Loading times with extra scenery

[pmb 5,137]

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/203309-any-chance-for-regional-landmarks-packs/

[TacomaSailor 191]

34 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Do you have a lot converted GE —> MSFS photogrammetry scenery from Flightsim.to ?

 

Not that I know of - but I just download the stuff from .to or github or ?? and use it.  How do I tell?

I have Sedona, Bryce Canyon, Monument Valley, Yosemite from .to and four ORBX airports as well as San Diego and Los Angles downtown stuff. 

Edited January 18, 2021 by TacomaSailor

[pmb 5,137]

13 minutes ago, TacomaSailor said:

Not that I know of - but I just download the stuff from .to or github or ?? and use it.  How do I tell?

Usually, Google-converted sceneries have a lengthy statement on the description page. I suspect, this is even required by flightsim.to because of legal reasons.

For other sites I don't know. 

Kind regards, Michael

[fppilot 4,371]

5 hours ago, pmb said:

There is a MS Addon Linker at Flightsim.to. A lot of people, including me, use ist. It works via symbolic links and only activates the sceneries I need, and I activate them (basically) on a per-country level.

+1²  

Been using Addon Linker since it was first provided and it is a perfect solution.  So simple to use.

[MegaRiceBall 99]

It's not the size of the files but the number of files because what happened at loading time is MSFS trying to build a index of associate files to look up when the scenery needs to be loaded

You can have a 1MB scenery project that consists of 1million random files of 1 byte and it will take probably forever to load.

A lot of PG convert from Google Earth has thousands of fragmented files for some reason and that's basically what kills the performance.

You can validate this by doing a count of files of the 80GB Orbx scenario and 15GB of MSFS scenery files. I think you would find the latter has way more files.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

Addon linker and only enable the files in your proposed flightplan.

Alternatively - someone suggested in another thread sorting the scenery files into folders by regional and country and only enabling with addon linker the folders you will be needing in your current session.

[cobalt 798]

1 hour ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Addon linker and only enable the files in your proposed flightplan.

Alternatively - someone suggested in another thread sorting the scenery files into folders by regional and country and only enabling with addon linker the folders you will be needing in your current session.

This is the answer, for sure. I have hundreds of addons but use addon liker to load into Community only those I need for a particular MSFS session which keeps load times to a minimum (couple of minutes at most). Even better -- what is loaded into Community is not the actual files, but links to them, which take very little disk space. Spread the word!

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

1 minute ago, cobalt said:

This is the answer, for sure. I have hundreds of addons but use addon liker to load into Community only those I need for a particular MSFS session which keeps load times to a minimum (couple of minutes at most). Even better -- what is loaded into Community is not the actual files, but links to them, which take very little disk space. Spread the word!

 

The other question, once you have your community addons under control with addon linker, is whether you can gain anything additional by turning off unused default and marketplace scenery in the Content Manger.

[GSalden 4,657]

Now we know that, even though the GE converted objects look nice, they are causing long loading times (will test that today) and probably also an extra performance hit, anyone knows if other sites that have handmade freeware (Landmarks) ?

Thanks, Gerard

[omarsmak30 4,068]

32 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Now we know that, even though the GE converted objects look nice, they are causing long loading times (will test that today) and probably also an extra performance hit, anyone knows if other sites that have handmade freeware (Landmarks) ?

Thanks, Gerard

Actually some of these GE stuff from flightsim could a bit optomzed, so I guess it is try and error unfortunately.

I am using these handcrafted sceneries for dubai, Doha and Kuwait. They are very good and MSFS natively optimized:

https://flightsim.to/file/3279/okbk-kuwait-intl-airport-and-city

https://flightsim.to/file/1112/dubai-city-pack

https://flightsim.to/file/547/doha-city-and-lite-airport

 

[GSalden 4,657]

8 hours ago, MegaRiceBall said:

It's not the size of the files but the number of files because what happened at loading time is MSFS trying to build a index of associate files to look up when the scenery needs to be loaded

You can have a 1MB scenery project that consists of 1million random files of 1 byte and it will take probably forever to load.

A lot of PG convert from Google Earth has thousands of fragmented files for some reason and that's basically what kills the performance.

You can validate this by doing a count of files of the 80GB Orbx scenario and 15GB of MSFS scenery files. I think you would find the latter has way more files.

The maker of GE Decoder (tool for converting GE objects into MSFS objects), Elie Michel, warns that his tool is just for a few objects here and there, not larger area with lots of objects..

Don’t know if there are other tools which do a better job without creating tons of files..

[omarsmak30 4,068]

9 hours ago, MegaRiceBall said:

It's not the size of the files but the number of files because what happened at loading time is MSFS trying to build a index of associate files to look up when the scenery needs to be loaded

You can have a 1MB scenery project that consists of 1million random files of 1 byte and it will take probably forever to load.

A lot of PG convert from Google Earth has thousands of fragmented files for some reason and that's basically what kills the performance.

You can validate this by doing a count of files of the 80GB Orbx scenario and 15GB of MSFS scenery files. I think you would find the latter has way more files.

True. Actually all these methods all over Youtube meant for few landmarks, not a complete city. I think somehow we abused these methods though to create these mega cities from google earth.

 

[JacquesBrel 639]

1 hour ago, GSalden said:

Don’t know if there are other tools which do a better job without creating tons of files..

There are tools to combine all the small texture files into larger texture sheets. LilyTextureMerger or LilyTexturePacker as far as I'm able to Google (I haven't done any Google Earth rips myself, just read some guides a while ago). But apparently most people don't bother with those extra steps because "ugh, effort..." And the photogrammetry rips also rarely get colour-corrected properly for MFS, which is why I personally don't use any because the colours are nearly always a lot less saturated and have a very blue hue compared to the stock MFS scenery, and it just stands out too much for me.

[GSalden 4,657]

Hopefully there will be a Europe Update that adds POIs to the major cities.

[pmb 5,137]

12 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Hopefully there will be a Europe Update that adds POIs to the major cities.

Improbable. The best we can hope for is limited solutions. France VFR already made a global addon with some POIs and will provide a set of regional POI updates. The GB update by Asobo next week should hopefully add some POIs for GB and a photogrammetry London. ORBX might provide the NL (yes), Germany, and Norway, as they have the models available. 

Beyond that I don't know, but I agree we need them.

Kind regards, Michael