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centenaryman

Some help for Autogen

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See if this helps anyone.First backup AutogenDescriptions.spb located in your FSXAutogen folder. Then unzip the file attached to this post in it's place.What this does is dumb down your autogen trees so there are a lot fewer types of trees displayed. This is an extreme version meant as a proof of concept that basically sets one tree for each different tree category, whereas FSX default may have 10 or 20 different trees for each category. If it helps, I'm sure someone with more free time than me could come up with several different customized versions, each with a different level of complexity. It's pretty easy to adjust with the SDK.I don't think this affects the total number of trees displayed. Just the number of different types and variations.If it doesn't help anyone, then oh well, I guess I just wasted an hour of my life :)Matt FoxEDIT....sorry, I just realized I accidentally uploaded the original file. Modified version is here now. Modified is 301k, original is 333k.

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ThanksI believe that there could be a lot of work in autogen adaptation, like the one that you did. In fact even drastic measures like moving the default.xml could solve a lot of FPS problems.Edit:since there is a tool in the SDK that allows to costumize the autogen, it's expected that there will be some Autogen variations to help in FPS not the radical move of the default.xml.Jos

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Just for kicks I tried same thing with autogen roofs. Replacing Materials.spb and RoofDescription.sbp with the ones in attached zip will decrease the variety of roofs that show on autogen buildings....I think. Make sure to backup first as I haven't done a lot of testing with these and I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing :).But I'm getting ready to go to bed so thought I'd post to see if anyone else notices any improvements.matt

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Thanks for the files. Definitly helped out my system.Matt KrochmalnyAMD Athlon 64X2 4200, 2 gig ram, nvidia 7800 GT

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Got an increase in fps of 20% but will it last throughout the game flight ??Seems to help but lessens tree population variety, of course.

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Guest bigun

Very nice Matt! Although I guess I'm in the minority opinion of the release version of FSX (I'm actually very happy with the performance of FSX on my machine), your mods on the autogen parameters points out a big plus to me. The POTENTIAL of FSX modifications. I tried your mods and I was able to bump up autogen to "high" and have most all other sliders far to the right at very high or above. With these settings I am getting around 25fps on the ground at KATL and 30 40 in the air and it looks great. The single biggest impact on my performance seems to be AI aircraft but I'm sure that will be much improved in the coming weeks. Thanks again.

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I don't have my copy of FSX (retail)yet, but THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE POST IN THIS FORUM!I'm reading it, and for the first time since FSX has debuted, I'm feeling something "positive" about the future of this sim.I am especially proud to be associated with such TALENTED people on this forum. It just goes to show you that when a problem comes up, the genius of special people comes out rather quickly.Thanks again....Matt...and others for showing such creativity.

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Guest bigun

Hey Stan,Don't let all the negative posts about FSX get you down. You've been around awhile so you remember the same sort of posts from the nay sayers when other versions of FS were released. I always do the same thing with every release.1. Run out and buy the newest version as soon as I can get my hands on it.2. Leave the older version on my hard drive until some of my favorite add-on aircraft are available for the new version.3. Pay absolutely no attention to the "doom and gloom" posters.4. Read everything I can posted by talented folks like Matt.5. Enjoy myself while I'm tweaking everything possible in the sim (after all, this is my HOBBY. I'm supposed to ENJOY it);) 6. When my favorite adds are available for the new version, off comes the old version.7. Enjoy and be amazed by what add-on developers such as PMDG, LDS, Dreamfleet/Flight1 etc. are able to do over the next few years.

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George,Thanks for the positive "rally". You're right! On the 17th, I'll make up my own mind, and I'll do what I have to do. One thing for sure....FSX WILL be a successful sim. There are too many good people on the AVSIM team that will see to it.

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>Can you explain how one could get rid of all buildings>autogen wise-leaving the trees and obstacles?>Thanks,>Geof>http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpgI think the only way to do that would be to manually edit the AGN files int the World/Scenery folder with Annotator. Since there are over 800 of them, that might be a big job. But, there are probably only 10% of those that really would need to be modified since it's probably only really an issue in the urban areas.But I think ultimately that is what we need to do in order to get autogen working acceptably for some of us.Matt

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>Both these files made my FPS fly up from 11 (Very Dense AG)>to 20-25 with same settings! :)>>Nice catch!Glad to see this is helping out. Probably the tree fix makes much more of a difference than the roof fix.The version just has one single tree and one single height for each setting. I think the files could be modified a less extreme way and still increase performance significantly. For example, I took out all the different tree varieties that vary in height only. Those could have probably been left in since they use the same model and same texture.Anyway, if anyone else wants to try to work on this, simply run the AutogenConfigEditor.exe file included with the SDK then open the AutogenDescriptions.sbp file in your Scenery/Autogen folder, making sure to backup the original first. Then click on the Groupings sub folder and edit each of the different tree definitions to remove the extras. The ones to edit are all at the top of the list before the "Terrain Autogen Class" folders (Don't edit these). Also, I think you have to leave it at least type of tree for each definition or you'll get an error. You can probably modify them all in about 30 minutes.What would be nice is to put together 3 or 4 different versions of this file and upload it to AVSIM.Matt

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Hey George:Your post was a breath of fresh air in this all too often chaotic forum; some very practical points there we all would do well to keep in mind! :-) I guess it takes a sense of perspective to ride out the turbulence during this time of change, overall not that different from what we experienced when FS9 came out.I do still worry though, when I don't see any indication that Aces has any interest much less commitment to fully get ready for the future by recoding FS (possibly graphically and computationally more demandng than any other game or sim because of all the calculations and complexities it must do to simulate aviation environments as well as aircraft and airport functions all at the same time) into an optimally multi-threaded application capable of utilizing multi-core processors. Not only are multi-core processors rapidly becoming the statistical norm, but the hardware industry apparently will have very little to offer to boost performance in single core programmed applications (like FSX's main rendering engine) in the near future.Now granted, out of the box, ACES did a lot of vitally important and revolutionary things with this release by geo-correcting the existing FS world, and further extending the FS world beyond the poles and into microgravity space (get ready for an extension to the Moons orbit with FS11 or perhaps a separately branded 're-release' of MS Space Simulator in the future?) They also included scalable terrain mesh (to the extent they could get reasonably detailed data for less well-mapped parts of the world), scalable resolution and nicely improved quality in terrain textures, added astonishing water effects, and probably laid the ground work for street address specific custom autogen objects or extensions capable of being linked to custom static scenery objects of buildings in the future based on the demographic data sets they now have access to. All really nice improvements which deserve credit just on their own merits; yet I fear that these accomplishments may be overlooked in the shadow cast by another looming developmental problem affecting buyers.Its unfortunate that the current systems in use today are having such a difficult time doing justice to the sim (rather than FSX doing justice to today's hardware by being dumbed down out of the box). At best, I think a few more sliders might have been helpful to individually adjust autogen tree quantity, tree diveristy, building quantity, building diversity, living water wave quantity, living water wave undulation/pulsation rate, etc. to eliminate the need for direct cfg and xml file tweaking which will no doubt become more prevalent in coming weeks as we learn more of how to dumb it down while we wait for hardware technology to catch up. Maybe it will be just as well that technology is going to take a while to be able to render FSX properly on only one of a multi-core chip's cores so we can save up enough money to buy that new computer to run FSX they way we'd really like to!But I think we will all have to keep up the pressure on Microsoft to "get real... as real as it gets" and recode this FS application for multi-core processors and show us that that not only can they write and sell operating systems and programming kits, they can also write the quintessential application which runs like a dream on their own operating system using their own code to inspire others to make more use of their products too. I'd really like FS to be the poster child for that promotion so we can all reap the incidental benefits!So, no disrespect intended to the gang at ACES, but I direct this to the people in the bugdet department at the Microsoft head quarters: if you are really going to make Microsoft Flight Simulator the state of the art demonstration of what can be done with your products in the future, its time to further fund ACES adequate to the impending very challenging task of recoding the FS rendering engine for multi-core, so that Microsoft can truly be able to both "talk the Talk, and walk the Walk!So, I think your perspective is a valid one, that we will have to make the best of what we've got and that there will be tweaks and substitute or reduced complexity components that will come available soon which will help us to get a better user experience from FSX, and that we will ultimately come to cherish it as much as we did FS9 when we were challenged to leave FS2002.GaryGB

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