Strange FSX file accesses....

[Gypsy Baron 10]

I began a flight from Baltimore-Washinton International to Torontothis evening and was noticing an unusal amount of disc activitycoupled with 'hang ups' of up to 3-4 seconds, so I opened FileMonto see if I could get idea of what was going on.It seemed FSX was continuously opening, reading and closing filesin the global scenery folders and it appeared it was the same groupsof files, over and over. But what was strange was some files that were accessed continually throughout the entire flight that were related to airports and scenryTHOUSANDS of miles from my flight path. Tens of thousands of file accesses to scenery far removed from the flight path.One particular group of files for Khrabrovo, Kalingrad, Russia wereaccessed more than any of the other 'out of area' files. There musthave been 15-20 different files from this addon airport thatwere being opened, read, and closed throughout the flight.Here are some of the files that were being accessed:IFR KBWI to CYYZ via EMI, PSB, BFD FL 320 B747-400Khrabrovo UMKK N54 53.40' E020 35.70' ( Dozens of different files open, read & closed continually ) D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryegg_lib_medved.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryemergency_ambulance_lib.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovoscenerylib_dirt.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_lght.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_vipcar.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryspot.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_rsbn.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovoscenerylib_followme.BGL Moffet Field KNUQ N37 24.91' W122 02.90' D:fsx addon scenery 2moffett field (knuq)scenerymoffett.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2moffett field (knuq)sceneryag_tree_lib.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2moffett field (knuq)sceneryfencelib.BGLRAF Coningsby EGXC N53 05.58' W000 09.96' D:fsx addon scenery 2maiw raf coningsbysceneryegxc_bldgs_library.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2maiw raf coningsbysceneryosan lib.BGLDenver KDEN N39 51.70' W104 40.39' D:fsx addon scenery 2kdenscenerykden1.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2kdenscenerykden2.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2kdensceneryramplight.BGLNorth Island NAS KNZY N32 41.94' W117 12.92' D:fsx addon scenery 2north island nas (knzy)sceneryag_tree_lib.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2north island nas (knzy)scenerynorth island object library.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2north island nas (knzy)scenerysupport building library.BGL SUCCESSWhiteman AFB KSZL N38 43.82' W093 32.88' D:fsx addon scenery 2maiw whiteman afbscenerywhiteman_afb_ez.BGLElmendorf AFB PAED N61 15.08' W149 48.39 D:fsx addon scenery 2maiw elmendorf afbscenerymaiw_paed_objects.BGLSalt Lake City KSLC N40 47.30' W111 58.67' D:fsx addon scenery 2utahcompletescenerykslcobj2.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2utahcompletescenerykslc_obj1.BGLReno KRNO N39 29.95' W119 46.09' I:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator Xscenerycitiesrenosceneryreno_image.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2denmarksceneryobjglobalx.BGL D:fsx addon scenery 2denmarksceneryobjglobal.BGLWith the exception of the Reno file, these are all Addon scenery elements andthus nothing that FSX should be using for standard library objectsthat might be included.Can anyone shed any light on what is happening here?It looks to me to be yet another example of poorly written code,or at least code that was not thoroughly tested. Paul

[n4gix 4,947]

Paul, are you running SP2? This was one of the fixes that SP2 supposedly has corrected.

[PhilTaylor 45]

As I have explained before, seehttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=414886&page=the terrain engine loads scenery that is within 4.5 tiles of the current location.This is by design, and is most certainly not "yet another example of poorly written code, or at least code that was not thoroughly tested".We did find a case where this range was not respected and fixed that in SP2.I'd have to load the scenery up in TMFViewer in the SDK to see if the Khrabrovo scenery is within that range, but certainly the other NA scenery is almost assuredly within that range.

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>Paul, are you running SP2? This was one of the fixes that>SP2 supposedly has corrected. Yes Bill, I am running SP2 ( as supplied with Acceleration ). I think I'lll try flying that route again to see if this is 'repeatable' and if so, then disable first the Khrabrovo scenery and so on. The Khrabrovo scenery has the most files that are being read and I believe is furthest from Baltimore ot Toronto. Paul

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>As I have explained before, see>http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=414886&page=>>the terrain engine loads scenery that is within 4.5 tiles of>the current location.>>This is by design, and is most certainly not "yet another>example of poorly written code, or at least code that was not>thoroughly tested".>>We did find a case where this range was not respected and>fixed that in SP2.>>I'd have to load the scenery up in TMFViewer in the SDK to see>if the Khrabrovo scenery is within that range, but certainly>the other NA scenery is almost assuredly within that range.Hummm...my question then is how BIG is a 'tile' these days?If Denver, Salt Lake City, Mountain View CA, Reno and Elmendorf in Alaskaare all witin 4.5 tiles of Baltimore and Toronto, then that begs the question as to why FSX wasn't loading all the other addon scenery I have that is within a circle drawn around the furthest points. And Denmark?I have addon scenery for Seattle, San Francisco, Edwards, Tonopah, Las Vegas and on and on, yet these areas were not being loaded. I also have areas in Nova Scoia, Greenland and other places on the Continent that were not loaded.I suspect there is some aspect of one of the scenery elements thatis PORKED and causing FSX to 'wander' off course, if you will. Khrabrovo is in Kaliningrad, Rusian Fewderation, which is tucked inbetween Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic. A bit of distance fromBaltimore or Toronto.Granted, not all failure modes can be anticipated or tested for butcertainly if 'out of area' scenery loading was a problem in the pastand was looked at and fixed in SP2, then I have to wonder..... Paul

[meerkat 86]

Hi Paul,what stands out with the accessed files is that their names often contain "lib", "library", "objects" and so on. I suppose these accessed files are all BGLs containing object libraries that were compiled with no geographic constraints - that means, the library objects can be displayed (called by other scenery bgls) at any place on earth (an maybe the moon ;-) ).If FSX is coded in a way that such global addon libraries are often scanned for objects that might be called in order to preload them if needed, this behaviour could have some logic. Only the stock FSx Reno file puzzles me.Maybe there should be (or is it already there?) some advice in the SDK how to build custom object libraries to prevent these accesses.Greetings

[Mace 1,902]

>>Hummm...my question then is how BIG is a 'tile' these days?>Depends what tile Phil is referring to. If he means QMID2 or some big tile size like that, then sure, it could load half of North America in there.But, the Kaliningrad stuff, that's way far away, doesn't seem ok to me on first glance.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>Hi Paul,>>what stands out with the accessed files is that their names>often contain "lib", "library", "objects" and so on. >I suppose these accessed files are all BGLs containing object>libraries that were compiled with no geographic constraints ->that means, the library objects can be displayed (called by>other scenery bgls) at any place on earth (an maybe the moon>;-) ).>If FSX is coded in a way that such global addon libraries are>often scanned for objects that might be called in order to>preload them if needed, this behaviour could have some logic.>Only the stock FSx Reno file puzzles me.>Maybe there should be (or is it already there?) some advice in>the SDK how to build custom object libraries to prevent these>accesses.>>Greetings>Hi Markus,Thanks for your observations.Those excerpts I posted where just a small portion of the actual filesthat are being looked at.I just ran some further tests with the same flight loaded, then a different aircraft and finally, my default flight with the Breach Baron G1000from KROC to KBUF.Looking at the Filemon logs I am seeing my Hawaii 10M mesh and my USA West 10 Mesh being accessed along with alot of other stuff.Concentraing on the Khrabrovo issue, since that scenery folder contained the most number of files being constantly read and re-read I foundthat during my 27 minute flight from KROC to KBUF, there are blocksof 444 Query, Open, Read, Close operations on the same group offiles throughout the flight.The total number of Khrabrovo operations was 616,716 for the 27 minuteflight duration. That's 22,841 needless operations per minute, or380 per second, just for that one airport that is thousands ofmiles away from my flight path. I could possibly see FSX accessing distant areas at the onset of aflight but NOT constantly during a flight which has no possibilityof coming anywhere near that area, based on aircraft type and fuel load!This just really bothers my 'logical engineering mind'.here is the list of the Kharbrovo files as listed by Filemonduring the 'Close' operation. As I mentioned, this is just thelast set of operatons of each 444 operation block. Almost immediastely the whole sequence begins again. Paul14:34:23.515 fsx.exe:2608 CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryspot.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_vipcar.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_tires3.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_tires2.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_tires.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_static27.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_statan24.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_start.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_rsbn.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_rd_trc_24.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_rd_trc.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_papi.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_mil_one.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_lr.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_lght.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_ldr_4.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_ldr_3.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_ldr_1.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_kdp.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_iterm.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_hangar_tu134.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_hangar_an2.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_gr_trc_24.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_gr_trc.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_foll.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_flash.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_dterm.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bus_5.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bus4.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bus3.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bus1.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bus.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bl.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_bg_5.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_autohouse.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_atb.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_anbg_5.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_anbg_4.BGL CLOSE D:fsx addon scenery 2khrabrovosceneryobj_anbg_3.BGL

[Guest abulaafia]

This is certainly not the case, not in SP2 either. When flying around Hong Kong I still see file access to several US and European areas on every flight (using SP2!). That's the other side of the world, and there is no reason I can understand why FSX would have to access those files. It's been like this since day one, there have been numerous threads about strange file access since the beginning.

[PhilTaylor 45]

This depends on the highest QMID level authored in the scenery, as I recall.

[Guest weeniemcween]

I also remember this phenomenon being reported from day one. Still hasn't been fixed. Meanwhile there are people who say that the reason fsx doesn't run well maxed out on cutting edge hardware (more than a year after release) is because it is "future proof". This is a program that can't even display soft shadows (nor anti-aliased), a directx 9 technology, in directx 10, after one has invested hundreds of dollars in a new card and a new bloated operating system. It has been said time and again but is it really taken into consideration? Hundreds of dollars. And blurries on many computers are the result of "resource starvation", not the changes brought by sp1 and maintained in 2. System power may be a factor in alleviating them but give me a break, it's not a fundamental cause. Say what you will about whether fsx is fun or not, I won't argue. I just wish I could take the fsx code to civil court. The evidence against it is overwhelming.But let us pray for fs11 code.

[Guest]

If you know so well how it should be done, show us all and do it.Produce that marvellous piece of software that gives us 10000fps while displaying 1cm mesh with phototextures for correct for all altitudes, lighting conditions, and weather/seasonal considerations.

[Mace 1,902]

I think what Markus was saying, was that those other-area bgl's like Khabarovo could have object libraries in them that are used around KBUF/KROC.That's an interesting theory and it is one that I have never heard discussed before.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Guest weeniemcween]

That is such a silly and unoriginal objection. I'm talking about widely reported evidence that suggests inefficiency in the fsx code. So when people buy better and expensive hardware yet cannot run the program at a reasonably expected level, these shortcomings should be taken into consideration. Instead you have people making excuses that defy logic.Take, by way of analogy, compiz fusion on linux vs aero on vista. You get can get the same thing and more with the former but on far lower spec hardware. Not to mention the other speed and stability advantages of the linux kernel. Why is this? Because linux has better code. So, perhaps if I had a team of experienced programmers, like Jean-Luc Dupiot and the guys over at Airsimmer for instance, and the marketing power of a major software company I personally might be able to do something about it. But the way you put it is like telling someone they have no right to criticize a movie unless they are a director/producer/screenwriter all rolled into one, no right to criticize a book unless they are an author/editor/publisher.

[Gypsy Baron 10]

>I think what Markus was saying, was that those other-area>bgl's like Khabarovo could have object libraries in them that>are used around KBUF/KROC.>>That's an interesting theory and it is one that I have never>heard discussed before.>>Rhett-SNIP- Hi Rhett,Methinks that is not the case since the Khrabrovo scenery is an addon and it is being continuosly loaded and re-loaded no matterWHERE I fly. One intersting aspect is that ALL the BGL files in that addon scenery 'scenery' folder are being read except the'AFCAD' ( actually ADE ) files. And NO textures are being read inany of the 'out of area' scenery file accesses. Nothing in WesternNew York should be using anything in the Kaliningrad scenery.If I had scenery from the same author in those widely dispersedareas I MIGHT think this could be possible but doesn't appearto be the case here.I did a flight from Ceske Budojovice ( Czech Republic ) to Sliac ( Slovak Republic ) last night and the "Utahcomplete" scenery fileswere being accssed continually, as well as Kharbrovo and alot of otherslike my USA WEST 10M Mesh while I'm flying in Eastern Europe!Flying on the east coast of the USA I see the USA West mesh being accessed as well as the Hawaii 10M mesh. I have now resorted to creating 4 'scenery.cfg' files that Ikeep in folders in the Documents and SettingsAll Users......FSXfolder, Hawaii_CFG, USA_CFG, Europe_CFG and ALL_CFG. In the three'area specific' cfg files I disable all addon scenery that is out of the area but that doesn't help the case where flying KROC-KBUF I get accesses to the west coast mesh, Utahcomplete,Denver, Moffet Field, etc.I suppose I could further fracture the structure to USA_WESTand USA_EAST but this REALLY should NOT be necessary if thesoftware was performing 'logically'.I now replace the scenery.cfg file with the desired 'area specific' scenery.cfg copy and let FSX build a new database.This at least saves a few million disc operations on a flight of an hour or so, based on my observations.As to why FSX is perfoming as it does, I can only speculate atthis point and attempt kludge 'fixes' such as the multiplescenery.cfg configurations. Perhaps there is an errant objectlocation coded into one of the scenery files but I really don't think that could be the case since I can change the area whereI am flying by a very large distance and still see the sameaberant behavior taking place.For the next FS'xx" it might be nice to have selectable 'AddonScenery' directories that can be enableddisabled similar tohaving the 'Simobjects' entries in the fsx>CFG file.That way one could group addon scenery by regions in anappropriately named folder...'Addon_Scenery Western NY' orsome such and be able to enabledisable that folder and all thesub-folders from the menu while still being able to have seperatefolders within that folder containing scenery, etc for discreteareas without having to mix alot of files together in one 'scenery'and 'texture' folder under the main folder.As to the original issue here, methinks I could choose pretty much any area in the world to fly and I will see these 'out ofarea' accesses, and by 'out of area' I mean WAY out...more thanone thousand miles. Paul