GSX 2.9.4 update for P3D5 - Multi-liveries

[Flyinggok 55]

It is working, you need to make sure that the C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\prepar3dv5 is empty prior to P3D start.

You can do that with a simple .batch script running before P3D:

DEL C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl /S /Q

You can also add to start the P3D out of this script, but I am using simstarter with RunConfigs, so I am doing it on that way :)

 

Works fine here.

[chapstick 2,757]

FYI today's update automatically clears the cache, which is the source of the problem. It's still a band aid but should suffice for the time being. 

September 9th, 2021 

• BUGFIX: KORD V2 for MSFS - Fixed a texture in the parking lot behind the Hilton which appeared green after World Update 6.
• BUGFIX: GSX Airport cache is now always reacreated automatically at each startup, which will fix initial starts, in addition to in-game restarts.
• BUGFIX: GSX The custom texture selector for Jetway logos is correctly disabled in any sim (P3D5, 32 bit P3D or FSX) without DirectX11 support.
• BUGFIX: GSX Updated 32 bit version, to prevent several errors in FSX.

[G-YMML1 582]

I can live without Jetways' logos as I don't have add-one airports that rely on them. My biggest worry that this update might destroy GSX profiles for FSL/PMDG planes. Tell me that I'm wrong 🙂

[DLH7LA 3]

It is always awful to be unable to revert to a funtioning version of any software, however it seems like GSX is working properly now.

Unfortunatly this update brings back the problem with FSDTs understanding of Groundhandling, why is it so hard to just have a correct database with the handling rules (Airline X + Airport Y = Handler Z). Yes, I can edit this manually in the rules_handling.cfg, but it will get lost again with the next couatly update session... And manually editing every single position on one airport only takes just too much time and is limited to one "default" handler per stand... Imagine having two airlines with different handling companies share a position! And yes, this database would be a lot of work, but why not let the community do the job for them, this seems to work out quite good with FSLabs Runways database.

But then again I am speaking about a software that has yet to find the reverse gear on the pushback tug after how many years? But great to have the choice between so many ground handling companies that never ever provided any ground handling at all and missing the ones that are actually at the airport.

Just the two cents of someone who has to deal with ground handlers on a daily base...

[Luis Hernandez 566]

On 9/7/2021 at 6:50 AM, virtuali said:

we released today GSX 2.9.4 for Prepar3D V5. This update adds support for multi-liveries in P3D V5

Ciao Umberto, are there any changes for either P3D V4 or FSX in this update? I got a popup yesterday in V4.

[DrumsArt 270]

2 hours ago, Chapstick said:

FYI today's update automatically clears the cache, which is the source of the problem. It's still a band aid but should suffice for the time being. 

September 9th, 2021 

• BUGFIX: KORD V2 for MSFS - Fixed a texture in the parking lot behind the Hilton which appeared green after World Update 6.
• BUGFIX: GSX Airport cache is now always reacreated automatically at each startup, which will fix initial starts, in addition to in-game restarts.
• BUGFIX: GSX The custom texture selector for Jetway logos is correctly disabled in any sim (P3D5, 32 bit P3D or FSX) without DirectX11 support.
• BUGFIX: GSX Updated 32 bit version, to prevent several errors in FSX.

The GSX Airport cache "update"...... : Does it mean having to wait for its very long refresh at each start of P3D?

If so, I won't update, I'll stay with my current version which does the job very well...Waiting for a new version without bugs.

Richard.

[virtuali 4,419]

46 minutes ago, DrumsArt said:

The GSX Airport cache "update"...... : Does it mean having to wait for its very long refresh at each start of P3D?

You quoted the live update release notes, but decided to omit this line:

BUGFIX: GSX Temporary fix to solve Restarts, by always recreating the airport and object cache.

Sorry for having fixed a problem immediately and offering a solution that would allow to use the program now, instead waiting for us to investigate and reproduce it ( which we still haven't been able to ).

Also, the time it takes to regenerate the cache will be a lot faster ( up to a factor of 10 ), if you add all folders containing sceneries to the antivirus Exclusions, something you'd want to do anyway, because even if GSX is not used, the simulator WILL read the files, and without exclusions, the antivirus will monitor every access to every file by any application, including the simulator itself so, excluding the whole sim folder and other folders containing scenery files is a good practice, regardless of GSX.

Edited September 9, 2021 by virtuali

[virtuali 4,419]

1 hour ago, DLH7LA said:

Unfortunatly this update brings back the problem with FSDTs understanding of Groundhandling, why is it so hard to just have a correct database with the handling rules (Airline X + Airport Y = Handler Z). Yes, I can edit this manually in the rules_handling.cfg, but it will get lost again with the next couatly update session...

No, it will be lost ONLY if you directly edit the stock rules files in the Addon Manager\texture folder.

Like many other files ( GSX airport profiles, airplane profiles, etc. ), you can work on your own custom rules file, which will override the stock rules, if it's located in the %APPDATA%\Virtuali\GSX\texture folder.

So, just create a copy of the stock rules files there, and edit them to your liking, the updater won't touch them and, like anything in the %APPDATA% folders for GSX, they have an higher priority over the stock files.

I'm sorry because it's not really documented, we explained the 3rd level of customization ( the single rules.cfg for a single custom operator with a custom texture, that works only with P3D4 ), but not this 2nd level, which is a custom overall set of rules files.

Edited September 9, 2021 by virtuali

[virtuali 4,419]

Now, there's another yet undocumented feature, which we added in THIS update, which I haven't time to write any docs for, because I'm spending all my time to chase something I can't reproduce and it's the ability to load a separate AFCAD made JUST for GSX by placing, of course, in the %APPDATA%\Virtuali\GSX folder, together with its eventual GSX .INI profile.

If a .BGL for an airport is found there, it will be read with the highest priority, regardless how what is installed in the sim. It's as if you had an extra area in the Scenery Library on top of everything else, but the difference in this case is that only GSX will read that .BGL, the simulator will of course ignore it entirely.

What's the point of this feature ?

Ever had problems in GSX with a scenery because its AFCAD was badly made, with errors, missing Vehicle parkings, missing Vehicle paths, overlapping nodes, orphaned nodes, missing links, too small parking spots, wrong or un-set pushback directions, wrong parking types, etc. ?

Before, your only choice was to edit the AFCAD, but that would also affect the simulator, perhaps the AFCAD was made in some way to work better with AI, or the developer might update it frequently so, editing the AFCAD that came with the scenery and was used by the sim might have been impractical but now, you don't have to worry anymore, because you can create/edit a separate copy of the AFCAD that will be used ONLY by GSX, so it can be made to have GSX working better, without affecting the simulator in any way.

So, you might start opening the original AFCAD with ADE, make every modification you need and, if you save it in the %APPDATA%\Virtuali\GSX folder, it will be used by GSX on that airport AS IF it was in the Scenery Library, at the highest level.

And yes, for full disclosure, the main reason we added this feature was to have some way to support MSFS encrypted products bought on the Marketplace, which couldn't be read otherwise but, once we were at it, we added it to Prepar3d too.

Edited September 9, 2021 by virtuali

[Patco Lch 1,462]

Seems to be working fine now except my push back tugs are black. Any ideas there?

[virtuali 4,419]

44 minutes ago, Patco Lch said:

Seems to be working fine now except my push back tugs are black. Any ideas there?

All of them ? Or just a model ? Or just a specific operator ? But as I already tried to explain, could you please post any issues you have on the FSDT forum ? Doing it here will only double my workload, as I  juggle to reply in two separate places about the same issues.

[out 769]

4 hours ago, virtuali said:

now, you don't have to worry anymore, because you can create/edit a separate copy of the AFCAD that will be used ONLY by GSX, so it can be made to have GSX works better, without affecting the simulator in any way.

A very clever idea, Umberto. Thank you!

[Tim_Capps 474]

When it works, it is cool to see plausible ground services. Too bad a long-awaited feature got off to a rocky start for some. I would be happy to provide any information that would help determine why my fairly vanilla setup running on good hardware turns into python chow. I come from a miniatures background and a lot of the fun of flight simulation for me is watching the cool stuff going on. People getting out of a bus and walking up stairs is about as cool as it gets for me. Sorry for sounding cranky earlier. I can only imagine how hard it must be to program something that is expected to work despite so many variables among users. Of course, it is expected to work, and it will get sorted out, I imagine. I don't think things are any more frustrating than they ever were in general. in fact, I find the opposite with P3D. The only complaint I have is I'm running out of South American scenery to buy. Probably devs splitting attention between two platforms is a strain. Mr. Darwin will eventually fix that. My money is on the dodo this time.

[DrumsArt 270]

5 hours ago, virtuali said:

You quoted the live update release notes, but decided to omit this line:

BUGFIX: GSX Temporary fix to solve Restarts, by always recreating the airport and object cache.

Sorry for having fixed a problem immediately and offering a solution that would allow to use the program now, instead waiting for us to investigate and reproduce it ( which we still haven't been able to ).

Also, the time it takes to regenerate the cache will be a lot faster ( up to a factor of 10 ), if you add all folders containing sceneries to the antivirus Exclusions, something you'd want to do anyway, because even if GSX is not used, the simulator WILL read the files, and without exclusions, the antivirus will monitor every access to every file by any application, including the simulator itself so, excluding the whole sim folder and other folders containing scenery files is a good practice, regardless of GSX.

Umberto,
I didn't decide to omit anything for the good reason that I simply referred to Chapstick's post.

I quote:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"FYI today's update automatically clears the cache, which is the source of the problem. It's still a band aid but should suffice for the time being. 

September 9th, 2021 

• BUGFIX: KORD V2 for MSFS - Fixed a texture in the parking lot behind the Hilton which appeared green after World Update 6.
• BUGFIX: GSX Airport cache is now always reacreated automatically at each startup, which will fix initial starts, in addition to in-game restarts.
• BUGFIX: GSX The custom texture selector for Jetway logos is correctly disabled in any sim (P3D5, 32 bit P3D or FSX) without DirectX11 support.
• BUGFIX: GSX Updated 32 bit version, to prevent several errors in FSX."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sorry for having fixed a problem immediately and offering a solution that would allow to use the program now, instead waiting for us to investigate and reproduce it ( which we still haven't been able to )."

Thanks for this Umberto. I was just saying that I wanted to wait until everything was fixed (I haven't updated yet).
Concerning the time to regenerate the cache, now although all my folders, executable files, simulator, addon and so on are excluded from any antivirus/scan on my config, the time seems to be very long during the cache regeneration...

Sorry and apologies for the misunderstanding, I love the work you've done with this program that I've been following since the first version...and would continue to use.

Kind Regards,

Richard.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by DrumsArt

[virtuali 4,419]

14 minutes ago, DrumsArt said:

Concerning the time to regenerate the cache, now although all my folders, executable files, simulator, addon and so on are excluded from any antivirus/scan on my config, the time seems to be very long during the cache regeneration...

Difficult to reply without knowing anything about your system and how many sceneries you have installed.

To give you a frame of reference, here, with everything default (note that just the default P3D sceneries are several thousands of .BGL files ) and all FSDT sceneries installed, the cache regenerates in 1 second. Of course I have P3D installed on a very fast NVME drive, and I have excluded everything from antivirus.

While doing remote assistance, I've seen users with an ungodly high amount of sceneries installed ( like hundreds of add-on areas in the Scenery Library ), many of them on slower drives, like SATA SSDs or even slower traditional mechanical drives, and their simulator took at least 5 minutes to start, so they already had a problem even before GSX enters in to play. And before excluding with the antivirus, the GSX cache regeneration took up to 2 minutes.

When I excluded ALL these scenery folders on these systems, it always resulted in a drastic decrease of BOTH loading times: the initial load went down from 5 minutes to 1-2 at most, and the GSX cache regeneration went down from 2 minutes to 20 seconds, leaving the user shocked how bad the antivirus was really affecting his system. And I'm sure it would have worked even faster if all sceneries are installed on fast drives.

Something easily forgotten is that many sceneries installs lots of files in the Documents\Prepar3d add-on folder, for example. That should probably excluded too.