I don’t think so, scenery is not the only data that gets pushed into vram there’s also the DX instruction set which might inavertently get “altered” with the update
Data? And, if that were actually the case Asobo would tell us to reset the cache, clear it themselves, OR mark data on the server as new so it automatically gets re-downloaded.
Btw, I’d love to see some hard data on all of this. Always looking for ways to improve the performance of FS and happy with whatever works. Not at all attached to my position being the right answer.
So would we all. However I trust in the devs to get it right [eventually 
]
And yes data … bits and bytes streamed or otherwise, you know exactly what I mean.
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Its only because sometimes it either becomes corrupt, or possibly (and this is a guess) they change the structure of the data within. So as an example, I haven’t cleared mine after installing WU11 (the NZ one). I haven’t ever flown in NZ before, but it looked good so thought I’d give it a go.
Started off fine, but after a few minutes in the air the sim would become completely un responsive for a second or two, then respond and replay all of the keystrokes / inputs I’d made. It was unusable.
So i cleared the cache and the shader cache, and all was good.
This had happened before and the way it was explained to me (back in 2020) was that sometimes with an update they want to cache more or different data, so the dataset from the cloud doesn’t match that in the cache. Does this happen with every update.. probably not. But as a matter of course i do it with updates now (which seem to be only every couple of months) and I haven’t had any issues (until i forgot last week).
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Yes and that can be 3rd party scenery which we all know can not be guaranteed even at the best of times
Funnily enough, I tried a NZ flight for the first time last night. I always rebuild the rolling cache after an update, but it was the first time I’d ever cleared the shader cache, and it ran as slick as snot.
Going OT slightly, I’d also followed a few tips from a YouTube video (one of Overkill’s I think, without going back to look), and my FPS had increased from 30ish to about 58.
I’m no FPS chaser, 30 is playable enough, but could never understand why it had dropped so drastically.
For you it might not make a difference - but for others.
Remember: every byte that you download (again and again and again…) wastes some bandwidth and CPU that someone else could use better.
Folks, caches are a good thing™ in general. Yes, there are downsides of caches, depending on the gazillion of use cases they might be used in. And those downsides are generally well-understood by us software engineers.
If you‘re curious about general cache functionality then start e.g. here:
Everything else is to be considered „implementation details“, or translated to non-IT folks: „Don‘t you worry (you would be bored to death anyway), we‘ll cover that for you“
Oh, and one last thing: if you bought your SSD in the last decade and you‘re not running your own cloud infrastructure at home 7x24x365 I can guarantee you that the additional cache read/write cycles won‘t make any measurable difference and that your GPU will most likely die first
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3rd party is not in the rolling cache file. Only data streamed from Asobo.
Likely, you got a better connection some server in the cluster when you restarted FS. No real reason to believe it was related to the cached file.
Generally, 100% agreed with you. Caches are a good thing and performance should not be better with them off.
Check out some of life statistics on some of the cheaper 512gb SSDs — I think the DLC varieties. Not going to run for as long as you might think. Especially, if people are constantly clearing the cache files and writing fresh data in 16 or 32gb chunks. Especially, if the drive if near full.
My teenage daughter managed to “wear out” the SSD on a 5-year MacAir laptop. Likely too much TikTok but was surprising.
I see better PG areas quality with rolling cache enabled (default size) on XSX so I have mine on.
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True I suppose but I would wonder about some kind of marker … the tech is pretty much voodoo to me so I’m not going to make definitive statements.
In fact, I did. Respectively some renowned German computer magazine, c‘t, did. In 2016 already:
https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2017/1/1483369302343280
Yes, naturally the article is in German, but essentially what they did: they took 12 consumer-grade SSDs from various vendors and tortured those SSD non-stop (!) for one year with read/write operations, until the last SSD had reported failures as well.
AFAICR even the cheapest SSDs at the time generously exceeded the vendor-guaranteed write-cycles, some models by far even.
Translated to „normal office usage“ the minimum lifetime of an average SSD can be expected to exceed any „lifetime of a computer“ (we‘re talking 10 years and more).
And unless you are running a public MSFS simulator instance for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week I guess „gaming“ falls pretty close into that „normal office usage“ use case. And if not, there is still plenty of headroom.
So unless something significant has changed in the last years or you really bought a dud: don‘t you worry about your SSD lifetime - certainly not about turning on or off some cache
UPDATE: Sorry, I just realised that the linked article above is behind some „paywall“. That was not my intention. The article (in a shortened version perhaps) was also publicly available at the time somewhere on heise.de - unfortunately I don‘t find the proper URL right now.
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Interesting. Personally I havent seen the benefit of caching an area where I have been and might not return for quite a while.
BUT if you have a slower internet connection, and you often fly from the same airport/area then caching is worth it.
But if you are using a very fast internet connection you might not see a lot of difference.
But hey, try and see. Easily tested, and make up your own mind for your specific setup. Afterall no two PC setups are the same. I have no idea if caching is recommended for Xbox users. I guess same criteria apply.
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You are assuming the cache would be on the SSD?
Isnt that bad practice? Most PCs that have a SSD for the programs will have an additional hard disk for data.
Although I have switched off the cache for a long time, this has prompted me to run some tests and place a cache of 32G on my data hard disk. It has a 2T capacity and is only 15% full so that is the best place I think for the cache.
Placing it on the same disk as the actual SIM software is maybe not a good idea?
I am curious to see if I see a difference now that Cache is enabled.
When the servers go down (cough stuff happens cough), having data sitting locally allows you to continue. You just have to remember to turn streaming data back on afterwards because it will stay off otherwise.
As far as I can tell MSFS runs entirely from ram so you should be safe, I’d be more inclined to keep it away from the packages … but even then with (my) NVMe speeds it shouldn’t affect.
I didn‘t assume nothing, niente, nada. In fact, my previous reply was purely targeted at the concern that a cache on an SSD would impact the SSD‘s lifetime, and while this might be technically true („measurable“) it should not raise any real practical consequences: SSDs „live long enough“.
And that was my only point being made here. Next to „don‘t you worry, simply enable the rolling cache, it‘s a good thing - for reasons“.
I did neither talk about where to place the cache nor how large it should be (maximum size).
No.
This distinction may have several good reasons (easy recovery of a work PC/laptop, for instance). But „games“ like MSFS is not a factor when it comes to the decision where to put the cache.
UPDATE: Sorry, I had something different in mind: „separation of operating system, applications and data“ - even on a single physical storage device, using „partitions“ (or in Windows parlance: „different drive letters“).
Simply put it where it is convenient for you
I guess you‘re coming from a performance point of view, but don‘t worry: MSFS only occasionally reads additional assets (e.g. 3rd party airports) from storage (most other scenery is streamed anyway from the cloud servers), or in other words: disk I/O is only marginal, and every spinning harddisk nowadays is more than capable to serve the additional cache I/O request without sweating.
You won‘t be able to tell the difference - and that‘s really the whole point here. Not unless you actually look at your network traffic, that is!
Hello, are you able to assist me in turning rolling cache off? Add me. I’m retired, so on most days.
Living in Alaska
Rich
so there is no point in using cache if you have a fast enough internet connection? unless one is concerned about the load on the remote servers.
There was a time, when they were ‘my’ servers I would have worried about that. Now I consider that
reducing any load on my PC is more important. I guess it depends which side of the fence you are on.
But I think we agree generally.
Interesting aside; even with cache enabled I still get messages now and again about lost connectivity. (there has been enough said about that elsewhere).
I think bottom line is if you do not experience any difference from a user performance point of view between having a cache ON or OFF then it isnt worth caching.
Would seem to be a fair point purely from a user point of view.