How do you buy your Orbx scenery?

[steve310002 1,198]

I buy most airport addons on Orbx Central as they are slightly cheaper and with more frequent updates. 

However, I buy Orbx city packs or other large addons on the MS marketplace as they are very big in size (Sydney is more than 5gb) and that would significantly increase the start up time of the sim (which seems dependent on the size of your community folder). Unless of course you use the addon linker.

[riverreveal 145]

1 hour ago, steve310002 said:

I buy most airport addons on Orbx Central as they are slightly cheaper and with more frequent updates. 

However, I buy Orbx city packs or other large addons on the MS marketplace as they are very big in size (Sydney is more than 5gb) and that would significantly increase the start up time of the sim (which seems dependent on the size of your community folder). Unless of course you use the addon linker.

That's interesting - I would buy them from central for the exact opposite reason. My thinking was if I buy something big from the MS marketplace then it's loading in every time I load the sim up and would potentially increase load times. If I buy from Orbx Central I can use the add on linker to make sure I am not loading up large files if I do not intend to be flying at that location and thus in control of load times. 

If a large file is purchased in the MS market place and therefore isn't in the community folder, it won't effect start up time?

[steve310002 1,198]

56 minutes ago, riverreveal said:

If a large file is purchased in the MS market place and therefore isn't in the community folder, it won't effect start up time?

That's my understanding though I might be wrong. However, (maybe someone else can chime in) I am pretty certain that anything bought on the MS marketplace is treated like the world update packs and does not add to the load time however it works, as opposed to the community folder which does. 

[tpete61 227]

14 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

You need to pay more attention to reviews before purchasing.

The quality of third party airports varies from some very basic imports no better than freeware all the way up to some which are little short of amazing.

They are very few good honest reviews of flight sim products.

Most YouTube stuff is click bait or YouTubers reviewing stuff given to them for free.

Elsewhere reviews are all over the place, some raving about something while others slam it.

To each his own but I wouldn't recommend wasting money on most all of this stuff. The default scenery is plenty good.

[bobcat999 8,468]

4 hours ago, steve310002 said:

That's my understanding though I might be wrong. However, (maybe someone else can chime in) I am pretty certain that anything bought on the MS marketplace is treated like the world update packs and does not add to the load time however it works, as opposed to the community folder which does. 

My understanding is that the sim scans it all; the Community folder, the Orbx folder (which is just kind of soft linked anyway), AND the official MSFS folder.  So it should make no difference.

It scans the Community just to make an index of what is available (because you might have changed things since the last time), and the official to see if it needs to flag sim updates online (like this Tuesday) and if it needs to flag an update status in your profile for whatever you have for free from Asobo (world updates etc.) or the official marketplace (such as Carenado aircraft and add-on 3PD airports etc.).

It's like Taxes - there is no escape! 

As we know, removing stuff (community folder) does remove it from the scan, and also deleting/uninstalling stuff from the marketplace.

[Slides 1,552]

Always from the marketplace unless it's simply not there. Time and convivence is important to me as an adult. 

[Ixoye 1,821]

I use both.

[steve310002 1,198]

I notice that Orbx gives the option of putting downloads in a seperate folder and uses symbolic links to the community folder. 

Does this help speed things up during initial loading of the simulator versus just having the downloads directly in the community folder (or via the marketplace)?

I want to buy some of the large Orbx city packs and want to store them in such a way that doesn't massively increase the load time of the sim.

Edited July 23, 2021 by steve310002

[riverreveal 145]

35 minutes ago, steve310002 said:

I notice that Orbx gives the option of putting downloads in a seperate folder and uses symbolic links to the community folder. 

Does this help speed things up during initial loading of the simulator versus just having the downloads directly in the community folder (or via the marketplace)?

I want to buy some of the large Orbx city packs and want to store them in such a way that doesn't massively increase the load time of the sim.

My understanding is that the symbolic links would still lead to the full file being read if the symbolic links are all placed in the community folder, no matter where the location of the full file was.

If you use the add on linker on flightsim.to then you can choose what is included in the community folder with just a few clicks just before loading the sim. That way I am only loading up Orbx Sydney cityscape (for example) when I am flying in that part of Australia. Then have it deactivated if I am flying in the UK and saving the sim having to scan 5gb of data or whatever Sydney is.  

Edited July 23, 2021 by riverreveal

[Adamski_NZ 950]

+1 ... spot on, @riverreal !

[HPG 403]

I exclusively use the Orbx Central app now, but I do my wishlisting on the website. We'll see how, or if I decide to change anything with the new Aerosoft partnership but I don't believe so.