Experimenting; faster bootups.

[Lionheart]

Feng once told me that his FS9 was so fast in startup, that it was almost 'instant on'! His main key was not having files in it that werent being used, such as aircraft.

I am using this to experiment with P3D to see if I can speed up bootup times.

I created a 2 deep folder storage center, 'Aircraft Vault, Airplanes' where I 'control/X - control/V' the planes into that holding folder.

So far so good. I want to see if it makes a 'huge' change.


Gauges 'might' be effecting this also, so that 'might' be next.


If this 'does' work, it might be interesting to create a program that can manage your hanger planes, installing your plane you wish to fly, gauges and things, and a quick bootup is done.



I know that scenery has alot to do with this, and that cant really be sidestepped. Only the nearby scenery is installed, so no use to take out all the world details (I dont think) to get a faster startup.

The reason I am doing this is that my P3D went from a super fast startup to a slow 'FSX' like startup, so there must be reasons, and hopefully a repair.

I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.


Bill

[Roger]

Great though that ORBX scenery is does take a while to load. On the East coast I tend to use Bill Womack's Plum Island and that loads noticably quicker in FsX.

[Dangerous Beans]

My installs gone to FSX like bootup times too.

Its the repaints that do it not the planes. Some might only have a few but others have a shed load and FSX and now P3D scans through all of them on startup including AI.

You could keep all your planes installed and edit the aircraft.cfs's to get rid of all the repaint you never use, that alone would speed up bootup

If you have 3rd party AI installed that really slows it down for the same reason, all those planes with loads of repaints. Not much you can do about that one if you still want the AI to work.

The menus load a lot faster in P3D though, FSX could sit for ages just loading the aircraft menu.

Only thing is without a proper main menu in P3D it can still take ages to setup a flight. Bootup P3D, wait for the default flight lo load, choose your airport, wait for it to load, choose your plane, wait for it to load, change the time/date, wait for it to load, change the weather, wait for it to load, you get the idea.

[Lionheart]

My installs gone to FSX like bootup times too.

Its the repaints that do it not the planes. Some might only have a few but others have a shed load and FSX and now P3D scans through all of them on startup including AI.

You could keep all your planes installed and edit the aircraft.cfs's to get rid of all the repaint you never use, that alone would speed up bootup

If you have 3rd party AI installed that really slows it down for the same reason, all those planes with loads of repaints. Not much you can do about that one if you still want the AI to work.

The menus load a lot faster in P3D though, FSX could sit for ages just loading the aircraft menu.

Only thing is without a proper main menu in P3D it can still take ages to setup a flight. Bootup P3D, wait for the default flight lo load, choose your airport, wait for it to load, choose your plane, wait for it to load, change the time/date, wait for it to load, change the weather, wait for it to load, you get the idea.


Roger that DB and Roger.



Well, I did some testing. This is what I came up with.

First; I experimented with taking out planes. This had almost no bearing at all. Startups were the same.

With each startup, I rebooted the computer so RAM was refreshed or empty/clear. I waited till the computer OS was stable after the restart before starting P3D. I then clicked on the P3 icon and started the timer.

Differences were only 10 seconds, if that. I believe it makes no difference on how many planes you have in your Airplanes folder. Maybe if one had 200 planes, but in this case, I only have about 60 aircraft.

Start times were always 3:30 to 3:40, with one at 4:00 mins, from click to tarmac.

I was also booting up into an ORBX rich area' a payware airport scenery, Diamond Point, with some animations turned off and scenery settings (general) around standard half way points on the sliders, water at 25% setting, normal clouds, mostly stock settings, but scenery effects and scenery detail set to full. (Not terrain textures). Autogen also at 50%.

Now, to change things, I booted up into stock Montgomery airfield in San Diego and startup was almost 1 min quicker, boot up time; 2:50. So I believe scenery has everything to do with it. I back this up with having watched the loading screen scripts; 'loading terrain data' lasted to the 70% mark. Plane and autogen and others were loaded in seconds. Most of the loadup is the terrain data.

So that is that. Good to know. My hunger for ORBX rich realism was the culprit, not the amount of planes in the airplanes folder. Good to know.






Bill

[Lionheart]

When I booted into the Montgomery airfield setting, it was a saved flight and I used that P3D experimental bootup selector, selecting a saved flight.

I can only imagine that booting up into a desert dirt strip would probably take 30 seconds total, lol...



Bill

[ananda]

During the initial load of FSX, most of the time is spent in scanning the addon aircraft ( I have over 1000 ). During the load flight, most of the time is taken loading scenery.

I have the OS (XP), FSX, add-on aircraft and scenery on separate drives so can visualize the activity on each drive.

The following pics show disk reading during the two phases. (Note. each frame is 1min 40sec)

The colours are as follows:

Green - XP
Red - FSX
Yellow - Add-on aircraft
Blue - Scenery
Brown - Scenery


http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/2696/startfsx.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/528/startfsx.jpg/)


http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9992/flynow.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/flynow.jpg/)

George

[Lionheart]

Thanks Annanda,

That is very interesting.

So, with P3D, it bypasses a startup screen, which could be what was the massive hit when starting FSX, just scanning all the planes....


Nice find! Thanks for sharing.


Bill

[ZEUS67]

Thanks Annanda,

That is very interesting.

So, with P3D, it bypasses a startup screen, which could be what was the massive hit when starting FSX, just scanning all the planes....


Nice find! Thanks for sharing.


Bill

The aircraft selection in FSX is the culprit. Since it actually scans all the aircraft and display their thumbnails. It is the graphic part that takes a lof of time. Prepar3D does it a little different. I guess it only reads the aircraft.cfg so it builds the menu and does not load any aircraft graphic unless you actually select it.

[Lionheart]

Prepar3D does it a little different. I guess it only reads the aircraft.cfg so it builds the menu and does not load any aircraft graphic unless you actually select it.


The smart and 'fast' way to go...

[ananda]

The aircraft selection in FSX is the culprit. Since it actually scans all the aircraft and display their thumbnails.

No, FSX scans the aircraft before loading the initial select flight screen.

George

[roger-wilco-66]

Those graphs show nicely why FSX / P3D needs SSD drives! Or a few of them?