How long do YOU wait for FSX's UI to become responsive?

[Benjamin J 751]

Hey guys,I've noticed that as scenery is added to the FSX scenery library, loading times of the FSX UI increase. I'll be more specific:(Note: what I call the UI is the screen with the tabs on the left that lets you choose missions, create a free flight, look at your pilot's logbook and all that. What I call the simulation, is when you actually fly your aircraft. So, you are in the UI until you click the FLY button. Afterwards you are in the simulation)- A clean FSX install took its time to reorganize the scenery library. Then, the UI itself appeared, and it responds almost instantaneously. With this I mean that when I click on any button, the relevant action is immediately performed. So, if I click the button to choose a departure airport, I immediately hear the "click" sound, and up comes the screen to choose said airport. I can choose an airport and choose the exact departure point (gate, arrival runway, etc)- With both UTX USA and EU installed, everything is noticeably later. Now, when the UI comes up, I have to wait longer before I hear the "click" sound when pressing buttons. If I immediately go into the departure airport screen, I have to wait a bit before I can choose the exact departure position (gate, arrival runway, etc).- The more scenery sits in the library, the longer this waiting period takes, but it seems that the biggest packages have the biggest influence. When I added MegaScenery stuff, everything became a lot slower.I was wondering if you guys found the same correlation between the amount of scenery entries in the scenery library and the slowness of the UI to become fully responsive (click sounds, enabling you to choose departure airports and exact departure positions). If you did find a similar thing, do you know of a way to counter it?

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Ben,The answers will still most likely hold true from the last time you asked here. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/330489-gui-click-sound-delay/page__p__1957659__fromsearch__1#entry1957659The more stuff you add to FSX, the longer it takes to load and there will be some delay in the "click sound" when you hit the different buttons in the UI if you try to access different selection menus before the sim has done its initial load. Imagine how long it takes mine with all the sceneries I have installed, as well as over 350 WOAI a/c and UT2 AI in my simobjects folder.What I do, is press the FSX.exe then either work on my other computer getting the route I am going to fly, checking the weather in ASE, or kill about 5 minutes while FSX goes thru it's routine. Then once the hard drive light finally goes off, I begin selecting my a/c, location, time/day/season, etc. Although everything has already been preloaded or checked, whatever FSX is doing during that time, I still get a slight loading pause when I click on the select a/c screen due to all the AI and user a/c I have installed.I wouldn't worry about the delay in the "click sound" however, mine does the same and I just live with it, although I generally let the HD light go off before I start accessing the different selection screens. I suppose the only way around it would be to uninstall the majority of your addons if it bothers you enough, or buy a SSD which will help FSX and all your addons load up quicker. Personally, I think your letting the "click sound" bother you more that it should. It's not going to make any difference in game play or performance once your flight has actually loaded.

[Benjamin J 751]

The reason I started this thread is mostly becaise FS2004 wasn;t this way, at least not for me. With FS2004 I'd have to wait ages for the UI to load because of all the aircraft I had installed, not because of scenery, and once the UI loaded, I could use it. This is unlike what I see with FSX, where it seems to be the scenery that makes FSX slow down most. What I find mostly problematic, is that FSX seems to get unstable when the wait becomes longer. It gets a tendency to CTD upon selecting the airport, for example.In the end, I guess I wish to have a quick, stable sim. It simply seems FSX just isn't that sim. But, it's somewhat ncie to know that I'm not the only on. By the way, if others would like to share their experiences, that would of course be welcomed!

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

What I find mostly problematic, is that FSX seems to get unstable when the wait becomes longer. It gets a tendency to CTD upon selecting the airport, for example.

Yeah, I can't say that I have ever had a CTD when selecting an airport. On top of that, if your getting CTD's from selecting an airport in the UI, then something obviously isn't right with the base install itself, the airport your trying to select, or any number of other things. If I remember right your running MTX which installs a bunch of ADE files if I am not mistaken and perhaps you have duplicate ADE's that are causing problems at certain payware airports?

In the end, I guess I wish to have a quick, stable sim. It simply seems FSX just isn't that sim. But, it's somewhat ncie to know that I'm not the only on. By the way, if others would like to share their experiences, that would of course be welcomed!

It's really too bad that FSX isn't working out well for you considering the amount of time you have spent trouble shooting, re-installing, money spent on addons, etc. I was hoping that after your April "FSX is pretty neat" post where it seemed to be working well for you that you had sorted the issues you had previously. In that post you also mentioned that you were getting some GUI lag after installing a lot of photoscenery. Maybe in the interim, you should remove the photoscenery, although I can't see what difference it would make unless your HD is almost filled to capacity or is way past the 60-70% capacity mark? Frankly, without personally seeing what you have installed, the order in which its been installed, and whatever else you have going on with FSX and tweaks you may have applied, I dont see why you should have any issues aside from low FPS due to your proc speed.

[Benjamin J 751]

Well during my last install here's what I did (that's spread over the past two days):- Remove many addons using uninstallers. This is except some freeware sceneries that I just leave behind and later copy over top the new addon scenery folder.- Remove FSX Acc and FSX.- Remove all related registry entries.- Install FSX, fire it up, load the default flight, quit FSX.- Install FSX Acc, fire it up, load the default flight, quit FSX.- Install FSGenesis mesh. Start FSX, then quit it.- Install UTX USA. Start FSX, then quit it.- InstallUTX EU. Start FSX, then quit it.At this point, FSX became noticeably slower during initial start-up, signifying that the new amount of scenery installed by UTX EU causes a longer load time. Just to be on the safe side, I did a flight from KLAX to KLAS. All was fine.- Install OpenVFR terrain. Start FSX, then quit it.- Install GEX USA. Start FSX, then quit it.- Install GEX EU. Start FSX, then quit it.- Install GEX AF/ME. Start FSX, then quit it.At this point I did some short flights, including some missions. All was fine. No CTD yet.- Install four MegaScenery titles: New York-001, Dallas, Las Vegas and South California. Start FSX, then quit it.FSX became slower after these were added. The time it took for the UI to become fully responsive increased two-fold, to about 45 seconds I think (so from the moment the UI appears to when the click soudsn are heard).- Install MyTrafficX and the relevant updates. Start FSX, then quit it.FSX now takes about 1 minute to get to a responsive UI. All in all, FSX is still stable and I haven't had any CTD yet. I haven't put any tweaks into the fsx.cfg and no FPS limiter is used. it's an almost completely vanilla FSX, except for some scenery addons installed and some textures being replaced. However, I still have to install several aircraft and scenery addons that I really want to use. Next up is OrbX AU with some of the AU airports. The aircraft to be installed are the PMDG J41, LDS767, PMDG 747 and possibly the iFly 737. Not sure yet about that one yet, though. I want to keep "outside" influences as small as possible, and what with updates possibly coming and the PMDG 737NGX on the way, I'll see later what to do with that one. Might also install the Majestic Dash-8, since I can use it to do Qantas Link flights.At the moment I'm running a defrag of my harddisk. I stupidly thought that Windows 7 can handle it on its own, with the schedule and such. It appears, however, that the fragmentation was 31% (!), which might also be a hint as to why there are long load times. I'll report back when its finished. In my experience, it can take a while. It's now at phase 5 of god knows how many.Do note that my stance regarding the other thread hasn't changed much. I still think FSX is great in doing what it does, it's just a pity that it seems to fall apart when I try to add addons.

[Guest jahman]

Installing your sceneries on SSDs will speed your load times by 10x.Cheers,- jahman.

[Benjamin J 751]

Problem with that, though, is that it'll have to be an external drive since I use an iMac. The fastest connector I have is a Firewire 800 port. Will I thus benefit of a SSD?

[cianpars 1,162]

The Firewire 800 is quick, but not quick enough to gain the full benefit of an SSD I fear (I'm guessing that the Firewire will probably transfer data at around 50% of the speed the SSD will transfer at).IAN

[Guest PFL]

Thralni wrote:"At the moment I'm running a defrag of my harddisk. I stupidly thought that Windows 7 can handle it on its own, with the schedule and such. It appears, however, that the fragmentation was 31% (!), which might also be a hint as to why there are long load times. I'll report back when its finished. In my experience, it can take a while. It's now at phase 5 of god knows how many."Oh no, oh my God, this can´t be real?Herr van Soldt, you are an "Avsim Staff Reviewer" - thousands of people around the SimWorld read your reviews, and have the belief you are a pro, one of the real experienced FSX guys, and now this?Go back to basics, read this:http://www.simforums.com/forums/topic34141_post198187.html#198187Copy and paste this section and save it:O&O Defrag v12 http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/download/current/oodefragpro/index.html you dont have to give your real name, email.. just make up a name and email address LOL uncheck the "subscribe" box You can purchase it at anytime but you have 30 days to use it after it is installed. You must make SURE you download the 64bit version for a 64bit OS and it MUST be set up correctly before using it! First, you must make sure you have done all the OS TUNING before running O&O making sure HYBERNATE and SYSTEM RESTORE are disabled, you have FLUSHED all the temp files and you have optimized the prefetchSome have asked why do the defrag process.. if you want a short and sweet answer, read this: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=34799&PID=202329#202329 then move on.... When you first run O&O defrag and have not purchased it, use it in the 30 day trial mode, otherwise input your purchase code. When O&O first starts wizards and tips will appear.. check to NOT SHOW at start and cancel the box The first time you are in the main interface you need to DISABLED the following on ALL drives 1. Click the first drive in the list to select it 2. In the TOP GUI, click DISABLE MONITORING and DISABLE ZONES 3. REPEAT those steps for each drive shown, you must select the next drive and DISABLE Monitoring and ZONES Once all drives have had monitoring and ZONES disabled.... Next, click SETTINGS There are 3 tabs GENERAL - UNCHECK Create reports- UNCHECK Show O&O Defrag in the tray OFFLINE DEFRAGMENTATION Leave these alone for now, we will come back to this TUNING Bullet in USE ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES SEQUENTIAL CHECK IN - Take into account systems layout rules, USE LAYOUT.INI UNCHECK battery mode, IF this is not a laptop Click OK and close the box. You can now also close O&O defrag FIRST THING WE DO after a fill install is a DSKCHECK on all drives to verify the tables are in fact not corrupt or have glitches in them. We ALSO DISABLE any INDEXING that is enabled per drive (may not appear in Windows 7) Open MY COMPUTER, the Hard disk list will appear. Right click each disk and perform the following tasks 1. Select properties 2. At the bottom of the GENERAL tab, if the item ALLOW INDEXING SERVICE TO INDEX THIS DISK is checked, then UNCHECK it and on the next screen opt to APPLY CHANGES TO SUBFOLDERS AND FILES, click OK The process may HALT because of a locked file, if it does select IGNORE ALL and allow it to continue, once complete 3. click the TOOLS TAB 4. Select ERROR CHECKING, then CHECK NOW 5. Place a check in AUTOMATICALLY FIX THE SYSTEM ERRORS but leave SCAN FOR BAD SECTORS UNCHECKED 6. Click Start. If the drive is a OS or other locked drive you will get a message that asks for a check on the next reboot, select YES to allow that. If the drive is not locked by Windows it will perform the disk check, let it complete and if it finds errors, RERUN the disk check AGAIN. Once no errors are found, continue to the next drive and REPEAT for each. ONLY do ONE drive at a time, do not attempt to do simultaneous drive checks. NOTE: Any offline disk check will automatically re-run if errors are found. You do not need to repeat offline disk checks. 7. Once you have gone through all the drives in Windows, REBOOT and allow the offline diskchecks to complete. The system will reboot back into Windows once finished and you are ready for the next steps in defrag. Open O&O defrag, click the OS drive in the list Right click and select SPACE DO NOT TOUCH THE COMPUTER FOR ANY REASON WHILE ANY O&O DEFRAG IS RUNNING.. NO EMAIL, NO SURFING, NO FILE MOVES, NOTHING! IF YOU DO IT WILL NOT OPTIMIZE CORRECTLY Once that is complete, close O&O, reboot and then start O&O defrag and select the FSX Drive, right click and select SPACE Once complete, open the O&O SETTINGS - OFFLINE DEFRAGMENTATION TAB Select EXECUTE ONCE ON NEXT SYSTEM STARTUP, then Select your OS drive, click ENABLE Select you FSX drive, click ENABLE Click APPLY and OK to close the box and reboot the computer The Offline defrag will run on reboot, once complete it will return to Windows Once back in Windows Open O&O defrag, select your OS drive, right click and select COMPLETE\NAME DO NOT TOUCH THE COMPUTER FOR ANY REASON WHILE ANY O&O DEFRAG IS RUNNING.. NO EMAIL, NO SURFING, NO FILE MOVES, NOTHING! IF YOU DO IT WILL NOT OPTIMIZE CORRECTLY Once complete, reboot and Start O&O defrag, select the OS DRIVE AGAIN drive, right click select COMPLETE\NAME, reboot when completeFSX DRIVE Start O&O defrag, select the FSX drive, right click select COMPLETE\NAMEOnce complete, reboot and Start O&O defrag, select the FSX DRIVE AGAIN drive, right click select COMPLETE\NAMEWhen all drives are done, go into the SETTINGS for O&O DEFRAG and ENABLE THE OFFLINE DEFRAG ON ALL DRIVES FOR ONE TIME, REBOOT AND RUN THEM This operation may take several hours to finish and please DO remember this, with any defrag solution a system is NOT DEFRAGMENTED completely in ONE PASS REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE GUI SHOWS, it REQUIRES 3 passes to do it right ON A NEW INSTALL!Good luck, you´ll need it...

[Benjamin J 751]

Thralni wrote:"At the moment I'm running a defrag of my harddisk. I stupidly thought that Windows 7 can handle it on its own, with the schedule and such. It appears, however, that the fragmentation was 31% (!), which might also be a hint as to why there are long load times. I'll report back when its finished. In my experience, it can take a while. It's now at phase 5 of god knows how many."Oh no, oh my God, this can´t be real? Herr van Soldt, you are an "Avsim Staff Reviewer" - thousands of people around the SimWorld read your reviews, and have the belief you are a pro, one of the real experienced FSX guys, and now this? Go back to basics, read this: http://www.simforums...187.html#198187

I can't believe I'm reading this. Has it ever crossed your mind that to be an Avsim Staff Reviewer you don't have to be a computer whizz? Being a reviewer is all about an eye for detail and knowing how to translate your observations into a story that everybody can understand. What, you gonna accuse me next of being a crappy zoologist because I can't readily determine what the species of a specific flower is?!There are lots of reasons to not like a review, but I never heard the one "he made an error of judgement concerning Windows' defrag utility". Critical audience, eh?Ian: Thanks for the helpful reply, that's what I thought. No SSD for me then...

[trisager 2]

... I can't readily determine what the species of a specific flower is ...

Shocking level of incompetence :PMy FSX installation takes about 1 minute 20 seconds to become responsive the way you describe it. This is on a new computer - i5 2500 @ 4.5GHz, OS on an SDD, FSX on its own 7,200 RPM drive - with a total of 336 areas in the scenery.cfg file. On my old system it took considerably longer, although I never timed it (I've gotten used to getting up and fetching coffee after clicking on the FSX icon in the start menu. FSX is usually ready when I come back to my desk).I'm not sure how much defragmentation "done the proper way" really improves things. It makes sense when you look at the analysis behind, but I've seen very little real comparative testing done (probably because it would be very time consuming to do well).