I'm finding that when flying into larger centers, whenever I increase the range on my MFD, my screen becomes nothing but a blue shade of airports and I get an "excess data" message.  Is there a way to set the aircraft to only show certain airports ie. by runway length, etc.  If not, how do they do they resolve this in real world?  Do they just turn off the ARPT view or keep range low?  Just wondering.  Thanks.

,.  Is there a way to set the aircraft to only show certain airports ie. by runway length,

Not on a 737. http://forum.avsim.net/topic/400115-filtering-airport-displays-on-nd/

The only solution (for pilots) in the real aircraft is to reduce the range or turn off the APRT (or any other) layer.

 

If you are getting the "EXCESS DATA" warning, you probably don't need to display that much information anyway I would suggest putting key airports that you want to have reference into the FMC FIX page.

yeah, I figured I was looking too far into the RW thing with that one.  These little things seem to just be pilot preference.

The airline sets the database for the airports that come up in the display. You can still get the "EXCESSIVE DATA" on the large scale.