Hi all,

 

I recently added a few nice freeware airports to FSX.........Plus a few payware ones that tempted me too, ie FlyTampa Hong Kong and St Marten, I thought it might be nice to have a few detailed destinations to fly too. I should perhaps point out that normally I fly in and around Europe.

 

So my question is this. Looking at my FSX scenery library, I know that any add on scenery must be listed, basically above the default and above "Propeller Objects" but does it matter which order any add on scenery is lasted in above that. Will FSX always load the scenery from the top of the list, in which case European sceneries should to at the top as I fly there most, then say Hong Kong and St Marten. Or does it not matter the order the scenery is listed, as FSX loads the scenery it needs for the area your flying in?

 

I also use UTX, GEX Europe, but can't remember if any of their textures get applied to FSX as a generic addon , so maybe it should be UK addon scenery, then UTX, GEX, then FlyTampa scenery and Australia add on's

 

Just thought I'd ask out of curiosity.

 

Happy flying.

Simply repeating what I have read elsewhere, no, it dosn't matter. Some developers state that their scenery must be in a certain order, but unless you have any such instructions you shouldn't have any problems.

Hi Dave,

 

That is a good question, I have added quite a few addon airport sceneries all around the globe in the last few months and I haven't noticed any major decrease in loading times nor have I noticed any performance issues.

 

I recall seeing a post by Paul J where he noted that he disables (unchecks) any scenery area in which he does not plan to fly during his session as he does not need all the scenery around the FSX globe to load. I cannot recall if he stated that he saw any improvement however.

Indeed, I've read this same question here several times and everybody says it doesnt matter what order any of it is in...

I however, do uncheck all the other scenery that I dont and wont use, as I just dont see the point in telling FSX to load up USA and Africa when I'm flying around the UK..

As long as the scenery installed doesn't cover the exact same geographic area, order doesn't matter.

 

However, some scenery comes with several layers, like UTX. Then order does matter withing the same scenery. Usually there is one exclude layer that needs to be above the default scenery to cancel it out. Above that you should have mesh (elevation data), next landclass and on the very top detailed scenery like roads, airports and any kind of objects (houses, static objetcs etc.).

Each scenery area section of scenery.cfg has an entry

Layer=

starting with 1 and increasing from there. That layer entry determines the order in which scenery is loaded, and how exclusions are treated. Now, it is typical that the scenery.cfg file is written so that layer 1 is at the "top" of the file and there is correspondence between the layer number and scenery area number, but for example, if you use the scenery library UI it is possible to move scenery area priorities up or down, and all that does is change the Layer= numbers, doesn't reorder the entries in the scenery.cfg file at all. There is a theory that it is better to have the scenery areas (and order in the file) consistent with the layer numbers, and there are various 3rd party tools out there that will renumber the scenery areas and move them around in the file to achieve that.

 

Note that the ordering of scenery areas as shown in the scenery library UI is opposite as how they are found in the actual file -- in the UI highest priority (and therefore highest layer number) is shown at the "top" of the list, but in the actual file it's found at the bottom.

 

scott s.

.

Indeed, I've read this same question here several times and everybody says it doesnt matter what order any of it is in...

I however, do uncheck all the other scenery that I dont and wont use, as I just dont see the point in telling FSX to load up USA and Africa when I'm flying around the UK..

 

I have multiple Scenery.cfg files with addon and default areas enabled only for

the area(s) I intend to fly in. I started doing this just after FSX came out when I

noticed some addon scenery beeing loaded that was on the other side of

the world from where I was flying. I used FileMon.exe at that time to see

what FSX was doing with all the thrashing about that I noticed. That was

on Xp. Unfortunately M$ no longer provides FileMon amongst the tools

available for Win7. The tool they do provide is vityually worthless, IMO.

 

In any case, my cfg files range in size from 12KB to over 30KB, I have

files for USA only, Europe only, Oz, Hawaii, US + Europe and All.

 

Paul

All those numbered entries in the scenery selector, what the heck are they? Would be nice to be able to untick all the ones I dont need or intend to use..

All those numbered entries in the scenery selector, what the heck are they? Would be nice to be able to untick all the ones I dont need or intend to use..

 

See the Terrain section of the SDK. There is a map there with the grid on it

and the X,Y values for any given area in the FSX world. I think I posted a jpg

of it somewhere...either in the AVSIM, SOH or A2A forums.

 

Paul

Oh crumbs... Does that mean I now need to go install the SDK for FSX?

Oh crumbs... Does that mean I now need to go install the SDK for FSX?

 

No, here is a link to the ESP version, which is the same as the FSX version- http://msdn.microsof...ile_Information

 

regards,

Joe

All those numbered entries in the scenery selector, what the heck are they? Would be nice to be able to untick all the ones I dont need or intend to use..

 

Wondering what would be "nice" about deactivating scenery? I "kinda" know the response, but am curious if it's what I think it is.

I thought my question kind of explained why?

 

Why load the entire world into memory when that could be used for the scenery I'm actually flying in and the aircraft I'm actually using..

If FSX is limited to 4GB, then I'd rather have that 4GB doing what I want rather than being stuffed with things I dont want...

I think there is some confusion here. All of the scenery located in the scenery library, including the default, is not loaded for every fsx session. Just the scenery where you will be flying. This is why, when you select a new location while running fsx, it will then go through the process of loading all the appropriate scenery. When you select your starting point, get weather, date and time and aircraft, those scenery areas are loaded at first. Sometimes that takes a long time depending on the scenery. Plus, if you have a program like UTX, it has to load all of its info first so that fsx can load the proper landclass and textures. You might have an addon airport too so it first loads the scenery for the area then the addon airport. What is loaded around the world and a killer on fps is AI traffic. Every flight plan, every AI aircraft is put into action all around the world and not just in your location. As you move from one location to another, new scenery loads during the flight until you land but certainly not around the world during each session. Regarding AI, this is why it is highly recommended you keep the slider down to around 40% so only 40% of the AI aircraft and flight plans will be loaded. I think preference is given to your location as far as AI is concerned but a lot of people wind AI up to the max and wonder why they have a slow loading and issues with fps.

 

GEX replaces the default scenery textures for FSX. They are better quality and better optimized to run within FSX. FSX didn't do a good job with roads, bridges, traffic lights, city lights, and some other things so UTX does this for FSX and usually does a better job. You just have to make sure UTX isn't up in the scenery library where it can override any addon scenery or you might have a road running across your addon runway or a lake. GEX isn't loaded of course if you have an addon program like FTX/Orbx scenery or photoscenery. Only when you go on the outer limits of those sceneries does GEX (if installed) kick in.

 

You should keep your addon scenery enabled for each session. If you disable it, it won't affect your load times, and if you want to move to this new location while sitting at an airport, you need to have it activated to get there faster. While flying, you can go into the scenery library and disable or enable scenery but it takes longer.

 

Most of the textures in fsx are loaded during your flight session and placed in memory so that they can be rendered immediately when you change views. If you want to see what exactly is being loaded during each FSX session, download Process Monitor - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals and run it before starting up fsx. The list will be massive but it will show everything that's loading including programs that run your computer and including accesses to your system registry. You can then take a look at this list and see exactly what might be causing slow load times but again, its your AI program. It would be nice if someone could figure out how to stop loading every flightplan in the world and putting the aircraft in the air on course to their respective destination.

 

Regarding scenery library loading - FSX begins loading at the bottom of the scenery library and goes to the top. If you open a scenery.cfg, this is opposite. The scenery is loading from the top of the config to the bottom. Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Jim

I thought my question kind of explained why?

 

Why load the entire world into memory when that could be used for the scenery I'm actually flying in and the aircraft I'm actually using..

If FSX is limited to 4GB, then I'd rather have that 4GB doing what I want rather than being stuffed with things I dont want...

 

So kinda like if I set up a database and then make a SQL SELECT query, I have to wait until the whole database is loaded into memory before the query would work? What if the query exceeds RAM capacity and the whole database can't be loaded into RAM?

 

I've no doubt that a lot of gamers think Microsoft hires people straight out some trade school and puts them to work of Flight Simulators, but in reality the people who worked on the FS franchise were/are pretty smart.

 

I can compile a 2gb mesh or photo scenery file, as anything larger won't be recognized by the game. Do you really believe that all 2gb worth of data is loaded into the sim at one time? Or could MS just load what is required from the file(s) for the area surrounding the airplane and even utilize lower levels of detail further away from the airplane, just so that they do not overload the game with too much data?

 

The top down, zoomed out "plus sign" surrounding the airplane gives a good indication of what's being called into the rendering system for further processing. You can sleep at night knowing that while you fly over the UK FSX is not trying to implement car traffic down in Chile, South America and eating up your CPU cycles. Just like I know that if I want to do a SELECT query in SQL I don't need to load all 22,000.000 rows from a database into memory to find Mr. R. Smith who lives in Seattle, Washington, U.S. of A.