Hanger too full up, can't move...!

[Fozzer]

I've had a really busy morning this morning...
(I hate the word "busy", but there you go)...
I've just started a new aircraft folder entitled, "Planes I rarely fly", in the Main Aircraft Folder, and popped in there all the zillions of downloaded planes which I rarely use, and just fill up my Hangar.
It's now quicker to find my favourite planes which I regularly fly...actually I find that the planes I regularly fly amount to less than half a flippin' dozen...!!
..so there...!
(Important to leave the default ones there tho' for AI/ATC reasons)!
..do you know what, I've just spent the whole day just chuffin' around the Californian coast in my little T-Bird II 3-axis, fixed-wing, microlight...thats all I need for cheap flying...!
Loadsa fun...poppin' here, poppin' there..!

Also...
I've just temporarily removed some of the scenery files in my Add-On Scenery Menu, (sorry Ramsa..), which I have downloaded.
Some of the Geo-Render files and LAGO FSSE .se1 files of certain areas containing lots objects, had reduced my frame-rates from the usual 35 FPS to around 4 FPS when within 10 miles of them..!!!
Some of these scenery files make fantastic static screen-shots, but as for flying around them...forget it...!!

The only add-on files in my Scenery folders which have negligible effect on my frame rates are Scenery Mesh files for selected areas.

Cheers...
Paul.
(England).

P.S. ..'puter spec at the bottom of the posting..

[terbert]

Hi there, Paul,
What a simple solution. They always say you never see it if it is staring you in the face. Like you, it boils down to only about six planes I ever fly. I am going to shift mine out of the game to a spare folder. I assume that if you then select aircraft, it will load quicker?
With addon scenery, why is it that some really detailed airports do not affect my frame rate, but others, ie Liverpool that I installed yesterday, which is not highly detailed, make my computer stand still? Forgive my ignorance, but I am not a 'buff'.
Changing subject, with ref. to 'Keeping down the kilobytes' thanks for the replies, and they certainly were of help!
Regards,
Tony C  (Bucks, UK0

[ozzy72]

I had a wee spring clean a while back Fozzer, and I was shocked how much unused stuff I had lurking in my hanger.
I've got it down to all the Spitfires, the defaults and a few others I really enjoy. I like variety too much.
Do what I did and back up downloads of things you might once in a while get the urge to play with onto a CD to free-up system space, and then have a word file with details of what is on each CD. This is what I've done, and it makes life soooo easy when I want something a bit different.

Ozzy

[Fozzer]

[quote]Hi there, Paul,
What a simple solution. They always say you never see it if it is staring you in the face. Like you, it boils down to only about six planes I ever fly. I am going to shift mine out of the game to a spare folder. I assume that if you then select aircraft, it will load quicker?
With addon scenery, why is it that some really detailed airports do not affect my frame rate, but others, ie Liverpool that I installed yesterday, which is not highly detailed, make my computer stand still? Forgive my ignorance, but I am not a 'buff'.
Changing subject, with ref. to 'Keeping down the kilobytes' thanks for the replies, and they certainly were of help!
Regards,
Tony C

[Fozzer]

....Do what I did and back up downloads of things you might once in a while get the urge to play with onto a CD to free-up system space, and then have a word file with details of what is on each CD. This is what I've done, and it makes life soooo easy when I want something a bit different.

Ozzy

Woo-Hoo...!
Just ask me who is the lucky bunny with a CD writer then.... ....?
...I wish... ...!
LOL...LOL...LOL...!

(...actually I've got two hard drives and I pop a lot of back-up "stuff", (I hate that word), on my 2 nd. HDD)*

Cheers Mate...
Paul.
(England).

P.S. ..*still doesn't protect me from a MAJOR crash tho'... ...!
P.P.S. ..can I E-Mail my 10 Gb of back-up stuff, (that word again), to you via Outlook Express, so that you can save it for me with your lubbly-jubbly CD writer...
....or not...?
LOL..LOL...LOL..!

[terbert]

Hi Paul (Fozzer),

Nice to see where you abide, better than talking to total strangers, makes it kind of homely. Did not get the relevence 'I like "quicker". Call me thick if you like, but our local saying is Bucks born, Bucks bred, Strong in the arm, Thick in the head. . I do not have the luxury of a re-writer, so will have to store in a folder. Being as this folder will be a fair size, would it be best to store it outside of fs2002?
Like the ref to Clive. My S/Spectram would have had a frame rate of about 10 FPD (frames per day)
See you,

Tony C ( High Wycombe)

[planespotter]

Guys, there a download called Aircraft organizer that allows you to move the AC around very easily.

I have numerous AC as well. I bet I have alteas 17 F-15's alone. I have folders labeled-F-15, F-16, F-18 and such. Sure they're just repaints but I like to fly the correct AC out of their respected bases.

ANYWAY, this allows you to set your archive folder and your main folder. Just switch them back and forth.

Ramsa showed me this to free up some space and loading times when he tweeked my PC

[Oso]

Planespotter - where can we get that prog? It sounds very useful.

Fozzer - your specs match mine pretty close - I have a 900 Duron - but you have a way better vid card - I use the USA Mesh available on this site and it does great things on the country side - a lot more realistic - frame rates - not too bad - 14-29. When over a city though it drops to 12 or so - but I have the autogen for buildings set to the max. Download the one for Los Angeles - it will give you SoCal and give it a go - I think you will like it - greatly improves the coastline.

I liked it so much I downloaded the whole set.

I will post a couple in the "raw screenshots" for you tonight.

[FSTipster]

Ramsa showed me this to free up some space and loading times when he tweeked my PC

I know Ramsa is a sore point for some, but I can't help but make the following points:

Moving your aircraft from one folder to another on your hard drive doesn't save any space. In nit picking terms, it takes up more.

The reason I refer to nit picking is that that is what you'd have to do to be able to measure the difference in loading times. FS2002 doesn't load all the planes when it initiates, it simply collects the ui data from the aircraft.cfg files in the folders. The difference in loading time on an average PC between having only 1 aircraft in your folder and a 1,000 would only be measurable in terms of microseconds.

It's a similar misconception to the one concerning gauges. I have nearly 4,000 gauges in my gauges folder. If I had only 4 gauges, it would load up at exactly the same time. The only time the gauges are referred to is when you load the aircraft itself, and then it only loads the gauges concerned. I suppose there's an odd microsecond that might be lost wading through the other 3,900 I have in my folder to find them, but it's not something anyone would be able to notice.

[Bazza]

Good points Tipster, how-ever Fozzer did state that it merely gave him a smaller menu to select his plane from and I know what he's getting at.

I am clawing my way back from a major Hard-drive crash followed by inexplicable dramas in the weeks after the re-build.    I also have the luxury of a CD writer and so I have all my aircraft intact.   For reasons (bordering on stupidity) I have decided to say goodbye to my scenery and start again.    I haven't been happy with the way some of it was running for some time now and am going to take the opportunity of a fresh start.   At least I know what was hot and what was not.

Do I presume from Fozzer's remark that shifting the defaults out (most of which I never use) would mean no 747's etc in the traffic ?    Never thought about that before.?

[ramsa329]

FsTipster,

I usually don't post in this forum leaving it to experts like yourself but this time I really feel that you have not only missed the mark but you have also misinformed people and you could cause, inadvertently, many problems

You couldn't be more wrong about your observations regarding the aircraft folder and your not wrong from an Fs standpoint your WRONG from a system standpoint.

It doesn't matter which application we would be discussing. Any app needs to be kept as free as possilble to allow the system to use less resources. So to use an example outside of the sim we could take any operating system and not clean out the temp files and this could cause a system breakdown. In fact a little research into this simple fact might be very instructive for you.

Fs2k2 puts limits on the size of the aircraft folder and the scenery library for this very reason. In fact all applications have built-in system limits.

Overloaded aircraft or scenery folders and incorrectly arranged scenery library can have dramatic effect on the interoperation of your sim and operating system.

That is why developers have made programs for gauge removal and aircraft organization and their work is not just to have some thing to do.

Aircraft Organizer is an outstanding utility which will not get into your registry and gum it all up. Get it here: http://www.cfswarbirds.com/Utilities/utilities.html

ramsa329@msn.com
Microsoft Systems Engineer

[Hagar]

I've just started a new aircraft folder entitled, "Planes I rarely fly", in the Main Aircraft Folder, and popped in there all the zillions of downloaded planes which I rarely use, and just fill up my Hangar.

Good idea Fozzer. I would just like to make a couple of points. This is something I've been doing for a long time. Never thought to mention it before as it's common practice with CFS2 due to the limiit on number of aircraft installed at any one time.
"Planes I rarely fly seems" a tad long for a folder name to me. It's a matter of preference but I call my spare folder Hangar. In fact I have several named Hangar 1, Hangar 2, Hangar 3 etc. in all my M$ sims This enables me to sort the aircraft into various categories.

I've just temporarily removed some of the scenery files in my Add-On Scenery Menu

This is fine providing it's done via the Scenery Library. Deactivate 3rd party scenery areas by unchecking the boxes beside them. This is quick & convenient. Please delete areas from the Scenery Library first before attempting to removing the actual scenery files. Not doing this properly will almost certainly cause those dreaded "Scenery File not found" error messages.

Do what I did and back up downloads of things you might once in a while get the urge to play with onto a CD to free-up system space, and then have a word file with details of what is on each CD.

Good suggestion Ozzy. I'm not sure everyone knows that burning files to a CD will convert them to Read-only. This is not a problem unless you want to edit them at a later stage. For example, CFG files or textures will need converting back manually from file Properties before any changes can be saved. Zipping the files or folders you wish to back up first will avoid this problem.

Guys, there a download called Aircraft organizer that allows you to move the AC around very easily.

I'm sure this is a good utility which might suit many people. I'm not keen on aircraft organisers or automatic aircraft installer utilities as I've found they can cause problems. I prefer to install & organise all my files manually.

[ramsa329]

Aircraft Organizer doesn't use any form of automation in its operation so that is a mute point.

In truth it is a simple cut and paste app. which simplifies the users life.

I would never recommend any form of automated app for moving aircraft between folders as they use up to many system resources and are highly unstable.

ramsa329

[Hagar]

Thanks for the clarification. Anything that makes life easier is OK by me.

[bm]

  I have a program called 'Airman' that moves the aircraft you select into a 'hangar', I don't think it moves the file or anything just it hides the aircraft from the list.

     Isn't Aircraft Organiser a limited trial freeware?