P3D_Ver2.1_What Say You?

[falcon409]

I really liked P3D Ver 2.0. . .was starting to load sceneries that were compatible, aircraft were working fine (portovers that is), framerates were great, stutters and blurries all gone. Then came the much anticipated 2.1 patch and now it's OOM crashes, Fatal Error lockups, menues that lock up, blurries are back and I've noticed minor stutters that weren't there before. Reading over the current topics in the LM Forums. . .it's widespread and LM seems to be shooting in the dark trying to find the reason behind it. In an effort to narrow down the culprit they're asking for specific information about the circumstances surrounding the specific OOM and fatal error problems, as in "where were you flying, airspeed, altitude, autogen settings, specific scenery addons if any, additional tweaks to config files, your system information. . ." and so on.

The ver2.1 patch may have fixed a lot of things, none of which I probably understand, but it would seem that for the time being, it's also caused major problems that seem to be very elusive. . .so I'm not sure it's worth messing with until something is done to correct the problems. Uninstalling the patch seems to be the best way to go. . .at least if everything reverts back to what it was before adding the patch I can fly a full flight without locking up or crashing. Surely I'm not the only one in here experiencing these problems. . .so what about the silent majority? Any feedback to relate concerning the obvious problems with 2.1?

[Dumonceau]

I've been wanting to take the plunge myself badly, and I would love to hear (like Falcon) the opinions of the silent majority.

What is important for me is whether SLI is supported now.

Like Falcon, I'm eagerly awaiting the views of the many users.

Take care,

Dumonceau

[Naismith]

Credit card has been slipped back into wallet. Back to FSX.

[paiken]

I installed ver. 2.1 and initially noticed no problems and a few obvious improvements over the 2.0 install. I loaded up a couple of my favorite aircraft (A2A Cessna, C47 etc.) and my current build of KSDL (nearing 75% completion) and REX textures/weather and did a few quick flights with no issues. Then I went for a cross country flight from KSDL to KPAN (about 37 nm.) and was on short final when the OOM error popped up. Every subsequent flight of any duration longer than about 15 minutes ended up the same. I have been visiting the LM site once or twice a week to see what (if any) fixes and/or explanations appeared. From what I can gather there are temporary fixes (such as turning autogen vegetation to minimum) that allow an extended flight. I haven't flown 2.1 in about a week so I'm not sure if the reduced autogen tweak works on my rig. I'll give it a few more weeks for the wonks at LM to figure out what if anything can be done to reduce or eliminate the OOM error. If not, then I may just uninstall the program and continue flying FSX until something better comes along.

[Daube]

I share the same view on the recent P3D patch.

Currently, I still have the 2.0 version installed, and just like you I had started adding some of my FSX addons inside. There were of course a lot of bugs preventing the sim from working correctly. Among these, the dreaded OOMs and the flashing autogen on very dense areas (forests), plus all the small glitches that made the P3D interface a pita compared to FSX. But the sim looked promising nevertheless, because of the dramatic performance increase compared to FSX (ground texture loading mostly, FPS increase was marginal).

The 2.1 patch, from what can be seen in their forums, seems to be a real nightmare. I'm not going to say that it broke more than it fixed, because I havs no idea really. But reading the forums, one can really wonder... In the end, after downloading the patch, I refrained from installing it. Feedbacks are clearly indicating that a full sim reinstall with newest version is way better than patching. That makes sense, my P3D is now altered in many ways, patching it would be unsafe.

Result is: I'm wainting for 2.3, at least.
2.2 will most likely fix 2.1, and 2.1 doesn't contain the autogen/scenery fixes anyways, so it brings nothing for me. I'll wait for the next patches.

[Lionheart]

6 Of my planes, no GPS systems. No working landing lights. Panel illumination stopped working in some, not all.

At least you guys have OOM's. I have complete crashes. I'm flying along and the screen turns black, then the windows bootup screen appears. Complete reboot. Seems to be about 5 to 10 min's. This is with an Intel 8 core, new (new) GTX660 with 2 gigs of RAM, and 16 Gigs of RAM for the system, Windows 7 pro.

2.2 will most likely fix 2.1, and 2.1 doesn't contain the autogen/scenery fixes anyways, so it brings nothing for me. I'll wait for the next patches.

Daube

I noticed that too.

[Meshman]

I can make 2.1 give me an OOM in about 15-20 minutes. But that's at settings I would not use. It's with everything, every shadow or reflections or whatever, turned on. Using my usual settings of VERY DENSE autogen, I made a four hour test flight up across the heartland of America, stopping the flight only because the plane would run out of fuel.

I admit to not being a plane freak, though I am looking forward to my Kodiak being fixed, some day... And I'm not to the point of having much scenery installed, but even that shouldn't matter much, I would believe. Mesh hasn't proven to be an instigator of problem, so I'm not seeing that become a problem.

All in all, I've not seen the issues that others have. But it's still early in the P3D ball game, so I'll use it as best possible and see where this road on my FS journey takes me.

[falcon409]

After some deliberation, I've decided to uninstall P3D until such time as LM has a better handle on the Sim. It seems silly to go back and forth from what I consider an "interim" Sim (2.0) to the latest "test version", only to have it be a bust as this latest patch has been. When a more stable platform is available, I'll come back to it cautiously based on what I see in the LM Forums. For now, it's back to FSX.

[luckydog]

I installed V2 and patch, but have only flown short, low and slow x-countries. I've got V1.4 maxed out and am lovin' it, so I'm going to stay with that until everything on V2 gets fixed.

[roger-wilco-66]

I have 1.4 and V 2.1. The latter is a relatively clean install with only 2 addon sceneries so far (Solomons and Tom's Marianas) and sweetfx as well as the Accufeel addon.
I didn't have any OOM yet. The only CTDs I had were self inflicted from "dirty" port overs of aircraft from P3D1.4 to 2.0/.1 by just copying the folders / files I thought were necessary.

I really like the V2.1 version so far, despite some changes that make my life as a scenery developer a bit hard. I'd like to see LM be a bit more verbose about what changes are included in a certain version that affect the properties of the various fields of the SDK. They mentioned some things for 2.1, but many others had or still have to be found out by trial and error. So I'd like to see a delta list in the future. This should be part of the SDK documentation.

All in all I'm pleased - it's fast, the lighting is great, terrain rendering is improved, fog / haze looks great, I finally can fly at night because the night lighting was improved greatly, my Saitek / Simped / CH controllers work flawless now, and many other changes have been made. They are on the right track with it, despite the problems that obviously exist.


Cheers,
Mark

[Lionheart]

Good to hear its working great for you Mark.

I agree on them letting developers know about radical changes, and in detail.

[Clutch Cargo]

What say me?

I'd say it's a keeper! So let me put in my 2 as this thread sounds like all doom and gloom. I installed the patch to v2.1, not the whole uninstall 2.0 and install the whole 11GB 2.1, just the patch. Installed flawlessly. Smoothest running flightsim I have used in the twelve years I have been in this hobby. Longest flight was 4 1/2 hours without an OOM. First three hours I had sliders set to where I would normally fly at 3/4 right. Flew at about 10,000 feet to catch all the autgoen trees. Then for the last 1 1/2 hours I flew with all sliders right and then saw a very small stutter but I attribute that to purposely overloading my 2GB GeForce 670. Frames throughout this flight was on the highend of 50-60's down to 30's when I maxed the settings. When I changed my view to top down capturing the entire USA that's when I got the OOM message. Oh, did I mention I did this on a 3 x 27" wraparound setup.

So I am VERY happy where P3D is heading. Yea, still lot's of little issues (and some big like the vegetation autogen stuff, getting Nvidia to create a proper driver for it), but it is such a fun experience to fly like never before.

Set up my AI with A2A shockwave lights to compensate for the missing landing lights. the patched fixed the camera tracking issues so I able to set up my Spot few exactly the way I had it in FSX.

What I have been holding off on is all the Orbx stuff. That is where it seems like simmers are having the conflicts. I may try one today but I don't plan to use any of their Global stuff as I am a photoreal simmer and then add my own autogen, streetlights, etc. Next, adding the new P3D Craigsim glasss panels to my 16" gauge display.

Wish all could get the experience I am witnessing but with so many different PC builds out there issues are bound to happen.

Happy Flyin'

Clutch

[Lionheart]

The update quick fix for P3D V2.1 came out a couple of days ago. I had a chance to test it 2 days before release and found it fixed my planes. They worked again where as before they were broke (with the original 2.1 release). I believe also the DLL's are now updated on the V2.1 so if you download it now, V2.1 will not break planes. (Someone said the DLL's were updated in the 2.1 download). We also found out some of the reasons for the OOM's during this issue, so I think they might have a good fix going for that and scenery issues on the next update. I agree Clutch, very good sim. Nothing is perfect, but P3D is a lot better then FSX in my humble opinion. Having broken airplanes though from an update wasn't good. Cant test my birds in the sim if the sim is suddenly not running the planes. Bill

[vora]

Since I did a lot of mingling and testing with P3D I used the opportunity of hotfix 1 and Vector 1.1 for a clean reinstall.
I installed FTX Global, Vector, REX and NCA as well as the Twotter, Robin, Skymaster, Kodiak and Cub.
Then I went flying...
Took off in Eureka following hwy 299 into the mountains, chasing down the Trinity Gorge, 100 ft above the highway, with low hanging clouds, all sliders right, vegetation shadows on, in Bill's DR400.
40-60 FPS, no blurries or stutters.
I.Will.Never.Look.Back.Again !!!111

P.S.: I swore that this time I wouldn't install the migration tool but I suspect that RealAir's Duke and Tongass Fjords will make me a sinner again

[falcon409]

Got V2.1 w/current hotfix and update running again. It appears that at least in my case the OOM and Fatal Error problems were caused by a Virtual Memory setting that was way off. Bill (WND), walked me through the settings and once that was completed, I've been flying regularly with no problems.

Currently getting some cockpit time in the Sibwings AN-2. Awesome airplane. . .slow as molasses. . . .loads of fun. . .great Bush Plane.

[Daube]

Important news (very important for me): the devs have said that the autogen bug (flashing when autogen is too dense) is finally resolved, and fix will be shipped with the next patch

[falcon409]

Important news (very important for me): the devs have said that the autogen bug (flashing when autogen is too dense) is finally resolved, and fix will be shipped with the next patch

Excellent!

[spatialpro]

Can you post a link to the announcement please? Many thanks

[Daube]

There you go: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?min...topic&t=4551.1
(second to last reply)

[Daube]

For those suffering from frequent OOMs crashes, the following tweaks as been reported as "quite effective" on a French forum:

[SCENERY]
ObjectsToBatchPerFrame=40

User said that it didn't kill the OOMs, but it allowed him to fly for two hours instead of the usual 15 minutes

Same user states that disabling the pop_free_autogen (0 instead of 1) also increased his FPS (but then the autogen appears like in FSX, as we know...)