Potential Issues removing default planes?

[Hagar]

[quote]My problem is, is that my Aircraft folder is larger than the entire initial install.

[ShaneG_old]

[quote][quote]My problem is, is that my Aircraft folder is larger than the entire initial install.

[Hagar]

[quote]A solution presented itself to me last night, and although it may sound a little strange, it did the job quite nicely.

I have removed all planes, except for the AI, and the defaults, and then just add in the aircraft folders of the planes I want to use for that session each time.
This has decreased my loading time significantly.

[aussiewannabe]

[quote]I have removed all planes, except for the AI, and the defaults, and then just add in the aircraft folders of the planes I want to use for that session each time.
This has decreased my loading time significantly.

[ShaneG_old]

[quote][quote]I have removed all planes, except for the AI, and the defaults, and then just add in the aircraft folders of the planes I want to use for that session each time.
This has decreased my loading time significantly.

[JoBee]

My technique is to change any planes that are being used for AI to type=2 in the .air file so they don't show up in the selection screen.

Any planes that are not used for AI that I am not flying I simply rename the aircraft.cfg to aircraft.zzz and FS ignores them on startup.

I can pause a flight, renames a file from aircraft.zzz to aircraft.cfg and go back into the sim and that plane will then be available.

This way I don't have to move a bunch of files around, fragging my HD.

Just my 2cents.

cheers,
Joe

[ShaneG_old]

The AI part I've done,

[JoBee]

[quote]
Now, to find the motivation to rename a couple hundred .cfg files.

[JoBee]

There are 875 individual aircraft folders, inside the FS9/Aircraft/ folder, with almost 700 of those being AI planes.

Ever wonder how many duplications you have?

Being a bit of a neatnik I started looking at my AI folders and found a bunch of instances where I had different folders with identical models.

I was able to consolidate many to eliminate having duplicates.

An invaluable tool for this is called WinMerge - http://winmerge.org/

This great little utility compares files and folders on a binary level.

Say you have 2 AI folders for a 737-700. You can WinMerge the aircraft.cfg and the .mdl files in seconds and tell if they are the same. You can copy, say a [fltsim] section from one aircraft.cfg to another quickly.

Note: it will not present a readable version of the .mdl file, but you can easily see if two of them are identical or not.

Another Note: before consolidating your AI folders consider how it will affect automatic updates, such as WoAI installs.

I love this little utility and use it often.

Hope this helps.

cheers,
Joe

[ShaneG_old]

Ah yes, duplicate AI folders. 

My PAI collection is the big offender, with MAIW being a close second, and VOZ coming in third.

I've only got 4 WOAI files. 

I could probably cut the number of AI folders in half just by combining all the similar models, but I'm guessing that would then lead to a few .cfgs being several miles long. 

I've already combined all of their traffic.bgls into 3 files, instead of 800. So I guess this would be the next logical step. I would just need to make darn sure that I'm getting them matched up correctly.

[JoBee]

...I would just need to make darn sure that I'm getting them matched up correctly.

It's super easy with WinMerge.

When you compare 2 aircraft folders in WinMerge they are presented to you side-by-side in 2 panels. You can navigate through the folders easily. WinMerge uses colors to highlight differences, so if you click on the .mdl file or the .air file you can tell in less time than it takes me to type this if they are identical or not.

Text files, such as aircraft.cfg files, are presented side-by-side as well and you can copy from one to the other simply.

I use this program all the time for different things.

It's free and fairly simple to operate, check it out.

regards,
Joe

[ShaneG_old]

It's free and fairly simple to operate, check it out.

Doing it now.

Sounds easy enough, just take it slow.  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[Mazza]

You should stickie this, it would answer someones question about this in a flash!

[ShaneG_old]

You should stickie this, it would answer someones question about this in a flash!

I've added it to the FAQs.

Good suggestion Mazza.  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]