active Global Base scenery order question

[DaveRuk]

I've had a look around as I expect this comes up every now and then, but search drew a blank.

 

With regards to Orbx Global Base, is its installation order in P3D Scenery a specific position or does it not matter any more?
Following a couple of odd symptoms I decided to uninstall/reinstall and Orbx Central seems happy. If someone could advise or even confirm how that product shows (as entries) in the Scenery Library that'd be great. TIA.

 

[DaveRuk]

Some more info, the reason I ask is that I noticed some individual airport addons such as UK2000, Aerosoft, FlyTampa are not all grouped at the top, which I thought was the correct approach. If that's no longer a requirement then perhaps there isn't an issue. Here's the current list. I've indicated entries that can be selected (to move up/down) in bold.

 

Any guidance, or dispelling of outdated myths welcomed

 

FTX_AA_KSAN
FTX_EU-ENG_05_SCENERY Orbx EU Scotland
FTX_AA_ESSA
FTX_AA_ESNQ
FTX_AA_EGPB
FTX_AA_EGHI
FTX_AA_LOWI
FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Orbx Libraries Global
Orbx Libraries Lookup
UK2000 Heathrow Extreme
UK2000 Manchester Extreme
UK2000 Common Library
FlyTampa-KaiTak
FlyTampa-KaiTak_LC
FlyTampa-StMaarten
FlyTampa-Saba
FlyTampa-StBartholomew
FlyTampa-Libraries
ORBX!OPENLC_BASE
FTX_NA_SCA05_SCENERY
FTX_NA_SCA06_CVX
FTX_NA_SCA07_MESH
FTX_NA_SCA08_CUSTOM
FTX_EU_SCO_05_SCENERY
FTX_EU_SCO_06_CVX
FTX_EU_SCO_07_MESH
FTX_EU_SCO_08_CUSTOM
FTX_EU_ENG_05_SCENERY
FTX_EU_ENG_06_CVX
FTX_EU_ENG_07_MESH
FTX_EU_ENG_08_CUSTOM
ORBX!OPENLC_EUROPE1
ORBX!OPENLC_NAMERICA1
MadeiraXEvolution
PortoSantoXEvolution
Sharurah
Bathymetry
SanDiego
Orlando
Kennedy_Space_Center
Rockhampton
Washington_DC
TwentyNine_Palms
Iwakuni
FortRucker
Langley_AFB
KORL
Eglin
Edwards_AFB
Berlin
Longleat
Istanbul
Reno
Global, Generic & Vehicle Libraries
Las Vegas
Rio De Janeiro
St. Maarten
Oshkosh
South America
Oceania
Western North America
Eastern North America
Central North America
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Australia
Asia
Africa
1107 Base
to
0000 Base
Orbx NA Southern California Elevation Stub
Orbx EU Scotland Elevation Stub
Orbx EU England Elevation Stub
FlyTampa-KaiTak-World
FlyTampa-StMaarten-World
FlyTampa-Saba-World
FlyTampa-StBartholomew-World
Default Scenery
Orbx EU Scotland Scenery Global
Orbx EGPB Sumburgh Airport Elevation Stub
Orbx EU England Scenery Global
Default Terrain

[DaveRuk]

Anyone?

I’d even find it useful to hear how other owners with similar addons find their scenery ordered.

I’ve tried to find up to date guides etc but not found anything that relates to the current version of Central with P3D v4.5.

[Smudger]

Hello Dave,

this is an oldish pic for scenery order, but is still relevant.

If that is the order you have in your pic above, the sceneries between 0000 Base  and Default Terrain should be way up the list.

[shermank]

I have similar issues, but overall, when I come upon a particular airport elevation issue, I use vector. If that does not work, I come to the forum. Generally, I agree with you. From my non techie viewpoint, it is still somewhat buggy. For example, some ORBX freeware airports seem to be in a random scenery layer.

And, as I scanned my library while responding, I saw that default scenery was below default terrain. I switched it manually in the scenery library...it is loading as I write. If this has created a problem, I will note it in this thread. Good topic, Dave

sherm

[paj]

On 9/15/2019 at 9:20 PM, DaveRuk said:

some individual airport addons such as UK2000, Aerosoft, FlyTampa are not all grouped at the top

 

My feeling is your ordering should be mostly ok since your add-on airports are generally positioned above the Orbx regions and Global Base. The exceptions are your Madeira and Porto Santo airports which should be higher: next to your uk2000 and flytampa sceneries.

 

EDIT 1: your P3D "Default Scenery" entry seems to be out of position too. I think it should be moved up to be immediately below "0000 Base"

EDIT 2: I just noticed your Orbx!OpenLC_Base entry seems too high in the Library and I think it should be down below the Europe and NA LC entries.

 

Disclaimer: hopefully an Orbx guru can advise/confirm library positioning. This is just my experience and practice.

 

I use Lorby Addon Organiser to position Library items precisely. My Library looks like the following (Orbx in green, P3D default entries in blue):

  Orbx Libs

  3rd party libs

  3rd party sceneries & airports

  Orbx Airports

  Orbx Regions

  Orbx "OpenLC" entries

  P3D default cities & regions (ie Bathymetry-down-to-Africa)

  Orbx "Vector" entries

  "xxxx Base" folders    (ie "1107 Base" down to "0000 Base")

  Orbx Vector AEC

  "Default Scenery"

  3rd party "stubs"

  Orbx "airport stubs"

  Orbx "region stubs"

  3rd party "world's"

  Orbx "scenery global" entries

  Orbx Trees

  "Default Terrain"

 

Thankfully the latest version of Orbx Central seems to be largely respecting the position changes I have made to my Library order.

[DaveRuk]

Thanks for the replies folks. Apols for longish response!

Smudger, your comments are interesting but give me some concern, but first some background.

I'd been trying to tune a recent rebuild of my sim, taking a new GPU into account, but felt that some situations were not giving the scenery performance I was hoping for visually.
It was suggested to me that for airliner flights (which is about 99% of what I do) it may be worth using the P3D Addons option to simply unselect entries such as Orbx EU England & Scotland, leaving Global BASE and a range of airport addons, including Orbx, to do their work. The idea being that those 2 packages may be of more value for low altitude VFR flights.

Then I noticed a weird issue, the best way I can describe is that most visuals looked ok, but the ground immediately around the runway and beyond, was black. This seemed to be the case for default and addon airports. I hadn't been convinced I saw any real performance change, so used the same approach to re-enable those entries. Problem cleared. FWIW I've also been slowly modding a few entries in Prepar3d.cfg, which I feel have actually helped in terms of performance (!)

Now I don't believe I've seen any elevation issues, but wasn't sure that Global BASE was over-riding default scenery. Hard to describe but I was reminded of my old FSX default appearance when outside addon airport regions etc. I may have been mistaken and annoyingly I overlooked doing some comparisons before the next bit, removing and re-adding Global BASE, as per next steps.....

OK I thought, the sim needs reminding I have Global BASE, and believing the install processes had been enhanced, uninstalled and reinstalled Global BASE via Central, assuming everything would then be assigned the correct position in scenery library, resulting in the list I posted. Whether this was an opportunity to explore use of Insertion Point, I don't know, but I only noticed its existence the other day, not recalling it being made obvious whilst installing packages.

In starting to write this post I referenced my P3D scenery list again, and think something has changed.
Where I had ORBX!OPENLC_BASE (FTX_OLC_AA) I now see ORBX!OPENLC_zBASE (FTX_OLC_AA) I just spotted this referencing some old screengrabs. Where'd the Z come from or am I imagining that?!

Also, whilst typing (and these lists take time!) the reply from paj is interesting, thanks for adding your thoughts!
 

The whole scenery thing is admittedly an enigma to me (moreso when fighting the flu!) as not all entries will permit being re-ordered. There may be good reasons for that but as a mere user, it doesn't help when things seem awry. Whilst I'm prepared to do a full rebuild...again..I'd prefer not to, and even if I did I don't feel confident that a similar issue may not recur.
At the end of the day I just want the sceneries I have bought to deliver their full glory, whilst integrating with the rest seamlessly.
 

Now, the idea of an addon manager as suggested is interesting, as I guess that hunts down XML and edits to suit your desired scenery order, regardless of what the P3D GUI allows. Your point about Madeira/PortoSanto is noted, as at least I can move those guys via the P3D GUI. Have you found that to be fully stable? It looks free which almost sounds too good to be true. I'm sure I've heard of another addon manager but its name escapes me right now.

I'm assuming STUB and WORLD entries are the same sort of beast so that lot sounds like it's ok at the bottom?

With all that in mind, would this approach sound reasonable?
-use P3D GUI to move MadeiraXEvolution and PortoSantoXEvolution above FTX_NA_SCA08_CUSTOM
-ditto to move Default Scenery above the stub entries

I think this would result in the following (bold entries are "movable" according to P3D GUI)
FTX_AA_KSAN
FTX_EU-ENG_05_SCENERY Orbx EU Scotland
FTX_AA_ESSA
FTX_AA_ESNQ
FTX_AA_EGPB
FTX_AA_EGHI
FTX_AA_LOWI
FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Orbx Libraries Global
Orbx Libraries Lookup
UK2000 Heathrow Extreme
UK2000 Manchester Extreme
UK2000 Common Library
FlyTampa-KaiTak
FlyTampa-KaiTak_LC
FlyTampa-StMaarten
FlyTampa-Saba
FlyTampa-StBartholomew
FlyTampa-Libraries
ORBX!OPENLC_EUROPE1
MadeiraXEvolution<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Moved entry
PortoSantoXEvolution<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Moved entry
FTX_NA_SCA08_CUSTOM
FTX_NA_SCA07_MESH
FTX_NA_SCA06_CVX
FTX_NA_SCA05_SCENERY
FTX_EU_SCO_08_CUSTOM
FTX_EU_SCO_07_MESH
FTX_EU_SCO_06_CVX
FTX_EU_SCO_05_SCENERY
FTX_EU_ENG_08_CUSTOM
FTX_EU_ENG_07_MESH
FTX_EU_ENG_06_CVX
FTX_EU_ENG_05_SCENERY
ORBX!OPENLC_NAMERICA1
ORBX!OPENLC_zBASE<<<<<<<<<<<<what's with the z?
Sharurah
Bathymetry
SanDiego
Orlando
Kennedy_Space_Center
Rockhampton
Washington_DC
TwentyNine_Palms
Iwakuni
FortRucker
Langley_AFB
KORL
Eglin
Edwards_AFB
Berlin
Longleat
Istanbul
Reno
Global, Generic & Vehicle Libraries
Las Vegas
Rio De Janeiro
St. Maarten
Oshkosh
South America
Oceania
Western North America
Eastern North America
Central North America
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Australia
Asia
Africa
1107 Base
to
0000 Base
Default Scenery<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Moved entry
Orbx NA Southern California Elevation Stub
Orbx EU Scotland Elevation Stub
Orbx EU England Elevation Stub
FlyTampa-KaiTak-World
FlyTampa-StMaarten-World
FlyTampa-Saba-World
FlyTampa-StBartholomew-World
Orbx EU Scotland Scenery Global
Orbx EGPB Sumburgh Airport Elevation Stub
Orbx EU England Scenery Global
Default Terrain

Phew... further comments welcomed!

 

Dave

 

 

EDIT as an afterthought, it might be interesting to compare how my scenery looks when Global BASE is doing its thing without addon airports enhancing stuff. If anyone is willing to help, it’d be cool to try and emulate a screen shot over a specific area/altitude anyone can suggest, though I guess some variances might creep in with world settings perhaps, but it might be enough to convince me that BASE is actually replacing default terrain!

[paj]

10 hours ago, DaveRuk said:

It looks free which almost sounds too good to be true. I'm sure I've heard of another addon manager but its name escapes me right now.

 

Lorby Addon Organiser is free and a great utility for managing scenery and other addons. It also manages dll and exe based products. It's stable, regularly updated and a "must-have" to be honest. It will allow you to "group" your scenery so only certain entries are active  eg you can define groups called Europe, America and Australasia. Or VFR and IFR. And then add the appropriate sceneries to each group.

 

The other free manager you are likely thinking of is Scenery Config Editor. But it's old and only manages scenery.cfg based scenery... not content based upon addon-xmls.

 

The commercial SimStarterNG is the only other product I'm aware of that manages the entirety of the P3D scenery library.

[DaveRuk]

Thanks for the extra thought paj, much appreciated. 

I’m not going to rush into changes as I know how these things can snowball into a mess if experience and luck aren’t on your side!

 

You mention Orbx gurus...is it just a matter of waiting for someone to come along and give definitive guidance here, or would I be better raising a support ticket maybe? I guess for someone that is confident in this area it’s a 5 minute fix, and I don’t want to complicate things unnecessarily!

 

 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

 

there is an acknowledged problem with Global Base and the P3D xml

system which is reliant on an update to P3D to correct.

The current advice is to install Global Base into the P3D folder, or there will be anomalies.

 

By the way, Orbx don't do "support tickets" for anything other than Orbx Direct account matters, which

for obvious reasons need to be confidential.

[DaveRuk]

1 hour ago, Nick Cooper said:

Hello,

 

there is an acknowledged problem with Global Base and the P3D xml

system which is reliant on an update to P3D to correct.

The current advice is to install Global Base into the P3D folder, or there will be anomalies.

 

By the way, Orbx don't do "support tickets" for anything other than Orbx Direct account matters, which

for obvious reasons need to be confidential.

Hi Nick, and thanks for the guidance.

I was unaware of that issue and regarding support tickets, I guess that reflects my positive experiences with Orbx over the last couple of years!
I'm actually unsure how this has come to be (my scenery order) so perhaps the problem you mention is the cause, and happened without me realising it immediately.
 

Firstly, to confirm my Orbx Central is v4.0.13, and P3D is v4.5 (all modules)
P3D is installed into E:\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4
If any other info is needed before I start making changes just ask and I'll supply.

So when you say to install Global Base into the P3D folder (after first uninstalling, and booting to be safe?) could I ask for some guided steps or pointer to a "how to" on this process?

(I have had a look around but been unsuccessful)
 

Looking in Orbx Central I can see the "Library" option, which shows Main Library location as E:\Orbx Library (42.9GB)
So is this where I would define a new location (E:\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4) to reinstall Global Base, and would an uninstall step remove the need to Delete the Main Library as well, noting one of the options there?
 

Or....noting the option to Edit the Main Library location, can I just change that using the available prompts, and Orbx Central would then move content to the new location? (E:\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4)
 

Associated with that, would I need to carry out any other work on my range of Orbx airports, and/or the regions I have purchased (EU England, EU Scotland and NA) or is the change you describe purely to help with Global Base issues?
 

Finally, noting the comments from others on this query, would you suggest any P3D scenery order changes to specific entries such as MadeiraXEvolution etc and the Default entries? - as it's been suggested they are not quite right also. I appreciate they are non-Orbx components, but I'd welcome any guidance on general "rules".
 

Alternately if I've my lurgy is blocking me grasping what might be a simple principle, an "idiot's guide" is always welcomed!
 

Many thanks, in advance
Dave

[Nick Cooper]

Hello Dave,

 

Global Base is an exception to most of the rules because it replaces thousands of default simulator files.

Most products do not do this, except of course those whose purpose is also to replace the default textures.

 

The P3D v4 SDK apparently states that it is possible to make P3D v4 display another texture each time that

one of the default textures is called, without the need to first overwrite that texture in the P3D v4 folder.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that this does not in fact work as described in the SDK.

Lockheed Martin have been approached and asked for a remedy and this is being worked on.

 

In the meantime, the recommendation is to install Global Base into the P3D v4 folder, overwriting the default

files and in doing so removing the problem.

 

Anyone who had already installed Global Base in the conventional way with FTX Central does not need to do

anything, as those files are already Orbx versions and any anomalies seen will have nothing to do with Global Base.

[DaveRuk]

31 minutes ago, Nick Cooper said:

Hello Dave,

 

Global Base is an exception to most of the rules because it replaces thousands of default simulator files.

Most products do not do this, except of course those whose purpose is also to replace the default textures.

 

The P3D v4 SDK apparently states that it is possible to make P3D v4 display another texture each time that

one of the default textures is called, without the need to first overwrite that texture in the P3D v4 folder.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that this does not in fact work as described in the SDK.

Lockheed Martin have been approached and asked for a remedy and this is being worked on.

 

In the meantime, the recommendation is to install Global Base into the P3D v4 folder, overwriting the default

files and in doing so removing the problem.

 

Anyone who had already installed Global Base in the conventional way with FTX Central does not need to do

anything, as those files are already Orbx versions and any anomalies seen will have nothing to do with Global Base.

Hi Nick

Thanks for the extra information - so if I understand correctly, as I used Central to install in the first place, the Global files should already have replaced P3D versions, but in an ideal world, the Global files would be in a separate location, ready to be called upon as needed, rather than the P3D default files - and it's that process which LM need to address. Based on that it sounds like, all I may be looking at is a re-order of a couple of 3rd party airports and the default scenery, as suggested by paj?

A final aspect I would like to understand is what would happen if I uninstalled Global Base via Orbx Central - does that process automatically reinstate the P3D default files?

Thanks

Dave

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

 

yes, you should have all the Orbx Global Base files installed into your P3D v4 folder.

The ideal situation that you describe is indeed presently thwarted by the problem

that is being addressed by Lockheed Martin.

 

Uninstalling Global Base using FTX Central, you cannot uninstall it with Orbx Central,

will only remove the notification to FTX Central and Orbx Central that it is installed.

It cannot be actually uninstalled because that would mean removing core P3D v4 files,

without which it will not work.

[DaveRuk]

Hi Nick, your comments give me a much clearer view forward!

For now I’ll only reorder the default scenery as suggested by paj.

 

I’ve lost track of (P3D) version increment frequency, but my take on it is that if the scenery file access, rather than replace, function was working correctly for all addons, that might perhaps allow users to enable/disable addons with greater confidence of a known result, whilst maintaining the integrity of core files - which must be a plus for both LM, and developers at the end of the day, oh and users too! Flexibility is always good. 

 

I shall watch for P3D v4.6 or 5.0, and once the dust has settled, hopefully seeing this  problem resolved to the satisfaction of all...and use that as an opportunity for a full rebuild.

 

kind regards

Dave