Dummies question - where do we get the default.xml file from SP2?Denis the Menace

Vic, the 'original' trick, was not 'trick' at all... it was nothing more than a brain fart on my part. *HOWEVER*, that lead to an interesting discovery.The trick that I initially posted, was simply making the file 'unreadable' to FSX, thats why everyone saw the huge improvement PLUS the missing autogen. The 'second' suggestion, which is the one Bryan is refering to involves using the 'original' default.xml file that comes with a fresh install of FSX SP2, changing it to UTF-8 but ALSO SAVING IT AS AN UTF-8 FILE! (you do this in the Encoding option you see when 'Saving As') That particular default.xml file will give you the 'exact' same performance benefits of NOT having a default.xml at all (which is what the trick did, make the file unavailable)

*******,I was not trying to belittle or make fun of your work mind you.And, now that I think of it i did not save the file as utf-8 file. I just clicked on save! My mistake. I don't have sp2 I have accel. Would that be ok ?Vic

*******,I was not trying to belittle or make fun of your work mind you.And, now that I think of it i did not save the file as utf-8 file. I just clicked on save! My mistake. I don't have sp2 I have accel. Would that be ok ?Vic

I meant SP2 because is what I have. However, RTM, SP1 and SP2 have the 'exact' same default.xml file. I assume that to be the case as well with accel.and Vic, remember, what we are discussing here now is the performance benefits of using a stock 'default.xml' file vs. a 3rd party modified one... We don't know if the performance hit is due to size, number of entries or a particular set of entries, what I can tell you for sure is that the default.xml file I had caused very nasty stutters in the test scenario I described earlier, whereas the stock gave me excelent results!P.D I just confirmed with NickN that GEX does not alter the default.xml file in any way...

So can i clarify this please,Are we to modify the default.xml file by finding the version within FSX SP's, or at this stage is it best left alone. If we are to modify it, where is it to be found within the SP'sThanksTom

Just did that little edit and lo and behold, those itty bitty, I'd call them 'mini jitters' have completely disappeared! Well done yet again *******. :( Incidentally, do I recall you saying you've finished with FSX tweak wise, as there's nothing left to do? :(

Hi,If it's of any help, I found a few backup files in my autogen directory. All have encoding="utf-16" in the header:

default.xml 11.2MBdefault.xml(before_FlyTampa_Grenadines) 4.81MBDefault_XML_before_install.bak 2.43MBdefault_XML_before_Santorini X_was_install.bak 2.43MB

regardsPaul

Incidentally, do I recall you saying you've finished with FSX tweak wise, as there's nothing left to do? :(

You recall well ;) this is not a 'tweak' per se, but more some kind of 'limitation' of the FSX engine (not hardware) on the way it renders autogen when default.xml is extremely big and a way to overcome it. Unfortunately, I'm no expert in autogen matters, so I'm trying to reach a consensus as to the reasons that cause this. NickN kindly provided some valuable info on the subject, so I know for a fact this has nothing to do with GEX.When I say, 'not a hardware limitation' is because it can be seen how the main scheduler CPU reaches a plateau when the stuttering occurs even under 50% load and a queue length less than 1. (this can be confirmed using perf counters and monitoring the computer running FSX remotely) so even if you had the fastest CPU on the planet you WILL experience this using a BIG default.xml vs FSX stock.

*******,Replacing the heavy file with the vanilla xml one removes all the ORBX autogen entries.. :(

*******,Replacing the heavy file with the vanilla xml one removes all the ORBX autogen entries.. :(

Correct, because ORBX adds custom objects to it. I'm trying to test using an ORBX only default.xml with ONLY autogen entries for PNW and compare this to stock. I want to see if the stutters are due to the 'size' of the file OR the 'custom objects' ORBX is adding.I like the ORBX autogen a million times better that the default in the PNW area, but if having this 'custom' autogen affects my performance, then I'd rather remove it. Now, before reaching any conclusions I will have to test first, but what I can tell you FOR SURE is that using a stock FSX default.xml vs. the one I already had on my system is like night and day, the improvement is remarkable!

I also had a look at the default.xml file sizesVanilla Acceleration : 4.8 Mb (in \Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Setup\XPackCache) - 72873 lines of code Backup made by FTX Central : 7.23 Mb (in Microsoft Flight Simulator X\ORBX\Scripts\FTXCentral\InstallBackup) - 109897 lines of codeUsed by FSX with FTX AU and PNW active : 11.2 Mb (in Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Autogen) - 173077 lines of codeSceneries I use :FTX PNW and FTX AU and some of their addon airportsOzx sceneries for the aboveUltimate Terrain Europe

Used by FSX with FTX AU and PNW active : 11.2 Mb (in Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Autogen) - 173077 lines of code

You just gave me an idea. If I replace the backup FTX has of my default.xml with one that has NO ENTRIES (a skeleton file), It will probably produce a file that contains EXCLUSIVELY FTX autogen and that file will be about the same size of the vanilla default.xml ;) that way, we'll know if the stuttering is due to file size or custom objects.A skeleton file (needs to be saved as UTF-8 in the encoding field when saving)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><AUTOGEN>  <REGION>    <CODE>A</CODE>    <CODE>B</CODE>    <CODE>C</CODE>    <CODE>D</CODE>    <CODE>E</CODE>    <CODE>F</CODE>    <CODE>G</CODE>    <CODE>H</CODE>    <CODE>I</CODE>    <CODE>J</CODE>    <CODE>K</CODE>    <CODE>L</CODE>    <CODE>M</CODE>    <CODE>N</CODE>    <CODE>O</CODE>    <CODE>P</CODE>    <CODE>Q</CODE>    <CODE>R</CODE>    <CODE>S</CODE>    <CODE>T</CODE>    <CODE>U</CODE>    <CODE>V</CODE>    <CODE>W</CODE>    <CODE>X</CODE>    <CODE>Y</CODE>    <CODE>Z</CODE>  </REGION></AUTOGEN>

You just gave me an idea. If I replace the backup FTX has of my default.xml with one that has NO ENTRIES (a skeleton file), It will probably produce a file that contains EXCLUSIVELY FTX autogen and that file will be about the same size of the vanilla default.xml ;) that way, we'll know if the stuttering is due to file size or custom objects.A skeleton file (needs to be saved as UTF-8 in the encoding field when saving)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><AUTOGEN>  <REGION>    <CODE>A</CODE>    <CODE>B</CODE>    <CODE>C</CODE>    <CODE>D</CODE>    <CODE>E</CODE>    <CODE>F</CODE>    <CODE>G</CODE>    <CODE>H</CODE>    <CODE>I</CODE>    <CODE>J</CODE>    <CODE>K</CODE>    <CODE>L</CODE>    <CODE>M</CODE>    <CODE>N</CODE>    <CODE>O</CODE>    <CODE>P</CODE>    <CODE>Q</CODE>    <CODE>R</CODE>    <CODE>S</CODE>    <CODE>T</CODE>    <CODE>U</CODE>    <CODE>V</CODE>    <CODE>W</CODE>    <CODE>X</CODE>    <CODE>Y</CODE>    <CODE>Z</CODE>  </REGION></AUTOGEN>

Okaay, so I've tried the above skeleton file. When the file is populated with Orbx entries they really don't like the fact that the default.xml file is saved in UTF-8 format. If however the default.xml file is used from the original acceleration install and no attempt is made to save the file in UTF-8 format then the Orbx entries are perfectly happy. By happy I mean that the sim runs very well(good frames no stuttering)So what I do is manually edit the file before starting the sim with this line:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> and all is good. If an attempt is then made to save the default.xml file in UTF-8 format then all hell breaks loose again.Go figure because I can't.Bryan.

When the file is populated with Orbx entries they really don't like the fact that the default.xml file is saved in UTF-8 format.

No prob, then do this:Change the encoding on the header of the file from utf-8 to utf-16 and when you save the skeleton file, save it as UNICODErepeat the process, ORBX will LIKE this file now. When its done (with all the ORBX entries) change the encoding on the header back to utf-8 and SAVE the file AS an UTF-8 file (very important). Saving as an UTF-8 file reduces the file size 60% to 70%. Specially, if we are encoding mostly ASCII characters.If you test this, and performance is the same as with the vanilla default.xml, then the culprit is the MS XML Parser when dealing with very big files (FSX uses MS XML 4) Win7 and Vista include a newer version (MS XML 6) but I can patch the FSX DLL to use the newer parser if needed. I really hope is the parser, because I WANT my ORBX autogen back with all my sliders maxed.IMPORTANT: I AM NOT IMPLYING that ORBX is impacting performance, because REDUCING slider settings will solve ANY performance issues you might have without having to change ANYTHING ELSE. What I'm doing here is simply trying to determine what causes 'stuttering' under UNREALISTIC SCENARIOS (ULTRA HIGH AUTOGEN SETTINGS + 6000/6000 building/tree density + panning around at high speed) such as the one I described in the initial post. this is simply a coordinated test effort to get the most out of our hardware, thats all. I love ORBX products, I own PNW and the basis of this tests is getting the best experience out of each product I have. Even *IF* PNW were causing this, I will probably don't care and simply reduce sliders, what I'm trying to do is 'understand' where the bottleneck is (if any). Hope it clarifies some people's concerns and/or confusion.

Ok, did as you asked and performance is not as good. Sim is less smooth and FPS are slightly down and more variable.Bryan.EDIT: Just tried GEX with that same test flight and that was worse as well. After replacing the test skeleton file with the default acceleration copy and changing file header back to 8 all is good again.So maybe things are not looking to bad for FTX after all.

Ok, did as you asked and performance is not as good. Sim is less smooth and FPS are slightly down and more variable.

Can you tell me how big is the FTX/ORBX only default.xml file Vs. the FSX Accel default.xml? are BOTH utf-8 encoded? did you DOUBLE CHECK? (Save As) again as UNICODE (for UTF-16 encoding) or UTF-8 (for UTF-8 encoding). Remember, when you 'Save As' you have the option to 'choose' an encoding (it is just under the field where you enter the filename)