d since I guess they coded it for 64 bit.

 

I guess there's a utility out there that can allow you to use more than 4 GB, but I can't remember its name now. I have to search for it.

 

For right now just try lowering your autogen sliders down one notch at a time and see if that crash goes away. If not, you're probably surpassing the 4 GB limit. Verify while simming and watching Task Manager. Preferably on a second screen. There's no better way to fly. My second screen runs LittleNavMap.

TheRedBadger back off a bit on your autogen slider. You said in your last post that it is maxed out. Try backing off a notch. I have a fast updated homebuilt computer and I was getting the same crashes with autogen set to max. I backed off a notch and all is fine. If that doesn't solve it run an antivirus scan. Then download the free version of Malwarebytes and run that. See if they find anything. Malware and viruses can also cause what you are seeing.

Start turning the autogen sliders down one notch at a time until hopefully the crash goes away. I had this same issue time and time again just flying into certain areas. All other areas were fine, but on approach there, BAM! instant CTD. So I started turning the sliders down one notch at a time and it fixed my issue.

 

Keep in mind that if this is the source of your issue it's just a local thing. So if you fly somewhere else you should be able to crank the sliders back up. That is until you hit another area where the Sim will crash. I just leave my sliders to medium I think it is. Somewhere around there. I have to get on my desktop to check.

 

Read my Sig on OOM errors as well. I had a VAS issue after I installed a giant New York add-on. On approach the Sim used all 4 GB of RAM and an instant CTD. So I ran the Scenery Config tool and disabled a handful of areas I wasn't using and then I was able to fly into NY without a crash. It's because the Sim loads all areas whether you fly there or not and so your RAM can be taxed in no time. So for me, I keep the NY scenery deactivated until I fly there, and if I do, I then enable it and disable other areas so I don't surpass the 4 GB hard coded limit for a Sim coded in a 32 bit environment. This isn't the case with Prepar3d since I guess they coded it for 64 bit.

 

I guess there's a utility out there that can allow you to use more than 4 GB, but I can't remember its name now. I have to search for it.

 

For right now just try lowering your autogen sliders down one notch at a time and see if that crash goes away. If not, you're probably surpassing the 4 GB limit. Verify while simming and watching Task Manager. Preferably on a second screen. There's no better way to fly. My second screen runs LittleNavMap.

 

 

TheRedBadger back off a bit on your autogen slider. You said in your last post that it is maxed out. Try backing off a notch. I have a fast updated homebuilt computer and I was getting the same crashes with autogen set to max. I backed off a notch and all is fine. If that doesn't solve it run an antivirus scan. Then download the free version of Malwarebytes and run that. See if they find anything. Malware and viruses can also cause what you are seeing.

 

Scratch that, autogen slider is actually at dense. Mistook it for some other metric, although it looks like that metric isn't max either (scenery complexity). Setting autogen to none still results in a crash ):

 

 

 

Forgive my words, but you quote my post but then don't really address the points I made.

 

How much memory usage in percentage is irrelevant, because FS will not use it all - it cannot. Go toi Windows Task Manager and watch the figure under Processes. If necessary, run FS in windowed mode so you can watch this. "Out of available memory" almost always indicates that you are asking too much of FS.

 

Landclass files in the wrong place can also cause this issue. Locating them is a problem that is a bit tricky for anybody to identify remotely, but the potential issue is having them in a directory structure where they are in a scenery directory that has a parralel texture directory.

 

If you have been using an add-on scenery for Gatwick, LC files may (and most likely will) have been placed in a separate directory structure so disabling the Gatwick scenery in the Scenery library isn't necessarily going to achieve the desired effect.

 

You have not said whether you are running the out-of-the-box FS9.exe or a modified version which allows increased memory usage. The latter is really quite beneficial if you have a lot of add-ons and AI.

 

I doubt FSRealFX has any effect, it is a separate piece of software that simply injects weather into FS at intervals. The memory it uses is quite separate. Behaviour should be the same in short or long flights.

 

John

 

Ah yes, well actually when viewing Processes I don't really see a bump or spike in any of the figures. I installed UK2000's Gatwick scenery but have since uninstalled it. It used an installer and doesn't have an uninstaller so I wonder if it dropped any other files into the sim....

 

As far as the FS2004 version, it's out-of-the-box (used the disc), and upgraded to 9.1 as well. I am guilty of using a certain patch.... however it was the only known solution to using the sim since there was predicament with running the original FS9.exe. Think it was using Windows 10.

Scratch that, autogen slider is actually at dense. Mistook it for some other metric, although it looks like that metric isn't max either (scenery complexity). Setting autogen to none still results in a crash ):

 

Ah yes, well actually when viewing Processes I don't really see a bump or spike in any of the figures. I installed UK2000's Gatwick scenery but have since uninstalled it. It used an installer and doesn't have an uninstaller so I wonder if it dropped any other files into the sim....

 

As far as the FS2004 version, it's out-of-the-box (used the disc), and upgraded to 9.1 as well. I am guilty of using a certain patch.... however it was the only known solution to using the sim since there was predicament with running the original FS9.exe. Think it was using Windows 10.

 

Thanks. To be honest (although it is suggested differently above) I would be very surprised if it was a general overload of work that is taking you over the 4GB mark. I feel sure there is something in there somewhere that is pulling things down, but it is going to be so hard to find.

 

I don't think UK2000 sceneries use Landclass files, nor do I think they put files anywhere unexpected - I am pretty sure everything goes in ../FS9/uk2000 scenery so my gut feeling is that isn't where your issue lies.

 

But where and what . . . this is a difficult predicament for you and even more difficult for remote correspondents.

 

Here's a suggestion, if you can face it. How about backing up your entire installation safely, installing a clean FS9 and copying in various of your files in batches and testing. Doing it that way will make sure, for the purposes of testing, that nothing slips into other directories. Make sure you back up your FS9.cfg and the other files that are not kept in the FS directory structure. It is really the best idea I can think of right now.

 

At any point you can swap back in your full orgional setup if you need to.

 

John

Only skimmed the thread but have you tried disabling all the other scenery except for the airports you are flying from and too?

Thanks. To be honest (although it is suggested differently above) I would be very surprised if it was a general overload of work that is taking you over the 4GB mark. I feel sure there is something in there somewhere that is pulling things down, but it is going to be so hard to find.

 

I don't think UK2000 sceneries use Landclass files, nor do I think they put files anywhere unexpected - I am pretty sure everything goes in ../FS9/uk2000 scenery so my gut feeling is that isn't where your issue lies.

 

But where and what . . . this is a difficult predicament for you and even more difficult for remote correspondents.

 

Here's a suggestion, if you can face it. How about backing up your entire installation safely, installing a clean FS9 and copying in various of your files in batches and testing. Doing it that way will make sure, for the purposes of testing, that nothing slips into other directories. Make sure you back up your FS9.cfg and the other files that are not kept in the FS directory structure. It is really the best idea I can think of right now.

 

At any point you can swap back in your full orgional setup if you need to.

 

John

 

Thank /y’all/. Its too bad this isn’t a more common problem with a proven solution.

 

I’ve actually got all my addons in a separate directory where I download, “unbox” (unzip), and organize everything before moving to FS9. It’s annoying when addons are installers that beg to install directly to the sim.

 

I’ll probably be reinstalling once I finish several more of my scheduled flights. Thanks!

 

Only skimmed the thread but have you tried disabling all the other scenery except for the airports you are flying from and too?

 

Ehhh I haven’t, I would basically disable all scenery since EGKK is uninstalled (and broke even when no addon was installed).

Skywatcher12 may be on to something there. I wish I could be more specific with my issue but I remember a year or 2 ago I had an issue where the sim would crash flying to KMCO Orlando. The culprit turned out to be some other scenery in the area, however I don't remember if it was an airport or some other sceney. Daytona comes to mind but the point is these crashes can be caused by other scenery in the area. Turning sliders up or down should not cause your sim to crash. I also remember years ago I had crashes occurring at KSEA and the culprit was an airport scenery in europe somewhere. what I do is I start cut/paste scenery out of my scenery.cfg about half at a time and save it in a separate notepad, restart the sim and see if the crash went away. if it does then i start adding back in from the notepad file half at a time until the crash reoccurs, and then just keep narrowing it down until i find the guilty scenery and get rid of it.

Skywatcher12 may be on to something there. I wish I could be more specific with my issue but I remember a year or 2 ago I had an issue where the sim would crash flying to KMCO Orlando. The culprit turned out to be some other scenery in the area, however I don't remember if it was an airport or some other sceney. Daytona comes to mind but the point is these crashes can be caused by other scenery in the area. Turning sliders up or down should not cause your sim to crash. I also remember years ago I had crashes occurring at KSEA and the culprit was an airport scenery in europe somewhere. what I do is I start cut/paste scenery out of my scenery.cfg about half at a time and save it in a separate notepad, restart the sim and see if the crash went away. if it does then i start adding back in from the notepad file half at a time until the crash reoccurs, and then just keep narrowing it down until i find the guilty scenery and get rid of it.

 

Crashes of that nature are usually caused by duplicate AFD files with different co-ordinations for the airport. You can have one AFD with differing co-ordinations but add another with the original co-ords and FS gets confused when it tries to place aircraft at the airport.

 

However, this does not crash with "out of memory" which is apparently what is happening here - it will attribute the crash to the ai_playr.dll library.

 

John

Old problem, but it appears even after reinstalling FS9, EGKK gives me an "out of memory" problem still (which is BS since I'm actively looking at the task manager and says available memory is just fine and dandy for that time frame). It's likely not the sim but just this computer.... I keep seeing that error way more often. Like I can't even go to another airport without the thing crashing.

 

EDDF is out of bounds too....

 

I can however confirm I was able to go to EGKK without anything 3rd party installed; nothing at all. I might have to do another reinstall if I don't wish to be individually picking in and out what files may have been affecting the sim (and constantly open and close FS9), and just do one addon at a time until a break happens eventually,

 

Is it recommended installing FS9 outside of program files? Otherwise it almost seems like I've been banned from flying into Europe (I usually don't go there anyways but still).

Edited July 14, 2019 by TheRedBadger

Is it recommended installing FS9 outside of program files?

Yes, definitely do that. And "Run as Administrator". Upgrade to FS9.1 and use a mod that allows use of 4 GB RAM rather than the default 1GB.

 

John

Hey guys,

 

I've had OOM error messages/crashes as well but ages ago. It's a message from Windows and not from FS9 itself. The message means that something from within FS9 is (via Windows) trying to access a memory area outside that allotted to or by Windows and does not mean that there is not enough available memory.

 

This error is almost always caused by something within FS9, which is programable and which contains one or more program errors or has become corrupted, e.g. a cockpit instrument, an effect, a light, etc. As far as AI planes go, I would therefore want to suggest that you look into the effects and lights of any culprit you may suspect and that you choose a trusty default flyable plane when you open your EGKK airport.

 

Hope this helps, in any case to narrow down your problem.

Good luck

 

Hans

Read the link in my signature about OOMs.

 

FS will use up to and no more than 4 GB of RAM. Going past that and you'll get an out of memory condition. The solution may be to use SceneryConfigEditor mentioned in that link to disable scenery that you're not using per your flight. Mostly the heavy stuff.

I mean I have a /lot/ of addons. I would think having all that AI might have an effect (most of my addons are probably AI and then lots of afcads). Would lowering the number of afcads help? Even if I don’t have a scenery installed I still have the bare afcad there in the addonscenery/scenery folder.

 

I understand just having a scenery installed at all takes a bite out of memory. At the moment I don’t have a whole lot (relatively speaking. I think I have 12). In the past I had probably up to 40 installed (some inactive) and I didn’t experience a crash ever that often).

 

I’m seriously thinking it may be the sheer number of AI (over a hundred plans I think, plus that Norwegian one basically had an AI for almost every individual plane in the flightplans.txt. However I tried trimming it down to just a dozen AI aircraft and this didn’t fix it previously).

 

Lastly, I’m going to assume there’s no “5-GB patch” for 64-bit OS just like there is a 3-GB patch for 32-bit, right?

Update, removed all AI flight plans from the sim; EGKK loaded fine. I had a total of 167 flight plans installed. I'm probably going to trim it down a bit as well as cut some dense aircraft.txt files as I mentioned earlier ago.

 

New question; like addon sceneries, does the sim load all AI flightplans whether or not I am in proximity to the AI? Even if the flightplans are for an airport on the other side of the globe?

AI aircraft don't appear until within a certain range.

 

But FS9 is not memory-hungry by modern standards, levels of AI are unlikely to consume so much RAM that the software crashes. Before you reach that stage you would have repeated AI missed approaches and all gates full too.

 

Focussing on EGKK - if all works fine without AI, I would reinstate the flightplans in stages. It may be that you have a specific AI aircraft or aircraft texture that is faulty and causing the crashes.

 

John

I probably have more AI than you and it never affects my game, though I'm running FSX, but I think it may be to me setting the AI slider in the options to about 40%. You can try that and see if that works.

 

If your AI aircraft use bitmaps that could also be the source of a large memory pull. There's another image format that you can use to convert bitmaps into dxt I think it's called and that will lessen the size of the image files for the liverys.

Okay, I found a program that can convert bmp to dxt, but I could have swore the program I had was able to convert all images in a folder to a format. This program can't do that. All I know is that the program I had had a folder called meat water or something.

 

Here is this program called DXTBMP. http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/ Click on program list to find it. You need to install the DLL here: http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/graphix.htm

 

Here's some Info. on this. https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?224464-DXT-DDS-converting

 

Found a mass editor but this is only for FSX when I read the bat file. https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/413917-dds-mass-texture-converter/

Edited July 17, 2019 by CRJ_simpilot