Hi All: I have not flown my p3d in about 2 months. I just installed a new SSD drive and moved all p3d files to it, then changed my drive letters. p3d runs well, but It takes a long time to load the initial start up screen, where you can create and load saved flights. I see the cpu at around 12%. it takes around 75 seconds to finally start, when in the past it was around 30 seconds.

 I do not think it has anything to do with the SSD but something that may have changed on my system in the past 2 months ( I cant imagine what, but I did install the latest AMD video drivers), or heaven forbid something is corrupted in p3d.

 Maybe the video drivers are causing some weird issue? I have amd 14.12 drivers now installed. I deleted the shaders cache also. Oddly I did not see any message that it was rebuilding the cache before the start menu.

 Any advice would be appreciated.

-Stampee

 

-UPDATE  I rolled back to 13.12 video drivers and still it takes 75-90 seconds for the menu to load. I cannot imagine now what has changed in the past 2 months causing this.

If you have any photo scenery, it will have to load. This is detailed in the AVSIM FSX/P3D Configuration Guide. This is why I suggest using the SceneryConfigEditor utility to disable any scenery you will not be using during a flight.  Photoscenery is the main issue as it will load no matter whether you will be using it during a flight or not. It loads before getting to the P3D setup screen and then loads again when you Go Fly.   If you have just commercial airports, or regular scenery (non-photo), no problem.  They will not load at startup (but will load after you have setup your flight).  If you want a more detailed analysis of your startup, suggest going to page 4 of the AVSIM CTD Guide where we provide instructions on how to set up Process Monitor so that the monitor will only show P3D and P3D addons.  Once set up, you can start up P3D, then shutdown P3D and Process Monitor and look at what loaded during the startup. 

 

Best regards,

Jim: Thank you very much. I ran process monitor, but could not get it to show the process from the very start. I will disable some scenery areas and look for the scenery config editor you mentioned. I see that I did add a lot of photo scenery the last few times i flew but did not recall the long load times then. it is so hard to keep track of everything that changes.

Thank you for your response.

-Stampee

Jim: Is there a version of scenery config editor for prepar3d? I guess I am dense, I cannot find the fsx/p3d guide. I never knew there was one.

Thanks

-Stampee

Download this one. It works also for P34D v2.x

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

Spirit

spirit: Thanks, it wont install for me. it says it has installed. I go to the install directory and nothing is there. I then do a 2nd install and it says I already have a copy installed and do I want to delete it first.

I tried changing directories, installing as administrator and made sure I have hidden files turned on.

I also do not see it in the control panels program list.

very very odd.

-Stampee

well, I have scenery editor installed finally. I ran process monitor and this time it installed properly. HeckIfIKnowWhy?  

anyhow, I see no scenery errors, and I have now disabled most of the photo scenery I have, yet still have the horrible load times.

I always keep a log of what I have installed, and I sure dont see any notes saying load times changed after the installs.

from 30-75 second start menu time,  certainly something has changed.

 

-stampee

 

 

from 30-75 second start menu time, certainly something has changed.

 

Well, certainly something has changed. But it's only you who can find and solve it because you did the change. Are you shure, that the new SSD is NOT the reason for the longer startup? Did you use the same brand/type of SSD? Newest drivers for the SSD installed?

 

The GPU and it's driver is for sure not the reason, because the load on the GPU in this stage is very low.

Spirit

I personally think 75 seconds is normal. When you first installed P3DV2, it had a fast loading time. Then you added scenery and other addons. It's got to load all of those things in your dll.xml too. If you run the Process Monitor at startup, you will see too that P3D is also load a lot of files in your System32 and SystemWoW64 folders too. But, the biggest killer at startup is photo scenery. I found this out after buying every MSE V2 State and had them all enabled. It took at least 20 minutes just for FSX (P3D would do this too) to load to the startup screen. Then, my startup aircraft view screen was black until I waited another few minutes. Then I would load the PMDG777 and it would take forever for it to show up in the startup window. In the background I could hear my HDD's thrashing as that was where I had placed all of my photo scenery (I have an SSD for FSX/P3D). After I set up my flight and hit Fly Now, it took another 20 minutes for FSX to load. I got the SceneryConfigEditor and disabled every photoscenery except the States I would be using for my flight plan (about 4 States), and FSX started up immediately. If you have the PMDG products, look in the 777 Intro Guide, around page 21 where they talk about OOM's and then suggestions for improving loading times and reducing the chances for OOM's. They have a blurb on photo scenery.

 

The AVSIM Guides can be found under Hot Spots to the right of this forum. The FSX/P3D Configuration guide does not have a P3D Configuration setup as P3D was still undergoing updates and changes. The best configuration of course would be from Rob and that's in the Tips and Tricks Forum here (forgive me for not remember exactly the names of the forums). Other members here have great suggestions too. Our best guide right now for P3D is the AVSIM CTD Guide which provides all kinds of suggestions for improving your changes of not having CTD's or issues with FSX/P3D.

 

Best regards,

 

Best regards,

Thank you both, for so much kind assistance. I finally found the problem. Mytraffic 2013 was causing all the long load time. if I remove the entry from the prepar3d.cfg file my load times are now 13 seconds.

Disabling the package in the library did not make any difference.

I guess when I installed mytraffic last November I did not initially notice the longer load time.

I have now lost all my hair, but at least now I know what is happening.

-Stampee

I finally found the problem. Mytraffic 2013 was causing all the long load time.

 

 

These comments are for My Traffic Pro 5.4, but they may also apply to My Traffic 2013 which is a "user friendly" version of Pro sold by Aerosoft..

 

Since MyT adds a large number of AI aircraft, each entry needs to read its specific folder under:

 

C:\Users\Ray\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2\SimObjects

 

What P3d does with these folders is beyond me, since they are always empty any time that I've looked at them. For flyable aircraft, P3d maintains a file (state.cfg) in each folder, which contains some information about the aircraft which can be used by gauge code (Hobbs meter time, etc.). Maybe somebody else can chime in as to what the sim does with these folders for AI aircraft.

 

I'm sure that adding both 1000s of MyTraffic airports and the AI traffic route BGL files doesn't help load times either. Keep in mind also, that the ATC sound file for MyT Pro is substantially larger than the default P3d version. It has to be to accommodate the additional airlines.

 

Unfortunately, as long as SimConnect is limited to 1000 simultaneous SimConnect requests, a free standing AI traffic app is probably out of the question.