P4AO Question

[BrettT 63]

I have a couple quick questions with regards to the add-on manager for P3DV4. 

1) It looks like from the manual that you can create groups that you either activate or deactivate as needed prior to staring P3DV4.  Does this mean I could have a group for ORBX Global products, One for ORBX NA products ....etc and only activate the areas in which I am presently flying?

2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, does that if I deactivate lets say the NA group then reactivate it before another session I will get bombarded with a bunch of query windows upon starting P3D asking me if I want to enable the addon for each of the products in the NA group?

Thanks,

 

Brett

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

30 minutes ago, BrettT said:

I have a couple quick questions with regards to the add-on manager for P3DV4. 

1) It looks like from the manual that you can create groups that you either activate or deactivate as needed prior to staring P3DV4.  Does this mean I could have a group for ORBX Global products, One for ORBX NA products ....etc and only activate the areas in which I am presently flying?

2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, does that if I deactivate lets say the NA group then reactivate it before another session I will get bombarded with a bunch of query windows upon starting P3D asking me if I want to enable the addon for each of the products in the NA group?

Thanks,

 

Brett

Hello Brett,

1. Yes. But make sure to read the manual, especially the part about enabling/disabling scenery and "strict package law" at the beginning! 

2. No. The addon packages in the group aren't removed from the sim, like other scenery tools do, they just get the "active=false" flag. So they are never really gone from the sim, just inactive.

But this depends - if you are using the new ORBX Central, then you can disable the regions without P4AO too - on the Options->Add-ons dialog in P3D. And you should definitely use the "Strict Package Law" in P4AO.

Best regards

Edited August 16, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[BrettT 63]

Thanks Oliver,

I was aware I could disable them via P3D but this tends to take a bit of time to get the dialog box to open up then again to close it out (I have the majority of the ORBX catalog for P3D).  I am hoping to organize these into groups that I can activate/deactivate with a few quick clicks prior to starting P3D with the utlimate goal of decreasing the time it takes to get from clicking the P3D icon to starting the flight.  Is this the function of groups within P4AO?

 

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

31 minutes ago, BrettT said:

Is this the function of groups within P4AO?

That was the plan, yes.

With the new ORBX, make sure to activate the "Strict package law" in P4AO. This disables the whole add-on package when you disable a single scenery within it (single or in a group).

What I acutally don't know is, if disabling scenery really speeds up the simulator start. For me, a surpus of simobjects (= AI plane packages etc.) is far worse for startup times than scenery.

Best regards

Edited August 16, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[BrettT 63]

I am not entirely sure either.  I do know that in the process of going from FTX Central to ORBX Central I have gone from taking about 1 minute to bring up the scenario selection screen to closer to 6 minutes.  Time to go from scenario to simulation start is about the same (under 1 minute)

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

8 hours ago, BrettT said:

I am not entirely sure either.  I do know that in the process of going from FTX Central to ORBX Central I have gone from taking about 1 minute to bring up the scenario selection screen to closer to 6 minutes.  Time to go from scenario to simulation start is about the same (under 1 minute)

So the reason for this still hasn't been found? IMHO it can't be a systematic error within the addon package logic, otherwise many users would have had this problem before. But there is no way of knowing, P3D doesn't have a "developer log" where one could observe what is happening inside the sim, when it happens and how long it takes.

Best regards

Edited August 17, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[paj 21]

9 hours ago, BrettT said:

I do know that in the process of going from FTX Central to ORBX Central I have gone from taking about 1 minute to bring up the scenario selection screen to closer to 6 minutes.  Time to go from scenario to simulation start is about the same (under 1 minute)

This is precisely my experience too

Edited August 17, 2019 by paj

[niksan29 10]

Мой вопрос заключается в том, что в моём аддонном сценарии есть папка с текстурами, которую нужно поместить в корень сима (Prepar3D v4 \ Texture).
Я хочу подключить его через P4AO, насколько я понимаю, все даю правильно, но эффекта нет.
Если я помещаю эти текстуры вручную в корень папки sim (Prepar3D v4 \ Texture), то все в порядке.
Есть идеи?

Спойлер

 

Edited September 4, 2019 by niksan29

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Hello,

the package looks OK to me. Make sure that the "Path" is correct, that must be the folder where the texture files really are (=there cannot be any subfolders in it).

The same setup works for me with other texture replacement products, for example Rex World Airports. The only thing that I do different is, that I don't set a "Type" (but AFAIK the default is GLOBAL anyway).

Best regards

[niksan29 10]

am I a little confused, the priority is higher for the file that is higher in the list(the layer has a larger number), or vice versa for what is in the list below?

Edited February 28, 2020 by niksan29

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

2 hours ago, niksan29 said:

am I a little confused, the priority is higher for the file that is higher in the list(the layer has a larger number), or vice versa for what is in the list below?

Higher up in the list => higher "priority". Whatever is located on top of something else is taking precedence.

Be mindful that Layers only exist for scenery addon components. They are invalid for everything else (like the textures in your example). The scenery "priority" number that you see in the scenery library dialog in the simulator doesn't exist in the configuration files.

Best regards

Edited February 28, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[niksan29 10]

48 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Higher up in the list => higher "priority". Whatever is located on top of something else is taking precedence.

I understood, but this does not apply to some folders?

 for example: disk:\Prepar3D v4\ Scenery\World\ scenery, this folder is at the very bottom, however it has priority over...

Edited February 28, 2020 by niksan29

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

2 hours ago, niksan29 said:

for example: disk:\Prepar3D v4\ Scenery\World\ scenery, this folder is at the very bottom, however it has priority over.

No, it doesn't have priority over anything. Layer 3 means that practically everything can overrule it. IMHO this is a remnant of the FS9 days (or even earlier), some kind of "trick" if you will - what exactly it is used for, you would have to ask a scenery developer.

Best regards

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Lorby_SI

[niksan29 10]

1 hour ago, Lorby_SI said:

you would have to ask a scenery developer.

yes, I know what it is used for, basically they put the elevation adjustment file for third-party scenary there or traffic files and some others😉

if these files are placed at or above the scenary , they will lose priority and will not work...

1 hour ago, Lorby_SI said:

IMHO this is a remnant of the FS9 days (or even earlier)

but nonetheless these files are loaded first, probably this is really a relic of the past,but this folder has priority above🧐

Edited February 28, 2020 by niksan29

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

2 hours ago, niksan29 said:

but this folder has priority above

Sorry, but I don't think so. This folder is nothing special, it doesn't have higher priority. Only the BGL files that are saved into it are special, that is not the same.

The specialty is, that this kind of BGL file must be at the lowest possible layer, before the default scenery is loaded. You can have multiple base layer scenery folders, at layer 3,4,5,6 etc. (and you will, when you use modern scenery that comes with an add-on.xml). I have maybe 20 folders down there, before the default scenery. They will all work when you put that kind of BGL into them. And if you add an exclusion at a higher level, it will overwrite the base layer too. 

AFAIK, as far as altitude corrections go, the developers hope that their higher resolution mesh overrides the lower resolution stuff in the default scenery. But I know from experience that when you have mesh with even higher resolution at a higher layer, the file in the base layer is useless/ignored. AI traffic files can be anywhere btw.

Best regards

 

Edited February 28, 2020 by Lorby_SI