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stretch1365

Is There A Program To Manage Scenery In Fsx?

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Hi all,

 

I have been using fsx for ages and ages all without any problems, I have numerous addon aircraft and scenery as we all do.

 

Recently I bought New York Airports, Flytampa Montreal and FSDT Houston and Vancouver to try and fill a few gaps in my scenery coverage and enable round the world flights landing at addon airports each time as these were the last few I needed to make up some decent routes.

 

New York Airports slows my sim quite a bit but I am still tweaking this product to get the best, however it set me thinking. 

 

My sim is loading when first fired up quite slowly and as I understand it has to load up a some details about all my addon aircraft and sceneries during loading, this takes time the more there are. As I understand it, if all sceneries are active in the sim, this doesn't affect a flight unless you actually fly over the said airport when the computer will load up the airports on route as well as the destination too, this causes the dreaded OOM's  if there are too many. If your not overflying other airports than this isn't an issue.

 

I have also read on the forum's that some folks turn off any airports or scenery not on their proposed route, however doesn't this require restarting the sim each time you have selected the airports you want included and then doing the flight which seems very time consuming and messy to me?

 

So I was wondering if out there in FSX land somebody wiser and cleverer than me had developed a "Scenery Manager" where you can select the sceneries you want to have in your flight before FSX is even started up. This hopefully would speed up the starting of the sim and stop the sim loading any airports you fly over enroute.

 

I would be interested in any advice anyone can shed on this and also if my thinking regarding loading of sceneries is correct or not.

 

Thanks and Happy Flying.


Happy Flying,

 

Dave Phillips.

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I use Scenery Config Editor: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/ to enable/disable the payware airports I'll be using before a flight. Note that this saves the updated scenery.cfg into a separate file called newscenery.cfg. FSX seems to automatically check this file and loads it when it starts. I suppose one benefit of this scheme is that if newscenery.cfg has a problem you can delete it and you still have the working scenery.cfg.

 

Many addon sceneries include photo textures which I've read will be loaded by FSX even if you are not flying anywhere near it.

 

I don't use Scenery Config Editor for UTX or Orbx sceneries but instead use the apps provided with those sceneries to enable/disable because they also need to mess around with your terrain.cfg or other files, so just enabling/disabling in the scenery library is not sufficient.


Barry Friedman

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There are some in the Avsim file library. I've used some but admit that for me it's just as easy and quick to just start FSX and go into the scenery settings and just click on the sceneries that I am going to use for that session then hit save and set my flight up from there. Then assuming you've already unchecked all your other sceneries and just had a few active, the next time you start the sim you'll just have to uncheck the last ones used and check the ones you'll use for the new session.

 

Either way you do it, whether inside FSX or using a scenery manager, your going to have to open something and select the sceneries your going to use. For me it's just easier to do it inside FSX than having another program to open before hand.

 

The one thing that a scenery manager should be used for thought is moving sceneries up and down the layers. Doing it in FSX messes up the scenery layer numbers. For that reason a scenery manager should be used.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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Hi guys,

 

Thanks for the quick replies.

 

I have UTX installed and GEX and always leave them alone. I was thinking more along the lines of addon sceneries of airports more than anything. If I select sceneries inside FSX do I need to restart the sim for the changes to take affect?

 

I notice you mention using a scenery manager to move sceneries up and down the library, I have been doing this recently from within fsx and wonder if this may have caused some of my slow running? 

 

Is Scenery Config Editor the most used scenery manager available or are there others to choose from?


Happy Flying,

 

Dave Phillips.

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I have UTX installed and GEX and always leave them alone. I was thinking more along the lines of addon sceneries of airports more than anything. If I select sceneries inside FSX do I need to restart the sim for the changes to take affect?

 

When you enable/disable a scenery inside FSX it will immediately take effect, but what is in doubt is whether FSX will free up all the memory used for a scenery you just disabled. That's why I like to make the changes before starting FSX.

 

 

 


Is Scenery Config Editor the most used scenery manager available or are there others to choose from?

 

I can't say for sure but I've seen it recommended many times here. It has a number of good features such as checking your scenery.cfg for errors and creating groups.

 

I don't know if this will speed up your sim. Most people are using it to reduce the chance of OOM's.


Barry Friedman

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Hi Barry,

 

I think disabling scenery outside fsx is going to be better for me, not much point disabling the scenery in fsx if I had to wait for it all to load up in the first place, kind of defeats the idea really.

 

I haven't really suffered much with OOM's I got a few when the PMDG 777 first came out but switched to DX10 and they went away, so I am quite happy in that respect.

 

I will look at the scenery config editor and give it a go, thanks for your comments.


Happy Flying,

 

Dave Phillips.

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not much point disabling the scenery in fsx if I had to wait for it all to load up in the first place, kind of defeats the idea really.

 

They won't all load when you restart FSX if you only had two or three selected when you finished your last session. Or when you're done flying, before you close FSX just go into the library and unchecked all the addons you just used. When you open FSX the next time nothing will load and you can just select the ones you need for that session.

 

Either way you do it externally or internally, it's the same result and the same amount of work. Btw, the main reason for this isn't so much for airport sceneries as it is for photo scenery. Photo scenery will load for the whole world no matter where you are, airports typically don't load until your about 10 or so miles from them. I've gone years keeping all my airports loaded and never had an issue, but keeping all your photo scenery loaded all the time can cause VAS issues.

 

Also, when starting FSX the main thing that causes slow loading is aircraft and AI aircraft, not so much scenery.

 

You can speed up loading times by putting disablepreload=1 in the FSX.cfg.

http://fsxtimes.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/fsx-cfg-disablepreload/


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

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