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Guest TIYCS

Why does ASA take 3 minutes+ to start up?

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Guest TIYCS

Just wondering why in the world it takes so dern long for ASA to start up.I'm running an AMD XP2600+ (2.08GHz), 2GB PC3200 (400HMz) memory, an XFX nVidia GF6800 Xtreme AGP8x card, Windows XP SP1 and my OS is completely stripped down to essential services and modules. I've got 20MB/s downstream & 5MB/s upstream bandwidth on a broadband cable internet connection. My computer is unusually fast for it's specs - the fastest 2MHz computer I've ever used.I start ASA before anything else (after disabling NOD32 Anti-virus and killing egui.exe, the realtime NOD32 interface). I've got essentially 0 processor use and a pagefile size of less than 130MB when I start ASA and it still hangs for extremely long periods while "Loading Main form". It also takes forever for "initial weather processes [to] complete" - 2 to 3 minutes usually.ASV seemed to do the same thing when it first came out (with all the download throttling set to maximum) and remained that way until all the bugs were worked out. I'm wondering if you've got the same thing going on with ASA (i.e. everything is throttled back until it's more fine tuned and crash-proof, with provisions to 'open it up' once it's all fine tuned and debugged).Thanks, and thanks for making, bar none, THE best add-on for FS that's ever been made!Chris

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Just wondering why in the world it takes so dern long for ASA to start up.I'm running an AMD XP2600+ (2.08GHz), 2GB PC3200 (400HMz) memory, an XFX nVidia GF6800 Xtreme AGP8x card, Windows XP SP1 and my OS is completely stripped down to essential services and modules. I've got 20MB/s downstream & 5MB/s upstream bandwidth on a broadband cable internet connection. My computer is unusually fast for it's specs - the fastest 2MHz computer I've ever used.I start ASA before anything else (after disabling NOD32 Anti-virus and killing egui.exe, the realtime NOD32 interface). I've got essentially 0 processor use and a pagefile size of less than 130MB when I start ASA and it still hangs for extremely long periods while "Loading Main form". It also takes forever for "initial weather processes [to] complete" - 2 to 3 minutes usually.ASV seemed to do the same thing when it first came out (with all the download throttling set to maximum) and remained that way until all the bugs were worked out. I'm wondering if you've got the same thing going on with ASA (i.e. everything is throttled back until it's more fine tuned and crash-proof, with provisions to 'open it up' once it's all fine tuned and debugged).Thanks, and thanks for making, bar none, THE best add-on for FS that's ever been made!Chris
Hi Chris,I have a system based on an Athlon64 4000+ 2.3MHz processor, 2GB RAM and 8600 graphics card (running under WinXP SP3) so isn't hugely different from yours, and my normal "launch" time is maybe 30 seconds. I suspect that your extended start times are down to the processing abilities of your single-core processor. From what I read ASA does a great deal of number-crunching with the METAR data when it starts, and the length of time to accomplish this may be a simple factor of the processing ability of the processor.This provides a comparison for the various models:AMD ProcessorsNote that here the processor list only goes back to the 2800+Alastair

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The startup itself is pretty quick on my computer, but the downloading and initializing and whatever takes a few minutes. Specially when it can't download data, which happens from time to time. It's quite long all in all on my new i7 920 computer. But I guess that's something we have to live with: crunching those numbers and translating it to something usefull takes time! I always startup ASA first whenever I want to flight and after that I do my flightplanning. And if I've got no planning to do, I simply go to this forum for a while... ;)

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I can attest that it takes a total of 3 mins. 20 secs. to go from opening ASA(FS9 of course) to completion. Sometimes it takes a bit longer if the main server isn't functioning and has to go to secondary server, but it doesn't happen often. Actually I can't complain about waiting 3 mins. 20 secs. from start to finish :(

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Guest TIYCS
I suspect that your extended start times are down to the processing abilities of your single-core processor. From what I read ASA does a great deal of number-crunching with the METAR data when it starts, and the length of time to accomplish this may be a simple factor of the processing ability of the processor.
It's quite long all in all on my new i7 920 computer. But I guess that's something we have to live with: crunching those numbers and translating it to something usefull takes time!
Thanks for the input. I guess the source of my dismay is that all earlier versions of ActiveSky for FS9 downloaded the same metar data and crunched the same numbers. So it's a bit confusing as to why it would take such a drastic amount of time longer (upwards of 5000%?) to crunch the same data. Obviously, based on ASA's dramatic improvement in graphic depiction, it's crunching numbers differently. I'd just like to understand what's behind a 5000%+ increase in that "crunch time", and if I can expect it to get faster with the application of future service packs.

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From initial double-click on ASA icon to ability to interact with ASA takes me about 3 minutes as well. I wish it were faster and hopefully some time can be cut off in the next patch(es). For now I do as mentioned above, open ASA first and spend load up time looking at charts, flight planning, fuel planning, and so on.I'm on an Intel 6850 with plenty of system resources.


- Chris

Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Elite AX | Intel Core i9 13900KF | Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB | 64GB DDR5 SDRAM | Corsair H100i Elite 240mm Liquid Cooling | 1TB & 2TB Samsung Gen 4 SSD  | 1000 Watt Gold PSU |  Windows 11 Pro | Thrustmaster Boeing Yoke | Thrustmaster TCA Captain X Airbus | Asus ROG 38" 4k IPS Monitor (PG38UQ)

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Hi all,Thanks for the feedback. It appears the comments are related to the intial depiction process from start to finish (double click ASA to depiction compete). 3 Minutes is about normal.To answer some questions:ASA is processing much more information and doing much more with it than previous versions. For example, we are now interpolating data world-wide using our quad-influenced algorithm. This is heavy in both floating point operations as well as data input and output. We also have additional data we are looking at including Sigmets, Airmets, Pireps, VOR Stations and NDB Stations. If you have enabled High Priority Processes this may help some but there are limits to how fast we can process things. If you are not using DWC mode your startup time to depiction complete will also be quite a bit longer as we are now writing to many more stations. Additionally, if you have Virtual Stations being generated this also takes time.With that said, we are always looking to improve performance and we've already made some improvements in our working builds. I'm don't think its realistic to expect things to be as fast as previous versions given the new processes and new data we are dealing with, but a measurable improvement is hoped for.Best,


Damian Clark
HiFi  Simulation Technologies

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I have found recently that sometimes ASA(FS9) will crash when parsing line items. I'll get an error message that it has to close. Never found out why it happens, but it does. I always start ASA and let it go through its phases before loading FS9. I do not have the beta update either. Maybe I should install it?

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Guest TIYCS
Hi all,Thanks for the feedback. It appears the comments are related to the intial depiction process from start to finish (double click ASA to depiction compete). 3 Minutes is about normal.To answer some questions:ASA is processing much more information and doing much more with it than previous versions. For example, ...
Thanks so much Damien for your informative response. 'Very helpful to understand what it's up to for that 3 or so minutes after execution :-).

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