KLAX unstable in P3D

[windshear]

I reinstalled DFW and have now flown from DFW to the Atlantic ocean with out any issues.

Its very strange all of this, its as if I have to install some of your airports over and over again to make them work properly.
LAX though has no improvement despite reinstalling it.

I did not use a migration tool, I installed everything directly into P3D.

I think it could be addon manager or couatl issue, perhaps combined with anti virus I have no idea. My anti virus has been set to exclude your files, but it seems to still cause problems if its kept on and I enter your airports

[windshear]

some of the airports from FSX are still in my programs list in windows, but I cannot uninstall them, as I don't have FSX anymore, should I try to see if I can remove them with regedit?

[virtuali]

Its very strange all of this, its as if I have to install some of your airports over and over again to make them work properly.

No, you don't. Provided, of course, you use their latest installers that supports the latest P3D versions and install the sceneries in the correct folders, depending if you use FSX, P3D or FSX:SE

AND, after we came out of Beta with Couatl 3 and GSX, if you had to reinstall any of the sceneries for any reason, and you still wanted to use previous installers, you always had to install Couatl 3 or GSX as the LAST thing you do, otherwise the old installer that came with Couatl 2 would "downgrade" the GSX/Couatl 3 install, and possibly cause a mess, that's why you had to install GSX or Couatl 3 at the end.

Instead, if you re-download all the installers now, they have all been updated to use Couatl 3, so the installation order won't matter anymore, since they all come with the same basic set of support files now.

LAX though has no improvement despite reinstalling it.

Since there wasn't any problems at KLAX to begin with (other than the crashes, which are probably unrelated to it, see my other message about trying with a DEFAULT airplane), it's just normal the reinstalling it won't show any change.

I think it could be addon manager or couatl issue, perhaps combined with anti virus I have no idea. My anti virus has been set to exclude your files, but it seems to still cause problems if its kept on and I enter your airports

If the antivirus is interfering with the executables, they won't even start, so you won't see ANY of the FSDT menus, and no scenery at all.

If the antivirus is just interfering with the opened files (without blocking the executables), you'll see a very long cache regeneration time, IF you have GSX installed AND when you update/change anything in the Scenery Library, so a cache regeneration message is displayed and, because of the antivirus, the regeneration will take a long time, so GSX won't be available until then and it's possible that some of the sceneries might not work entirely correct until the cache regeneration is completed.

Which is why, in the other thread about the latest GSX, we suggested to exclude the whole simulator root folder (assuming you keep your sceneries there), from the antivirus real-time scanning, and this will likely speed up the sim startup time, so it won't be beneficial just our products.

[windshear]

I use the newest installers as a general rule, I did exclude my root simulator folder in my anti virus program.

Well I think I will try to delete the old FSDT sceneries from my registry

[windshear]

can't find them in the regedit

[virtuali]

can't find them in the regedit

The sceneries don't "go" in the registry, except for the Serial Number (IF you activate it, regardless in which sim you do the activation) and the Uninstaller entry.

What you are seeing in the Windows Control Panel list of apps are the names of their UNINSTALLERS: what program will be launched when you uninstall. They are usually placed in the FSX root folder as UNINSXXXX.EXE (you'll find several of them, and not all from FSDT sceneries) but, if you removed the sceneries manually and uninstalled FSX, the uninstaller is not there anymore, so you cannot launch it to "clear" their entry from the Windows Control Panel.

If the scenery uninstaller is not there anymore, that entry doesn't do anything, it's just taking an entry in the Windows Control Panel so, it's simply a cosmetic issue. You can remove them as explained here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/310750

But, again, if the scenery is not there anymore, don't expect it would make any difference to the performances of the sim or the PC, it will just clean up the Add/Remove Programs section of the Windows Control Panel in order to let it appear less confusing.

Basically, that page is NOT telling you what you have installed (because it cannot possibly know, if you have uninstalled manually), which is what many users believe. It's ONLY telling you that Windows knows which programs have an uninstaller, and are just a link to it.

[aceridgey]

BTW you're not alone.,

I just did a test flight in P3d at KLAX and it's very very stuttery.

MY FPS in the VC pmdg 777 were around 35. but it was the dropping out and stuttering which was a major issue.

There are certain incompatibilities we are finding in P3d to do with the lighting bgls? Could we look into that?

[virtuali]

I just did a test flight in P3d at KLAX and it's very very stuttery.

The original poster hasn't reported of any stuttering. He said he had low fps but, in subsequent message, after working on the settings, he said his fps are now ok.

MY FPS in the VC pmdg 777 were around 35. but it was the dropping out and stuttering which was a major issue.

You can control stuttering by raising the "Anti-pop" slider of the Add Manager. If you raise it, the loading range of small objects will be increased, at the expense of fps impact and more memory occupied. If you lower it, there will be more stuttering, but the fps might be better and the memory usage will decrease.

There are certain incompatibilities we are finding in P3d to do with the lighting bgls? Could we look into that?

This affects only sceneries made using the legacy FS8/9 SDK commands. It cannot affect KLAX, since it's 100% FSX SDK (which is the same as P3D in this regard) native code. And, 90% of what you see in the scenery, is not even a .BGL.

[windshear]

Loading a flight in the default helicopter crashes my sim... Loading in YVR gives me rock solid 30 fps... With AI!

Then I went to JFK no buildings.. I tried to restart couatl no results... Zurich was the same...

I then exited and entered the sim again, and I had no fsdt menu to choose from, which is a first!
I think I have weird couatl issues, I cannot figure it out this is really upsetting

[virtuali]

Loading a flight in the default helicopter crashes my sim... Loading in YVR gives me rock solid 30 fps... With AI!

FSDT CYVR ?

Then I went to JFK no buildings.. I tried to restart couatl no results... Zurich was the same...

Have you seen the "loading airport cache" message when you started that session ?

I then exited and entered the sim again, and I had no fsdt menu to choose from, which is a first!

This  because you probably exited/re-entered too quickly, without allowing enough time to close all opened files and started executables, so Couatl was probably still running from the previous version, and the sim won't "talk" with an executable launched from a previous version of itself. You had to manually terminate Couatl in this case, and it would have fixed the problem on the 2nd session.

I think I have weird couatl issues, I cannot figure it out this is really upsetting

See the above message about the cache being loaded correctly or not, and report back. However, if you are having "Couatl issues", the worse it can happen, is that you won't see buildings. As explained many times already, it's IMPOSSIBLE for Couatl to CRASH THE SIM.

The more likely issue, is that you have TWO entirely separate issues. One might be Couatl being "stuck" regenerating the cache, and a different one that crashes the sim at KLAX, but they are entirely unrelated, and nothing indicates the problem is the KLAX scenery itself since, as I've said, nobody else has reported it to be "unstable" under P3D.

I'm more interested, instead, in the issue with Couatl not restarting correctly.

Have you excluded the whole sim folder from the antivirus, as suggested in many other threads about the very slow cache regeneration time ? If you don't, the cache regeneration time will be A LOT slower, like more than 10x slower (from a few seconds, to several minutes) and, if Couatl is blocked because the antivirus is blocking all access to the scenery files to be checked for airports, it's possible it won't do anything (including displaying buildings) until the process ends. This should be fixed by excluding the whole sim folder from the antivirus scanning, and this will also have a positive effect on your loading times.

[windshear]

I will show you screenshots tomorrow of my anti virus avoidance setup.
I had a slow regeneration of the cache before but not now.

Here's what I did.
I reinstalled JFK and the installation said that the countless engine had to be shut down before it could proceed, which might indicate that it didn't have time to properly shut down. I entered P3D.
YVR was good, JFK was good, Zurich was good, but IAH was still not showing any buildings... I probably need to reinstall that one also, but this is exactly what doesn't make sense.

I know others are not experiencing this, but for me LAX is very unstable.

I couldn't even start the flight at LAX.
There could be anti virus interference somehow, but I've excluded all fdt as well as the entire P3D directory itself

[virtuali]

I reinstalled JFK and the installation said that the countless engine had to be shut down before it could proceed, which might indicate that it didn't have time to properly shut down.

So this confirms what I suspected about missing buildings.

YVR was good, JFK was good, Zurich was good, but IAH was still not showing any buildings... I probably need to reinstall that one also, but this is exactly what doesn't make sense.

It makes sense, depending which installers you used. As explained in other threads about the latest GSX and Couatl version, which were in Beta for about 6 months, if you install any FSDT scenery and used the latest GSX, you should always reinstall GSX LAST, because the scenery installers weren't updated to use the latest Couatl 3.

After we went out of Beta, we updated all the scenery installers, but this doesn't mean you could still reinstall in any order you want, UNLESS you re-download all the scenery installers. If you install using all the current installers, the installation order won't matter anymore.

I know others are not experiencing this, but for me LAX is very unstable.

Your sim is unstable at KLAX. It's *possible* there's some graphic setting or a tweak that should be applied. Try to clean up all the sim configuration files, which LM always suggest to do when upgrading the sim and/or something goes wrong.

This is done by removing the following folders:

%PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
%APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Prepar3D v2 Files

There could be anti virus interference somehow, but I've excluded all fdt as well as the entire P3D directory itself.

If the antivirus where the problem, the following would be happening:

- The modules won't even start, if they are not excluded from scanning. You won't see the menus and, of course, no scenery at all

- If you don't exclude the whole sim folder from scanning, the cache will regenerate very slowly, so the modules will run, but they would be blocked from doing anything until the cache is ready.

None of this could cause instability or crashes. As I've said, Couatl CANNOT crash the sim, even if it tried.