What is the practical effect of loading only sceneries involved in a given flight?

[Noel 4,503]

I have never experimented with this idea, but I read about it here. Does this recommendation imply FSX loads all scenery, always? Or isn't FSX programmed to load a certain minimum geographical area based on airport or flight plan? Is there a direct effect on general smoothness, or is it more a case of initial loading, and then only updates of scenery as the plane flies in that direction? If I plan on a flight just on the West Coast of the US, does that mean I just select that library only?Thanks in advance,Noel

[Guest]

I don't know which recommendation you are talking about or where you read it, but AFAIK FSX always loads everything it can find in the library in a circle of a specific size around your current viewpoint. (I am not saying 'around your plane' because when you move to for instance the tower view, other scenery gets loaded). This circle moves along with you. So FSX does not take into account what your flightplan is or anything. And FSX does't load a specific part of the library: it loads whatever is needed to fill that circle, which may be coming from various entries of the library.

[snave 0]

UNchecking the scenery from the scenery menu means that it will NOT load for that sim session, or until the box is checked again, but will remain in place on the hard drive ready for use at any time - you can even make the change from checked to unchecked and back again in the same sim session, with only a scenery reload to worry about.This makes it a very useful tool for disabling addon scenery for troubleshooting, or simply a change (if you have two addons that cover the same area, swapping between them just became very easy). I use the technique for scenery, mesh and landclass for comparison purposes...However, you should be very, very wary of attempting to disable default files and folders, as they are installed by a numerical file name that may or may not impact on that sim session. It is however, perfectly safe to disable the photoscenery `extras` that FSX installs - no point having them load if you're flying in a different continent.But at the end of the day the ONLY gain apart from troubleshooting is a slightly quicker loading of the scenery GUI progress slider on startup. Far better to concentrate on aftermarket packages of areas you are not currently flying in and leave the default well alone.

[Noel 4,503]

Thanks for those insights. Doesn't sound from your reports there is much point in doing this.Noel

[snave 0]

Thanks for those insights. Doesn't sound from your reports there is much point in doing this.Noel

Yes, keep default as default but strip out all the other stuff you've added, but never - or just currently don't - use. One small extra tip though, in case it's relevant to your situation. The ADDON SCENERY folder does not need to be located within the main FS folder structure so you can always move that to a separate hard drive, then all you have to do is 1: Create a shortcut linik to the folder within FSX just so you can access the folder easily and2: Change any and all references to the addons in the folder in the scenery.cfg file to reflect the new locationThis, combined with the tip above to uncheck any you're currently not using means you have the most efficient setup possible without messing too much with default files. The reason for not moving or deleting default stuff is simple: You never know what is going to ask for it.