IVAO MTL and very long P3D v5 load times

[BranimirF]

Hello!

I bought Prepar3D v5 a couple of days ago and it runs perfectly fine. I installed IVAO Pilot client and IVAO MTL into SimObjects\IVAO_MTL and added a few lines into simobjects.cfg. My problem is that Prepar3D v5 now takes about 6 and a half minutes to start! I have been flying in Prepar3D v4 for years on IVAO and I never had this issue. My Prepar3D v5 is installed on a SAMSUNG 860EVO 500GB. It looks like P3D is loading all of the SimObjects everytime I start it. P3D v4 wasn't doing that. P3D v5 loads almost instantly without IVAO MTL. I think that there must be something wrong with P3D v5. I also found out that P3D v5 creates a lot of empty folders at Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\SimObjects. There are folders for every single SimObject and all of them are empty. There is no need for Prepar3D v5 to load all of the Sim Objects at startup. I also tried changing Required=True to Required=false but it didn't fix the problem. Does anyone know how to fix this problem because this didn't have this problem in v4?


Content of simobjects.cfg:
[Entry.0]
Title=Default Airplanes
Path=SimObjects\Airplanes
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.1]
Title=Default Avatars
Path=SimObjects\Avatars
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.2]
Title=Default Rotorcraft
Path=SimObjects\Rotorcraft
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.3]
Title=Default Ground Vehicles
Path=SimObjects\GroundVehicles
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.4]
Title=Default Boats
Path=SimObjects\Boats
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.5]
Title=Default Animals
Path=SimObjects\Animals
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.6]
Title=Default Misc
Path=SimObjects\Misc
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.7]
Title=Default Submersible
Path=SimObjects\Submersible
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.8]
Title=Default Weapons
Path=SimObjects\Weapons
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.9]
Title=Default Countermeasures
Path=SimObjects\Countermeasures
Required=True
Active=True
[Entry.10]
Title=IVAO MTL
Path=SimObjects\IVAO_MTL
Required=True
Active=True

Thank you!

Branimir Filovski

[JorgenSA]

How many AI airplanes did you install?

Jorgen

[BranimirF]

I don't know how many airplanes are in IVAO MTL (around 10GB). I am confused because this problem wasn't present in V4 and I had the same IVAO MTL.

Branimir

[JorgenSA]

I have seen reports that say load times in v. 5 with the same amount of AI aircraft as in v. 4 will be roughly doubled (!). I have seen something along those lines myself.

This is something that L-M is aware of.

Jorgen

[BranimirF]

Roger that! I hope we get this fix in the next update.

[Ebertr]

Reduce the number of aircrafts of the IVAO MTL. 70% of the MTL aircraft types you never will see at IVAO.

Ruediger

[BranimirF]

Will remove planes like AN, TU, IL... What happens if you are flying on IVAO and there is an aircraft that is missing in MTL? Can P3D crash because of that? Does it find a replacement?

[Martyson]

Will remove planes like AN, TU, IL... What happens if you are flying on IVAO and there is an aircraft that is missing in MTL? Can P3D crash because of that? Does it find a replacement?

Would P3D know anything about a missing model in IVAO?

[Ebertr]

You will not see that aircraft. Thats all. No reason to be worry about P3D.

Ruediger

[JorgenSA]

The thing is that on startup, the aircraft.cfg files for all aircraft has to be checked, and that is what takes time. Fewer aircraft, less time.

Jorgen

[Martyson]

You will not see that aircraft. Thats all. No reason to be worry about P3D.

Ruediger

Originally, I thought that if a model was missing there was a "backup" to use in its place.

But, what you said "You will not see that aircraft" is the best design.

[vbazillio]

Frankly speaking, I stop flying in IVAO with Prepar3D v5 because of this excessive long loading time. The time you join and launch everything your departure or arrival ATC has... closed ;)

In short : less P3Dv5 experience compared to P3Dv4. I have other AI library (FLAI, UTL, GA from Orbx) and very few personal aircrafts : it tooks me more than 8 minutes to reach the scenario boot screen. You know when you think P3D crashed at boot... But no, wait have a look with Process Explorer : P3D browse all the AI library... I use SSD's, spread the load on several of them with add-on.xml and symbolic link, disable antivirus, last time access stamp and also light some candle (figure out ?). But it didn't change much. Let's say it reaches the placebo effect.

For Prepar3D v5, IVAO distributes only the full MTL package (9 GB zip files) : it brings more than 370 models and more than 9300 liveries. If you delete manually some models/liveries, there no substitution that will occurred. You won't see anything which kills the immersive experience and help of the benefit of flying online (the other is ATC). And there no MTL Updater program delivering compatible P3D v5 MTL. The problem raised to IVAO faces the slow (humour) inertia to have a basic MTL packages and substitution table. Example #1 if a player has a livery x for a 3D model you have installed, it should be displayed with the default livery and example #2, if you don't have the 3D model, let's substitute with something more or less similar (high/low wings, number of engines, size...). See this thread on IVAO forum.

I didn't benchmark but, confirmed by Branimir Filovski first post, the experience is reduced in v5 compared to previous version.

[AnkH]

Any news from any dev on this issue? It is not restricted to IVAO MTL, as soon as you have many SimObjects, loading P3Dv5 simply takes forever.

I use full AIG setup, Global AI Ships, some free GA AI traffic and I have about 50GB of AI models. Think about what this means if this bugged algorithm goes through all those simobjects. Add the one or other GB of SimObjects due to SODE and addon sceneries and you can guess how long it takes to start my simming session. Each time.

This also makes testing fixes or tweaks almost impossible.

Needless to say that loading times with almost the exact same amount of SimObjects in v4.5 is not even half of the time...

[darem]

If it would be only that. These excessive loading times are also true for ORBX scenery in the addon.xml, whether they are activated or not.

All in all, my full installation of addons and AI planes takes 8 or more minutes to load from the double click on the icon to the screen where you select your flight. And that is from a fast internal SSD.

[JorgenSA]

Just wait until you have over 1000 Boeing 737-800WLs, over 1400 F-16s etc etc etc in v. 4.5, then you'll see loading times.

I have not added anything into v. 5 yet, though.

Jorgen