Solid State Drives (SSD) and FSX

[Hook]

Orbx Vector is a known resource hog.

Someone more familiar with Orbx than I am will have to give you advice on how to disable various parts of Orbx. It may be that the normal methods won't work. If you are not going to use Vector, I would suggest removing it through the Orbx command software, but I don't know the exact sequence to do this and it is important to do it correctly.

I have read posts that indicate that some parts of Orbx might load even if they are not needed.

The the best of my knowledge, scenery is never flushed. Complex AI aircraft might be flushed but if two or more are loaded only the last one loaded is flushed; I have verified this with several tests. Memory used by your aircraft is usually freed when it is no longer needed, for example for some internal processing, as I have seen in the A2A Cub.

Good luck, don't give up.

Hook

[Buffy Foster]

I moved my P3D v4.4 to an M.2 SSD and it loads *way* faster than when it was on a WD Black ATA6 disk.

[WB_FlashOver]

I moved my P3D v4.4 to an M.2 SSD and it loads *way* faster than when it was on a WD Black ATA6 disk.

Buffy, did you notice any smoother play? I went from a RAID0 HDD setup to a Samsung 850 Evo and my load times improved about 17%. However, I did not notice much of an improvement in general smoothness. I suppose there was some improvement but not a discernible one that I could notice.

Cheers
Roger

[Buffy Foster]

Buffy, did you notice any smoother play? I went from a RAID0 HDD setup to a Samsung 850 Evo and my load times improved about 17%. However, I did not notice much of an improvement in general smoothness. I suppose there was some improvement but not a discernible one that I could notice.

I never noticed any smoothness problems just sometimes if I looked quick from way over out the right window to way over out the left sometimes I'd see the textures apply - flash of black then the texture. But only if there was real cloudy stormy weather.

Maybe cuz I just fly GA planes? Faster planes maybe people would notice more?

[Hook]

I did a few VAS tests with different settings in an area known to have a huge VAS jump.

LOD Radius and Texture Resolution make the difference, at least out in the boonies with only trees for autogen (which was maxed). Dropping texture resolution down from 7 cm to 15 cm made a 550 meg difference. LOD Radius was smaller but significant. I suggest both together.

With these changes you might be able to handle Orbx stuff without problems.

Good luck.

Hook

[janice]

Thank you Hook. I'll give it a go. I think I'm going to work on a different approach, though, which I'm going to write up in case someone else wants the info.

Janice

[janice]

I've deleted my explanation here because it had an error in it, but I do have some information that I will post once I get all the bits and pieces figured out.

Janice

[janice]

Can't say enough about this improvement!!! I replaced my 7200 rpm HDD (D:) with a Samsung 850 Evo 500 SSD for 123 $CAD (including taxes). Simply copied files from my HDD D: to an external harddrive. Installed new SDD, called it D:, and copied back Steam and all my FSX stuff. Left all my photos, music, backup stuff on the old HDD, and presto! No more blurries!!!. I'm going to put the old HDD in a disk caddy in the optic drive which I don't use. If I want to go further, I'm going to replace my current a 250 Nvme M.2 with a a Samsung Nvme 960 Pro 1TB M.2 and install Steam and FSX on that, but at the moment, that would cost $300 and I don't see the need for it. Whereas previously FSX was loading very slowly (as in more than 5 minutes), the initial load is now faster. However, if I want to change my location or time of day during a flight, no problem. It takes maybe 15 seconds to reload as opposed to taking a couple of minutes before and then declining into blurries so that I couldn't continue the flight. I have kept disk read / write speeds and can post a comparison if someone would like them. I couldn't be more pleased with the outcome, and I believe if I decided to go the next step at some point, the improvement would be even more significant than what I have now. I just flew into Vancouver during the day time with very high graphics and almost no delay in graphics. I haven't tried it with any Orbx Vector stuff yet, but will do so soon. I'm really pleased!

janice

[Hook]

Congrats on getting it working!

Load times measured in multiple minutes is a little scary.

I just timed a few loads. Mildly complex aircraft (Aerosoft BeaverX), a default airport (MROC) of medium complexity. Timed from the moment the splash screen appeared. This is loading a saved flight going directly to the cockpit. Default textures etc, Active Sky Next weather. AI traffic medium, airport vehicles medium.

Initial load after computer reboot:
Time to progress indicator: 36 seconds
Time to actually in cockpit: 69 seconds

First subsequent load:
Time to progress indicator: 14 seconds
Time to actually in cockpit: 23 seconds

Second subsequent load:
Time to progress indicator: 8 seconds
Time to actually in cockpit: 17 seconds

Additional subsequent loads were about an average of the first two. The progress indicator runs for about 10 seconds except on first load after reboot.

This is with an Alienware Area 51 R2 with Prepar3D version 2.5 on a hard drive, not the SSD.

Hook

[janice]

Okay Hook - tomorrow I'm going to time my A2A Piper Cherokee with no GPS cuz probably most of us have it, with my ORBX PNW. I'll let you know what I get. - J.

Next day:

Wow - I have a big difference from before the new drive, but much slower than you. Before the new drive, I was going away and making coffee while it started, and really sorry when it crashed and had to be restarted.

Loading at CYVR (big airport) from a computer restart, the markers were 26 seconds to splash screen, 1:28 to the loading terrain, and 6 minutes to cockpit
Loading at CYQQ (smaller airport in small city without a restart, the markers were 5 seconds to splash screen, 1:00 to the loading terrain, and 4:42 to cockpit
Loading at CYQQ (smaller airport in small city from a restart, the markers were ~10 seconds to splash screen, 1:04 to the loading terrain, and 4:48 to cockpit

The above is with the A2A Piper, Orbx PNW, scenery maxed, no weather, a very little bit of airport traffic, and airplane detail maxed.

I'm not too concerned about the load times. The main thing is, once it loaded, I'm getting excellent graphics.

Benchmarks:

Prior HDD sequential read / write - 119 / 85
New SSD sequential read / write - 562 / 528

J.