Jump to content

What happens when I switch regions?


Recommended Posts

I have been experimenting with different scenery.cfg files for different regions of the word. So I switched the FTXCentral to Global and addeded a few airports. Then I switched to the other 3 regions, started the sim and let it rebuild the scenery.cfg (yes 3 times). Then I compared the 4 cfg:s and.... they are identical!!! If I switch to Europe the cfg also lists all NA, AU and Global airports. Is something happening in the background or what? If it is like this, that regardless of witch region I choose, the cfg lists/activates ALL my installed airports then what´s the point in changing regions?


 


Why am I doing this? I want to have a scenery.cfg that consists only of Scandinavian airports. So I have loaded the Europe region and deleted evrything that is not in Scandinavia and saved that cfg as Scandinaviascenenry.cfg. When I fly in Scaninavia I copy that file to scenery.cfg so P3D does´t have to load sceneries that I don´t need.


 


I have probably misunderstood this but can anyone enlighten me? 


 


Jack


the Swede in Spain


Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I'm not mistaken, when you switch between regions the Orbx script only deactivates some bgls changing their extension to .off. This way there is no need to change entries in scenery.cfg since the necessary files are deactivated already.

Sent from my Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi there,


 


the scenery library menu entries stay the same except when switching to Global without the hybrid check box (or Default for those not using Global). There are a lot of other changes going on though when switching regions, for example exchanging autogen and textures, the landclass control file, etc. Also, the integrity of terrain.cfg and scenery.cfg are checked.


 


Cheers, Holger


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well so I have been doing some more testing today but still don´t understand this. 


 


I have switched to region North America, As I thought, ONLY the North American Sceneries would be activated, but no ALL my installed add-ons are activated. Same thing if i switch back to Europe. Ok I admit I don´t know what is happening behind the "scenes" but IMHO I thought that the less sceneries I have activated the better the sim will run, so when flying in Europe I don´t need other sceneries like NA and AUS activated. That was the reason why I wanted to create different scenery.cfg files, to only have relevant airports activated. I guess I can still use the FTX Central to choose a region like Europe and after that load my "fixed" scenery.cfg for Europe as scenery.cfg into the sim, that way FTX Central has done its job "behind the curtain" BUT I have the option to tell the sim what sceneries to use. Right or wrong?  8)


 


 


Jack


the Swede in Spain


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Jack, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying or thinking is happening.  From what I remember learning a long time ago, FSX (and I assume P3D also...I don't have it yet) won't try to load anything in your Scenery LIBRARY list unless it is located within the LOD radius you choose in the program's settings.  In other words, if I start FSX with me at an airport in Las Vegas, it won't try to load anything in Australia even if I have an Australia scenery "activated" (check-marked) in my Scenery Library in FSX.  It would be outside of the LOD radius from my current location.  You can see this LOD radius displayed after FSX is running by going to the "Top Down" view and zooming out.  What is "loaded" is the area shown by the checkerboard pattern "radius" with your aircraft in the center of it.


 


It would be impossible for FSX (and I assume P3D) to try to load "everything" in your Scenery Library.  You couldn't put enough memory sticks in your computer to accommodate it all.  So FSX uses the LOD radius around your aircraft to determine what to try to load.  Even something checked "on" in your Scenery Library won't get loaded if it is outside of your current LOD radius location.


 


So like Holger implied, in most cases of using FTX Central, there is no reason for FTX Central to enable or disable anything in the Scenery Library entries when switching between ORBX products in FTX Central.  All "it" needs to do is enable or disable specific .BGL files (and some other things) to keep everything playing nice with each other.


 


One of the reasons you might get longer initial loading times is if you increase the LOD radius, like from the default 4.5 to something like 8.0.  Lots of people who use photoreal scenery will do that, including me.  But that only significantly increases the INITIAL loading time of FSX for me, because by almost doubling the radius, I have exponentially increased the "loading area" to more than just "two times as big" (something to do with that basic geometry class I had in high school way back when...doubling the radius of a circle increases the area of the circle by more than twice as large...whatever...whenever they talked about "squared Pi", all it did was make me hungry).  Toss in the fact that .BGL files for photoreal scenery can be huge, and sometimes I can almost make lunch before FSX finally loads what I'm asking it to load when I first start it up that way.   :D


 


If I misunderstood your question, sorry for the long explanation.  But I'm thinking you might be thinking that just because you select NA in FTX Central, if AU or EU isn't removed from your Scenery Library, FSX will still try to "load" it.  Won't happen, 'cos AU and EU will be too far away and outside the current LOD Radius of the aircraft.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...