Since I started installing AI Traffic in 2004 (mostly with WOAI), several airlines have folded, Delta and NW became one, American has a new livery etc.

 

My *.bgl files were adapted accordingly, but I never deleted obsolete texture folders. So over time, the number of texture folders has grown considerably.

 

I am considering a cleanup. The number of aircraft will remain the same, only the number of texture folders will be a bit lower.

 

Is it worth it?

 

Does

 

- (1) the number of aircraft models (first subfolder in the aircraft folder, containing the *air file)

 

and/or

 

- (2) the number of texture folders

 

have an impact on

 

- (a) FS startup time

 

- (b) frame rates?

 

If not, I might just leave everything the way it is and save myself the work.

 

Best,

Holger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Holger.

 

In my experience the more aircraft and liveries you add the longer the load time.

 

Frankly I can't comment as to effect on frame rate.

You are better off spending the time flying.

 

regards,

Joe

 The overall number of entries in your aircraft.cfg's will greatly affect your FS startup time. Just keep in mind that to have any effect you would have to reduce the number of aircraft by a fairly large amount. IMO it's still a good thing to do, having a tidy file system is important to me.

Yes as mentioned: A large aircraft compliment slows initial loading, and also slows the aircraft selection menu once started.

There's no effect on frame rates.

However, do make sure that aircraft you delete are not called by a flightplan; the computer may stutter while it searches for a non-existent entry.   

You can check this with ACA2005 which is a great utility for aircraft analysis.

Having texture folders that are not called for in the aircraft.cfg will have no effect on loading time.

 

FS doesn't index files that are not used.

 

regards,

Joe

Thanks for the valuable input. I see I did something right by making manual additions (as opposed to WOAI) to the WOAI folder rather than a seperate folder for the same aircraft model.

 

If I clean up, the number of aircraft.cfg files will not be reduced, only the number of texture folders.

 

I have already hidden the AI aircraft from the selection menue with bbqhideai.zip . But my guess is that this only facilitates the visual aspect of the selection (less choice), loading time is still an issue (but one I can live with).

 

ACA2005 is a great tool for analysis, but I wish one could directly edit files from within the program, i.e. delete texture folders, edit aicraft.cfg files or even traffic bgls.

 

I would be willing to pay for such a program to manage my AI traffic, and I am surprised that with the high number of sophisticated add ons around, none of the big companies has yet released a comprehensive AI traffic managing tool.

 

Thanks again for the input, I will leave my old texture files,

Holger

Take a look at AI Aircraft Editor- http://www.interkultur.de/gossmann/fsx/phpatm/index.php?PHPSESSID=3b325c9badb3b1c3aeae1786a5bc5a82&direction=0&order=nom&directory=Tools

ACA2005 is a great tool for analysis, but I wish one could directly edit files...surprised that none of the big companies has yet released a comprehensive AI traffic managing tool.

I tend to get a blank look whenever I mention ACA2005, perhaps for the very reason that it is a pretty comprehensive tool (not only for AI), and it's not always apparent what it can do.

It can do a lot

So here I want to look at my airline fleet, I choose BA and decide to add "Gate" to my SMS A380 because it doesn't have a parking code. 

Realising A380's should have "Gate" codes, I sort on Aircraft Type, and fix all of them.

Then, to see if the A380 is perfect, I scan for Missing Texture" errors; double-clicking the offending aircraft brings up the aircraft.cfg file, and I can do whatever I want to it, and save.

 

There are many functions in this utility, one just needs to learn it a little.

 

Take a look at AI Aircraft Editor

Yes, Martin's Editor is brilliant, focussed on AI development.

If you are setting up AI it is very good indeed.

i.e. delete texture folders,

 

but you can - option is right there in the picture above

 

edit - oh, just realized you already removed the texture calls in the aircraft.cfgs. Had you not done that ACA2005 could have both deleted the cfg entry and texture same time.

Hi.

 

As I understand, having lots of AI aircraft won't affect FS's launch time; as long as an aircraft is type 2 then the launch effectively ignores it.

 

Texture load-times may be affected by FS having to trawl through lots of folders to get the correct textures, but from a practical perspective there shouldn't be any difference between deleting the unused textures and running a good defragger. Any defragger worth using will put frequently accessed files on an easily accessible part of your HD and shunt rarely used stuff out of the way.

 

On the other hand, I wash my car and vacuum the interior every weekend. That doesn't make it go any faster but I still do it. It's simply good practice to delete unused files. If you think you may need them sometime in the future, move them to an external archive.

 

Incidentally, take care with ACA2005. It doesn't do a full character set with 'unusual' characters like Ö, é and ç. That may mess up some aircraft.cfg entries. If you perform some operations from within ACA2005 (those which rewrite individual entries like renumbering or arranging individual lines in a standard order) it can leave your AI flightplans looking for non-existent aircraft.

 

Best regards,

D

 

 

As I understand, having lots of AI aircraft won't affect FS's launch time; as long as an aircraft is type 2 then the launch effectively ignores it.

 

 Oh but it does.. It play's a huge role in FS start time. An FSX install with minimal AI can be at the Create Flight UI in under 30 seconds. The more AI you add, the longer FS takes to load. Referring to initial launch, not once you press Fly Now.

ACA is a great tool, but sometimes it crashes on me. And correct me, if I am wrong - I see no option to batch edit issue. For example to delete all folders of aircraft that are not referenced to in flight plans. I will probably leave it as it is. Enough work with missing textures ...

 

Best,

Holger

 Oh but it does.. It play's a huge role in FS start time. An FSX install with minimal AI can be at the Create Flight UI in under 30 seconds. The more AI you add, the longer FS takes to load. Referring to initial launch, not once you press Fly Now.

 

Initial lauch I was referring to... I've seen no real change since I first installed FS9 and have an awful lot of AI, just not many type 1 user aircraft.

 

D

Dave there comes a point when you would start noticing.. depends on how much pain it causes, whether you start cleaning out.

 

You see this if you run something like procmon while starting the sim: every aircraft loads, and every bit of scenery, and then sometimes goes back and looks for something it missed! 

Having closed down a session and then restarted, you see the sim loading faster because it presumably has cached some of the information.

But selecting an aircraft causes it to read all those aircraft again...