[No Issue] VAS/OOM Save and Restore

[wombat32]

I have just had an OOM crash.
I wasnt surprised as I was flying my Caranado Do228 into London City (EGLC), bucket loads of AI aircraft everywhere, a tortuous STAR into Rwy 9 etc etc. – so it was time to read the ‘Save and Restore’ section in the User Guide.
Have just tried a short ‘test flight’ as suggested.
The FSX restore took a fair while to ‘settle down’ (I slowly lost altitude but then gained it back, some ‘stuttering’ scenery) but it everything came good in the end and apart from instrument lights not resetting all worked well.
The FCDU restore worked even better.
However, I was using PATCX for flight plan, GPS navigation, and ATC. The flight plan had bee restored to the GPS but no ATC.
So I restarted PATCX hoping I could ‘pick it up’ mid flight but it seemed to assume that I was still on the ground – menu option to get clearance.
I stopped at that point although I certainly could have finished the flight without PATCX ATC.
Just asking if anyone else has had a successful restore of PATCX – if so how did you do it ?
Thanks,
Wombat 32.

[peter]

Hi Wombat 32,

great that you could restore almost everything after the CTD. It has been years since I last used PATCX and I cannot remember if I ever restored a flight successfully. Sorry, I won't be of much help there.

OOM problems were the main reason why I moved on to P3D many years ago. But if you ever contemplate leaving the FSX world, I would now recommend MSFS 2020 instead. FSX is particularly vulnerable to OOM because it is a 32-bit software, which can only address 4 GB of memory. To give you an idea about how limiting that is: some high-end payware aircraft for P3D and MSFS need that much space alone. The main reason for that explosion in memory use are textures. Not only are they of higher resolution (and need 4-16 times more space as compared to FSX airplanes), but they also are PBR (physically based rendering) textures. This enables developers to include cool effects like different reflections depending on the location of the sun, and cracks in wood planks, but it triples the use of memory. So all in all, a single texture file can use up to about 50 times more space than its equivalent in FSX.

Cheers,
Peter

[wombat32]

Hello Peter, thanks for those comments.
I have been thinking about MSFS for a while now but at the moment I am still hanging on to FSX. Am not put off by the effort involved but I would need a big update of my hardware at the same time.
It is only in very rare circumstances that I have suffered from OOM.
My problem flight (EGBB to EGLC) involved the Caranado Do228, UK2000 scenery at both airports, heavy Ultimate Traffic 2, and other AI traffic stuff. A lengthy taxi out, a STAR into EGLC with a whole heap of waypoints. All run with PATCX flight planning, GPS navigation and ATC plus OrbX scenery.
I suspect I am just asking too much of FSX given it’s age although I have never had an OOM before if I turn off UT2.
The option of a full ‘save and restore’ mid-flight is something I never thought of until FSCaptain. I guess it would reset VAS when I shut down and restart.
For now at least I will have a good look at PATCX and see if it might be possible to ‘re-join’ a PATCX flight plan mid-flight.
Will post again soon.
Mike.

[Travis]

I'll post my thoughts here in a few hours.  I'm currently prepping for lunch watching The Rings of Power, and facing an oncoming heatwave....

Mike,

It's been a while since I did a PATC restore, but IIRC it works like this....

You need to enable PATC autosave and specify its "save every nn minutes" value - I use 3 minutes so my saves are 'fresh' but you can specify longer if that suits you.  One thing to be aware of is that PATC will only save while in the air, and even then only before handing you off to Approach.  So if you CTD on taxi-out or on final, you cannot restore PATC.

Now to restore a PATC flight, you need to start a flight with the same aircraft.  IIRC you can simply start on the ground.  Then you go to the PATC menu and click on "Flightplans" and then select "Saved Flight Situations...".

Click on the flight you wish to restore - PATC only saves its latest flight situation - and then your flight should resume where it was saved.  You can then use the normal PATC menu items to communicate with ATC.

Again, it's been a long time since I've done this, and I may be mistaken about a step or two....

Again IIRC in FSX, if I had an OOM CTD, restoring a PATC flight might leave me in an equally vulnerable state - starting a flight and then restoring a flight would often gobble up VAS on its own.  That would leave you in no better of a situation than you originally had.

Don't depend on my memory though... try it for yourself.  It could work better for you than it did for me!
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Now, to use this with FSCaptain should be easy because I wrote (and later changed) the FSCaptain autosave routines to compliment PATC.

First, enable FSCaptain autosave to occur on a schedule that's thirty to sixty seconds longer than PATC autosave.  So if you have PATC set to autosave every 5 minutes, have FSCaptain autosave every 330 to 360 seconds (5.5 to 6.0 minutes).

By doing this, whenever PATC performs an autosave, FSCaptain will know this has happened and will save our own state automatically without performing a "flight autosave" of our own.  If PATC stops autosaving, then FSCaptain will begin autosaving on its own schedule.

I enable FSCaptain to save both in the air and on the ground.  I've had CTDs occur during taxi-out and taxi-in, so I can restore when needed.  (There's even a special "autosave upon landing" setting because I had a very pesky landing once and I grew tired of restoring a 5 mile approach only to CTD moments after landing.)
------

If PATC crashes and hasn't started its autosaving (or if it has already stopped for the flight), I generally carry on acting as my own ATC.  I file my own SIDs, STARs and Approaches so I know where I need to go and my FSCaptain Freeze Ray takes care of any AI shenanigans on active runways.  (There seems to be a glitch in P3D4 ATC that can have AI aircraft use the opposite runway they've assigned you! )

Hope this helps; feel free to question anything!

Best,

[wombat32]

Hi Travis, thanks for all that information.
Late last night I tried the PATCX save option (via the in-flight menu). Just a single save to see how it went then exiting FSX and PATCX to simulate a CTD.
Following instructions I got from the AVSIM forum (always a useful source of info – nothing in the PATCX User Guide) I certainly got the FSX flight back and also the related PATCX stuff.
Wonderful I thought, however the restore took ages and ages to ‘assemble’ all the bits and pieces on screen due perhaps to having a massive adverse effect on FPS. I eventually gave up.
Given that my recent OOM was my first for ages and, like I mentioned to Peter, the potentially huge load placed on FSX by all my add-ons - particularly flying into London where AI traffic is to say the least ‘shoulder to shoulder’ - I am not going to get too hung up over this.
After my flights are relatively short GA ones which can be re-flown without too much heartbreak.
I will however re-fly EGBB-EGLC later today with AI density turned down a bit and see what happens.
Will post again after that.
Thanks again,
Mike

[Travis]

Sept 2, 2022 19:56:59 GMT -5 wombat32 said:

Wonderful I thought, however the restore took ages and ages to ‘assemble’ all the bits and pieces on screen due perhaps to having a massive adverse effect on FPS. I eventually gave up.

That exists even in P3D4.  I can restore wtih PATC and for a while I'm flying at 14FPS, and then suddenly the FPS goes back to its normal ('unlimited') values.  I guess it must be a part of the simulator that's out of whack.

I'll restore if I'm on taxi-out or on short final (or taxi-in).  Otherwise I'll either trash the flight or restart it.

Good luck on your efforts... and know it's always a good idea to try / test a recovery method before it's needed.

Best,

[wombat32]

Thanks Travis,
I re-flew the flight again last evening with UT2 density turned much lower monitoring VAS at regular intervals.
This time VAS stayed very stable through take-off, climb, and cruise (around 3.1M) until descent.
It started to increase progressively as I descended however I managed to approach and land OK - albeit with the FSX VAS 'warning bleep' starting just before touch down (3.9M).
FSX stopped as I taxied in !
From research elsewhere a number of people are saying that UK2000 GLC (London City) does cause a fair bit of VAS grief as you get close.
Ah well, as I said it's no big deal,
Mike

[wombat32]

And finally on this subject !
I found that if I fly this route (exactly the same FP) with my Carenado Beechcraft Baron (instead of the Carenado Do228) the VAS is much much lower and easily stays below the 'magic' 4M.
Mike