bigfella Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Hi Support, Hope you can help here. I am having problems with launching the first flight when FSX has first started. It stops at 6% loading terrain data and then can wait up to five minutes before progressing. I am a bit technical so I have tried the following: 1. Moved all the scenery to a SSD. Made a little difference but not much. 2. Defragged - Made no difference 3. Fresh install of FSX and added scenery.cfg back in. No difference. 4. The big one, removed all add-on scenery from the scenery.cfg file except for the base install and it fly's thru the loading. Ok I then went back and added each scenery one at a time an the first culprit which adds 35 seconds to the loading terrain data is ORBX NA. Add ORBX SC and the time increases to 60 seconds. Keep adding the global textures and I get to 2.5 minutes. Remove all this and just add so basic airports (non ORBX) and back to normal. The processors are working well, the memory is good and the SSD works a dream. It seems to be the caching of the data that kills things. Note that after the first flight, any subsequent flights selected the loading passes thru 6% quickly as it is already cached. Looks like I am not the only person experiencing this form of delay. Any thoughts or ideas on how to fix this would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplane Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Indeed, the dreaded 6% "problem". Everyone has it. And, it's been around since the beginning of time. It takes a while for the CPU to produce all those details. The more complex the scenery, and the aircraft, the longer it takes the CPU to do it's job...lots of triangles to compute. The problem is the time it takes to calculate, not the time it takes to load. The faster the memory and CPU, the less the time it takes to get the job done. The less detailed the scenery and aircraft, the less time it takes to get the job done. It's all just a function of computer speed and how much "stuff" you have.........Doug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jethro VH-JET Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Hello Bigfella, I wish there was better news for you on the subject of 6% slow loading, but unfortunately this is just a by-product of loading vastly more data into the sim than default and basic Addon airfields, alongside Orbx products that have a significant improvement in detail, texture quality, autogen, & resolution. (hence : more Gb of Data is loaded = Loading Time extended). You have done most of the right things, although you should not Defrag an SSD drive. (Defrag HDD's only) for contiguous file structure. Also, Orbx Scenery must be installed into the FSX installation / drive location / associated Orbx folders, so simply moving it will not work. If you have any (Non-Orbx addon "Photoreal Only" scenery), one of the things which can improve this loading time is to uncheck in the Scenery Library, any addon "Photoreal Only" scenery areas that you do not intend to fly over during your current FS flight session. The thing you need to keep in mind with regard to addon Photoreal Only scenery which (if installed and activated) often loads huge data into the sim along with the high quality Orbx scenery at your chosen spawning Airfield / Regional location (masses of data in Gb will be loaded and cached, adding significantly to loading times), it will also Load all PR Scenery for wherever on the globe into the Scenery Cache, incl Local Orbx scenery for your flight when you click the "Fly Now" button, even if you are not going to fly over the area during your flight. Antivirus programs can also get in the way, as they will scan each file as it is loaded. You can Exclude your Antivirus from scanning the FSX installation and executables along with any other FS utilities you may be using or need access to during a flight session. User Permissions can also be a factor, you must give your Flight Simulator installation folders "Full Administrative Permissions" even though may be logged in as the Administrator User account, by unchecking the Read only attribute in the FSX installation folder Properties General Tab then clicking "Apply" to have all Folders Subfolders & Files included in the attribute removal. I do think that FSX loading seems to nod off (Fall asleep) when faced with (massive Data volumes from addon scenery) partway through loading, usually around 6%. Wether it is just coping with huge volumes of data for the spawning location, or the sim is processing/loading normally under the heavy circumstances. A very good indicator that FSX loading is progressing (however many Gigabytes) is the PC's Drive access indicator light. It should be flickering madly or unnoticeably solid lit. When Loading has stalled you will find the Drive light is no longer lit or flickering, there may be sporadic bursts of activity but as long as the Light is flickering the Scenery and sim are loading. (The next bit is purely experimental) Placebo effect, maybee!! Busy waiting finger poised on mouse, maybee!! Pure Coincidence of timing, Who knows!! The following unverified actions, wether purely coincidental or anecdotal seem to prompt the Loading window if it appears to be stalled, (At least that is what I have observed). What I find wakes up the Loading process, is to move your mouse pointer over the Loading window or L/click it a few times on the Loading window, also if you have a Joystick / throttle, slide it to throttle Off position. (Laugh as you may, it matters 0 to me) I don't know why this seems to work ( I have not delved into the process deeply enough) wether this is related to Background OS processes being offloaded or hardware devices going to sleep when faced with FSX preparing to load into Full Screen mode (having Focus), give it a try what have you got to loose. ((((Loading Time)))) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Clarke Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Another trick is to start your flight at a relatively low detailed airport. I find that when i have all my NA FTX Regions enabled and choose for example KLAX to start with, then the loading time is quite slow and the dreaded 6% is in full force. If i choose an airfield well away from KLAX to start with then the loading is quicker. What i do is load the flight at the airfield and then when loaded i hit the Go To Airport and enter KLAX. It loads a lot quicker than if i had entered KLAX at the onset. Subsequent loadings for the FTX Regions are much quicker than the first loading of the day for the Sim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfella Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 Hey guys, Thanks for this. Going to try the outback airfield load first and see what happens. Does not make sense as it still has to load the scenery at some time but lets see what happens. So summing things up here, 1. The dreaded 6% is not actually loading the data entirely but includes computing the data into the files and format required for scenery generation when flying 2. Predominantly the 6% freeze is the processing of the data and then caching. I understand that once cached on the first load, subsequent loads (without restarting FSX) are quick. I see this. So the question, where does FSX cache the processed data, to memory or disk. If it is disk is there a way to leave the cached information intact after shutting down FSX so it is there when you start again? If it is disk then moving to he cache files to SSD should theoretically improve the response time. If the main issue is CPU, is there a way of multi threading the process across numerous cores rather than a single core? Looking forward to your thoughts. By the way I moved ORBX directory to the SSD and setup a link from the main FSX directory to the SSD directory and it works really well and seems to speed things up a little. Regards, Bigfella Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Clarke Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 bigfella, what i notice is similar to what you say in regard to subsequent loading times but I notice that the loading times are quicker after the first load of the day. That is after first firing up your PC. I can close P3D down and do other stuff but not shut down the PC. The loading time is still quicker than the initial first time. What I am saying is that the load times should be quicker after the initial firing up of the PC rather than if you have the "without restarting FSX". You can shut down FSX but not the PC. I am mentioning this because your subsequent question related to a "cache". Now i have no idea on that but it would appear that something somewhere is retaining data from your last FSX session, and that the data is being stored (??) as long as you dont shut the PC down. Hence the loading of a flight after shutting FSX down, but not the PC, usually results in a a quicker load time than when you first fire the PC up and start FSX.If you shut down FSX and the PC you will get the same lengthy loading time because the hypothetically "stored" data has been erased and needs to "cache" it all again. Hope you get my drift, if somewhat awkwardly explained PS: I could well be talking out my xxxx but I am only explaining what I observe. The technicalities are probably wrong but as least I hope you understand my explanation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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