Author Topic: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan  (Read 2858 times)

captnabs

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GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« on: October 09, 2018, 06:02:52 am »
Hey Umberto.

First off, thank you for the wonderful software that is GSX. When I first saw it, I thought it was a bit gimmicky. But I gave in and bought it and, as someone who simulates a professional experience from start to finish, this really is the icing on the cake, with quite a few extremely useful features. Well done and thanks.

I do have one suggestion for GSX. I don't know how practical it would be to implement, but is it possible to create an option to delay/disable the automatic airport scan when the simulator starts (in lieu of triggering the scan manually from the GSX menu)?

My computer is not particularly fast (maybe it will get faster at Christmas), and I find when I load the sim with a payware airport, a high quality airplane (ie PMDG), and GSX is running, all these things compete for all the resources when the sim starts and freezes the sim for a minute or so.

I am not trying to blame GSX or anything, but if we could have the option to delay the airport scan until PMDG has completed its aircraft initialization, it might help prevent these freezes (which occasionally seem to turn into a total crash). If this could be an option, and then I can manually run the airport scan after a minute, when the rest of the scenery/airplane are loaded and the CPU load and HDD workload have gone down. It may help my sanity while I wonder if the sim is going to crash or not.

I realize the airport cache is important, so GSX could be disabled from working until the scan is complete, but I thought it might help some of us with slower systems from crashing our sim when everything tries to initialize all at once at startup.

Maybe this was just the rant of a tired virtual pilot. Thanks for listening.

CaptNabsw

virtuali

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Re: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« Reply #1 on: October 09, 2018, 08:58:34 am »
From your message, it looks like as if you are getting a cache rebuild at every startup of the sim, which is NOT normal!

In normal conditions, you are supposed to see the cache being rebuilt ONLY if you install/remove a scenery, not always! And, after you do a Live Update. If you are seeing more frequent cache rebuilds, something is wrong and it's not what's supposed to happening.

Do you use a 3rd party utility that keeps changing the Scenery Library at each flight ? If yes, that's what is triggering an unnecessary cache rebuild.

You don't say which simulator you use but, if you use P3D4, using such utilities to save memory, is not required anymore in 64 bit. If you still use FSX, it might be useful but, NOT for FSDT sceneries, which handle memory management themselves.

captnabs

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Re: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« Reply #2 on: October 09, 2018, 03:10:22 pm »
Very astute. I am getting a cache rebuild on pretty much every startup.

I am on P3D v4.3. I did a complete clean install of everything for v4.3 which helped clear up various issues I was having previously.

And no, I don't use any external scenery loaders/configuration tools or memory managers. I am a bit stumped as to why a cache rebuild is enforced at pretty much every startup.

Any other hints or suggestions on how to chase down the cause?

Thanks!

virtuali

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Re: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« Reply #3 on: October 09, 2018, 03:12:14 pm »
I am a bit stumped as to why a cache rebuild is enforced at pretty much every startup.

Something is changing the Scenery Library between sessions.

Or, maybe it didn't complete the last time. Is the cache being rebuilt successfully each time ? If there's a problem with a .BGL, for example a corrupted file, the cache might end up being created over and over.

captnabs

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Re: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2018, 03:16:38 pm »
It does claim success now but I remember seeing a few failed rebuilds the first few times it ran after the fresh install.

Not looking forward to the idea of wiping P3D again just now. Took almost 2 days of on and off work to reinstall everything last time.  ::) I may just put up with it for now.......

virtuali

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Re: GSX Suggestion - Option to Delay Airport Scan
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2018, 03:25:45 pm »
A way to troubleshoot these issues is to enable Logging in the Troubleshooting page of the GSX Settings, and check the Couatl.LOG file that will be generated after you select the option to "Restart Couatl and rebuild the airport cache", it might tell something if there was a problem with one file.