P3D Scenery AddOn Limits - some observations

[coastaldriver 920]

Initially I thought with 64 bit architecture  that the limits to the viable amount of addon scenery you could have may be a thing of the past. It seems to me that I was correct in terms of memory usage but not of some other weird problems. So let me explain I have all my scenery external to the main P3D program - a lot is in the P3DV5 addons folder but most is on an external drive linked via the scenery config. This includes the very large ORBX range. I have had no performance issues with the sim running that is memory lags or jitters so load times are a little longer but not much and when the sim is running it is still smooth and fluid visually (limited to 30 FPS) I have 32GB of RAM and SSD's with a I5-10500 running at 3.1 Ghz. the GPU is an NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super (8GB) they are the specs. All up addon scenery probably amounts to some 1000 entries (How did that happen - guess I like good scenery). 

So I think at about the 1000 mark I began to see strange scenery anomalies incorrect fences displayed but only at some airports in particular areas (Generally the Pacific Region).I also have encountered some strange error messages about reading to the config file or cannot find this or that. The scenery anomaly thing I tracked down after time to being a 'draw call' problem so the files being read are being misread or read in the wrong order. So far it has only applied to fence textures so far. I checked, verified and made sure there were no corruptions to any of the scenery libraries - objects and textures. This took a while but confirmed there were no immediately obvious corrupted files. I even reloaded the P3D base scenery. The particular anomaly I have is that instead of wire fences I get the blast fence texture displayed - looks weird with the red and wide fencing around the perimeter or throughout the airport scenery.  I noted high quality payware scenery addons do not exhibit the same problem at all. 

I can only speculate but it seems to me that when I passed the number of 1000 scenery addon mark that P3D started to make errors in the way it read indexes or called files - now I know it is asking a lot for any program to do this particular with the peculiarities of scenery as we know it and it has evolved. Some scenery libraries can run to several gigabytes of objects!

The problem is confined to addon airports v stock airports, that is replacing an addon on the system for the LM stock airport. My solution at the moment is to use ADE and then remove all scenery objects from the stock airport and reload it via the ADE project file system. That works about 90% of the time. 

I know there may not be a solution but thought it worth raising here for information. MY guess is that there is an upper limit to how much P3D can process and I have hit it. Maybe when V6 comes out I hope or anticipate that some of this will be resolved because I am anticipating major changes to internal and external network and file mapping communication protocols. 

 

 

 

[Bunkie 43]

That's interesting, I've got a long way to go before I'll start having issues, although I do have more than enough addon scenery.  But... are you absolutely certain that it's not simply a layering issue ?  What I understand about 64-bit systems says that this really shouldn't be a problem (in the way you've sussed it!).  That's what makes me think some Gremlins have crept into the mix somewhere, somehow... Just discussing, not discounting your find.  

Mark

[coastaldriver 920]

Bunkie could be a layering issue too but I cannot get rid of the issue at some places. I have reset the layering several times (ORBX has a great tool to do that) with no change to the affected places.

It did also show a number of scenery developers work over the stock or default airport and do not design them from scratch but why getting rid of stock objects for a default airport would fix the addon airport I have no real certainty about as it is not a 100% fix for all of them. 

I could nuke the installation and reinstall from scratch - but since it is so infrequent I can live with it for the time being. 

All I know is that it is always addon scenery that creates headaches with the sim!

Edited November 5, 2022 by coastaldriver

[jorgensandersen 21]

Since the scenery layering system is the same as in FSX, layering (which is also prioritizing) is something you need to consider, no matter if 32-bit or 64-bit. At the bottom of the column (as seen in the Lorby Add-on Organizer) you should basically have base scenery and libraries, then landclass, followed by photoscenery and finally airports at the top.

And I don't know what the maximum number of items/entries you can have in P3D is, but it's a lot. In the good old FSX you could have about 900, and with Scenery Configuration Editor you could extend this to around 1,350. Quite frankly I don't even know how many entries in the library I have 😄 ...

Jorgen

[Bunkie 43]

Scenery file layering... a black art handed down from the Dark Ages no doubt...  Even with Lorby I still get nervous anytime I touch it! 

[jorgensandersen 21]

Just go slow, do a little at a time, and take notes of what you are doing. Save a lot!

I was a bit intimidated also when I started out with it, but the learning curve isn't too steep, even for me.

Jorgen

[seamaster55 75]

Why don't you just turn on the two airports you are going to be flying between in the scenery hierarchy?

Why would you need the other airports turned on if you aren't going to be visiting them while simming?😊

[coastaldriver 920]

Seamaster - good point. You get lazy with the sim setup so will deselect a lot of stuff that is not used regulary and see what the outcome is. Another reasonable suggestion. 

[coastaldriver 920]

Well first let me say thanks to everybody who took the time to input a view or advice. The problem has been solved and in the process I learnt a few things about scenery and how P3D holds and installs information. 

The cause was a corrupted texture file - after much time I found a texture file in the main P3D texture folder called ChainLink512. That texture had the characteristic red/white banding that had appeared on fences in my sim (some or most but not all). The textures should have been a plain gray fence pattern. Repairing the Scenery using LMs installer did not fix the problem because these textures are part of or held in the CONTENT cab files. So reinstalling CONTENT (or repair after renaming the offending file) Why this file would get corrupted this way, for that I have no answer! With CONTENT repaired all my airport scenery fences returned to normal. 

Thus I also confirmed that scenery developers take a lot of shortcuts or use LMs objects and textures rather than create new ones. That is in itself not unreasonable but I was surprised at some well know developers who in fact used a significant number of these objects and hence the offending textures in their sceneries. Those who built from scratch and used their own objects and textures of course did not have this problem. 

The other thing I learned was that a number of so called Guru's on other forums went for the most complicated and actually incorrect answer  - such as draw call or layering issues etc. So the more you learn the better but this has been a very tedious and annoying fault. I was right in my original assessment a corrupted texture or object file. 

So it seems now with a very large scenery library - it is all good again and P3D is running smoothly. 

My suspicions are also considering some gremlins or read-write error between the drives (They are all SSD) that alas is a MS issue. 

Anyway back to normal!

 

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by coastaldriver

[Bunkie 43]

Phew!

Glad you're back to normal!  

Regarding the fact that many scenery designers re-use textures, just imagine how bloated size-wise our sims would be if every single texture used for the entire world had to be unique... we already complain about HD space taken up, but the problem would be magnified, and performance would certainly be effected.  As for the "experts" always grasping for the most complicated answer to questions...  just remember your pilot days.  The simplest solution is invariably the best...  

Anyways, glad it all worked out.    I love happy endings!

[coastaldriver 920]

Yeah me too has been an ordeal tracking down this messed up texture. 

Bunkie agree - perfectly understandable why developers and scenery creators do this - why reinvent the wheel and true saves on the dreaded drive bloat. Indeed about simple solutions, correct, though the work to implement that simple fix may be long and arduous (ha!) took me several days to find that texture with countless restarts of the sim etc airport checks etc etc. 

Now off to deal with the TOGA ENVSHADE cluster!

 

[Patco Lch 1,467]

52 minutes ago, coastaldriver said:

Yeah me too has been an ordeal tracking down this messed up texture. 

Bunkie agree - perfectly understandable why developers and scenery creators do this - why reinvent the wheel and true saves on the dreaded drive bloat. Indeed about simple solutions, correct, though the work to implement that simple fix may be long and arduous (ha!) took me several days to find that texture with countless restarts of the sim etc airport checks etc etc. 

Now off to deal with the TOGA ENVSHADE cluster!

 

LOL. Keep us posted on the TOGA progress.

[coastaldriver 920]

There is a separate thread on that one. Will contribute there see how it goes. Not sure why it worked or seemed to and now on a reinstall or reload it just wont play the game!