Reinstall...!

[EMatheson]

I've just pressed the delete button on my entire FS9 install. I've been on a scenery kick lately and have installed something like 500 new areas - and when I install sceneries, I check each and every individual airfield for problems, so it takes a LONG time. This project has been going on since December. It was time for a change.
So there goes 100 Gbs. of FS2004 related data. I'm going to defrag the drive thoroughly and then reinstall a fresh copy of FS9 from the disks... and then!
Then!
Then I'll focus on flying the default lessons and scenarios and get all the fun I can out of a bone-stock copy for a while!
I'll bet some addons start to creep in on their own more or less nearly from the beginning, but really, it is rather tiring worrying about the files and the frame rates all day...

[aeromed202]

It's inevitable, you will be assimilated.

[Naismith]

Been there, bet you don't stick to that regime, something will come along to seduce and divert you.

[PeteHam]

Just doing a fresh install myself after a HD replacement.

A Win7 OS and some hiccups along the way with a couple of payware sceneries and aircraft.

But I think everything is OK now , so it's a slow re install of my favorite scenery and aircraft packages.

I tried to be disciplined last time and limit the amount of aircraft to a selected number, but temptation won out eventually.

Pete.

[Bjoern]

I only download what I need for a particular flight. Helps keeping the installation slim.


Except for (retro) AI. I can't just get enough of it!

[Blackbird686]

I recently did a compleat un-install and re-install... I'm still putting everything back together. One of the things I did this time was to do a separate stock install of FS9 on the back-up HD. Not NEARLY as big an install this time.... and I will probably keep it a lot slimmer from now on. It runs a lot better right now and everything works!

BB686:USA-flag:

[Sunny9850]

I don't know that I would have gone quite that far....
HDs are relatively cheap these days and FS9 unlike the X version allows multiple installs on on PC.
So I have one LARGE backdated install with all my favorites in CalClassic sceneries and aircraft and one for Silverwings with much less Addon stuff and finally a quick and easy clean installation I use to test new things.

If a new piece of software buggers up that one hardly any work is required....just a fresh install from the disks.

But good luck keeping FS stock....it's hard. There is just too much neat stuff out there.

Cheers
Stefan

[T Square]

You know as well as I do that Saying "I'm going to leave this one bare bones" ranks right up there with "The best lay plans of Mice and Men". Admit it half the enjoyment of any Flight Sim fanatic is searching and finding that one gem of a download or tweek and spending a few hours or days making it work. I have said this many times my friends a clean install for me lasts about a month (and that is stretching it a bit), and then something new hits the net and a couple of gigs later, I'm addicted to downloading, tweeks and addons like a Hamster on one of those wheels going around and around. :mixedsmi::mixedsmi::mixedsmi::mixedsmi::mixedsmi: :mixedsmi:

[andersel]

It's inevitable, you will be assimilated.

I was assimilated so long ago that I now believe that I control my own life again.

LA

[EMatheson]

Well, "bone-stock" IS a bit of an exaggeration... I have got an ENB setting nailed down that I don't want to fly without - and ActiveCamera2004 was worth every last penny of its price. I will not fly without it!
Other than that, I will try to go without adding too much... but I am concerned that even doing that little bit might open a fatal crack in the wall! I'd like not to be swamped with addon related tinkering again, but the dam is only so thick and the water exerts so very much pressure!

[EMatheson]

OK. I've finally got my lists of addon scenery off of the printer paper they were scrawled on and into the computer as a spreadsheet. This will eventually be printed on card-stock so that I have a good reference, but for now, NO. Not going there for a while. Now I'm finally ready to consider doing the actual reinstall (the sim has been absent from my computer for nearly a week now)... maybe not tonight, though. It's Sunday - somehow it seems a little dirty to pollute the LORDs day with something so addictive as FS. Obviously I do transgress that a little by logging in here...
I've attached my spreadsheet so you can see why I've maybe gotten a little tired of fiddling and tweaking. As I said, I've been working through a list about twice that long, keeping only the most suitable for my machine (detailed but not frame-rate heavy) since December... so for now I'm frankly a little burnt out.

[aeronca1]

One little nitpick. You have it listed as "St. Petersburg (Stalingrad)", should be "St. Petersburg (Leningrad)

[EMatheson]

One little nitpick. You have it listed as "St. Petersburg (Stalingrad)", should be "St. Petersburg (Leningrad)

Quite so! Thanks for catching that. I've corrected that now.

[EMatheson]

Having problems with the reinstall. I cannot run the FS9.1 update, it seems. I keep getting "Update Error 34." I've googled it and done what the Microsoft support article suggests, but to no avail. Does anyone have any ideas?

EDIT: Figured it out. I'd inadvertently installed to a different place than I thought I had. Not entirely sure what my thought processes were, but in the end, the update installed fine.

I'm quite happy with the stock game at the moment. I've installed the update and Active Camera, but the rest is stock. Boots in less than a second to the menu screen, loads the sim and scenery in probably a second and a half. MUCH better than the eternity it used to require! And it doesn't look too crappy with all the settings bumped up to their fullest...

[EMatheson]

Being slowly "assimilated," as aeromed202 put it... it's inevitable indeed.
I've begun to fly the stock flights. Right now I'm about 100 miles out from JFK, which I've just departed on my recreation of the flight of the Vin Fiz... and I've gotten entirely sick of the stock ATC voices and the outdated phraseology. So I'm going to go nuts with EditVoicePack tomorrow... speed the thing up, switch to International phraseology (which, according to the geeks at my local flight school is much more inline with current FAA useage - apparently things have been rather intentionally homogenized in the last decade) and add a few thousand new vcpmods to it...
And I've already discarded two weather engines as unsuitable. The default FS weather server might be working again, but it never did have a reputation as the greatest of all things. The REX weather engine is nice, but I think I'll just stick with the textures. In FS9, it uses the default FS fog layers that cut off so sharply and unpleasantly at altitude... which was simply unacceptable. Maybe REX Essentials+ has the option to use stratus as fog, but not REX+Overdrive FS2004! Fortunately, the freeware FSrealWX lite does exactly that - and got the weather more in line with actual weather reported in the area than either of the other engines did!
Flying is fun - especially with framerates in the 60s and no stutters - but resistance does indeed seem to be futile...

[EMatheson]

So far, the only addon scenery I've installed is about 32 Gbs of high-resolution FSGenesis mesh and all of the Ultimate Terrains for FS9... so I've been pretty careful about not adding excess stuff, methinks. I also just installed all of my AI aircraft again - and AI used to be my biggest drain on FPS. Used to be that I couldn't look at a full line-up on MAIW F-15s without getting FPS in the teens... this time, though, I'm staying in the high forties. Turns out there is one crucial difference - I haven't installed the ENB module this time. I just compared the same situation with ENB and without. ENB does look better, but not a whole 25 FPS better! No more ENB for me - and I think I'll enjoy my scenery and aircraft much better now that I know I won't have to worry about FPS anymore...