How do you manage scenery?

[edpatino 2,029]

2 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Have you tested recently how much loading time you gain by using your presets compared to having everything activated?

That's why I always use presets

[pmb 5,142]

2 hours ago, regis9 said:

I also have a custom Google map that I enter all of my airports into so I can look at a glance to see what I have to help me decide where I want to fly.  I group them into payware, freeware and Asobo enhanced.  

You probably know that the Addons Linker comes with its own map with differently marked airports and other sceneries which even comes with a search function. I often make use of it for searching airports to land at nearby in advance.

Kind regards, Michael

[Sonosusto 747]

Yeah, add-on linker is excellent for this reason. Like X-Organizer is/was for XP. I have over 500gb of freeware and about 200gb of payware. Addon linker makes it easier to load the basic area I am flying in. Also has programs to help with conflicts.

[Sethos 4,822]

6 hours ago, Dave_YVR said:

 Extra time required to start everything was 36 seconds longer than with nothing. So the time you take to open addon linker which itself takes about 6-10 seconds and then to fiddle and disable or manage presets etc one would very quickly run out of any time saved and it would start taking longer than starting with it all enabled. 
 Just my 2 cents, but whatever floats you boat. 🤜🤛

Indeed. Download addon linker, setting it up and understanding it, creating a bunch of presets based on region or type of flying, managing these presets when you buy more stuff, see mentions of Google maps overviews.

Some people will 100% have spent more time and mental effort on this stuff than just sitting through that extra load time. Especially if we're talking just 30 seconds longer, then it's a complete waste of time.

I suspect in some cases it just comes down to actually liking doing this stuff. Running a tight, organized operation, fiddling around with making a little list, feeling like you're keeping your simulator install clean or whatever. I can sympathize, it becomes like a real-world checklist of sorts. However, let's not kid ourselves and pretend a lot of time is being saved here, unless you shave 3-4 minutes off your load time.

[RALF9636 2,047]

1 hour ago, Sethos said:

Indeed. Download addon linker, setting it up and understanding it, creating a bunch of presets based on region or type of flying, managing these presets when you buy more stuff, see mentions of Google maps overviews.

Some people will 100% have spent more time and mental effort on this stuff than just sitting through that extra load time. Especially if we're talking just 30 seconds longer, then it's a complete waste of time.

I suspect in some cases it just comes down to actually liking doing this stuff. Running a tight, organized operation, fiddling around with making a little list, feeling like you're keeping your simulator install clean or whatever. I can sympathize, it becomes like a real-world checklist of sorts. However, let's not kid ourselves and pretend a lot of time is being saved here, unless you shave 3-4 minutes off your load time.

Yes. And then you must also add the time that is lost when every once in a while you forget to activate one addon that you need for your flight and have to reload the sim just for that.

I guess people are just used to handle things like that, because it was needed in other sims. Remember the famous OOMs?

 

8 hours ago, Dave_YVR said:

Just to confirm my theory, I started up MSFS with my Community folders disabled. First start naturally takes a bit longer as just like with P3d before, the sim has to reindex all of the changes you have made by disabling scenery and addons. The actual time isn't important, but on the second start still with no addons, it was 14 seconds faster than the first. Next, I enable all of my addons again with Addon linker and start it up.

 Extra time required to start everything was 36 seconds longer than with nothing. So the time you take to open addon linker which itself takes about 6-10 seconds and then to fiddle and disable or manage presets etc one would very quickly run out of any time saved and it would start taking longer than starting with it all enabled. 
 Just my 2 cents, but whatever floats you boat. 🤜🤛

If you would have measured your second start with everythings activated - so no re-indexing needed - the difference would probably be even smaller.

 

Everyone who wants to test this on his system, this is what you should do:

1. Activate all your addons.

2. Start the sim until ready to fly in the cockpit. Close the sim. Reboot your system.

3. Start your timer. Start the sim again with all your addons. Stop your timer when the Main Menu appears.

4. Close the sim. Only activate one of your presets.

5. Start the sim until ready to fly in the cockpit. Close the sim. Reboot your system.

6. Start your timer. Start Addonlinker. Deactivate the preset you used first and activate another preset. Start the sim. Stop your timer when the Main Menu appears.

7. Compare the times measured in steps 3. and 6.

 

Sharing your results here would be appreciated.

 

My results (8700K, 1080TI, AIG and GAIST activated):

All scenery addons (ca. 400 GB) activated all the time (3.): 12:10 min

Individual preset (ca. 5 GB) changed before start (6.).: 12:00 min

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by RALF9636

[pmb 5,142]

15 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

When did you do that? If it has been a while, maybe try it again. I think MSFS has changed the way it loads addons on startup recently.

Having been asked, I made a test. I activated all addons using the linker at the same time and fired up MSFS. The blue progress bar extended to the end pretty "quickly" (i.e. within ~5 min) - and there it remained. The sim never entered the main screen. I had to kill it after 25 min which is beyond what I would accept as a startup time. (According to task manager, it was not dead but still active with some I/O operations at that time.)

My usual startup time is 4-5 min. This already includes all AIG, Global Ship Traffic, Global Mamudesign Sceneries, a number of libraries, and more which I keep active as a rule.

Kind regards, Michael

[Max Kraus 358]

16 hours ago, Virtual-Chris said:

 

For those of you keeping everything installed in your community folder, do you find startup times are impacted horribly?

 

I'm an "all in leave it alone" person and I haven't ever noticed any performance issues. Startup times have always been 60-90 seconds for me.

[St Mawgan 1,559]

4 minutes ago, flyhalf said:

I'm an "all in leave it alone" person and I haven't ever noticed any performance issues. Startup times have always been 60-90 seconds for me.

Same here but usually under a minute. If it took 5 or 6 minutes as I've seen reported here, I would never start MSFS in the first place. 

[RALF9636 2,047]

25 minutes ago, pmb said:

The blue progress bar extended to the end pretty "quickly" (i.e. within ~5 min) - and there it remained. The sim never entered the main screen. I had to kill it after 25 min

I would assume that one of your addons contains a faulty file and somehow stalls MSFS, rather than this is a problem of too many addons. But in that situation I would also continue to use the presets of course.

 

[willy647 196]

3 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Individual preset (ca. 5 GB) changed before start (6.).: 12:00 min

Is this correct ? On my system comparable with yours (7700K - 1080), starting with 5GB addons is under 2 min.

[RALF9636 2,047]

4 minutes ago, willy647 said:

Is this correct ? On my system comparable with yours (7700K - 1080), starting with 5GB addons is under 2 min.

Do you have AIG and GAIST installed?

Without them I also get a much shorter load time.

[pmb 5,142]

6 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

Do you have AIG and GAIST installed?

Without them I also get a much shorter load time.

That's true. But both are indispensable for me, notably I need AIG for PSXTraffic.

Kind regards, Michael

[ark4diusz 328]

I am using addon linker and put all my addons outside community folder and link all neccessary addons I need for particular flight: 

I created folder structure as follows: 

01_Aircrafts

02_Scenery

    01_Airports

          Country 1

          Country n

   02_Other (landmarks, etc.)

03_Utilities

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

It looks like that: For particular airport I would like to keep this format: "ICAO_developer_version"

[TonyD 132]

 I use addon linker for all my addons (over 2TB) organised in a similar way to ark4diusz shown above -  though I also divide by continent.

Its essential for me, as a do a lot beta testing - can't afford any possible extra sources of failure 🙂

[ThrottleUp 643]

I do the same as you OP. When I find a flight I like on FlightAware I grab the dept-dest scenery and install it using AOL. Using this method I've built a huge collection.

However I keep everything enabled all the time. I have about 600GB worth of addons. I could never enable-disable stuff. I want it on all the time and it has no big impact on loading the game. In 180 seconds I'm at the map screen.

Yes, not fast I know but even if that increases it wont bother me as I know I will not have to exit the game and re-enable a part of the world I had switched off in AOL. That would be a PITA for me.

AOL is perhaps one of THE champion apps for this game. I just cannot imagine life without it. Finding stuff in the custom Community is so easy now thanks to being able to organize addons by folder. The author is a hero and also extremely helpful on the forums if you need help.

I encourage fellow gamers to make sure they backup their Addons! Dont wanna lose them in case theres a SSD or HD burp.