active CityScene Orlando - Load Time Suggestion

[akriesman]

As mentioned in other threads, we are working with LM to find a long-term solution to the load-time issue, related to large amounts of global object libraries in a user's system.    Even though CityScene Orlando does not call global object libraries, the scenery is affected by the number of global object libraries in a system when it comes to load times.    This topic is not meant to address that issue, but to find workarounds.

 

Of course, toggling non-essential scenery layers on and off will dramatically help with load times.     I understand not everyone wants to go that route. 

 

In the meantime, we are working with other ideas to minimize the load times when possible.   Here is a suggestion that I have for you today that could make a significant improvement.   As we mentioned several times in the forum, we are unable to duplicate the extremely long load times that some users are getting.   Most often, it seems like those users are the ones that have a lot of 3rd party scenery installed.

 

Disable Night Lighting Objects

 

Even though you are flying during the day, the custom night lighting in CityScene products have objects that are active, but transparent, during the day.  By activating these lights, it seems that load times are increasing by a fairly significant percentage (25-35% ?).   There is no known reason why the light objects are having that kind of effect as they are not that large compared to other objects/buildings.  Perhaps it has to due with transparency.

 

Anyway, here is how you toggle the lights off:

 

• Start FTX/Orbx Central 3
• Locate the CityScene Orlando product
• Press the "Control Panel" button.
• Remove the check mark from the "Night Lighting Objects" box.
• exit the control panel window to set your changes.

 

What do you lose by doing this ?   

 

• During the day you lose nothing.   You only gain an improvement in load times and possibly frame rates.
• During the night you lose the night lights.  However, if you have FTX Vector you will still see the night lighting for that product.

 

Let me know if this helps and by how much.  We are trying to build a FAQ to help our customers out.

 

Thanks,

Allen

 

 

 

 

[NeilG]

Its certainly better in terms of loading, but also with regard to smoothness. For myself I could do with just a bit more smoothness if it is possible/

[W2DR]

Hey Allen - I reinstalled CityScene Orlando to test this. Formatted P3D partition, installed Windows 7 and installed Pd3v4.4, the Libs and CityScene Orlando. No other addons were installed. With the lights off and the Libs disabled the load time was reduced by 32%. With lights off and the Libs enabled the load time was reduced by 35%. Thanks again for hanging in there on this one. Just as an aside, enabling the Libs increased the overall time to load the default flight (FSX C172 at KORL) by 5 min. 22 sec. (58 seconds vs. 6 min. 20 sec.). Just one guys experience on one system. All mileage is, of course variable ..........Doug

[akriesman]

Thanks for the feedback Doug.    Last night night I posted an FAQ that is locked at the top of the support forum.  This FAQ has a lot of topics covered, based on feedback and discussions we have had over the last week here in the forum.

Your 58 second load times are similar to what I get with the CityScene Orlando active and the Orbx Libraries disabled.    However, enabling the Orbx Libraries only adds about 35 seconds to my load times.

 

FWIW, Lockheed Martin is very receptive to finding a solution to the load time issue.    That is great news for all of us.    But, it is probably going to take them some time.  And, any modifications they can make to the simulator will probably also require changes to 3rd party scenery products.   What we really need is a way to tell the simulator to ignore the global library searches for BGL files that do not reference any library objects.   

 

In the meantime, we will do everything we can to improve things with any workarounds we can find.
 

 

 

[Iahawkeyedds]

Just installed Orlando City Scene.  Prior to installation load time at KMCO was 40s --> now 2m40s.  I'm happy with that and the only items unticked in scenery library were Orlando and KORL.   And all options left ticked on in the City Scene option menu.  6700K with P3D on a 960 Pro and Orbx folder linked on a secondary 860 Pro.

 

One question... I'm missing part of an interstate west of the magic kingdom (see pictures)...  I have NA Landclass installed but I don't use Vector.