Advantage of removing unused aircraft?

Is there any performance gain to be had by removing unwanted aircraft/scenery via the content manager?

I only fly GA (172, Mooney) in MSFS at the moment and use XP11 for the rest until the MSFS matures (as it surely will). So, I would like to know if there is any advantage to removing the unwanted content or whether this is likely to cause issues.

Specifically, I am asking if there would be any performace gain IN FLIGHT rather than just sim loading times and time spent in the UI selecting a flight. I tend to think there would not be any advantage but would appreciate anyones experiences or thoughts.

If unwanted aircraft are removed is this likely to dork the update process (or will it just download them again)?

I am one of those who suffer the download loop issues (it took 13 hours to update on Dec 23rd update and took 137GB of my data limit to get 14GB) so it is just not practicle for me to experiment right now and then potentially have an issue at the next update.

thanks and Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays :wink:

Obviously I donā€™t know for sure, but I would be very surprised if there was any performance gain during flight from deleting any AC. Maybe (???) there would be a slight improvement in sim load up times (which you have said is not your main interest) but I wouldnā€™t expect a massive difference. If all the ACs are loaded into RAM and your system RAM is on the very low side maybe (???) it could reduce stuttering but canā€™t see it making much difference.

My feelings would be that if the sim is working okay for you to leave well alone and look for performance improvements elsewhere e.g. lower sim settings, remove background programs, tweak nvidia settings etc :slightly_smiling_face:

Thanks for the reply!

I have optimised as much as I possibly can and the sim is great, performance wise, for my system.

Iā€™m not at RAM limited. I donā€™t suffer from the major performance issues some poeple do, so itā€™s as much about keeping the sim and OS as lean as is sensible. I have M.2 drives so traded amount of storage for perfomance but Iā€™m not running out yet.

I think I will go with your gut feeling before I dork the whole thing !

Cheers!

Iā€™m very much a ā€˜tinkererā€™ like you and my personality is usually to ā€˜have a goā€™ and see what happens. In X-Plane 11, for instance, I was tweaking more than simming. Honestly !

However, I try not to mess about too much with the core program in FS2020 after having read about other peopleā€™s issues when they have uninstalled this and that. By and large the sim is working well for me and just this once I am leaving well alone. I have honestly so far had very few problems unlike a lot of other people and I want to keep it that way.

:slightly_smiling_face:

If you remove unused aircraft, you will be removing any AI aircraft of that type as well.
Removing airports and special scenery for ireas you are not flying close to, in theory should not make much difference, because they should never load in any case. ??

Personally, while,flying in the USA, I remove anything that is not USA ā€“ I can always install any of it at any time (I hope !!), if I need it.

I have no difficulty in believing you spend more time tinkering than flying! Me too!

And you are right, MSFS is all a bit new and unkown!

Iā€™m not sure iā€™m 100% comfortable with the concept of flying in a flight sim though (where is my hammer :wink: )

1 Like

Hopefully, nowhere within easy reach or near your PC! :slightly_smiling_face:

A very good point I had not thought of. I donā€™t use AI but do use Vatsim.

That would be my ideal but the download loop issue is a pest for me. I think you are right, no direct flight advantage!

:wink:

Maybe what you do, depends on your Internet speed.

If you have a nice fast connection, leaving unused content back ob the MS Store server, is not an issue, should you want to download it ā€œon demandā€

Oh never, no way, I have learned that lesson.

I have to make a conscious effort to keep all tools locked away from the children. Luckily the 2a.m ā€˜urgeā€™ to ā€˜just fix thatā€™ is tempered by going to the shed retrieve the hammer. Luckily, I have the attention span of a gnat so tinker in software instead (still dangerous)! I have lost PCā€™s because of a handy screw driver ā€¦ LOL.

Unfortunately, I get the download loop and have data caps or Iā€™de do exactly as you suggest.

just to explain, if you donā€™t get the download loop bug ā€¦

This causes files to download, stop at a random point and then restart from scratch . It can do this many times per file.

So to download on demand would soon eat my data caps and take many many hours (and be an unpleasant task). The last update cost me 137GB of data downloaded to get the 14GB update due to all restarts. Same is true of the content manager. And, Yes, this is unique to MSFS :wink:

I think Iā€™ll stick with the sim as provided meantime, Iā€™m sure the download bugs will get sorted at some point.

:slight_smile:

Ethernet cable or WiFI ?

I have tinkered with things all my life in an effort to enhance or improve them. Iā€™ve broken quite a few things in the process but learned a lot from the (sometimes expensive) mistakes iā€™ve made. Now, finally, iā€™m at the stage where, thankfully, I seem to fix more than I break, that or I decide to leave well alone :slightly_smiling_face:

Itā€™s 4G WAN, as Iā€™m quite rural, and all LAN is Ethernet.

Honestly, Iā€™v been through this one with a fine tooth comb (Iā€™m very network savvy). My local network is not an issue and no other application has any issue whatsoever. I tinker a lot with socket/network programming so have a detailed view of my networks performance.

Unfortunately, my ISP uses a double NAT layer (CGNAT) and it could concievable be a part of the issue. Without another provider (Iā€™m rural, there is none) I canā€™t prove this is not part of the issue. Of course, Iā€™v tried all the suggestions returned by Zendesk, I did beat on them quite hard initially. Iā€™v concluded itā€™s a rare bug, they know about it and theyā€™ll fix it at some point maybe.

I can live with it but I do dread update days :wink:

This is why I was asking if I could delete stuff in the sim without, potentially, having to redownload it or dorking my otherwise okay sim.

I am no expert here, but as well as the obvious Osobo folders, there is a config file, that has those folder names in them. If you just delete the folders, without updating that list of folders, I have no idea what will happenā€¦ maybe it will try to re-download them.

IF it were not for the current Covid-19 situation, I would suggest you throw your PC in the Car, and go visit a friend with a different Internet connection, to see if its really the Internet or some hardware issue you have.

I had an issue a few years ago, where downloads were getting randomly corrupted when being downloaded. Everything else seems to be OK. Ended up being a failing network card !!

I doff my hat to you! Iā€™ll get to that stage but itā€™s the ā€œwhat can I do for 5 mins that wonā€™t cost 5 hours laterā€ problem that still gets me. Five minutes, just enough time to clean my throttle perhapsā€¦

1 Like