Load time testing

[cianpars 1,165]

My startup time for MSFS was up to about four and a half minutes and flights were taking ages to load.  This morning, I emptied my community folder which contained100 addons and my load times were 2 and a half minutes to load MSFS and a little over a minute to load a flight from my local airport.  I suspected my addons were the cause of the problem.

The delay occurs in the 'checking for updates' process.  It seems that this process is 5 or 6 seconds with an empty community folder but went on for several minutes with all my addons.  Does this have anything to do with the fact that all addons are shown as uninstalled in the content manager?

I thought that MSFS indexed the community folder making loading times quicker in the future, but it seems I may have ben wrong.

I don't use the addon linker and usually keep my addons in separate folders outside of the community folder and only put them in when I am likely to be using them (most are sorted into different countries). I prefer to keep control of my own directories in this respect, though understand why some prefer to use them.

Now to see what flying is going to feel like in the vanilla sim as it's ages since I did this. EDIT: Silky smooth which a virtually constant 50 FPS.  Just goes to show how many of our problems are down to our addons

Edited May 18, 2021 by cianpars

[styckx 1,871]

47 minutes ago, cianpars said:

My startup time for MSFS was up to about four and a half minutes and flights were taking ages to load.  This morning, I emptied my community folder which contained100 addons and my load times were 2 and a half minutes to load MSFS and a little over a minute to load a flight from my local airport.  I suspected my addons were the cause of the problem.

The delay occurs in the 'checking for updates' process.  It seems that this process is 5 or 6 seconds with an empty community folder but went on for several minutes with all my addons.  Does this have anything to do with the fact that all addons are shown as uninstalled in the content manager?

I thought that MSFS indexed the community folder making loading times quicker in the future, but it seems I may have ben wrong.

I don't use the addon linker and usually keep my addons in separate folders outside of the community folder and only put them in when I am likely to be using them (most are sorted into different countries). I prefer to keep control of my own directories in this respect, though understand why some prefer to use them.

Now to see what flying is going to feel like in the vanilla sim as it's ages since I did this. EDIT: Silky smooth which a virtually constant 50 FPS.  Just goes to show how many of our problems are down to our addons

 

The biggest single factor in suddenly extended load times is improperly optimized scenery imported from Google. This is becoming less and less an issue as there are now known tools and steps to take to optimize Google imported scenery. 

There is a Center City Philadelphia addon on Flightsim.to that is nearly 1GB in size.. It alone will double my load times. Needless to say I don't use it anymore.

[Adamski_NZ 952]

59 minutes ago, cianpars said:

I don't use the addon linker and usually keep my addons in separate folders outside of the community folder and only put them in when I am likely to be using them (most are sorted into different countries). I prefer to keep control of my own directories in this respect, though understand why some prefer to use them.

Sounds like you're more than half way there - and may want to look at my "procedure" for using the linker:
https://flightsim.to/file/14298/msfs-addons-linker-general-procedure

The hard work is separating out all the countries/aircraft (which you've already done) - the Linker will just make the process of physically moving the files redundant. Give it a try - it's a superb piece of work - and makes addons management just so easy. I have a number of presets set up, and only enable the areas (and related aircraft) I want to see in that session.

I haven't run without the Linker for a fair while now, so I'm in no position to actually compare loading times, but they're not too bad (on a fairly average system too).

I'd say "give it a whirl" - you won't regret it. The Linker doesn't alter your system or addons in any way. All it does is create (or delete) symlinks to your addons. Totally safe.

Adam.

[JSmith2112 317]

I'm curious if deleting world regions like the recent France update affects load times?

Would there by any adverse effects to the sim if one did this?

[cianpars 1,165]

Yeah, I have a lit of photo scenery Stycks and that is what increases my load times more than anything.  I tend to have a lot of UK scenery as that is where I do the most of my flying but have a folder for each country, so swap the contents over as needed.  I'm sure addon linker makes life easier Adamski, just haven't got around to using it yet.  I don't think you will find deleting the update areas has much effect JSmith. Nothing to stop you trying it though if you can be bothered to to reinstall them afterwards.

Something I have noticed is that most of the addon creators these days don't seem to include a readme file anymore.  I tend to copy their description on the website into a text file when I download it (along with some notes if I find but some add-ons don't play together too well).

[bobcat999 8,482]

So by this logic, does this mean every time MS / Asobo bring out a massive world update, the loading time and in sim performance will get worse?

I see the loading time issue with addons in the community folder without a doubt, but whether it is full or empty, it does not affect in sim performance unless it is something that is expected to slightly, such as a third party addon airport.  If the addons are out of my current area of flying in the sim, then they do not affect performance at all, and I don't see why they should really.

[PlumCrazy 228]

Why would you not use the AddOnLinker program to help you enable/disable scenery, instead of moving folders in and out of your community folder?  It seems the linker is perfectly suited for the way you run the sim.  I have all of am my add-on scenery divided by region/state and do exactly what you do - enable only the scenery in which I am likely to be flying.  It certainly cuts down on sim and flight loading times!

[PlumCrazy 228]

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

So by this logic, does this mean every time MS / Asobo bring out a massive world update, the loading time and in sim performance will get worse?

I see the loading time issue with addons in the community folder without a doubt, but whether it is full or empty, it does not affect in sim performance unless it is something that is expected to slightly, such as a third party addon airport.  If the addons are out of my current area of flying in the sim, then they do not affect performance at all, and I don't see why they should really.

When MS/Asobo releases world updates, those updates are not put into the community folder and I would not expect them to increase sim loading times.  It does seem the sim scans the entire community folder every time it loads, so that would explain why sim and flight loading times increase as the number of folders/files increases in your community folder.  I agree overall flight performance (FPS, stutters, etc) is not effected by add-ons that are not in-play (distant scenery, etc).  But even aircraft you are not flying that exist in the community folder can effect sim performance, as those aircraft can be used by AI.  I use the excellent Add-ons Linker program to keep only scenery and other add-ons that I am using "enabled".

What makes no sense to me is the fact that files in your community folder seem to directly effect the time it takes to "check for updates" when loading the sim.  Sim updates should not be directly touching anything in the community folder, so I have no idea why it would be checking files in that folder when checking to see if your MSFS installation is current...

Edited May 18, 2021 by PlumCrazy

[Noel 4,501]

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

So by this logic, does this mean every time MS / Asobo bring out a massive world update, the loading time and in sim performance will get worse?

Load time here is if anything less than in Aug 2020.  No need for addon linker as I have virtually no addons save four purchased airports, two of which I've already deleted as they are worse than their default counterparts, and am a very happy flyer.  Rather than spend hours adding on and managing addons I simply fly the sim and it's nothing short of fabulous.  When I was a kid we played 'army' by creating forts and setting up our green plastic soldiers.  Once it was all set up, there really wasn't much to do and that was the end of the game.  With this flight sim, it's the exact opposite--it's simply fabulous right out of the box and so I spend all my time flying now and none tinkering, very thankfully.

[RaptyrOne 1,411]

It is wrong to blame add-on’s for poor load times and poor sim performance. It is simple really, don’t indiscriminately install junk into the community folder just because you can or because it is free. As mentioned, Google imports and the like. Read reviews and check the ratings and comments. I have 50GB+ of high quality freeware (flightsim.to) and pay-ware and right now, the sim is as fast, smooth and stable as it ever was.
 

Want faster loading times and a smoother sim experience, upgrade your hardware but don’t blame it on add-on’s. Unless they are poorly developed ones… but then that’s the fault of the user for not being selective.

 

[The Moose 1,177]

There's clearly an issue now with the "checking for updates" part of the loading process that wasn't there a couple of patches ago.  Even with 200GB of addons in the community folder it used to pass the checking for updates part very quickly (10-20 secs at most)  Now it just sits there for a couple of mins for me.. and it's clearly not doing anything for most of that time as Afterburner shows no activity at all, everything is just frozen for most of that time.

If that part of the loading process was back to how it was i would have no issue with loading times considering all the extra content i have installed.

[Noooch 1,084]

I keep my addons on the same SSD than MSFS and use Addonlinker.

But it is getting full, so does anyone know if I move my Addon folder on another HDD, will this impact performance ?

[Noooch 1,084]

Deleted

Edited May 18, 2021 by Noooch

[himmelhorse 1,276]

10 hours ago, JSmith2112 said:

I'm curious if deleting world regions like the recent France update affects load times?

Would there by any adverse effects to the sim if one did this?

How would you go about this?

I do not fly in Japan, England, France or the USA and my load times are about 12-15 minutes. The only sceneries I have are Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia which is about 90, 65 and 20  3PD sceneries respectively.

I figure that if I could uninstall the World updates until about 2075 (I think that is the year OZ will get some love LOL) it may make my loading times a little less onerous.

Advice on procedure to do this (if it is possible) would be appreciated.

Tony

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

From what I recall each World Update shows up in content manager and you can just uninstall the entire update.