OrbxDirect and FTXCv3 FAQ - add feedback here

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi Tim, I have been following this thread since the beginning.  And I'm sorry if it seems I'm asking in the wrong place.

 

My question concerns these zip files.  If I buy an airport like I did last night does it put tons of zip files on my SSD?

 

I bought S45 last night and just told it to install and not save or anything.

So did it add zip files to my PC?

 

I apologize if I am highjacking but just don't want my SSD to fill up with unneeded files.

 

I like the new system very much by the way.

 

Only thing I'd like to see is instant notification of updates instead of having to go through all the regions looking for them.

 

Thanks.

Jack

[Tim Harris]

1 minute ago, Jack Sawyer said:

I bought S45 last night and just told it to install and not save or anything.

So did it add zip files to my PC?

 no, not if you only used the 'Install' method

[Jack Sawyer]

Thanks Tim!

Great work!

[Ben McClintock]

On 11/5/2016 at 9:20 PM, pmb said:

I'd like to try once more. Do you other guys get 100 files in the target directory for Global Base, too?

 

Kind regards, Michael

Hi Michael,

 

When you use the "download and save me a backup for later" option, it will only save the files that it has actually downloaded.

 

The most likely reason you're seeing so few files in the directory, is that it has copied the rest of the files from another simulator on your computer - it only needed to download a small amount of unique files (so that's all it has backed up). I hope this makes some more sense

 

 

On 11/4/2016 at 5:00 PM, Triplane said:

The only "problem" I've had are really slooooooooooooooow download times

On 11/4/2016 at 10:08 PM, chris85713 said:

I just installed the new FTX Central, it told me there's an update for open land class, so I started the update. Three hours (and four interuptions) later I'm still waiting for it to finish so I can install it. I'm hoping this is just because of everyone moving to the new system, but I must admit I'm pretty disappointed so far.

Could you both try turning on "use Orbx CDN" in the settings? Or, if you already have it turned on, please try turning it off.

 

Then, restart FTX Central and see if you get better speeds.

[pmb]

Hi Ben  and Tim,

 

I choose install plus backup (Prepar3d). I had CDN checked. I'll have to obseve yet if it's faster. I downloaded Base within roughly half an hour, but I didn't really count time as it ran in the background. At least mine was not sooooooooooooooo slow.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Triplane]

Thanks Ben. I've used both the CDN and the ORBX server. Sometimes one is faster than the other but I don't see any real difference between the two. After an OS reinstall I downloaded and installed all my ORBX "stuff" and the freeware - I think that's 122 total installs. The download rate never exceeded 10Mb and often was in the 500-600Kb range (kind of a bummer when I'm sitting on a 100Mb line ) . All-in-all it took a little over 27 hours to get the job done. During that time I probably switched between the CDN and the ORBX server 15-20 times with no real difference. I realize this is a time of heavy usage and I'm sure the times will improve as the CDN continues to propagate and the initial rush calms down..

 

Many thanks to you, and all the staff, for a really terrific job on the "new" ORBX. Once the initial "got-to-get-used-to-the-different-stuff" is all sorted out it's going to be a real blessing. As I said in another post, the only issue I had over a day-and-a-half of this reinstall was the slow servers. Other than that the process is a real winner - everything worked just as advertised.

 

Doug

 

 

[bladerunner900]

Hello Ben.

 

So what you are saying is that the 'Backups' made by Central are only Incremental backups. This explains why the 'backup' of FTX Global Base on my system is 2.02 GB, and the single zip manual download is 3.9 GB.

 

Thanks.

Steve.

 

[John Venema]

5 hours ago, Triplane said:

Thanks Ben. I've used both the CDN and the ORBX server. Sometimes one is faster than the other but I don't see any real difference between the two. After an OS reinstall I downloaded and installed all my ORBX "stuff" and the freeware - I think that's 122 total installs. The download rate never exceeded 10Mb and often was in the 500-600Kb range (kind of a bummer when I'm sitting on a 100Mb line ) . All-in-all it took a little over 27 hours to get the job done. During that time I probably switched between the CDN and the ORBX server 15-20 times with no real difference. I realize this is a time of heavy usage and I'm sure the times will improve as the CDN continues to propagate and the initial rush calms down..

 

Many thanks to you, and all the staff, for a really terrific job on the "new" ORBX. Once the initial "got-to-get-used-to-the-different-stuff" is all sorted out it's going to be a real blessing. As I said in another post, the only issue I had over a day-and-a-half of this reinstall was the slow servers. Other than that the process is a real winner - everything worked just as advertised.

 

Doug

 

 

 

You're running at the maximum download rate if FTX Central is reporting 10MB/sec (it shows MBytes per second, not megabits). Divide your ISP 100Mbits/sec by 8 to get MBytes/sec and you're just about at peak efficiency.

 

When FTX Central drops its download speed and is showing 500Kb it is actually decompressing ZIP files. I have asked Ben to change this to use an average instead.

[pmb]

21 minutes ago, John Venema said:

 

You're running at the maximum download rate if FTX Central is reporting 10MB/sec (it shows MBytes per second, not megabits). Divide your ISP 100Mbits/sec by 8 to get MBytes/sec and you're just about at peak efficiency.

.

Thanks for noting that important point. I had slightly below 5 and have a 50 MBit/s connection (yet, soon 100), thus I obviously was fine. This was over CDN in Germany.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Sethos]

Has anyone noticed the load order it creates, doesn't really jive with standalone airports? 

 

Default library insertion points are FTX entries at the very top, OpenLC below that. However, my Fall City constantly clashes with another airport (default / PNW one?), so they are basically loaded together. Then I have to manually move that up to the top, wait for everything to reload. If FTX Central once again gets a hold of the scenery order, it moves it back down and it's messed up again.

 

Then I'd have to do this with all standalone airports?

[Triplane]

4 hours ago, John Venema said:

 

You're running at the maximum download rate if FTX Central is reporting 10MB/sec (it shows MBytes per second, not megabits). Divide your ISP 100Mbits/sec by 8 to get MBytes/sec and you're just about at peak efficiency.

 

When FTX Central drops its download speed and is showing 500Kb it is actually decompressing ZIP files. I have asked Ben to change this to use an average instead.

Oops, my bad on the typo John. I understand MB vs. Mb and I just screwed it up (I do it all the time....). But....that doesn't change the problem. Changing to an average will certainly be of benefit. Just a guess but I'd bet my average during all those installs was somewhere in the 2-3MB range. As I said, download files were really slow. I can remember several instances where the rate never went above 1MB for the entire file.

[Ben McClintock]

14 minutes ago, Sethos said:

Has anyone noticed the load order it creates, doesn't really jive with standalone airports? 

 

Default library insertion points are FTX entries at the very top, OpenLC below that. However, my Fall City constantly clashes with another airport (default / PNW one?), so they are basically loaded together. Then I have to manually move that up to the top, wait for everything to reload. If FTX Central once again gets a hold of the scenery order, it moves it back down and it's messed up again.

 

Then I'd have to do this with all standalone airports?

Hi Sethos,

 

In the FTX Central settings there are some library insertion point options. You can set the "FTX" entries to always be below your other 3rd party addons.

[Sethos]

1 hour ago, Ben McClintock said:

Hi Sethos,

 

In the FTX Central settings there are some library insertion point options. You can set the "FTX" entries to always be below your other 3rd party addons.

 

But is your own 1WA6 Fall City Airport seen as a 'third party'? Wouldn't that be part of the "FTX" entries? 

[dominique]

55 minutes ago, Sethos said:

 

But is your own 1WA6 Fall City Airport seen as a 'third party'? Wouldn't that be part of the "FTX" entries? 

Hi again Sethos,

 

As I said over there at the big A, I've no problem with 1WA6 which is safely tucked above PNW files with all my other NA airports. And its much better to do the troubleshooting here.

 

The v2 Insertion Points are messed up when you go to v3. You have to set them again. It is a little less intuitive than in v2 but easy enough.

 

Go to Central 3 - Click the cog - Go to the black entry box below "FTX entries should be inserted below" - Select the last/lowest of the third party (non OrbX) addons there and set it in the black box  

 

THEN 

 

Go to the black entry box below the "OpenLC entries should be inserted below" - Click and select FTX now.

 

THEN : save ! 

 

Fall City is, of course, seen as FTX and not a third party airport.   Now that you've manually changed its position, it gets a little more difficult. Put it back in the FTX block and do the insertions.

 

Tell us whether that works.

 

 

 

[Sethos]

25 minutes ago, dominique said:

Tell us whether that works.

 

Hey dominique,

 

Thanks for your detailed reply. 

 

This is a fresh install, both of P3D and FTX Central, on a new install of Windows. So there's no 'old' files to worry about. I don't have any third-party addons either to put the entry points below either. So the default settings seem to be the 'correct' ones, with FTX on top, OpenLC below that. 

 

With those settings, it arranges the scenery load order like this;

 

https://abload.de/img/10bj0x.jpg

 

Which makes my Fall City look like this;

 

https://abload.de/img/2rxkq8.jpg

 

It's clearly clashing with the above PNW entries. I can fix it by manually moving 1WA6 from priority 22, up to 1. So FTX Central 3, in my case, doesn't seem to move airports on top. It seems to be prioritising terrain / regions instead. 

 

But I saw this, I think it may be related? 

 

[dominique]

2 minutes ago, Sethos said:

 

Hey dominique,

 

Thanks for your detailed reply. 

 

This is a fresh install, both of P3D and FTX Central, on a new install of Windows. So there's no 'old' files to worry about. I don't have any third-party addons either to put the entry points below either. So the default settings seem to be the 'correct' ones, with FTX on top, OpenLC below that. 

 

With those settings, it arranges the scenery load order like this;

 

https://abload.de/img/10bj0x.jpg

 

Which makes my Fall City look like this;

 

https://abload.de/img/2rxkq8.jpg

 

It's clearly clashing with the above PNW entries. I can fix it by manually moving 1WA6 from priority 22, up to 1. So FTX Central 3, in my case, doesn't seem to move airports on top. It seems to be prioritising terrain / regions instead.

 

A real mess indeed, you seem to be among the unfortunates who have a problem with the scenery library. Did you try to add a third party addon and do the insertion points manipulation to see whether that would force the Scenery Library back in order ? In any case,  OrbX has announced a soon to come SP. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marek2704]

Until 1st November FlightSim Store offered possibility of switching from box version to download one for about 5 AUD per addon. Will it be still available?

[Alex Goff]

We will be offering a DVD to download process via OrbxDirect soon.

[Marek2704]

I belive you are thinking about DVD as an addon to download shopping in your new store, Alex. My question is about what can I do if I'm an owner of DVD box version of ORBX products (like on picture below).  Are you planning add any option to convert it to download version attached to ORBX store account?

[Alex Goff]

Hi Mark,

 

I am referring to converting an existing DVD purchase to a download. We will not be offering any DVD backup service with OrbxDirect. 

[picnic]

Quote

Q32 Will FTXCv3 have resuming capability?

A32 Yes, FTXCv3 downloads all products in “chunks” and if your internet connection is lost or interrupted you can exit FTXC and restart it. Then restart the download and it will scan the temporary files to the last good chunk and resume from there. Future versions of FTXC will be more sophisticated and automatically detect an incomplete download and resume queues in the background

Hmm, not my experience. Was trying to download and install Milford Sound this morning and the download stalled (as a side issue download speeds rarely match those I get from Steam) I quit FTX Central and restarted it to attempt to kick things in to life again and FTX Central forgot everything in my download queue and when asked to do Milford Sound again appeared to download the whole thing.

 

Also is there a File Integrity Check function, again like Steam has, where you can get FTX Central to ensure all files are actually present and correct? Or does one have to uninstall and reinstall if you thing something is messed up?

[Rimshot]

1 minute ago, picnic said:

Hmm, not my experience. Was trying to download and install Milford Sound this morning and the download stalled (as a side issue download speeds rarely match those I get from Steam) I quit FTX Central and restarted it to attempt to kick things in to life again and FTX Central forgot everything in my download queue and when asked to do Milford Sound again appeared to download the whole thing.

 

Also is there a File Integrity Check function, again like Steam has, where you can get FTX Central to ensure all files are actually present and correct? Or does one have to uninstall and reinstall if you thing something is messed up?

 

Indeed. I would be a great improvement if the tool would remember the queue.

[Hypofx]

Hi Guys, sorry if its a wrong place to ask, I have a Fresh install FSX SE with ORBX regions, i'd like to try P3d so i m going to install it but the question how can I install those orbx regions using Central v3 into p3d? Because the time I installed centralv3 I only had FSX so all regions was installed under fsx if i install now p3d , central will recognize it as a new sim so i can able to install those sceneries to p3d? Maybe a dropdown for selecting sim or adding new sim?

 

Thanks

[dominique]

15 minutes ago, Hypofx said:

Hi Guys, sorry if its a wrong place to ask, I have a Fresh install FSX SE with ORBX regions, i'd like to try P3d so i m going to install it but the question how can I install those orbx regions using Central v3 into p3d? Because the time I installed centralv3 I only had FSX so all regions was installed under fsx if i install now p3d , central will recognize it as a new sim so i can able to install those sceneries to p3d? Maybe a dropdown for selecting sim or adding new sim?

 

Thanks

When two or more sims are installed, C3 opens up with a dropdown menu to select the sim you are going to run.

[Nick Cooper]

Like this

 

[Hypofx]

AHh great so it means Central always looking for installed sims even if i only installed one at the time  so if im adding a new sim and start central i will get this screen.
Thanks for your help!!!!

[borisvp]

Hi,

 

I understand that when I install V3 and leave my existing purchases with FSS for now, nothing will be migrated/transferred and I will not see these purchases in Central V3.

 

Can somebody please explain how the region switching will work then? It is now active in my Central V2.1, and it's moving a number of files forth and back. Now (with V2.1) switching is definitely necessary, else Europe (OLC) will look quite odd when NA or AUS is active.

 

Boris

 

[picnic]

My understanding is Orbx developed a unified lookuplc file that removes the need for switching regions. There is an option in FTX Central 2 to migrate to use this feature. I guess the way forward is this new unified LC approach regardless. When I installed FTX Central 3 it asked me to migrate which was very quick as I assume it had little to do as I had already done it.

[borisvp]

What if I decided not to "force migrate" because I like it the way it is and have read quite a few statements about undesired effects of this migration? Meaning that my V2 still has the switcher. Will V3 work nevertheless or does this exclude me from using FTX?

 

Boris

 

[picnic]

On 11/4/2016 at 7:54 AM, Tim Harris said:

 

I suggest creating a ticket at the Orbxdirect shop regarding this, link here https://orbxdirect.com/support

 

Kind regards, Tim

 

I've tried this but after 2.5 days I've heard nothing back other than the initial automated response. Are you so snowed under it's taking this long to get around to support requests?

 

Request 420

 

[Benny]

A stupid suggestion... no I'm stupid so a suggestion for stupid folks

 

Change the color of the Download & Install in the new FTX3 installation window. Or make it flash.

 

I have stared at this window thinking the install would start by it self.... for hours, ha ha

 

Also, on the new ORBX site, when logged in, watching your product, the Manual download is embedded in the text, same color as the rest.

Again maybe a different color or a simple button would be nice.

 

I am part of the few that can't make big download from home

 

Also (part 2), IN FTX3, why not give an estimate of the download size when a product need update? Unless because of the migration it need to be a full download?

 

Ben

[nandrews]

Just having received the email from JV regarding licences and downloads.

Can I add my twopennyworth here - tho' I am not one of those who have manually downloaded anything since FTX3?

But I suggest that the 'panic' downloading was not so unreasonable as has been suggested.

OK so you (ORBX direct) store all the files and FTX3 updates my system or even reinstalls everything if needed. That's very handy.

But what happens if/when ORBX isn't around or has a long period of unavailability?

All the product that I have bought, I have no local copy to reinstall from and, in the case of 'no ORBX', I would not be able to get it again!

I think some people who like me have spent £100's on ORBX products, would like some assurance that they will always have access to what they have bought.

 

Nigel

[Jack Sawyer]

I use Acronis, one a week and before any new installs.  It has saved my bacon more times than I can count.  I had Jetline build me a nice system in December of 2014 and I have yet to have to reinstall an OS.  I know a lot of guys do it for various reasons but a complete reinstal of everything?  I'd only do it if I had major hardware changes.  If P3D messed up something during an upgrade, I'd run Acronis and I'd be back to where I was in 30 minutes.  But that's me and my simple opinion to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[bladerunner900]

2 hours ago, nandrews said:

Just having received the email from JV regarding licences and downloads.

Can I add my twopennyworth here - tho' I am not one of those who have manually downloaded anything since FTX3?

But I suggest that the 'panic' downloading was not so unreasonable as has been suggested.

OK so you (ORBX direct) store all the files and FTX3 updates my system or even reinstalls everything if needed. That's very handy.

But what happens if/when ORBX isn't around or has a long period of unavailability?

All the product that I have bought, I have no local copy to reinstall from and, in the case of 'no ORBX', I would not be able to get it again!

I think some people who like me have spent £100's on ORBX products, would like some assurance that they will always have access to what they have bought.

 

Nigel

You raise a valid point. What you fear is exactly what happened to me when Earth Simulations stopped trading.

[johnfromoz]

To be honest, I am getting the hang of the new system. I am still one who prefers a disc version. It would be wonderful if an installation from disc was recognised as valid by FTXCen3, and only updates would be downloaded - so much less of a load on the server!

And yes, I have just got a new PC, reinstalling FSX from scratch, and adding Orbx first, so I know what other third party sceneries I need to fill the gaps. The whole thing is a big project. I plead guilty to downloading all I can, though I could have reinstalled a lot from the discs. It took ages. We were encouraged to embrace the now system, and I did .

Sadly, I will have to download many again to get local backups - which is not urgent. I took one look at what came down and had no idea what was what. No, I am still a "backup on disc" person, but it's not an option, so I expect to use FTXCe3 at a speed which suits how I install.

But on the bright side, I grabbed Northern California a day or so back, and it encouraged me.

I just need to remember how to get rid of floating buildings in PNG.

 

[spud]

"So, to recap:

 

1. The only thing being restricted are the manual downloads

2. Everything else works through FTX Central as it always did, nothing has changed - try it now if you like

3. Adrian has now re-enabled validation on all your old FSS Wrapper Installers, so you can use those again now.

4. You can quickly and easily backup your entire Orbx collection with a simple folder copy

5. FSS wrappers will still work if you've used them already without re-installing Windows.

6. FTX Central download speeds are great for most people, bad for some - we're working on it"

 

It is very nice of Adrian to re-enable the Installers for ORBX products.  However as we were informed that the installers would be useless once we transfered our ORBX files to ORBX Direct I took ORBX at their word and deleted the backups of all my FSS ORBX purchases.  Guess it was premature on my part but as I have already installed my ORBX scenery via Central v3 and saw no need for the installers any longer.  Additionally my download files were removed from the FSS when I moved to ORBX Direct which renforced the notion that keeping the installers was pointless.

I know I was not the only customer to do this in good faith.

 

[Triplane]

 

No, you're not the only one. Trust, once lost, is difficult to regain..........Doug

[John Venema]

I think this topic has run its course. It was intended for feedback regarding the FAQ but it has now strayed quite some way from that purpose, so let's close it gracefully shall we?