Tried Tileproxy Yesterday

[gman! 1]

I hope this is the right forum. Well, yesterday I tried tileproxy for FSX after a long time of wondering how it would be, and the install press was pretty easy with the tutorial, (http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/), and the setup is very easy because it is an installer, and you can configure if you want any modifications to cfgs or if you want certain options for tileproxy. The only thing that was difficult to setup was probably the proxyuser.inf file because the author can't put the URLs in. The first time I booted up tileproxy and tookoff I was amazed. I had the scenery at 30cm per pixel and it was sharp and I could see all the real buildings in real life, and with FiOS at 15mbps down/2mbps up it was very smooth! The only thing I was dissapointed about was the lack of generic autogen, but all the custom autogen in cities such as skyscrapers and others were still there, and even some small buildings. If you like flying VFR or even at high altitudes this is for you it will take you to FS nirvana. Even @ 1.1m per pixel tileproxy looks VERY good. Here are some screenshots from the tutorial website of 30cm textures: http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/misc/fresno_hires.htm. The cool thing about tileproxy is all the traffic that you have on roads will still be there when you fly, and because of the lack of autogen you get WAY better framerates meaning you can turn up traffic or other settings. The water is also very realistic and if you set water smoothing to the right setting you will get beautiful, BEAUTIFUL realistic coral reefs! Some tips for Tileproxy*I know this sounds like a horrible idea, but the loading algorithm of tileproxy is different than normal fsx scenery, so set the maximum LOD to medium or low for me Tileproxy renders the outer rings of scenery first if its on high so the terrain near me is very blurry, Low Level of Detail Radius updates much faster*Make sure your TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT is NOT at 400, this can reduce performance, and I don't think any card for the next few years will have enough bandwidth for setting it at 400*I found the best map for me was Microsoft Virtual Earth. Virtual Earths textures are vivid and clear, yahoo's are pretty dull. Make sure that in your "[service Example 1]" Line you have "color_hack=No" if you want to use Virtual Earth. I find the colors much better without it. Almost forgot. If you install Tileproxy, nothing will be overridden unless you chose the option to fix the fsx.cfg and a few terrain.cfg entries, but both files will be backed up. If you want to keep tileproxy but not use all you have to do is start up FSX WITHOUT tileproxy running and everything will be normal :). If you want to use tileproxy then just start tileproxy. No messing with the scenery library, or uninstall tileproxy!

[rightseater 0]

Agreed! TileProxy brings a whole new level of realism to FSX. Not so good for the heavies, at least not for me, but it's perfect for the new A2A Cub.

[markturner 0]

Hi Gman, I tried installing the other day, but ran into problems. Did you use the default installation paths for the cache folders? I think thats where I went wrong, despite following the instructions exactly as far as I can tell. Also, do you have do the bios thing to start up without signed drivers, everytime you use it? Or just when you install it? I would love to get this up and running, so perhaps will try again later. cheers, Mark

[badaboom 0]

WOW!!!! Those pics are stunning!!! I'm going to have to seriously sit down and get this installed.

[Guest dogmouse]

Hey Mark, (or anyone else having a bit of trouble getting TP to run properly), there might be a small hitch in Ed's (excellent) tutorial in regard to placement of the cache folders. TIP: DONT create a folder for the cache files, and instead, just let TP create their own cache folders on the ROOT of the drive you select, i.e., "E:\" or "F:\" etc...That's what did it for me, and since then, i have been doing back flips off my desk every time i fire up FSX!! ; -)hope that helps somebody,Best,Rich

WOW!!!! Those pics are stunning!!! I'm going to have to seriously sit down and get this installed.

[gman! 1]

Hi Gman, I tried installing the other day, but ran into problems. Did you use the default installation paths for the cache folders? I think thats where I went wrong, despite following the instructions exactly as far as I can tell. Also, do you have do the bios thing to start up without signed drivers, everytime you use it? Or just when you install it? I would love to get this up and running, so perhaps will try again later. cheers, Mark

What Dogmouse said is right, but I also did something different. You can create a folder, but you HAVE to make sure that the cache and photoscenery are both in the same folder, so Tileproxy can find both folders for conversion. For example mine is set up like thisI made and selected this folder manually for BOTH Photoreal and Cache Scenery (I like to keep my hard disks organized, thus I have folders)*D:\TileProxy Photoreal Scenery & CacheTileproxy makes these folders automatically inside the parent folder (in my Case "TileProxy Photoreal Scenery & Cache) after setup correctly*TileProxy Photoreal World*cache.service1,2,and/or3-------So make sure to set the PhotoReal and Cache to the SAME folder! Good luck, and I hope you will enjoy it!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"*I know this sounds like a horrible idea, but the loading algorithm of tileproxy is different than normal fsx scenery, so set the maximum LOD to medium or low for me Tileproxy renders the outer rings of scenery first if its on high so the terrain near me is very blurry, Low Level of Detail Radius updates much faster"This seems bandwidth dependent. I've played with all three settings and find the sharpest textures when I select high, with virtually no impact on framerate. I have very good bandwidth on my home Internet connection and a fairly robust system. I also edited my proxyuser.ini so the 1M textures load out to about 20 miles distant, and my flights are virtually what I see when I fly in real life. I've flown as high as 330 kts groundspeed and the textures stay loaded. Tileproxy is just brilliant and absorbs way too much of my personal time. :( I too used Ed's site and had immediate luck with Tileproxy following his great directions.Since I run on Vista 64 bit, I take the option to disable signature enforcement at bootup. It's become second nature now, I don't even think about it when I am doing it. My favorite aircraft for flying over the Tileproxy scenery is RealAir's Duke, followed by Carenado's 172. Both aircraft immerse you in the feeling of being in a real aircraft, and Tileproxy does a great job making a VFR flight seem real.Regards,John

[Dirk98 354]

Thanks for the thread. I'm finally convinced to try the TP, took me a while...Cheers,Dirk.

[Guest dogmouse]

Hey JohnCi,What line do you edit in proxyuser.ini so the 1M textures load out to about 20 miles distant? I looked, but i didnt see anything like that.thxRich

[cianpars 1,163]

The level mapping setting.

[markturner 0]

Hi Gman, i got it installed again last night, and it works!! I do however have some performance issues, finding that it was taking a pause fairly frequently to load the highest res tiles. But when they were loaded, it looked the nuts!!!!I followed completely the default installation path, but instead of having the folders ( tileproxy photorealworld world and cache.service3 ) in the same folder, they are both in the root directory of the drive where FSX is installed. ( IE default tileproxy install). As I say, it works, but do i need to change it? Should I make a folder like you and put them both inside that? I would also then have to change the entries in the .ini file to point to the new folder, yes?JohnCi, would you mind sharing your .ini file, so I can try your settings? And do you have to start everytime using the no driver signing method? You said you "take the option". Do you mean you have too? Or you just do?Do any users know of any mileage to be gained from tweaking the settings " cache tiles limit" and "cache bytes limit" ?cheers, Mark

[John_Cillis 2,406]

JohnCi, would you mind sharing your .ini file, so I can try your settings? And do you have to start everytime using the no driver signing method? You said you "take the option". Do you mean you have too? Or you just do?Do any users know of any mileage to be gained from tweaking the settings " cache tiles limit" and "cache bytes limit" ?cheers, Mark

I'd rather not share my entire .ini file. The relevant section I changed is in Service Example 3, the lines and values belowmin_level=5max_level=17level_mapping=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,15,15,15,16,17In tandem with these settings I limit my vis to 30 miles, so it appears that the photoreal scenery goes off naturally into the distance.Yes, I do start every time using the no driver signing. There's various methods floating about on the web for skipping this step, but I don't like what I've seen. It takes an extra second to press "F8" at bootup and disable driver signing.I played with the cache tiles and cache bytes limits--I found Tileproxy became a bit unstable and caused errors and crashes of FSX a couple of times. I decided to return them to their default values and leave them for someone with the time and patience to experiment. I much prefer flying over tweaking.-John

[gman! 1]

Hi Gman, i got it installed again last night, and it works!! I do however have some performance issues, finding that it was taking a pause fairly frequently to load the highest res tiles. But when they were loaded, it looked the nuts!!!!I followed completely the default installation path, but instead of having the folders ( tileproxy photorealworld world and cache.service3 ) in the same folder, they are both in the root directory of the drive where FSX is installed. ( IE default tileproxy install). As I say, it works, but do i need to change it? Should I make a folder like you and put them both inside that? I would also then have to change the entries in the .ini file to point to the new folder, yes?JohnCi, would you mind sharing your .ini file, so I can try your settings? And do you have to start everytime using the no driver signing method? You said you "take the option". Do you mean you have too? Or you just do?Do any users know of any mileage to be gained from tweaking the settings " cache tiles limit" and "cache bytes limit" ?cheers, Mark

If you like you can make a parent folder for the cache, and yes if do change it all you have to do is change the directories for the cache in the ProxyUser.ini file :(. For Vista x64, make sure you hit F8 at boot to disable driver signing, and one very convinent thing to do is use Hibernation on the computer. When your done, hit hibernate, and it will save everything in memory to the HDD, and next time you start up your PC it will be exactly where you left it. Not sure about the cache limits because I never messed with them, but I have 4GBs of memory that doesn't even get 75% used so what the hay, I'll try it out. Screenshot is looking good :(JohnCi, I'm not sure if its my bandwidth because with fios I get a constant 15 mpbs down and 2 mbps up, because unlike other proivders, the internet is not shared with your neighbors or area, etc. It would be great to see your .ini file that you have :(. BTW my currenct scenery is @ 30cm but at medium level of detail radius it updates much faster than high for some reason, and thats what the installer said.

[markturner 0]

Well tonight, i cant get it to work. I have altered the level mapping settings and when i try and start now, FSXjust freezes. I have removed the altered .ini file, replaced with the standard base .ini, put everything back to normal as far as I can see. FSX starts fine on its own, but if I start tileproxy first, it will load ok and say it is ready for take off, then I start FSX, , which starts ok, but I do not get the zeroes in the dos screen of tile proxy. Then, if I touch anything in the GUI of FSX, it freezes my pc and I have to do a hrd re boot. Been trying to get it working properly all night now and amjust about ready to throw the box out of the window or take a very large hammer to it.Damn i hate computers sometimes!!!!!

[rightseater 0]

I'd rather not share my entire .ini file. The relevant section I changed is in Service Example 3, the lines and values belowmin_level=5max_level=17level_mapping=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,15,15,15,16,17In tandem with these settings I limit my vis to 30 miles, so it appears that the photoreal scenery goes off naturally into the distance.Yes, I do start every time using the no driver signing. There's various methods floating about on the web for skipping this step, but I don't like what I've seen. It takes an extra second to press "F8" at bootup and disable driver signing.I played with the cache tiles and cache bytes limits--I found Tileproxy became a bit unstable and caused errors and crashes of FSX a couple of times. I decided to return them to their default values and leave them for someone with the time and patience to experiment. I much prefer flying over tweaking.-John

Or if you're like me and startup your rig forgetting to hit F8 you can also use ReadyDriver Plus 1.1. It comes in handy for people like me who aren't always thinking ahead when they startup.