P3Dv5 - large reduction in parking positons. Same in v4?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

17 minutes ago, Afterburner said:

Have you used MyTraffic 6?  I think yes if my memory serves me right. That traffic add-on brings its own AFCAD files for most major airports around the world, and although I bought the version MT5.4, I still use their AFCAD for most airports in P3Dv4, since they provide more parking slots with more accurate placement of terminals. Keep in mind that the default airports in P3Dv4 and earlier use very old data that goes back to the release of FSX in 2006. I am sure that it will work with v5 if it worked with v4 or v3.

Yes but it was a nightmare to interact with. And the models and schedule were truly awful.

I appreciate the data in v3 might be old but swapping to them is relatively quick and painless. If it isn’t satisfactory it’s just a case of reverting to my original scenery.cfg.

[netshadoe 144]

I'm going to try something a little different than you Ray.

According to this snippet that I found in this post at the bottom:

# APX Airports
# ATX Routing information
# BRX Bridges
# CVX Various coastlines waterpolys roads
# NVX Navaids - VORs, NDBs, & associated scenery objects.
# OBX Objects
# DEM Digital elevation map
# bvcf.bgl CENTER type airspace boundaries.
# BNXWorld* Geopolitical and airspace boundaries.

I'm going to back up my whole scenery folder in P3Dv5 and try copying only the APX files to P3Dv5 from my P3Dv4 backup that I have zipped on my storage computer and see how that works.

The reason I wish to try this method is that I've noticed in comparing v5 and v4 that the APX files contained in P3Dv5 (the airport files) are generally half or 2/3 the size of those in P3Dv4, thus confirming a great loss of data.

There are a few areas that do have greater information. For example, on 1st glance, 0004 has more data in some of the APX files, and there are two extra APX files in v5 that do not exist in v4. My assumption here is that there are new, added airports in this area of the world.  0004 is the South Pacific, so it stands to reason that there may be some new airports that were generated, though, not necessarily great for AFCAD parking. 

I'll make notes as I go and post what I find as go through the files.

The other files on the other hand (CVX, OBX, etc) seem to have larger sizes in some cases, but I'll have to do some testing to see if there are any conflicts using v4 APX files with the rest of the v5 files in each scenery subfolder (0000, 0001, 0002, etc)

Edited November 10, 2021 by netshadoe

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

@netshadoe, understood. The reason I recommended my method is because it involves moving and replacing no files. You just direct P3D to a different location for them but it requires an installation of v3 or v4.

I use Aivlasoft’s EFB and that shows which files are used to draw the airport layout including parking positions.

Have you considered manually creating the v4 structure and copying those files into that rather than changing your v5 setup?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

@Afterburner, I installed MT6 and had a look at a few AFCADs. They seem pretty old. The one for EGCC shows runways of 06L/24R and 06R/24L. These were changed in 2007 so some of the MT6 data preceeds that.

I've just edited scenery.cfg and pointed all the default scenery folders to P3Dv3. I fired up P3Dv5 and located to LPPR. Instead of having 10 parking positions I now have 29. Runway designators are unchanged but clearly there will be some airports with them.

I'm also aware I've pointed P3Dv5 to other v3 files with this quick 'n dirty change. I'll see how things go and if they're mainly okay will create separate folders just for the APX files.

[Ronaldo1978 26]

On 11/10/2021 at 1:01 AM, dave2013 said:

The problem with his AFCADS is that none of the parking spaces are connected to the taxiways, so AI traffic can't park there.  I was pretty bummed when I downloaded his airports.

I've already fixed a number of v5 airports myself and will be uploading them in the near future.

Dave

 

Ah ok, I thought there is an issue with my AI traffic and I did not take a look with ADE into this so far. This is indeed a bummer and of course these AFCADs are not usable - as long you are not going to fix this.

[Clutch Cargo 384]

I noticed this right off when I upgraded to version 5.  Not only reduced parking spots but missing taxiways.  I contacted LM about the issue showing before/after screenshots of the missing taxiways at Van Nuys airport in KNVY, reportedly the busiest GA airport in the world.

I think it had something to do when LM added sloped runways?  I did see LM re-built some custom/default airports adding back in taxiways... around v5.2 but by that time I had moved on to MSFS and have not looked back.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

The quick ‘n dirty solution of pointing v5 to v3 default files is not very satisfactory. Things like nav aids are also affected so the answer is to use only the v3 AFX files.

Copying them and keeping the directory structure can only be achieved with good old DOS commands in a CMD window. Alternatively, a batch file can be produced and run.

But first the originals need backing up. I’ve done that with an xcopy /s source destination command which maintains the directory structure.

Tomorrow I’ll do the second phase. Copy from v3 to v5 again using the directory structure option. Any new files in v5 not present in v3 will remain with this option.

Because ILS frequencies are held in the AFX file it’s probable some will be out of date. There’s no perfect solution but the advantages outweigh the disadvantage of so few parking positions in v5.

More tomorrow when I’ve finalised the DOS command.

[dave2013 1,130]

54 minutes ago, Ronaldo1978 said:

 

Ah ok, I thought there is an issue with my AI traffic and I did not take a look with ADE into this so far. This is indeed a bummer and of course these AFCADs are not usable - as long you are not going to fix this.

Yeah, it's a bit disappointing.

BTW, I'd like to clarify that I didn't mean I was fixing those airports made by the other author.  I'm upgrading and improving various airports as I fly to/from them, so it's pretty random.

Dave

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

I've taken the plunge and replaced all my P3Dv5 AFX files with those from P3Dv3. Only those that exist in my P3Dv3 install were copied over so any new v5 ones remain untouched.

It's a very simple process should anyone want to do it. Here are the two commands I used. Obviously ensure you have backed up your P3Dv5 installation beforehand and is uusally with these things it's done at your own risk.

To make a copy of your existing P3Dv5 AFX files.

Right-click Start and choose Command Prompt (Admin). These are the sources and destinations I used. Substitute mine with yours. Any spaces in paths require the path to have quotes at start and end.

XCOPY D:\P3Dv5\scenery\afx*.bgl E:\P3Dv5_AFX_Files /s

The /s switch will copy files to the relevant sub-directory. If you don't use that switch they all go to a single destination.

Now replace them with the v3 equivalents...

XCOPY D:\P3Dv3\scenery\AFX*.bgl D:\P3Dv5\scenery /u /s

The /u switch copies files from Source that exist on Destination only.

The /s switch will copy files to the relevant sub-directory.

You will be prompted for each copy with Y/N/All. Just press A and all files will be copied.

If you're nervous use the /l switch which will list the files to be copied without actually copying them.

[IanHarrison 522]

Silly question but I only start from V4. If I set that up as a vanilla stand alone setup (I am running v5) will the copying still work as expected?

[Ray Proudfoot 8,961]

5 minutes ago, IanHarrison said:

Silly question but I only start from V4. If I set that up as a vanilla stand alone setup (I am running v5) will the copying still work as expected?

Yes Ian. The structure is identical to v3. Whether the data in the AFX files is more up to date seems unknown but I suspect not.

You will find some oddities. GA Ai parked half in - half out of a v5 building. It’s unlikely this will impact on jetways for larger aircraft.

[Luis Hernandez 570]

On 11/12/2021 at 9:48 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

I've taken the plunge and replaced all my P3Dv5 AFX files with those from P3Dv3. Only those that exist in my P3Dv3 install were copied over so any new v5 ones remain untouched.

It's a very simple process should anyone want to do it. Here are the two commands I used. Obviously ensure you have backed up your P3Dv5 installation beforehand and is uusally with these things it's done at your own risk.

To make a copy of your existing P3Dv5 AFX files.

...

Now replace them with the v3 equivalents...

 

On 11/12/2021 at 10:35 AM, Ray Proudfoot said:

You will find some oddities. GA Ai parked half in - half out of a v5 building. It’s unlikely this will impact on jetways for larger aircraft.

Sorry for necroing, mods. I tried this method a while ago, and, as expected, I found there were some parking/building mismatches, such as the ones @Ray Proudfoot mentioned above and in the P3D forums.

BUT, after spending my Christmas dinner thinking about that, I decided to extend Ray's method: I didn't only copy the APX*.bgl (not AFX; there were none) files, but also the CVX*.bgl (airport backgrounds) and OBX*.bgl (bulidings and other objects) from my P3Dv4 installation, and pasted them into v5. Yes, my scenery is back to what I had in P3D v4 (or even FSX, which I used for cross checking), but also the number of parking positions. I also no longer have to rely on the instructions at https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/614841-adjusting-older-3rd-party-airports-for-p3dv5/ for adding AFCADs.

In summary, looks like I'm getting the best of both worlds: the performance of P3D v5 with the amount of parking positions of v4 and FSX. Can someone try this method and confirm my observations, please? I can't find the catch...