Vector in P3dV5.3?

[spilok 1,132]

About a year ago, I read something on this forum regarding ORBX VECTOR.  It seems that there were many who said it is not really necessary and it impacted their framerate excessively, and caused pauses and stutters when flying.  SO, I removed it.  I have been very happy with P3d ever since. Flights are smooth, relatively stutter free and everything works great.

My question is this:  What am I missing?  I recently noticed a geographically familiar airport to me was missing so much real detail, and the topography around looked really weird, with sinkholes and elevations that do not exist in real life.  In addition to VECTOR, I also have Open LC North America, Europe and South America. 

Today, I reinstalled VECTOR it and the familiar airport looked so much better, but I will say that overall performance was somewhat compromised, but still OK. 

What is the general consensus on VECTOR?  Do you still use it or have you uninstalled it from your ORBX Library?  Just curious.

Edited January 30, 2023 by spilok

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 517]

I use it...

[jlohrenz 133]

I've read mixed things about this.  Previously I had kept Vector but for my most recent build I've skipped it.  I am still using a mesh.  I haven't noticed any significant differences as of yet other than a slightly faster initial load time.

[johncott 177]

2 hours ago, spilok said:

About a year ago, I read something on this forum regarding ORBX VECTOR.  .......

Hi,

I found in Northern Canada there were a lot of issues with the default vector lakes not matching the default elevation mesh. There are also some other issues with the default vector with some coastlines in Northern Canada and the Arctic.  I tried default vector and FreemeshX, also tried ORBX Vector and default mesh, but I found the best mix of vector and mesh data was using ORBX Vector and FreeMeshX elevation mesh. In P3DV5 there were changes to how default vector data was excluded from how it was done in P3DV4 and FSX. For P3DV5, ORBX decided to used nine large exclude files for each vector item that has to be excluded.  Each one of these files cover the whole world and takes a long time to load and can created stutters.  I have created a fix for this called Global_Default_Vector_Removal and is available in the AVSIM Library. Basically, I made the the exclude files smaller to cover smaller areas of the world so they would load faster. These files still cover the whole world, but the P3DV5 only has to load the area of the world you're flying in instead of nine exclude files for the whole world. Using my modified files, I no longer have long stutters when flying.

Here is a link to the file if anybody is interested in trying it.

AVSIM Library

My contact info is in the readme if you have any issues.

John C.

[spilok 1,132]

1 hour ago, jlohrenz said:

I've read mixed things about this.  Previously I had kept Vector but for my most recent build I've skipped it.  I am still using a mesh.  I haven't noticed any significant differences as of yet other than a slightly faster initial load time.

YES.  A significantly longer load time can be expected if you use Vector.  I've noticed that.

[Patco Lch 1,464]

Uninstalling ORBX vector cuts my long initial twenty minute load time in half but every time I uninstall I reinstall regardless. I guess it looks better enough to make suffering through the wait for the sim to start worth it. Maybe I’ll give @johncott file a try.

[johncott 177]

1 hour ago, Patco Lch said:

Uninstalling ORBX vector cuts my long initial twenty minute load time in half but every time I uninstall I reinstall regardless. I guess it looks better enough to make suffering through the wait for the sim to start worth it. Maybe I’ll give @johncott file a try.

Hi Vic,

If you do try my fix, let me know how it works. On my system I noticed significant faster initial loading times when loading a flight. Also anything with a map like the flight planner or GPS gauges when zooming out loads faster. The other improvement was significantly less stutters when flying.  

John C.

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 517]

Wow, @johncott thank you!

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 517]

Do we need FreeMesh in v5.3?

[johncott 177]

59 minutes ago, Juliet Alpha said:

Do we need FreeMesh in v5.3?

No you don't need FreeMeshX,  I fly in the Canadian Arctic regularly and as mentioned previously, I found ORBX Vector works best with FreeMeshX and gives me the best overall results of all the combinations of vector and mesh in this area of the world.

John C.

Edited January 31, 2023 by johncott

[pinepix62 63]

My experience is that the native V5.x vector data is on par with what was available in ORBX vector in terms of coastlines and roads. My biggest gripe with ORBX vector is that the excluded steams (Small rivers). I fly mostly in the southern African regions where the are very few large rivers and without steams there is not much left.

[spilok 1,132]

14 hours ago, pinepix62 said:

My experience is that the native V5.x vector data is on par with what was available in ORBX vector in terms of coastlines and roads. My biggest gripe with ORBX vector is that the excluded steams (Small rivers). I fly mostly in the southern African regions where the are very few large rivers and without steams there is not much left.

I think you're right.  I tried putting it back on P3dv5.3, and I really didn't see a significant difference in what I saw out the windows of the plane, or over the wing view of the plane.  It definitely caused not only an excessive load time, but introduced stutters and lowered the frames overall.

I'm happy without it, so it is now UNINSTALLED on my system, and things look and work well again.

 

[adam77 63]

I personally use "Unmentionable" Vector as that has 100% of the worlds roads and beaches as opposed to Orbx and default 5.3 which is only about 65% accurate. 

Although saying this I do also have Orbx Vector installed yet I disable ALL the roads and lights for it and only use it for powerlines, golf courses and the other things that come with it to flesh out the world. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by charliearon
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