Something odd? FILEMON

[dokelly07 0]

While running filemon today for the heck of it, I noticed that even when flying around in east texas, FSX was loading scenery for Las Vegas and st.maarten while also of course loading scenery around me. Does anyone else notice this, or is it just me.....???I just can't keep from thinking perhaps one of the major problems with FPS might be because this software is working harder than it needs to, to load things that are not quite relavent, or are not quite relavent to me at least.Danon -

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>While running filemon today for the heck of it, I noticed>that even when flying around in east texas, FSX was loading>scenery for Las Vegas and st.maarten while also of course>loading scenery around me. Does anyone else notice this, or>is it just me.....???>>I just can't keep from thinking perhaps one of the major>problems with FPS might be because this software is working>harder than it needs to, to load things that are not quite>relavent, or are not quite relavent to me at least.>>Danon - I have seen similar behavior. When flying in Nova Scotia,FSX was loading scenery for Tallinn, Estonia.Methinks there are some serious problems with the way FSXattempts to deal with scenery. Hopefully these problemswill be corrected with the update. This is just one of many inconsistancies I've seen whilelooking at the way FSX functions..... Paul

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

Hello Danon,In an effort to improve performance, FS X will pre-load scenery, particularly the default flight. Even if the user never flies in the location of the default flight.Unfortunately, this can lead to longer loading times. Perhaps there are some solutions: - create a default flight in the area where you normally fly, and this will be the only area to be pre-loaded; - if you do not fly in only one area, create a default flight in a very sparse area, such as the middle of the desert or the ocean, where there is not much to load; - do away with pre-loading altogether by adding the following flag to the Main section of the fsx.cfg: DisablePreload=1Best regards.Luis

[dokelly07 0]

Hi, thanks for the advice on disabling preloading.The flight that I loaded up was the East Texas area I was flying and this is my custom default flight, however it was still loading Vegas scenery for some odd reason along with St. Maarten which I have not flown since the demo. I don't remember the last time I flew in Vegas either, or if I have at all.Thanks though.Danon -

[Guest n99wb]

Just for grins, check and see if you have .FSSAVE files for the areasthat are loading in your My Docs...FSX folder

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>Just for grins, check and see if you have .FSSAVE files for>the areas>that are loading in your My Docs...FSX folderHummm...I do have ( did, now ) a Tallinn flight saved, alongwith a bunch of others. Saved them mostly when testing things.I just deleted all of them except my default flight and "previous".Dp you have some reason to suspect that these entries would/could becausing FSX to load those areas even though they have no relationto the current flight? Paul

[Dirk98 354]

> - do away with pre-loading altogether by adding the following>flag to the Main section of the fsx.cfg: DisablePreload=1Has anyone tried that yet? Does it solve the problem?Thanks.

[hilton 0]

Yes the disable preload is VERY useful and will speed up the boot up to flying time.Why load a default flight when you have no intention of using it?What really ticks me off with fsx is this. After loading a flight take a look in top down mode and zoom out so that you can see what scenery tiles are loaded. Outside of the 60 or so mile radius that has been loaded I see a patchwork quilt ( chess board effect ) of tiles not loaded or loaded at a different level of detail. This cannot be efficient.I fly mostly around the UK using Horizons VFR photographic scenery.B

[Guest cwright]

Danon, this is a very important point. It became an issue with the release of the Horizon England & Wales photoreal scenery. Many people noticed that, with this scenery installed, startup times (both loading FSX and starting the first flight) could become quite long - in some cases, up to 25 minutes! Amazingly, this was true if the flight was, say, in Japan! By the way, the thread 'Long loading times with VFR scenery' recently re-appeared.I used Filemon to try to understand how this could be. What I - and others - found was surprising, to say the least. By the way, my observations apply to the situation with the disable preload cfg change, which I would strongly recommend to everyone. With the fix, FSX startup is normal, and all the strange effects are confined to the flight itself (more specifically, the first flight; clearly FSX (and Windows caches a lot of stuff, so subsequent flights may be better in some respects).This is what I found:I start a flight in Japan. The load time is several minutes longer if my VFR scenery is enabled. It actually stops for about two minutes at 5% before continuing. The next 20 or 30 percent are very slow.During this period Filemon shows very intensive accessing of the VFR scenery, despite the fact that it is thousands of miles away! Because the VFR files are enormous (the textures are included in the bgl files), this is probably why these files have a big effect. FSX is also accessing lots of other unrelated scenery files, but their effects would be smaller. I also note that at least one user of the more recently released Just Flight photoreal scenery has also reported these loading time problems.During the flight in Japan I continued to monitor with Filemon. Very regularly, there are bursts of intense VFR access. When this occurs I see stuttering and a sharp fall in frame rates. Sometimes these bursts of VFR access occur at regular intervals, as regular as clockwork, but the period may be different on different flights.This makes no sense at all. And, worse, it can affect performance during the flight and not just loading times. There had been a lot of discussion of this at the Horizon forums and I started the thread I mentioned here partly with the hope that Microsoft would reply. They did, in the shape of Adam Szofram!Adam gave us that very useful cfg change. He did say he would look into it when he had installed the Horizon scenery but sadly he hasn't responded for a long time, at least on that thread.But we can be sure that Microsoft are well aware of this problem, particularly as it does affect performance and not just loading times. I think there's a reasonable chance that the problem will be fixed in the upcoming service pack. I can think of no rational explanation as to why FSX should repeatedly access scenery files from thousands of miles away. By the way, it does the same when the aircraft is stationary.Best regards, Chris

[Guest n99wb]

"Do you have some reason to suspect that these entries would/could becausing FSX to load those areas even though they have no relationto the current flight?"The St. Martin is the default flight in an original install and it was mentioned a couple of times.So I made a SWAG.

[dokelly07 0]

Well, I tried it. I still get random calls for Las Vegas and St. Maarten scenery when flying in East Texas. I have not tried flying anywhere else, as this is my local flight area in real life.Also, I love seeing how many thousands of times FSX feels the need to check and make sure it is licensed to me. Im not sure if there is any fixing this, in fact I am a little tired of trying to...Danon -

[Mace 1,896]

>>What really ticks me off with fsx is this. After loading a>flight take a look in top down mode and zoom out so that you>can see what scenery tiles are loaded. Outside of the 60 or>so mile radius that has been loaded I see a patchwork quilt (>chess board effect ) of tiles not loaded or loaded at a>different level of detail. This cannot be efficient.>Your statement confuses me. How can it not be efficient? Isn't FSX doing exactly what you say you want?I mean, to me it seems like it would be very efficient to only load "tiles" in your immediate area, and not load (or load at a lower LOD) "tiles" further away from your aircraft.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

[Mace 1,896]

>>But we can be sure that Microsoft are well aware of this>problem, particularly as it does affect performance and not>just loading times. I think there's a reasonable chance that>the problem will be fixed in the upcoming service pack. I can>think of no rational explanation as to why FSX should>repeatedly access scenery files from thousands of miles away.>By the way, it does the same when the aircraft is stationary.>>Best regards,> Chris>Thanks for the info Chris.Related to these "random file searches" is the issue of FSX looking for Sim.cfg before aircraft.cfg.By itself, a file search doesn't take much cpu resources. But lump together HUNDREDS of file searches, and now you're talking a real fps-robber. I would think anyway.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

[hilton 0]

Hi Rhett,You said "Your statement confuses me. How can it not be efficient? Isn't FSX doing exactly what you say you want?"IMHO FSX should load tiles according to the Level of Detail Radius that the user defines before runtime. As the aircraft moves forward tiles are discarded behind the plane and aquired at the front. What FSX infact does is to aquire additional tiles not directly linked to the main LOD seamingly at random. OK it may well happen that the ones in front of the plane will be used but the ones to the sides and rear will not, and this is inefficient. Loading them takes up time and resources which could be better used elsewhere.Have a look in top down mode (F12 then zoom out with the minus key) and see what I mean.B

[hilton 0]

Just for the heck of it I loaded up a flight from Tokyo Japan. From selecting the flight "Fly Now" it took 2 minutes 10 secs to load.This was from a cold start, I have never flown in Japan before and all my scenery was enabled. My default flight is from Carlisle though with the preload tweak it was not actually loaded.As I fly along every few minutes FSX aquires tiles in front of the aircraft and discards ones behind and this causes the hesitations (fps drops to 3 or 4). I cannot comment about reading scenery at a great distance.B