How do y'all manage Megascenery V2 and loading time

[Manny 1,293]

I Installed Megascnery Texas V2..but then I had to unselect it from my scenery list and now I don't use it anymore ...the issue is loading time of FSX. It takes way too long.

 

Instead of having FSAltitude I would like to have Megascenery V2. I can even get a 3TB  HD and place as many states I want in that HD. No issue there...but the thought of infinite time to load FSX is give me second thought.

 

How do you guys manage having an entire state or more of Megascenery V2 files?

[klamal 282]

Unfortunately I think you just have to get used to the load times.  It's just the way it is.  Maybe an SSD for your photo real stuff would help that load up time but it's still not going to be as fast as if you weren't using any.

 

I enable/disable the various states as I need them based on the route I'm flying.  If you have GSX, you have the additional time of waiting for it to re-index everything too.  It's a pain and adds a good 5 minutes at least to every flight but at the same time, I can't fly without photo real any more.  Default/GEX/Orbx is just not real(And, please, I'm not trying to start a debate again on photo real vs not - you either like it or you don't and all the reasons have been hashed out here many times over)

[Jim Young 2,356]

It's simple and it has been discussed recently here in this forum.  I have every US MSE V2 state installed (okay, maybe I missed Vermont and Maine and Conn) and I was seeing massive loading times too.  Sometimes up to 20 minutes and longer.  I decided to just load the scenery I planned on using during a session.  So, if I had a flight from KORD to KSTL, I would disable all scenery except Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kanas, Indiana, and Missouri.  That brought the loading time down to about 2 minutes at the most.  I don't use the Scenery Library but use the freeware addon SceneryConfigEditor.  That I can open up before a flight (same as if I was opening a weather program), disable/enable as appropriate, then save it.  You can also save the Scenery.cfg based on the flight plan.  Then when you are ready to go, you would open up the Kord to Kstl SceneryConfig then save it as the current working Scenery.cfg.  When you start up FSX, the changes in the Scenery.cfg will be found and changes made at startup.  With photoscenery and FTX/Orbx stuff, I think this is the only way to go.  There is a major problem with AES though as it does not like you disabling one of the airports it monitors, like KSFO even though you won't be flying near there.  But it won't get upset unless you open up the AES config (which also gets upset if AES is not sitting on top of the scenery.cfg library).

 

It works for me.  Hope it works for you too.  Oh, it also comes with a manual in the install directory but it does not discuss my naming of scenery.cfg's based on flight plans.  It discusses putting areas into groups.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[Manny 1,293]

Then I should remain with FSAltitude... FSAltitude files are named with the Long/Lat index...so I can delete the files where I have good scenery like the PNW (Orbx) or CA State (Megascenery with autogen). The only thing, is the pain of finding out the Long/Lat idex to remove FSAltitude files.

 

fSAltitude Eupre is nice to use with Aersoft Greek Islands... When I fly I see all those Islands and I can't make out which one is the one I need to land until I get real close. 

[klamal 282]

Very true and what I should have said there is that we all have our own ideas of what's real.  Neither option is 100% real.  We can only dream for that as of right now at least. 

Edited June 21, 2013 by firehawk44
Removed imflammatory comments.

[Manny 1,293]

n.  So, if I had a flight from KORD to KSTL, I would disable all scenery except Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kanas, Indiana, and Missouri.  That brought the loading time down to about 2 minutes at the most.  I don't use the Scenery Library but use the freeware addon SceneryConfigEditor.  

 

Best regards,

Jim

 

Hmm...that is an option I could consider. Thank You Jim.

[klamal 282]

Then I should remain with FSAltitude... FSAltitude files are named with the Long/Lat index...so I can delete the files where I have good scenery like the PNW (Orbx) or CA State (Megascenery with autogen). The only thing, is the pain of finding out the Long/Lat idex to remove FSAltitude files.

 

fSAltitude Eupre is nice to use with Aersoft Greek Islands... When I fly I see all those Islands and I can't make out which one is the one I need to land until I get real close. 

You could delete or remove the files in MSE too if you didn't want them.  You can use TmfViewer to load up the bgls and then find the area you don't want to use.  It would be somewhat of a pain but it's doable.

[Manny 1,293]

You could delete or remove the files in MSE too if you didn't want them.  You can use TmfViewer to load up the bgls and then find the area you don't want to use.  It would be somewhat of a pain but it's doable.

 

 

Some times I just need a corridor.. but when you start flying really high, the corridor needs to be real wide...which then becomes the entire state.. Ha Ha! We want it all.

[Guest]

Hmmm...interesting, I haven't noticed an longer loads times and I have most of MSE 1 and 2 states (not all, they keep releasing them so quickly and I haven't had time to get them and install).

 

Load times for me are around 1-2 min.

 

The tile/texture flash (blue FSX tiles) frequency definitely has increased as I keep adding more scenery. 

 

But I've always wondered if there is a "real" limit to how much scenery can be enabled and still have a reasonable flying experience.  It does seem my OOM frequency has increased as I keep adding more scenery.  The OOM problem has made me want to use FSX less ... it just takes a lot of time to figure out "causes" for FSX problems and lately I just don't seem to have much free time.

 

Jim's advice is probably the route I'll go and enable only the scenery I'm going to need for the area/flight plan.  But the list of things I have to do prior to running FSX is starting to get very long ... not sure how much longer I can keep the interest in FSX.  I just have to keep hoping P3D realize 64bit is far more important than DX11 support and graphical updates ... for the most part FSX DX10 (especially with Steve's fixes) looks great, the problem are load times and OOMs.

 

And another interesting factoid I discovered is that processor affinity setting seems to impact memory usage and load times considerably.  Sadly the CPU affinity I want to use increases my fps up from 30-40 to 40-60 over the same area ... BUT (and this is a big one) if I use that affinity I will OOM more frequently.  Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't.

 

Rob

[Manny 1,293]

My OOMs are managable with DX10. I simply cannot use DX9 anymore

[signmanbob 592]

Something that has been sooo handy for me is using the Scenery Configuration Editor for FSX.

You don't have to start FSX to add or make changes, enabling or disableing your scenery.

Simply open the Scenery ConfigEditor, turn on the scenery for your flight and turn everything else off, then save.  You can turn off or on, large groups of scenery at the same time by holding down the Shift or Ctrl key and clicking on the scenery.  You can also install a scenery and name it whatever you like, which helps when the ICAO letters are not in the airport name.  Also you can keep your airports grouped together however you want.

It is a free download and works wonderfully and so very easy.

 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/?source=dlp

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

MSE could use some more tools.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Load times for me are around 1-2 min.

 

If that were the case, I would be very happy but I have over 30 States installed and I can guarantee that it affects loading times dramatically.  Now, to get to the Startup Screen in FSX, that might take a couple of minutes but selecting an aircraft, then a place of departure and your FSX will be locked up until all scenery is loaded.  It's ugly!

 

Best regards,

Jim

[tttocs 301]

There was a concern expressed in another thread about using Scenery Configuration Editor in conjunction with FTX Central (Orbx).  As I'm both a happy Orbx user with all their NA regions, and an ever more heavily invested MSE user (7 v2 states, and counting, plus several MSX products, my original v1 tiles have been retired) plus some Blue Sky photo, I need to be able to manage all of these.  Right now I'm doing that with FTX Central for turning Orbx regions on and off, and FSX for managing my other scenery libraries directly (but only after having turned Orbx regions off with "Central").

 

Can anyone comment?

 

Rob, I don't know how you can leave all of your photo areas enabled and have short load times.  Short of having big multiple SSD's, I just don't see how that's possible.  My photo scenery all lives on a dedicated (traditional) HD, and if I leave all of it enabled, my load times are beyond ugly.

 

Scott

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

If flying big state like Arizona just leave the whole state enabled only. If the route goes thru couple leave those states enabled like Indiana always have Kentucky and Ohio enabled. If Wyoming use Colorado and Utah only. I do not enabled all states at once just use states I will likely land on.