Scenery install question.

[RobCom]

Hello everyone, I would like to get an opinion on a new install of P3Dv5.4.

I just installed a clean version of 5.4 and it runs smooth as silk, I want to try to keep it that way but also wanted to add some detail to the terrain, mainly airports.

I have Orbx stuff and my favorite airports and a few planes I would like to add, but I want to keep it as clean as possible, I know that many (if not all) Orbx airports require some of the regions to be installed, BUT are there any recommendations on anything that I shouldn't use.

thanks for any info

[Blaunarwal]

Hi Rob

I can understand, you want to have a clean system running at best performance. I have 1657 layers in the scenery library and it runs fine. Since I recently moved a lot of freeware back to scenery.cfg, which I had put into add-on.xml before and also eliminated one older scenery, which did not show correct, my P3D runs very smooth again and also loads reasonably fast. I have a lot of ORBX Landclass products as well as sceneries and aircraft. Even very old aircraft are on my system, certainly FSX compatible in regards of Model (.mdl) and gauges (.xml). They all run fine.

I no longer use ORBX Vector, ORBX Trees HD and ORBX Buildings HD. Vector became redundant with P3D5 and with the Buildings HD I had strange effects, buildings on mountain slopes where should have been forests. Trees HD was also redundant, since i have TerraFlora v2. I think not having too many texture products on top of each other is a good measure. It is no problem adding textures the old way, just overwriting default. But everything you add with add-on.xml need to be read by the simulator.

I have the older products from Zinertek, Natural Tree Environment X and HD Airport Graphics, which still do a good job.

In ORBX Central, where you install your ORBX products, there's a section Prerequisites on the right lower corner, saying if you need any ORBX region for this airport. This is mostly the case. But I think that shouldn't give you any problems but a very nice experience.

Regards

Dan

[RobCom]

Hey Blaunarwal thanks for the reply,

I installed the Orbx Global stuff last night and I did get some slight stutters running the default jet in some areas, but it seemed to clear up after a reboot.

I have the base, all of the land class and trees (TerraFlorav2 and Orbx trees) and the HD buildings, but I never use vector. I did go through all of my Orbx airports and it looks like most if not all use some region or another, so I'm going to install the regions. I also have some of my favorite airports from other dev's that I like to fly to that I am going to use, as well as HD airports and AcitveSky.

I don't think I'm going to use any of the TrueEarth parts of Orbx though, I have had nothing but issues with any of those before.

I'm going to try and remove the HD Buildings and Orbx Treees as you suggested, see what kind of difference that makes. I also have the RPS GNS 530_430 and 750_650 GTN and I am going to use those as they work pretty good for the airplanes I have.

Any suggestions on the best Traffic app performance-wise, or should I just stay away from that stuff?



I'm not very adept on the XML Vs Scenery.cfg?? Are there any good guides on how to do that? Or is there an app that does it? I have never messed with that before

thanks for the help sir, I do appreciate it, so far it's working very well, only pulling 4.7g from my 14.9g of video ram and running much better than version 5.3

[JorgenSA]

For what it is worth, the payware "Traffic apps" have never made me happy.

I would encourage you to look into the do-it-yourself flight plans from AIG and elsewhere, but that takes some time to install, because of the number of flight plans available.

But that is my opinionated opinion only.

Jorgen

[Blaunarwal]

Hey Blaunarwal thanks for the reply,
...
thanks for the help sir, I do appreciate it, so far it's working very well, only pulling 4.7g from my 14.9g of video ram and running much better than version 5.3

It's always good to make a new start if you get stutters, which are not usual.

I only have only TE Netherlands. No problem with this since my RTX3090 can handle it.

I uninstalled HD Buildings cause it gave me ugly buildings in mountaneous areas, where they should not be such houses. I don't understand, why it changed landclass forest into landclass city somehow. If you have no such side effects, leave it. I must explain this was not in a full ORBX region, but in Switzerland, ORBX EU Landclass area.

Two tree enhancements are obviously one too much. ORBX said once, it doesn't matter but in terms of performance I think it matters well.

The best traffic is AIG as Jorgen already said. You can add all available traffic with your system. But it takes some time. I also use AIG Traffic Controller, which injects traffic not over .bgl files but it's own traffic files. I have no lag because of that. But to start, I'd add major airlines and then go on time after time. I did it that way until I got the convincement, may system can handle all. But if you never fly Africa, then there's no need to install inner african traffic. The problem is to know which airlines these are. There is a way to see the routes but you need to pick one by one that way. Too much work.

The best way to learn the add-on.xml method is opening one and reading it. But I would not write them by hand. The rule i made up for me is let commercial addons use this method. Most do so. If I have a freeware with sounds, effects or even scripts, I use the xml method. Of course one can also copy the sounds into the main sound directory from the sim or declare the path in the sound.cfg. This is another way to increase confusion.

There is a free program helping to put scenery into add-on.xml and vice versa. This is Lorby-si Addon Manager. I use this but as said before, I went backwards. First I put e.g. all Asian City sceneries in one add-on.xml. But now I have them again in the scenery.cfg. I heard about before and now say it myself. Loading time of the sim is much shorter with every possible scenery in scenery.cfg.

Since I have 24 GB VRAM I never had problems. I remember True Earth Netherlands, Flytampa Amsterdam, with Aerosofts Airbus, this was the killer for my RTX2080 with only 8 GB. I shrinked down the textures of Amsterdam to make it work.

Regards

Dan

[RobCom]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I got it working perfectly!!

Just flew for several hours from KMIA to KTPA (both add-on airports) and FPS NEVER dropped below 29fps flying the A2A 182, I have Active Sky for weather and atmosphere as opposed to the one in P3D, and even in heavy weather and rain at 3000ft, and the VRam never got above 9.8 (out of my 14.9) and actually dropped back down to 8.2 halfway through the flight holding a steady 29-30fps .

I am trying the Global Traffic from Just Flight as I had already purchased it previously, but I'm looking into AIG now, it's a little above my head as far as flight plans and such goes, but it seems pretty straightforward.

I ended up using all of my Orbx (except for the True Earth sceneries, as they just don't seem to be needed), FSDT, and Flight Beam, Latin VFR airports, and performance has never been better.

5.4 is amazing for me, matched with Navagraph I can actually fly without having to constantly tweak.

well done LM

[JorgenSA]

Dan,

Are you aware of any limitations as to the number of sceneries one can have with the "scenery config" method or the xml method?

Back in FSX (according to my memory), with plain old scenery config the limit was somewhere just under 1000, and using the Scenery Configuration Editor around 1500.

I currently have all my scenery installed using the xml method, but it takes so long to load now that I am seriously thinking of switching over.

Jorgen

[pestridge77]

Hello everyone, I would like to get an opinion on a new install of P3Dv5.4.

I just installed a clean version of 5.4 and it runs smooth as silk, I want to try to keep it that way but also wanted to add some detail to the terrain, mainly airports.

I have Orbx stuff and my favorite airports and a few planes I would like to add, but I want to keep it as clean as possible, I know that many (if not all) Orbx airports require some of the regions to be installed, BUT are there any recommendations on anything that I shouldn't use.

thanks for any info

Hiya Rob, I know this is an old post and you probably by now have made your decision based from comments here on how to proceed.
My best advice to give you in order to keep performance in the sim and to make the graphics look great are as follows, as well as some dos and donts when using P3D.


Firstly, the default sim runs fine and gives great fps on most machines, current and old. Every PC will be different and so advice coming from others generally is coming from their own experience on their set up which may not translate to yours as everyone has a different build of Windows OS on their system and everyone has different hardware running, with different results depending on how the user has set up the hardware.

I myself would say to start with the Windows OS to ensure it is running 100% without errors and that you tweak it so it can take full advantage of your hardware without the default averaged settings that Windows ships by default. This will increase the fps greatly for P3D and Ive done many videos on my YT channel that showcase this.

Secondly, the more addons you place in P3D, the slower or rather more work you put on the hardware which will have a limit to perform for you with P3D, so yes, be very selective with what addons you use to keep the fps where you want it no matter what youre flying or where. As different planes and locations will give different performance results on the same settings. Use profiles to help manage the fps with different types of flights.

I would recommend using texture replacement addons firstly like Orbx Global Base or my own Terrain pak I put together. Using texture replacement packs doesnt change the performance (unless they are of an insane resolution) as its not adding to the sim, just replacing default.
Airports/Airplanes, be selective which ones you use as some will perform better than others, start collecting V5 only airports at first and then work your way back to FSX with airports not available as a v5 version. Same with planes.
P3D can be used CPU based or GPU based, understand the difference of settings that will place more of a load on the CPU vs the GPU so you can manage the hit on the hardware better to help you keep your frames where you want them for flights. If your CPU is underpowered to your GPU, then use Volumetric Clouds instead of the legacy clouds. If your CPU is way better than your GPU, then use the legacy cloud system as VC will affect the GPU more. On the CPU you want to have a low as possible load of usage that never goes above 80% for extended times. Otherwise your GPU will get limited after awhile by Windows as a fire safety precaution. 40-65% is a good load to have during flight.
The GPU load can go up to 90%. It should never max at 100% during the flight tho otherwise I would say you need to upgrade the GPU.
The more the load, the hotter it gets as well, so make sure the cooling is there for your PC so your flights dont get worse with the fps.

In terms of the scenery library. ONLY AIRPORTS SHOULD BE USED AS AN XML ADDON. Not to say they cant be used in the scenery library, more to do with the fact that regions, landscape scenery packs or any scenery that isnt an airport, NEEDS to be placed within the scenery library. Not an xml, which are not part of the scenery library, they simply sit on top of it. Users that place scenery items as an xml, will face bigger issues further down the line and eventually will lock their sim from loading due to the data within the addons and how its loaded into the sim.
Plus, like Jorgen says, there is a limit of library items that can be held. So having only airports (which naturally sit on top of the terrain) as XML will mean you can have way more scenery options for your library. Any changes made to the scenery library, I would say delete your SceneryIndexes so P3D can generate a new indexed dataset based on the current library and remove errors from occurring during flight.
I only activate what I will see within any given flight to help speed up loading times as XML addons take longer to load into the sim than scenery library items.

Scenery Library items = White Text
XML Addons = Grey Text

When using addons, less is more for v5. use only what you need and dont fall for the "well Ive always used this addon, so I will continue to use it" trap most people fall into and then complain that their sim looks bad visually.
V5 has been updated over past versions and made many products obsolete in use. Orbx Global Base is truly the only Global Range product you need. The regions are good and True Earth is great. LC and Vector are no longer needed as the default does it better in terms of either visual or performance gain.
I have also made other addons packs which are totally free for the land, sea and air which enhance the sims visuals and can be found on my channel for free as well as hundreds of helpful videos that show you how to get the best from P3D for your PC.

I hope this has been of help to you.