22 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

may also maybe unnecessary if 2024 is loading add-ons as it needs them rather than all at once.

Not sure anything has changed in that regard.. scenery gets loaded as you get closer (whatever that means) and captured in, or loaded from, the Rolling Cache if active..  That was true in 2020, and is still true in 2024.

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by Bert Pieke

2 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Not sure anything has changed in that regard.. scenery gets loaded as you get closer (whatever that means) and captured in, or loaded from, the Rolling Cache if active..  That was true in 2020, and is still true in 2024.

I see. Until anyone says different, it’s probably best to manage scenery as before… on a session to session basis. 

45 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

I see. Until anyone says different, it’s probably best to manage scenery as before… on a session to session basis. 

It's definitely best in terms of sim load time.  The less you have in /Community the faster the sim loads.  2024 loads faster than 2020 but it still matters, even in 2024.

I don't "hide" anything from 2024. And both the sim and every flight still loads almost 3 times faster than 2020. 

The time saved in loading is most likely offset and then some by having to disable what you aren't going to use for any given sim session. The addons aren't loaded, they are indexed. 

22 hours ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I also use Addon Linker - with sceneries grouped by continents/countries - plus I divide all my aircraft and liveries into civil/military.

Same.

On 7/21/2025 at 12:48 AM, Virtual-Chris said:

I guess what I want to know, is if there's any point to installing and uninstalling scenery on a session basis, or if that's completely unnecessary with 2024... maybe stuff is only loaded when it's actually needed?  For example, am I slowing down the sim or consuming resources if I have a bunch of Euro scenery installed and I'm flying in Hawaii, or it's completely irrelevant because it will never be loaded anyway?

I'm guessing no one actually knows?  Has Asobo covered how add-on scenery is loaded?

The simple solution is Addon Linker, which allows you to set up any number of scenarios that contain addons of your choice, and loads LINKS to those chosen files -- not the actual files -- in Community. Most of us who use it store the addons somewhere outside Flight Simulator (they can be anywhere). If you try this free program, which is an amazing tool, you will never leave it.  

Regarding scenery specifically, the answer to your question about loading sceneries for specific regions when you are not flying there is: no need to worry about it.  MSFS2024 loads only what is needed where you are flying -- this is the beauty of online flight. 

Edited July 22, 2025Jul 22 by cobalt

1 hour ago, cobalt said:

The simple solution is Addon Linker, which allows you to set up any number of scenarios that contain addons of your choice, and loads LINKS to those chosen files -- not the actual files -- in Community. Most of us who use it store the addons somewhere outside Flight Simulator (they can be anywhere). If you try this free program, which is an amazing tool, you will never leave it.  

Regarding scenery specifically, the answer to your question about loading sceneries for specific regions when you are not flying there is: no need to worry about it.  MSFS2024 loads only what is needed where you are flying -- this is the beauty of online flight. 

Yeah I use add-on linker. I was more interested in the last part of your response about whether it’s helpful in any way to remove scenery if you’re not planning to visit it. In MSFS 2020 it was helpful to keep it to a minimum. My guess and you’re of the same mind, it seems, is that in 2024, there’s no impact to leaving unvisited scenery deployed. 

52 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Yeah I use add-on linker. I was more interested in the last part of your response about whether it’s helpful in any way to remove scenery if you’re not planning to visit it. In MSFS 2020 it was helpful to keep it to a minimum. My guess and you’re of the same mind, it seems, is that in 2024, there’s no impact to leaving unvisited scenery deployed. 

I am a bit confused about your reference to "unvisited scenery". Are you talking about 3rd party addons such as airports or specific buildings, or do you mean large regional 3rd party scenery? Personally, I think it's pretty clear that the streamed scenery in 2020 and 2024 beats any 3rd party large-area scenery, and therefore I see no reason to load it or even own it. 

26 minutes ago, cobalt said:

I am a bit confused about your reference to "unvisited scenery". Are you talking about 3rd party addons such as airports or specific buildings, or do you mean large regional 3rd party scenery? Personally, I think it's pretty clear that the streamed scenery in 2020 and 2024 beats any 3rd party large-area scenery, and therefore I see no reason to load it or even own it. 

Yeah, I mean airport and other scenery specific to a location or city.  For example, maybe you're flying in Europe but have a bunch of NA airports. In MSFS 2020 you would want to remove all those NA airports when flying in Europe and just load European scenery you might visit in your session. In 2024, my guess (and yours?) is that this is unnecessary, because MSFS 2024 won't actually load any of those NA airports unless you actually fly to them.

46 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Yeah, I mean airport and other scenery specific to a location or city.  For example, maybe you're flying in Europe but have a bunch of NA airports. In MSFS 2020 you would want to remove all those NA airports when flying in Europe and just load European scenery you might visit in your session. In 2024, my guess (and yours?) is that this is unnecessary, because MSFS 2024 won't actually load any of those NA airports unless you actually fly to them.

You should do whatever you are comfortable with, but I am not convinced that 2020 and 2024 behave differently in this regard.

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Yeah, I mean airport and other scenery specific to a location or city.  For example, maybe you're flying in Europe but have a bunch of NA airports. In MSFS 2020 you would want to remove all those NA airports when flying in Europe and just load European scenery you might visit in your session. In 2024, my guess (and yours?) is that this is unnecessary, because MSFS 2024 won't actually load any of those NA airports unless you actually fly to them.

2020 doesn't load them either.  Nothing has changed.

2 hours ago, Mace said:

2020 doesn't load them either.  Nothing has changed.

Hmm. Ok. I was under the impression 2020 loaded everything in your community folder whether it was in your flight path or not. Does the sim not take longer to load with lots of scenery? If so why is that?

Edited July 22, 2025Jul 22 by Virtual-Chris

On 7/20/2025 at 11:49 PM, Matt Webb said:

When they gave us the ability to install locally, I downloaded everything.

 

Now, I have only the country, airports and planes I usually fly in installed locally.  Everything else is streamed. 

 

Even then, I'm probably going to move to streaming only again. 

 

 Too much hassle to keep it all up to date + love the disk space.

Same here! I just uninstalled everything yesterday except MP purchases because of the constant large updates. Not worth it, I didn’t perceive any difference in performance by having those downloaded. 

4 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Hmm. Ok. I was under the impression 2020 loaded everything in your community folder whether it was in your flight path or not. Does the sim not take longer to load with lots of scenery? If so why is that?

If you have a big /Community folder, then yes the sim takes longer to load.  It's because the sim (both 2020 and 2024) will index each item in the Community folder when you start the sim...I think Vancouver Dave (Dave_YVR) mentioned this earlier in the thread.