Real Scenery WA load times

[Robin Peel]

Load times for the Real Scenery for Washington seem very long.  With just one region installed (eg. "Puget Sound") startup times for X-Plane 9.30 (and others) increase by about 5 mins.  With the entire state of Washington installed the startup time for X-Plane is about 15 - 20 mins (presumably as the sim loads the 6 closest scenery tiles).  This is on a high-spec, quad-core machine with fast drives.

I this a common issue?  Are these load times typical?

Looks great when loaded!

Thanks!

- Robin

[RealScenery]

Hi Robin,

These load times would be expected if you're using the pre-9.2 terrain files. As I recall, you ordered the WA scenery right after we announced its availability, which would have been pre-9.2. After 9.2 was released, we sent out an upgrade to all of our customers by email with a link to download new 9.2 terrain files. I suspect this is the issue you are experiencing. Let me know if you need the new terrain files and I'll post the link here for you.

All of our other scenery packages were released with the 9.2 version terrain files.

Hope this helps!

Eric

[babiukc]

Hello,

I had purchased both the Washington State and Florida packages at the same time.  I am also seeing the same load times as described here.  I did not receive an email about updated scenery.  Would my Florida package contain the updated files?  I never installed Florida as the load times with Washington were just too long so I stopped using it.

Let me know how I can obtain the update.

Cheers,

Cam

[Robin Peel]

Eric:

I did receive an e-mail, and I thought that I had installed it correctly.  But, I'll happily try again!  I want to make this work -it's where I fly in the 'real world'!  Can you post the link to the update here again?

Thanks!

- Robin

Hi Robin,

These load times would be expected if you're using the pre-9.2 terrain files. As I recall, you ordered the WA scenery right after we announced its availability, which would have been pre-9.2. After 9.2 was released, we sent out an upgrade to all of our customers by email with a link to download new 9.2 terrain files. I suspect this is the issue you are experiencing. Let me know if you need the new terrain files and I'll post the link here for you.

All of our other scenery packages were released with the 9.2 version terrain files.

Hope this helps!

Eric

[RealScenery]

Here is the link to the updated terrain files. You will just need to update your existing terrain folders with the new 9.2 version.

www.realscenery.com/update/WashingtonEast.zip

www.realscenery.com/update/WashingtonWest.zip

The new terrain files will increase the load time significantly, even on a high-end system like yours.

The state of Washington scenery was developed prior to 9.2 being released. All of our scenery packages, including Washington, now include these new high-performance terrain files.

Enjoy!

[RealScenery]

Hello,

I had purchased both the Washington State and Florida packages at the same time.  I am also seeing the same load times as described here.  I did not receive an email about updated scenery.  Would my Florida package contain the updated files?  I never installed Florida as the load times with Washington were just too long so I stopped using it.

Let me know how I can obtain the update.

Cheers,

Cam

Hi Cam,

If you ordered Florida and Washington, both of these should be using the new faster terrain files. Here's how to tell:

Go into your X-Plane > Custom Scenery folder. Look in one of your RealScenery folders. You should see a "terrain" folder. Open up any of the files in a text editor. They are just plain text. You should see something similar to the following:

I

800

TERRAIN

BASE_TEX_NOWRAP ../textures/Mt_Olympus_9_12.png

LOAD_CENTER 47.575000 -123.575000 5559 1024

Look for the LOAD_CENTER in the file. If you have this, then you are using the 9.2 terrain files. Depending on your system, it may still take several minutes to load the data, especially if your texture resolution is set to a higher value such as Very High or Extreme.

Keep in mind that you don't have to load all of the data. Look at the high-res index aeronautical charts included on the DVD. You can pick and choose the areas in which you'd like to fly, which may give you better performance.

Hope this helps!

Eric

[RealScenery]

Cam and Robin,

Glad to hear from both of you though email that the terrain files were the issue. 

v9.2 and above is definitely the way to go if you're flying with large image-based scenery packages.