Speeding Up FSX Loading Time

[familton]

I have FSX on a SSD. I have many hundreds of planes and a lot of scenery. How does FSX load? Once it completes the initial loading cycle and you have selected the weather, time and location does it only load the scenery, traffic and airplane you are using or a lot more.

 

Should I eliminate a lot of planes that I do not use often to speedup the loading time? I have unchecked a lot of my scenery that I do not use.

 

Thanks, Bob.

[Mithras]

Unchecking scenery will not alter the load time, the scenery would have to be removed from the FSX folder. Aircaft, if not too complex, can be removed in bulk, and you could drop the folder of an aircraft you want to fly into the Simobjects folder when needed....

[familton]

OK. Thanks for the info. Bob.

[PhantomTweak]

I read an article by the great, late, and hugely lamented, Mr. Marshall in his Superguide series that the more planes you have, the longer it takes, and same with the scenery library. As Bob mentioned above, just unchecking the scenery isn't enough. You need to use the Delete Area button, and once the scenery is out of the library entirely, then move the folder for it someplace, put it in a zipfile, delete it, something.

Same for aircraft. You can put the ones you don't use, NOT default planes, by the way, those have to stay in place, into a zipfile, a back-up folder, ANYwhere other the Aircraft folder. This includes AI aircraft too.

Doing those two things will perk up the load time quite a bit. I've tried it, and it works great. I made a number of folders for aircraft that I don't use, like Commercial Airliners, WWII Fighters, and so on, under the main FSX folder, to make it easier for me to find a plane I know I have but have moved out of the main aircraft folder.

Scenery files, I put into a zipfile in the Add-On Scenery folder. IF I am not using them. That way, if I want to re-install them I just unzip, hit the Add Area button and away I go.

Hope that helps a little bit...

Pat☺

[usb777]

I to have experimented and found leaving a lot of aircraft in what I call my hanger outside the program until I want to fly them. I found that I could improve the boot time by maybe 30 seconds. I have tons of stuff to that I just want all the time WOAI, MAIW and all or most of Jim Cook and Ray Smiths work to start so with all that and my own after starting Active Sky I boot up in 90 seconds give or take. By removing as many aircraft I might knock off 15-20 seconds. Same goes for moving to other airports. I do remember with just the default FSX before all the additional things shoot 30-40 seconds but then the environment seems pretty dull. So, I live with it. One thing I did discover, you can remove or install your aircraft without closing it, just go to the windows view (not full screen) and that can save you time. Being retired myself I pretty much start the Simulator around 7 am and let her fly an aircraft until 10 at night! HA! Changing airports and aircraft. My two cents. So with all that said my your sim never freeze and CTD's be view I'll see you in the sky!

[familton]

Thanks Mike for the help. I am starting to Hangar my aircraft I don't fly often. Bob.

[usb777]

Sure thing. I keep mine on a separate SSD Mine named A Drive but either the same drive having one large enough or even an external storage works as well. When I finally figured out I didn't need to close the program to install wow that was cool.

[familton]

From what I think I understand from the above helpful answers and have questions about are:

1) Placing unused aircraft in a Hangar outside of FSX will help improve loading time.

2) Disabling scenery in the Scenery Library alone does nothing.

 

3) What about deleting scenery from the Scenery.cfg? Does it help and does it actually remove the scenery from the drive?

4) If the scenery is not completely removed from the drive by deleting it in the Scenery.cfg would it help to actually delete it from the drive?

 

Thanks, Bob.

[usb777]

familton, questions 1 and 2 I tend to agree. As for 3 and 4 I am at a loss but would like to know myself.

[napamule2]

You do NOT edit (or at least NOT me) the Scenery.cfg directly. You rely on FSX engine to make any changes (add or delete). Period. When you add scenery FSX edits the scenery cfg automatically. When you 'de-activate' the scenery (un check) FSX edits the scenery cfg automatically. When you MESS with the scenery cfg things WILL go bad for your sim.

 

If when you first turn on your computer (6 am?) you go and start FSX and let it load while you get that cup of coffee (or brush your theeth, etc?) you won't even notice the time it takes. You can then just exit FSX. Now go eat breakfast, surf the web, take a nap or whatever. THEN when you start up FSX up the 2nd time (without turning your PC off or course) it will load in a few SECONDS. There. Problem of 'time' solved. Use my head (hehe).

Chuck B

Napamule

[usb777]

I agree napamule except I usually fire up the FSX around 7 am and the wife brings me my coffee and I run my FSX on a separate computer therefore surf the wed on another while I am flying so never exit unless I get one of those dreaded freezes or a CTD.

[napamule2]

OK. So you turn off your PC every night? I usually (for last 4 years) leave it on 24/7 or put it in 'Standby' if I suspect there might be bad weather coming (winds, lighting, power surges, etc). I NEVER turn off my PC just because I am going to bed. It's a i7 and runs cool and throttles down (3.5 to 1.6 ghz) automatically when it's not under any load and/or idle. I get program freezes but I just push the reset button and my PC restarts and I keep going. I don't 'baby' my PC. It works or it don't work. That's the way it has to be with me. Foolish? Nah. I 'understand' electronic equiptment and how heat ruins them but that temp changes (when you turn off) are 10 times worse for it. But people can't be 'bothered' with any incoviniences like that (ie: facts). They prefer to ignore the facts in favor of being able to turn the PC on/off 3 or 4 times a day.

Chuck B

Napamule

[PhantomTweak]

I agree with Chuck completely. If you want to stop using a scenery, got to the Settings>Scenery Library>Delete Area button. Make certain you have selected the correct scenery file (or folder).

Leave the Scenery.cfg ALONE. You will regret it if you don't.

 

However, this is just my opinion, and we all know about those! :D

Pat☺

[familton]

You do NOT edit (or at least NOT me) the Scenery.cfg directly. You rely on FSX engine to make any changes (add or delete). Period. When you add scenery FSX edits the scenery cfg automatically. When you 'de-activate' the scenery (un check) FSX edits the scenery cfg automatically. When you MESS with the scenery cfg things WILL go bad for your sim.

 

If when you first turn on your computer (6 am?) you go and start FSX and let it load while you get that cup of coffee (or brush your theeth, etc?) you won't even notice the time it takes. You can then just exit FSX. Now go eat breakfast, surf the web, take a nap or whatever. THEN when you start up FSX up the 2nd time (without turning your PC off or course) it will load in a few SECONDS. There. Problem of 'time' solved. Use my head (hehe).

Chuck B

Napamule

 

Thanks. That is not the way mine works. I leave my computer on all the time. If I try FSX first it loads slowly. If I shutdown FSX and I retry later it also reloads slow.

 

If I click delete in the scenery entry will it remove the scenery in FSX. Will that help to speed up loading time. I have many addon sceneries I never use. Thanks, Bob.

[usb777]

Unless I am cleaning reseting or something like a power outage or moving I haven't turned my computers off in over ten years now. Just turn the monitors off at night unless I am running all night test on the flight simulator (yes, I sometimes let the aircraft fly all night) Or sit on an airfield somewhere. Then when I wake up NO BOOT TIME! and away we go!

[Richard1936]

Just read this thread to see how it applies to me. Mine is really slow when I have already loaded FSX and have decided to change Aircraft. Takes forever and sometimes get the not responding message. Thinking about a reinstall but reloading all the addon stuff is a pain.

[usb777]

Depends how many aircraft you have installed to. Usually I have a minute and a hlf or less but like PANC for some reason takes two or three minutes

[Rupert]

Well there's always the SSD. It doesn't seem to make any difference while "flying." But my load time, whether on startup or changing planes is much faster with the SSD.;)

[PhantomTweak]

Takes forever and sometimes get the not responding message. Thinking about a reinstall but reloading all the addon stuff is a pain.

 

Did you maybe think there's a correlation between the number of add-on's you've installed, and the time it takes to load up?

The more you add, the longer it takes, whether aircraft or sceneries. Try going in and moving a portion of the aircraft you've added to another folder, so the sim won't "see" them, but you can put ONE back in whenever you want. DO NOT remove ANY of the default aircraft. Or sceneries. You can do the same with add-on sceneries. At least the freeware ones. If nothing else, you can get into your Scenery Library settings, and delete most of the areas you won't be using for the day's particular flights. Leave them in the folders you installed them to, just remove them from the sim's "knowledge".

The more "stuff" the sim has to load when it starts, or changes something, the more time it takes.

 

On a small side note, I've been a radar tech, and general electronics tech, for a LONG time now, and it's been my experience that electronics, computers in particular, tend to fail far more when turned on than when idling along, IE: still on but not in use. Or in use, for that matter. Equipment tends to last a lot longer if you don't turn it off unless you absolutely must.

Also, an UPS unit, uninterruptible power supply, reduces or eliminates oddities in their power inputs. Voltage spikes, current surges, variations, lightning strikes, etc etc. This will increase electronic equipment's life span. They will make leaving them on a lot safer too. Such as when you're not there and there's a power failure, or a lightning strike, or whatever.

 

Have fun!

Pat☺

[Rupert]

Hey Pat,

 

This old engineer agrees with you. When running a factory the worst failures always seemed to happen right after holiday and vacation shutdowns. Enough so that we did phased shutdowns for vacations and didn't turn anything off unless we absolutely had to.

 

After how well that experiment worked For holidays, we started paying people triple time holiday pay to come in just to keep things running. It was much cheaper in the long run than repairing all the startup issues!! And Santa Claus seemed a lot more generous to our employee's children as well!! :cool:

[kaashaas]

Excluding fsx.exe from your antivirus dramatically decreases loading times as well.

[Rupert]

Excluding fsx.exe from your antivirus dramatically decreases loading times as well.

 

Hey There I have never had a fsx exe loading issue. I pay for a hugely strong anti-virus software program. It has never, ever, shown any issue with any FSX software I use. If there is no problem, there will be no issue.

 

However, if there is anything out there which can/will attack your computer, I'd hugely want to know what that issue was!!!!

 

I'd not advise anyone to exempt FSX from your antivirus software. That to my mind opens a huge virus back door source of info you don't want to be spread!

 

Rupert

[usb777]

I average around a minute and a half except for PANC and PAED for some reason three minutes. Removed add ons but still can't find out why. Anyone have a slower load time to certain areas?

[kaashaas]

I'd not advise anyone to exempt FSX from your antivirus software[/b]. That to my mind opens a huge virus back door source of info you don't want to be spread!

 

Relax Rupert. It's a safe and very common tweak. Would you really think I would suggest it if it wasn't? I tested it yesterday: my sim loadingtime decreases from 3:23 minutes to 45 seconds!

 

The theory behind this is that once fsx.exe is started it will start reading, writing and scanning massive and massive ammounts of data and files. Any antivirus will notice this and start showing particular interest in this busy bee of an executable. It will start monitoring and checking literally everything fsx.exe will do which seriously slows down the sim and its loading times. So excluding it from your antivirus -which is a very common tweak lots of users have applied without a problem- is a sensible thing to do.

 

Since fsx is by default installed to a protected systemfolder no programm or script is able to make any changes to your systemfolder without prior permission of the system administrator.

 

Some people worry about installing contaminated add-ons while fsx.exe is excluded.

 

This will not happen as a result of this tweak; probably the download will be scanned during the download, and when you run the installer the things this installer does will also be checked by the antivirus. Anything malicious that won't be detected in these two steps will probably not be detected anyway once you run them in the sim because they allready outsmarted your antivirus to begin with.

 

Also, by excluding fsx.exe only fsx.exe will not be checked. All other defenses are still up; even if a malicious script or something would turn up in the fsx-folder it's doings will still be detected and you'll be notified.

 

So yes, it is safe to exclude fsx.exe from your virusscanner as long as you keep scanning all files that enter your computer like you normally would. That's where your line of defence is.

 

I've been doing it this way for over 25 years of simming and never ever had a computervirus on my system. Not because I'm lucky, but because it's safe.

 

What you could do when you feel uncomfortable with this tweak is to scan your FSX folder before the exclusion. Or remove the exclusion once you're done simming. In the unlikely event that a malicious programm would trick your antivirus into thinking it was fsx it would then still be monitored.

 

 

Grtz., Hans

[mallcott]

Another thing to look at is parallel processes that are started by FSX.exe or associated with it. Each of those is drawing processing power whether in use or not. Won't just be .exe's either - .dlls and other dynamic processes also draw CPU cycles.

 

You don't need any of that Graphic Card crap that Nvidia installs as part of its bloatware package either. JUST the driver using the optional installation button and only any other executables that you actually NEED - FSX doesn't make use of any of them.

 

But on most of the rigs I maintain and optimise the key thing is to remove scenery you aren't using and hangar aircraft you aren't flying. Those two folders - scenery/addon scenery and simobjects are fully read on every load, so if you aren't flying in Australia you can safely deposit all the FTX AI aircraft and any planes you aren't flying in that session into a folder away from the FSX installation - I use Addon Hangar and shift planes from the SimObject folders all the time. Just the aircraft folder, NOT the sound, gauge or effects that have been placed in the generic FSX folder.

 

Finally, it's also worthwhile purging the Gauges and Effects folders from time to time if you are in the habit of installing, flying and then uninstalling aircraft. Most uninstallers can't tell whether the gauges are needed by other aircraft or not so will often leave things behind.

NOTE: Consider what you have parked `offsite` in the Addon Hangar!