Megascenery Earth and Scenery.cfg in P3D

[pgde 571]

Hi All:

 

For Christmas I took advantage of the Megascenery Earth (ME) sales and completed almost all of the lower 48. I now have over 44 ME entries in my scenery.cfg file. In the past, P3D would load in about a minute or two with only the Western US ME states active. With all the states active, load times have increased exponentially to about 7 or 8 minutes. So as a test, I turned off all the ME entries (using the outstanding Scenery Config Editor -- highly recommended) and P3D loaded almost immediately. I also bought a new 3Tb hard drive where my airports and scenery data is stored. P3D runs off a different SSD.

 

Other than deciding where I want to fly before starting P3d and activating/deactivating the applicable ME states, are there any suggestions as to how to get around this issue. I am surprised that P3D is trying to load all the states since my default flight is in California.

 

One other question -- is there anyway to watch what files are being loaded when P3D starts up and the little progress box (i.e. Terrain Data Loading, 6%) is displayed?

 

Many thanks,

 

P.

[hesynergy 67]

Hi All:

...

One other question -- is there anyway to watch what files are being loaded when P3D starts up and the little progress box (i.e. Terrain Data Loading, 6%) is displayed?

 

Many thanks,

 

P.

You could use Procmon. if you have a GTN750, you will need to rename the two F1gtn.dll and F1gtnsvc.dll or The Themida Protection will halt P3d.

 

Chas

[pgde 571]

Hi Chas:

 

Thanks so much for the tip. Works like a charm.

 

Stay warm

 

P.

[hesynergy 67]

Someone here, who shall remain nameless, didn't believe me when I told them that I had collected 750 THOUSAND lines of code from the launch of P3D, to flying around enough to show that P 3-D was indeed working, to shut down.

 

I'm sure by now that you've noticed that you can save the files, as native, or CSV that you create as you monitor a particular process.

 

The output of the latter can be read and searched in notepad++.

 

It's an insightful fascinating and complete log, and a wonderful reference and can be zipped to probably less than 50MB.

 

Enjoy,

 

Chas

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

Hi All:

 

For Christmas I took advantage of the Megascenery Earth (ME) sales and completed almost all of the lower 48. I now have over 44 ME entries in my scenery.cfg file. In the past, P3D would load in about a minute or two with only the Western US ME states active. With all the states active, load times have increased exponentially to about 7 or 8 minutes. So as a test, I turned off all the ME entries (using the outstanding Scenery Config Editor -- highly recommended) and P3D loaded almost immediately. I also bought a new 3Tb hard drive where my airports and scenery data is stored. P3D runs off a different SSD.

 

Other than deciding where I want to fly before starting P3d and activating/deactivating the applicable ME states, are there any suggestions as to how to get around this issue. I am surprised that P3D is trying to load all the states since my default flight is in California.

 

One other question -- is there anyway to watch what files are being loaded when P3D starts up and the little progress box (i.e. Terrain Data Loading, 6%) is displayed?

 

Many thanks,

 

P.

 

This is just the way this simulator platform works. If you point it to a directory it scans all the BGL files in there to know what there is to load in which order when the simulation is running. This is done every time the simulator starts or when you change things in the scenery library GUI, because the simulator has to assume that anything could have changed.  If it did this at runtime, you would have hold-ups of several seconds while the sim tries to figure out which of the tens of thousands of scenery bgl's is relevant to be displayed. The same is true btw. for the aircraft and other models that you drop into the SimObjects folders.

 

There are a few tools out there to organize your scenery and aircraft libraries. Before the sim is started these tools activate only those sceneries and aircraft that pertain to your intended flight. This helps with loading times and avoiding DLL conflicts, plus it can reduce the risk of OOMing too.

[pgde 571]

 

 

There are a few tools out there to organize your scenery and aircraft libraries. Before the sim is started these tools activate only those sceneries and aircraft that pertain to your intended flight. This helps with loading times and avoiding DLL conflicts, plus it can reduce the risk of OOMing too.

 

Thanks for the insight! Any suggestions as to freeware tools?

 

P.

 

 

I'm sure by now that you've noticed that you can save the files, as native, or CSV that you create as you monitor a particular process.

The output of the latter can be read and searched in notepad++.

 

Yes, also used the "Filter" feature where I can watch Prepar3d.exe only. It is absolutely amazing what is going on behind the scenes!

 

P.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

Thanks for the insight! Any suggestions as to freeware tools?

 

 

 

P.

 

Hi,

 

I am using SimStarter mostly and a few small helper tools to clean up the config files. The SimStarter scenery sets are an easy way to keep track of and organize your scenery library. You basically group your sceneries by whatever system you find appropriate (I use geographic locations) and when you start a profile only those scenery sets will be active that you selected. These "profiles" are intended to represent different groups of settings and tweaks (which you can all manage via the SimStarter GUI btw) - I use them a bit differently, I am selecting groups of aircraft with them. I grouped my aircraft into different folders and symlinked the default ones, so I can switch between different SimObject folders as well (in P3D 3.1 this finally is a piece of cake, but I did this in FSX as well). Plus I have different DLL / EXE xml setups where only those external modules are active that belong to the addons that I intend to use. 

 

Over the years I learned that "less is more" when it comes to complex software platforms like this one. Only drop in there what you really need, so you minimize cross compatibility issues, while at the same time increasing stability and reliability.

[pgde 571]

Am downloading Simstarter now. Thanks so much for the tip, you all have been very helpful.

 

I did find Addit Pro! but I really don't want to spend 29.95 for it.

 

Anyway, have a great 2016!

 

P.