FS2002 Cache Size

[BRAVO]

With a high spec. computer and a large Hard Drive does it make any difference increasing the Cache size for scenery. The default is 100 MB; I incresed it to 1000 MB, but it did not appear to make any difference. Thanks.

[Simon Evans]

If you have a Full Install the cache is not used. At all.

Make it 10meg.



Simon Evans

[tdbscotland]

If you have a full install of FS2002 (ie. running without discs in drive) the scenery cache is not used so it would make no difference.

Regards,
Martin

[Robb]

That is not entirely true. If you specify that scenery be cached, the sim copies it when you load your flight from the scenery folder on your hard drive to the cache folder on your hard drive. The entire scenery is loaded, not just what is required to render the starting area.

At first I thought this was all that took place, and was even worse than making no difference as it tied up extra hard drive space.

To my surprise, I found that the sim behaves differently with the cached scenery... especially if it is landclass or mesh that you have cached. Since it loads it entirely when loading the sim, you get better (much better) rendering on your flight as it doesn't have to swap in and swap out as normal.

This works especially well for VFR flights with G/A aircraft... you can see a marked improvement if you have sufficient memory on your system.

You will notice a corresponding loss of quality if you subsequently load another flight using other scenery afterwards, without restarting the sim. This cache loading only seems to work well for the first flight.

I didn't believe this myself at first, so I disabled and re-enabled it several times and tested. I am convinced that the cache setting works in several ways, none of which are really well documented.

You don't have to take my word for it... try it yourself. Like I said, this works best if you have landclass addon scenery and enhanced mesh addons.

I found that Alaska scenery is just too intense to use this method with. I think it ties up too much memory and bogs the sim down. That also serves to indicate that more is going on with the cache function than we have been told.

So, pick some scenery you like to use, change it to be cached instead of used directly, and see for yourself.

Robb

[Simon Evans]

Where is this `cached` scenery held..? I ran several tests with and without the cache volume enabled. The cache folder remains empty.

If you see ANY difference then you have:
1: Not done a full install
or
2: Have not ticked all the scenery to: "Use this scenery directly" and have scenery looking to be used from the cache folder
or
3: Have some system problem relating to hard drive or memory access.

All that the `scenery cached` does is extract the data from one place (the CD) and place it temporarily in another (the hard drive).
If you already have a full install, all you're doing is instructing the scenery to be copied from one place (the hard drive) to another place (the same hard drive). Therefore there should be no difference in performance with a properly-optimised system. The FS engine physically cannot access the scenery in any way that is different that might account for your observations.
Try a defrag and scandisk.

Logical?




Simon Evans

[tdbscotland]

"If you specify that scenery be cached"

How do you do that?

Regards,
Martin

[Kurt_M]

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3da5589e6d8ad0a0.jpg

Kurt

[BRAVO]

Many thanks for your replies. I did a full install. For Martin, the Cache Size is found in Menu, World, Scenery Library.

[tdbscotland]

Thanks Bravo/Kurt
Martin

[shermank]

My understanding is that the cache works only if you access scenery from the program's cdr, not from the hard drive. Any clarification from anyone on that?

Sherm

[Simon Evans]

My thinking exactly, Sherm.

Simon Evans

[shermank]

great minds think alike...:-)

Sherm

[tdbscotland]

Hi Robb,

You know I just tried your theory with some terramesh stuff and from first impressions things seemed more stable and also looked sharper.

Will try some more experiments with it tomorrow.

Cheers,
Martin

[tdbscotland]

Well spent quite a bit of time on this cache theory and conclude it had no measurable affect.

Tried it with mesh and addon scenery but it seems to me that it is just the same loading process but from a different location.


Martin

[Simon Evans]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-12-02 AT 08:22PM (EDT)[p]I could envisage a situation where such a thing MIGHT be useful - but it would require dual CPU's.

...and FS2002 doesn't support dual CPU's.

But thanks for reporting back, at least we have closure on this issue.


Simon Evans