31 replies to this topic

[strude11]

Hi Guys

 

I have today just purchased Inverness, Stornoway and Oban airports.

 

I only installed Inverness airport, adjusted details in Control Panel and adjusted the sliders as recommended.

 

I then loaded my default flight at Edinburgh - took its normal 55 secs to load. I then went to Airports-Change airport and selected Inverness and the flight began to load.

 

It took 22 secs to get to 71% and then it virtually ground to a halt - taking 5.5 mins to go from 71% to 80% loading auto generated scenery. At 82% it said it was adjusting scenery objects and eventually some 17 mins and 22 secs later the load completed.

 

Prior to installing this airport, I had no problems loading flights. I then uninstalled EGPE and re-booted the computer but now I am left with every flight load taking between 18 - 20mins.

 

Can you advise what you think has happened here.

Thanks

 

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

The slow load time is down to the autogen files i have a fix below for that.

If you have removed Inverness it should no longer affect loading time and it should not affect other airports, how did you uninstall it?

 

Here is the fix for slow loading at Inverness

1. Download  egpe-agn.zip   311.88KB   813 downloads

2. Unzip and move/overwrite the files here "{fsx/p3d}\SIM720\Airports\SIM720_EGPE\Texture\"

 

Paul

[Barry Hudson]

Hi Strude11, thanks for the purchases, trust Paul's comments has helped your issues.

[strude11]

Hi Paul

Thanks for your reply.

 

I have Scotflight also installed and prior to installing your airport I renamed all bgl files to off for EGPE in the Scotflight Main/Scenery folder.

 

Then I installed EGPE but got horrendous load time as stated. I then uninstalled it using the installer but could not find any un-installer for the Libraries as this still left me with a SIM720 folder in my FSX directory. No mention was made in windows control panel/programs and features with reference to the Libraries. Used Sys Restore to go back a week, I still have the same problem.

 

Now here is another strange thing - after uninstall, I still cant get near EGPE on load - last count took 19 mins. I then loaded default flight at Edinburgh with 737 - it took 67 secs. I then went to change airport and go to OBAN (which I did not install) and it took 35 mins to load!!!

 

I am a bit concerned that there is no way to uninstall this Sim720 Library folder as no reference can be found anywhere.

 

I will try this fix you outlined. Can you tell me Paul how to completely uninstall the Library folder please.

 

Will let you know how I get on.

Thanks

Iain

 

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

You need to install the latest SIM720 LIBS from here http://forum.sim720....gory/1-patches/ then you can uninstall them, SIM720 LIBS aren't removed when you uninstall an airport as they are required for all airports.

System restore generally won't fix FSX addon issues.

Can you check and see if SIM720 EGPE is still in your scenery library?

 

Paul

[strude11]

Paul

Have reinstalled Inverness and applied your texture overwrite as requested.

When I downloaded the product today, the LIBS was the latest version shown, so I thought I didn't need to download it.

As I type, I am sitting at 81% done on the loading flight to Inverness, and so far that has taken 16 minutes!!

This installer has seriously screwed up my sim. Even Scotflight Oban wouldn't load and that's when I had not even installed the Sim720 airport. If I go to any other airport in UK, except for Oban Inverness and Stornoway, all load within 80 secs!!

 

I ran an anti virus check on all downloads and it came up OK Paul.

 

I have now arrived at Inverness - Load time 20mins 19secs. Very nice it looks too!! Pity it has taken so long to get here.

 

I hope you can get to the bottom of this.

 

Regards

Iain

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

Can you go to you scenery library entries and untick all addon's (apart from the default stuff) and try loading at Inverness.

If that doesn't work make a backup of your fsx.cfg file and let FSX create a new one, its located "C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\fsx.cfg" rename to "fsx.cfg.bak" and start FSX and try again.

Can you also tell me what addon's you are running?

 

Paul

[strude11]

Paul

Have been running several tests over the weekend.

I use Horizon scenery Vols 1-8 and UK2000 Extreme airports - that is all.

I checked over the entire support forum and I have discovered that I am not the only one experiencing load issues with EGPE. Also I have discovered that the VASI lights on the main runway are only seen as you approach and there is no MALSR system also.

The manual stated that you set your autogen slider to Normal for first flight - I did this and the load time was around 20 mins. If I set the slider to None, then the load time is just over 3 mins.

Now considering my average load time for all flights in the UK is around 2 mins with my autogen slider at Dense, it would appear that it is your Autogen loading that is causing the problem.

Can I just say that the airport is very well done and is highly detailed and congrats to all but nevertheless there are shortcomings (lights as above). When I drive around the roads around the Terminal area, all is clear and all objects are in place.

So really my question is:- why is the autogen you guys provide slowing down the load time? The file fix you gave me made no difference whatsoever and checking the Texture folder of EGPE is over 380 Mb with the dds files coming in at 1.3 MB each.

Regards

Iain

 

System: W7 64: i7@3.4 GHz:GTX 580,: 12Gb RAM: 2 X 500 Gb SSD (1 Windows and 1 FSX)

[Paul Webster]

Can you confirm the date modified on the *an.agn files is 10/09/2013 12:06 located here "{fsx/p3d}\SIM720\Airports\SIM720_EGPE\Texture\" if its not then reapply the fix as that has worked for everybody else if not i'll keep looking at why its still broken for you.

 

There are approach lights (effects and models) but it seems they don't like to show most of the time and we are looking at that.

 

Paul

[strude11]

Paul

The downloaded fix *an.agn files are all dated 10/09/13 as you said but when I unzip the files, they of course come up with todays date. When I check the Texture folder, all an.gn files have the date 11/01/14 which is of course, the date I have applied the fix as the files in the fix overwrote the previous texture files.

Iain

 

[strude11]

Correction to size of Texture folder of EGPE is 439Mb not 380Mb as stated earlier. As an aside,I checked Texture folder for Heathrow Extreme (UK 2000), which is a very detailed airport and it comes to only 225Mb.

Iain

[Paul Webster]

Hi,

 

Unzipping the files shouldn't change the date (it doesn't here using 7zip) so can you try again making sure you overwrite, it might be better to unzip to a separate folder first and check the date before moving/overwriting the files also make sure its the date modified your checking.

439MB is the correct size of the texture folder for EGPE so no problems there.

 

Paul

[strude11]

Paul
I have been using the Windows 7 extract file facility. When I open the zip file, I highlight all the files and press "extract all" and send them to the texture directory. I then choose to overwrite all. Is that not correct?
Iain

[Paul Webster]

That should be right but if your getting a different date modified then its not working correctly.

[strude11]

Paul
Ok. Downloaded WinZip and used it to send the fix files to the Texture folder. That worked ok and all dates on the an.agn files were all dated properly as you stated 10/09/13.

Fired up FSX, set A/Gen slider to normal, and then chose default trike at EGPE active runway. Here are the times:-

From 0% to 71% 2mins 41 secs
" 71% to 80% 6mins 20 secs Loading Auto Generated Scenery
" 80% to 83% 14mins 24 secs Adjusting scenery objects
" 83% to 100% 14mins 36 secs Load completed.

So total time to load flight was 14 min 36 secs compared to 3 minutes when slider set to none.

Can you tell me what these an.agn files are and what aspect of the scenery would I be missing if I load from slider set to none ie 3 mins?

With respect, a load time of 14 and a half mins is unacceptable particularly when all other loads are fast. I have been involved in running flight simulator since the very early days and have never come across this aspect of load.

[Paul Webster]

The *an.agn files are the trees, so you would be missing trees.

I'm at a lose as to why your machine takes so long with the new files, i will keep have a look at why and hopefully have an answer soon.

[strude11]

Ok Thanks

[Gartro]

I am wondering whether any progress has been made since 13 January on strude 11's problem with loading Inverness.

 

I have a not dissimilar problem.

 

I bought Inverness and Stornaway from PC Aviator Australia last week. Below is part of the explanation I posted on the PCA Aust Forum last week:

 

"After I bought this and Stornaway this week, I probably made two mistakes. The first was that I downloaded and installed them without waiting for the back-up disks to arrive and doing it in my usual way. The second was that I forgot to set FTX Central to Europe before installing them.

 

After I installed them and started FSX, I got a message reading:

"SCENERY.CFG file error

Local scenery directory

(SIM720\Airports\SIM720_KAVX/SCENERY) in scenery area"

 

I pressed on. Stornaway loaded in the usual manner and worked okay with the Airtrike.

 

I then tried loading Inverness. The loading stopped for about a minute at 40% (Terrain) and then again at 70% (Auto generated objects), then at 81%, 92%, 94% 96%, 97% and 98% for increasing amounts of time, with the stay at the 98% mark being 5 minutes. The total load time was 18 minutes. When I switched from the Airtrike to the default Cessna, FSX had a fatal error crash.

 

I then realised about FTX Central, uninstalled Stornaway and Inverness and re-installed them with FTX Central set to Europe.

 

Similar stalling times were experienced when next loading Inverness, this time the total time being about 15 minutes.

 

I then realised that the scenery error message contained the Sim720 Catalina initials whereas I has been assuming that it related to Inverness.

 

I loaded Catalina and found that it was the default airport, rather than the Sim720 one. The Sim720 control panel told me there were various errors with Catalina. My guess is that something to do with Sim720  Inverness wiped out Sim720 Catalina

 

I uninstalled Catalina and then re-installed it from the back-up disk and it works okay now, as Stornaway continues to do.

 

This morning Inverness continued to have the stalls and very long loading. When I got it loaded and took off in a QW Avro, I had a couple of seconds of the black and blue ground rectangles (which I understand are memory related). I flew the short distance to Stornaway and when on final approach got an OOM message and FSX closed down.

 

I later tried loading Inverness after I had loaded another airport. This time there were no stalls in loading but merely a very long loading time, probably about ten minutes."

 

It is strange that I have not experienced similar problems with my other four Sim720 airports or with any of my other airport/scenery products. That is what makes me suspect that the problem may be the product.

 

Happily, unlike strude 11, my load times for other add-ons do not appear to have been affected. Therefore, the only current inconvenience to me is not using Inverness.

[Paul Webster]

@gartro Have you tried the updated agn files in post 2 above?

[Gartro]

Paul

 

I had not tried it, mainly because of the lack of success strude 11 appeared to be having with that exercise. I will try it at the weekend.

 

Any idea as to why Catalina would have been affected in the course of installing Inverness and why the OOM issues would have been experienced in the short hop between Inverness and Stornaway?

 

Apart from Inverness, I think your products are very good. That is why I have bought all of them and why I was pressing Dean at PCA Aust to make these two recent ones available when I saw them being sold elsewhere and when I had bought the earlier ones from him.

 

One other thing. Can you look at your Inverness video? I had had a look at it (via two different computers) on your site, PCA Aust and some other retail sites. I think there are problems with it which make it useless for promotional purposes - so much so that PCA Aust has now removed it from the product entry on that site.