No Resources? How?

[hs748flyer]

Today, I was doing a lot of flying. I flew from Aberdeen to Edinburgh then onto Manchester (after "turning the clock" forward/back to 7am!), only to find a dead battery... Maybe it was because I was watching my new AI traffic... I used rapid start to get the engines going.

Once in Manchester I dumped AZSU and booked in with ARMW (Arm With what?). Annoyingly, despite turning off my batteries, the thing still didn't start the engines, despite all flight instruments and lights being "operational." Around 10 minutes out of Manchester on-route to Cardiff (Eventually onto Bournemouth then Rotterdam and who knows where after that), FS froze and apparently, my PC had "run out" of memory... Go figure. I still had at least 1GB left (2GB with WinXP and FS9 + a Core 2 Duo E6300 = 20+FPS usually). Couldn't figure it out.

Anyone have some suggestions? By the way, I'm noticing the 748 uses a fair bit less fuel than what is mentioned on the routes page. Is it because of the real-world weather?

Michael. T

P.S. I'm really enjoying the H.S. 748! I'm looking into "jumping in" with a Viscount rating too!

[TSR2]

Hi Michael,

FS (9 and X) are reasonably inefficent at using memory, especially when changing aircraft without restarting the sim. 2 GB of memory isn't really a lot, The OS (Windows 32 bit?) Will in effect ring fence 1 GB for the OS and OS related services, leaving you 1GB for programs etc. FS doesn't seem to clear out memory properly when you switch between aircraft, not sure if this is exactly what happens, but its certainly how it appears. FSX on my system will sometimes use upto 1.8GB of memory, not counting things like REX etc which run as sepparate programs and consume their own memory on to of FS.

[MALTBY D]

Hi Michael

FS can be a bit funny once your battery has run down, I'm not sure it recharges and may still be flat when you change aircraft.
Don't know what could cause your PC trouble. Sounds like what they call a memory leak. If you're doing a long flying session, it may be a good idea to close down FS every so often and start again. Dunno really.

The fuel figures on the route page are the averages actually flown on that route. There will be big variations. Some routes have a prevailing wind which can push the figures one way or the other.
The Fleet Status page shows that the 748 has averaged 647 kg/h over all routes while operating with the VA. That's start to stop, including taxi time, which can also skew the figures if you spend a long time not going very far.
It's only statistics at the end of it all, just a rough guide. A 100kg difference over a 1 hour flight isn't significant. Could be the wind or just the way you operate it.
Any significant variation in fuel use would cause a '? fuel use is suspicious' message on the flight report (which also keeps it out of our averages calculations). We do sometimes get wrong figures come through from the FSAirlines system. Not many these days though.

DM

[DaveB]

Hi Michael..

I have to agree with Ben here.. neither sim are particularly good at clearing things out when you've finished I don't think the 748 was the root cause of what you saw but there are a couple of things you can do to stop the battery running flat. If you have FSUIPC, a tab is available to extend battery life. Alternatively, if you're confident enough to edit an aircraft.cfg file, here's an extract of the 748..

[electrical]
max_battery_voltage = 24
generator_alternator_voltage = 28
max_generator_alternator_amps = 130
electric_always_available = 0
e t c

It goes on much further than this but I've stopped at the relevant part. Where you see electric_always_available=0.. the 0 (zero) value is no. If you change that value to 1 (electric_always_avaialble=1) your battery will not run down. It's a quick solution to a problem but ultimately, it may not be what you want to achieve

Concur with DM on fuel useage too.

ATB
DaveB

[Garry Russell]

Is this FS.X?

I had this the other day with a new install before I loaded SP1 and SP2

It's OK now as that was one of the issues that was fixed in the Service packs...an identified memory leak

The exact error I had was the sim stop after about an hour and a half and I hit escape and was confronted with the message that "This computer has run out of memory".

That with 8GB RAM

[DaveB]

Yes.. the mid boggles doesn't it. When you have a pc twice as powerful as your last and this sort of thing happens.. it serves as a reminder that FSX isn't as bug-free as it could be

I often get a message from FSX after I've closed down saying 'The instruction at 0x200c7489 referenced memory at 0x06492978. The memory could not be read'. The first number is always the same, the referenced memory address always changes. Point is.. this only ever reports after I've closed down the sim. It's not a memory issue because the pc now has different memory but what the hell it is is anyones guess. I trawled the net the first time I saw it and as you'd imagine, nothing useful came back. FSX.exe seems to be the cause so thank goodness it only happens after the sim has shut down (it's gone from the screen but is in the process of closing). As my Auntie would say.. onwards and upwards

ATB
DaveB

[Garry Russell]

It would seem that without SP2 increasing the ram means more time before it runs out

It's just like having a hydraulic reservoir with a leak, making the tank bigger only buys you time, but if to don't fix the leak it'll still happens, eventually

[hs748flyer]

[electrical]
max_battery_voltage = 24
generator_alternator_voltage = 28
max_generator_alternator_amps = 130
electric_always_available = 0
e t c

It goes on much further than this but I've stopped at the relevant part. Where you see electric_always_available=0.. the 0 (zero) value is no. If you change that value to 1 (electric_always_avaialble=1) your battery will not run down. It's a quick solution to a problem but ultimately, it may not be what you want to achieve

Concur with DM on fuel useage too.

ATB
DaveB

Thanks for that. Dead battery syndrome prevails no more!

Who knows what did it. I think it might have to do with me watching my new AI traffic around Manchester, Edinburgh etc.

[DaveB]

We aim to please 748.. we aim to please This isn't always possible but when we can, we will

ATB
DaveB

[hs748flyer]

Sadly the aircraft.cfg edit made no difference I used ground power, and the battery still died after about 5 minutes. I only use the free version of FSUIPC, so unless I do something incredibly illegal, its not going to be fixed soon...