answered ANY FTX scenery causes massive delay in P3Dv4.0.28 startup

[Mike Sierra]

(I'm copy'n'pasting this text from another thread, where the core problem wouldn't fit the title any longer:)

 

My problem is, that, with the installation of OrbX/FTX sceneries (only compatible ones, installation via FTXC3!), the FlightSim sometimes has a horrific drag in starting:

I'm talking about the time between clicking the "OK" button in the scenario setup screen at startup and the moment of 'ready to fly', but the problem also occurs in-game, when loading another scenario or re-loading the actual one.

 

When I start P3D I have the 'OK to ready-to-fly times' between 2 and 2 1/2 minutes, but every now and then (I'd guess, every third or fourth time), it first starts as if a 2 1/2 minutes start would come, but at 81% of the loading bar, the loading progress stops.

About one and a half matches of 'Solitaire' (Win game) later, it proceeds to 82%, and another match later to 83%. The rest then loads at 'normal' speed.

Sometimes I already can see my scenario scenery already, when the loading bar is at 81% (P3D reacts to my TrackIR head movements), and there I noticed that the autogen buildings are already shown, but autogen trees are still missing in the display (They pop up when the loading bar has reached 100% and the loading window is closed).

That's why I first suspected FTX trees to be the fault.

Before having started Orbx installations this delay at 81% never occurred.

Then I install OrbX sceneries in the sequel: Global, Library, LC Euroe, LC North America, (leaving out the Trees)

 

And these are the results of my investigations, which took me half of the afternoon to perform:

 

Two findings:

1. FTX Trees HD is NOT the faulty add-on.

2. I surrender without a conclusion.

 

I've tested P3D for the last hours and took the times between OK button and ready-to-fly.

These are the results:

Having FTX Global, Orbxlibs, openLC Europe, openLC North America installed: 2'28", 1'06", 1'00", 1'00" (At the first start obviously P3D wasn't in the cache memory).

Adding: EU England, Germany north, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Scotland and Wales: 2'09" (again the cache!), 1'09", 7'44" (!)

Removed Wales: 7'53"

Then I deactivated my McAfee antivirus: 1'03" (oho!), but then again: 7'46" (so McAfee isn't the faulty either),

Removed Scotland: 1'15", 1'12", 1'14", 1'14", 1'11", 1'10", 1'10" (have I found it?)

Adding Wales again: 5'22" (huh? maybe reading new sceneries the first time?), 1'12", 1'12", 1'10", 1'07", 1'11" - so could it be Scotland?

I deleted the sceneryindexdata files: 1'11" (no effect, though it took a lot longer to come to the scenario setup, as all 184 sceneryindexdata files had to be re-created)

I deleted about 2800 shader files: 1'11" until 100% loading bar, änother 1'13" to build up the shaders again and to be ready to fly.

I've re-installed my yersterday's version (including FTX Trees) - only one test: 1'14".

Now I'm adding the North American and Oceanian sceneries.

And I have no solution to the 7:44 startup time problem.

Going back to simflying instead of betatesting...

 

Michael.

[GregJ]

IF it were me - I'd reinstall the client. I have a few addon sceneries (Victoria+, Grovestine's CYYJ and FS DreamTeams Vancouver) w/o that kind of delay - sure it's a little longer loading than stock configuration - but nothing like that. start from the base...

[Mike Sierra]

Hi Greg,

Please don't be upset on my answer to your suggestion (you cannot know): But I won't do THAT again.

This is my third complete-from-scratch-installation of v4HF1!

And it is a 'feature' that I also had in the first release of v4.0.23, so I guess, the client, which was worked over with the HF, cannot have much to do with that problem.

Nevertheless thanks for your statement.

Michael.

[Richard Lincoln]

Hi Michael,

 

                Interesting topic on the Lag, Do you have your Sim on an SSD or HDD? My Sims are on an HDD, P3DV3, FSX and P3DV4, I do get a little Lag at 6% loading, I have found using a really good De fragger that prioritises files into segments, dramatically improves my load times. Anyway, nothing official, just what my system does

[Mike Sierra]

Hi RIchard,

 

My v3.4.22 is on a SSD drive, but having left over some discharged 'too small' (too small at 2 TB!) HDDs in perfect shape, I installed v4.0.28 onto one of these HDDs.

After having started this thread I've re-imported a complete (Acronis-file)-backup including all folders of C:\Programdata and C:\User, and stopped working with the stopwatch.

But I also did an intense deframentation of the drive, though (just checking) since that again about 1000 files are (re)-fragmetated (on the SSD it was completely senseless, as well as not recommended on SSDs, I know, as after only one flight the fragmentation rate was the same as before defrag).

I hardly dare to write, that since that my loading times are now (less than 10 starts of P3D yet) what I call 'normal' (<2 min).

The short lag at 6% is a well known 'feature', which entered the system when including FSGlobal mesh data. It is present since the first edition of FSGlobal (I think in times of Fs2004).

I will remain sensible to that topic!

Michael.

[Mike Sierra]

A late addendum, just to confirm the findings:

I just added the OrbX freeware sceneries and - again - had a startup time of over 7 minutes.

After a new defragmentation of the HDD I'm running P3D at starting times of about 70 seconds, again.

Michael.

 

[Dave_YVR]

17 hours ago, Mike Sierra said:

I just added the OrbX freeware sceneries and - again - had a startup time of over 7 minutes.

 

 

 

 Of course it's going to take longer the first time after installing all of those freeware airports. It's a couple thousand bgl's to read and add in to the sim's database. Once it's done the first time, the times will decrease to normal.

[Ephedrin]

- forget it - 

 

[Triplane]

I have everything on an SSD and have the same loading time issue(s) with both FSX and P3D. Sometimes the load times are 5-6 minutes. I checked and tested everything I could think of. It's definitely the load of the ORBX scenery but I just finally gave up trying to figure it out. Too many things to do in life to worry about stuff like that..........Doug