Improving Performance with Scenery.cfg

[Reader 2,037]

Does anyone know if it's possible to launch FSX via a shortcut with a switch pointing to a different scenery.cfg file? I'm sure this was possible in older versions.

 

I really don't want to go through all the hassle of editing my scenery.cfg every time I fly in a different continent. So, for example, if my flying was in Europe I could launch FSX pointing to Euroscenery.cfg which would have only Europe scenery enabled.

 

 

No, it isn't.

 

What you can do, as I outlined above, is to spend a little time with SCE creating scenery.cfg files for each of the areas you like to fly in.

It allows you to save multiple scenery.cfg files, one of which you could easily save as Euroscenery.cfg.

 

Once you have done this and you decide for example to fly in Europe, you open SCE and then your Euroscenery.cfg file and using the "Save as" command, save it as scenery.cfg and off you go.

[Ted Striker 338]

Does Scenery Config Editor work with ORBX regions and third party complex airports? In other words does, can it disable all ORBX regional scenery and complex airports except those that you plan on flying into?

 

Ted

[Ray Proudfoot 9,070]

ncooper, Thanks. That was my alternative strategy. Still messy but probably the only option.

[Reader 2,037]

Does Scenery Config Editor work with ORBX regions and third party complex airports? In other words does, can it disable all ORBX regional scenery and complex airports except those that you plan on flying into?

 

Ted

 

Care is needed with OrbX products because FTX Central makes other changes and does the same thing to the scenery.cfg file as SCE does.

 

I have a custom files saved which I load before I activate FTX Central.

For example, I have one with all the FSX default areas and all of Ant's Airports included for use if flying in Australia.

It has nothing else until I load it and then run FTX Central which adds all the necessary OrbX and OzX entries.

 

When I wish to fly elsewhere, I run FTX Central again to remove the added entries but mainly to reset the other changes, such as autogen, terrain.cfg and active .bgl files.

 

Once this is done, the scenery.cfg file is returned to the original but I can discard it, as I already have that version saved.

 

SCE can only enable and disable whole scenery folders, just like the FSX library editor and for that matter FTX Central, so if the OrbX airports are all in one folder, as they tend to be for the regions, you can disable them all but it is not possible to disable individual ones.

However, addon airports tend to have their own folders and where this is the case, yes, they can be individually disabled or enabled.

[mosteen 111]

ncooper, Thanks. That was my alternative strategy. Still messy but probably the only option.

Ray, take a look at this, I've been meaning to check it out myself but not got around to it yet:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/index.php?/topic/425204-Managing-different-FSX-Configurations-with-new-Tool-%22FSXstarter%22

[Ted Striker 338]

 

 

Care is needed with OrbX products because FTX Central makes other changes and does the same thing to the scenery.cfg file as SCE does.

 

I don't have any ORBX regions installed and forgot about the FTX central. So it sounds like I can use FTX Central to disable selective ORBX regions and airports and use SCE to disable the other airports. Thankss for the reponse NCooper

 

Ted

[Capt Speirs 52]

 

 

Not here!  And I don't even have an anti-virus program!  Never have had any problems.  Millions of others have not either.  But a search on the Internet and there are plenty of people scared.  For those afraid of Java they can use the Scenery Library.

 

I hear what you are saying, but I am a bit skeptical and don't want to lose years of installs, not worth it. I will take your advice on using Scenery Library though. thanks. 

[Ray Proudfoot 9,070]

 

 

Ray, take a look at this, I've been meaning to check it out myself but not got around to it yet:

Thanks Morten. That looks to be exactly what I want. He has a new version coming out next month but I'll try the current one.

 

I'm hoping it will help with available VAS. It's only when I fly FSLabs' ConcordeX I'm running low. Hopefully this will help.

[MarkW 1,502]

The magic bullet is called the sceneryconfig editor and you can find it here

http://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/

 

With it, you can arrange all of your scenery into groups, meaning you can activate or deactivate

any areas you wish with a couple of mouse clicks.

 

The best way to use it is to create multiple scenery.cfg files which can then be saved and loaded as required.

Thus, for example, one can choose to fly in the UK and load only the scenery for the UK.

 

What I have done is to arrange my scenery file folders into area directories.

The editor can generate scenery config groups from a directory.

My UK scenery folder, for example, has 66 areas and they can all be added with 6 mouse clicks.

Once added in a group, they can all be deactivated or reactivated with one mouse click.

 

It is one of the most under rated pieces of software for Fs9 and FSX and used properly is probably the most powerful tool for reducing loading times, increasing performance and even minimising OOMs.

 

Regards,

Nick

 

I use this as well but in a much less sophisticated way.  I keep the base scenery all the time and just load up the two airports I am flying into.  Just be careful that in some cases you need to load multiple airports to get the one you want to load.  FSDT Hawaii is an example.

[duckbilled 311]

I like SCE and I have my world split into about 7 regions: NA East, NA West, Caribbean/MX/Central America, Europe, Asia, Middle East/Africa and Pacific. I have a lot of add on scenery from all of the usual suspects and I have not noticed any issues.

 

There are some things to keep in mind when using it.

 

Before I do a flight, I fire up AFX to find an appropriate gate at my origin airport. If you need SCE to make changes to the activated scenery, you have to make the change in SCE, start up FSX so it installs the new scenery library first and quit FSX before the ADE will show in AFX. Also, if you use AES, you need to run AES help after the scenery library is installed. Of course, you have the issues mentioned above with ORBX stuff.

 

SCE adds an extra line to each .cfg entry to log the region assignments. I only installed ORBX one time and when I did, it wiped out all of the SCE entries. I'm sure there is a way around this but I don't use ORBX stuff that often so I have not researched it further.

[aentwis 61]

As Jeff, I am creating various region-based groups. I have FTX Global and run in hybrid mode, so I don't go into FTX Central any more to activate a region, they are already active in hybrid mode...

 

Now, I created FTX regions in SCE, NA, EU, AU_NZ... I may even sub-divide them as, for example, NA grows...

 

I have not seen any issue at all resulting from an incorrect layering or whatever following deactivation of an OrbX region through SCE. I have massively reduced loading times for the regions as well, as I now only load the OrbX region I am flying in. It is currently unlikely that I will fly from one of my OrbX regions to another, as I have grouped all the NA scenery together, so when FSX loads, it is not also loading FTX AU, FTX EU and so on with it.

 

Great gain in load times. I feel the sim runs a little more smoothly as well only having the required scenery active and not every one of the 250 or so airports I have, though I do believe that is a placebo effect mostly...

 

There is a lot of scaremongering about Java. You can have the latest version installed to run local software, but still have it deactivated in your browser if you so wish...

 

A

[GaryGB 10]

Hello:

 

FS Area / Layer entries must be physically removed from the "ACTIVE" scenery.Cfg file in order for the scenery file content within- and mapped to- files in that folder chain to be removed from processing by the indexing and content checking engine ...which is run every time FS starts (or re-loads a flight after clicking "OK" in the FS Scenery Library GUI). :wink:

 

Simply un-checking Area / Layer entries to make them "in-active" does not remove their burden on the FS indexing and content checking engine; they are still detected and processed by FS during start-up / re-loads .

 

 

A 3rd party utility which removes Area / Layer entries from Scenery.Cfg (and which hopefully also allows saving Area entries and their re-insertion to thereby re-activate such layers) ...will work to remove the burden of temporarily un-needed scenery on the FS indexing and content checking engine, usually allowing faster starts / re-loads of FS.

 

CAVEAT: Caution would be advisable when "testing" the above procedures if one is using more complex add-on scenery (ex: Orbx FTX airports / region packs), which makes changes to Terrain.Cfg and files in the Autogen sub-folder and/or which uses content / files / file-names in other FS "system" sub-folders (ex: Orbx FTX Global); these scenery add-ons may not behave as intended if users disable / remove any of FS' own default folders which may be mapped via files located in default and/or 3rd party Area / Layer entries in one's "ACTIVE" Scenery.Cfg. :excl:

 

Hope this helps! :smile:

 

GaryGB

[Jim Young 2,356]

The AVSIM CTD Guide recommends deleting the Facilities and SceneryIndexes folders every so often especially if you are having freezes/crashes.  These are located in the same directory where your scenery.cfg is located (C:/Program Data/Microsoft/FSX/Facilities and SceneryIndexes).  Delete these folders and they will be rebuilt the next time you load FSX.  I would recommend doing this occasionally and especially if you are seeing freezes/crashes.  When you disable a scenery via the Scenery Config Editor, you do this before you even start up FSX so, when you startup FSX, the scenery will be disabled as FSX does it's indexing functions.  I have run Process Monitor and only enabled FSX and FSX addons to be monitored during a flight.  I can assure you that there is absolutely no disabled sceneries loaded during the flight.  So I do not see how these sceneries would be loaded or indexed during a flight.  The indexing that is done when you first start up FSX is fast as you disabled the scenery before you even started up FSX.  It's a lot slower when you enable/disable via the Scenery Library. 

 

Orbx throws in files into the FSX Scenery/World/Scenery folder that contain some Autogen and objects for their scenery.  These are always loaded no matter if you disabled Orbx through FTX Central or not as everything in this folder is loaded whether you want it loaded or not.  As I have stated here and in several other threads about the scenery.cfg, do NOT disable Orbx sceneries through the Scenery Library, the Scenery.cfg, or the Scenery Config Editor.  It will cause all kinds of problems.  Do it only via FTX Central or you will see all kinds of problems and none of it is going to be pretty (I knows from personal experience!).

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,070]

 

 

Simply un-checking Area / Layer entries to make them "in-active" does not remove their burden on the FS indexing and content checking engine; they are still detected and processed by FS during start-up / re-loads .

 

Gary.  It's the first time I've heard this. It doesn't sound logical. What's the point of the active option if it makes no difference to what is loaded? Do you have a source that confirms this? If so, please quote it.

[Reader 2,037]

I don't believe he said that the scenery was loaded, he said that it was indexed.

 

If we can go back to layman's terms, I think he means that the black line will cross the white box in less time if there are no scenery.cfg entries for a given piece of scenery than if there is an entry but it is marked as inactive.

That makes sense to me and my saved scenery.cfg files do not contain any references to scenery not active in them.

As I have already said, it is best to use FTX Central to enable and disable their scenery areas, not just because the .bgl files need to be switched on or off but also because the autogen and terrain settings are altered and then reset to default.

 

 

Regards,

Nick