I finally, after watching FS2020 take 3-5 minutes each time I launched it to get to the main screen, installed MSFS Addons Linker. GET IT!! Many of us have many, many addons…scenery, airports, etc. in our Community folder. All of this slows down the loading time considerably as FS2020 reads all those as it loads. With the Linker, you can have only what you need for the current flight. Getting things prepared to use in Linker admittedly did take considerable time. I had to create a bunch of folders, such as SW US flights, NW US flights, Hawaiian Flights, etc. and go through all my Community folder addons to copy or move the respective sceneries and airports in each one. You could get really specific and just have a folder for specific flights between cities/airports but I just generalized. Then I have a folder for my aircraft. Then I created “presets” so that if I want to do a GA flight in the Southwest US I load the SWUS folder and a few GA aircraft I like to use…and so on. After this bit legwork, I renamed my original Community folder so FS2020 won’t see it with all those items in it and created a new, empty Community Folder. When I am ready to sim, I choose the preset I want and launch the sim. My Community folder then has only about a 20th of what it used to have and instead of a 3-5 minute load time I now get about 20 seconds!
Plus the Linker can launch your addon programs, like Little Navmap, etc. automatically.
So, I may sound like salesman here, but since it’s a free priogram I can’t be - Get MSFS Addons Linker if you are tired of slow load times. I don’t know if it has other performance advantages but that alone was worth it.
I have almost 2TB of add-ons and without MSFS Addons Linker it would be a nightmare to organise. Yes, it does take quite a bit of setting up, but the time saved in finding just what you need is tremendous and of course using profiles, which I have for each of my aircraft, makes setting up a doddle.
TBH though, after some experimentation, i don’t see a huge improvement in loading times.
Terrylawdinn, I guess you have MSFS2024, in v2024 in think the loading times are improved and you see less difference even if you have lots of addons or huge addons.
For example i sometimes use AIG traffic, it’s a huge addon (60+ GB with thousands of files), in MSFS2024 the loading time is almost the same with the AIG addon activated or not but in in MSFS2020 the difference is huge (several minutes more).
But yes loading time is just one of the aspects, i for sure wouldn’t be able to manage all my addons mixed up in a single community folder. Also moving them in and out creating huge disk activity when some problems arise would be a big pain, the links are very good for that.
I am an avid user of Addon Linker as well.
Given the current prices of SSD, I am considering putting the linked addons on HDD. So I can put the SSD in another computer as main drive.
Which lead me to the question: does MSFS load all the linked addons into memory at the start of your flight? Or are intermediate airports etc. only loaded ‘on approach’?
So, apart from initial loading times, does having linked addons on HDD have a performance impact?
Long time user of the program, recently switched to MSFS Hangar. A few less options but much simpler program (and looks waaaay better). Works great as well. YMMV.
Nice to see there is an alternative to Addon Linker. With its own pro’s and con’s.
I suppose at the core it works the same, making use of NTFS’ ‘symbolic links’ feature to mount a directory from another drive in the Community folder.
Still, mu question stands unanswered. Having assets on HDD symlinked into the game means slower loading probably.
But keeping a 4TB Samsung 990PRO SSD mostly idle holding a library of assets is somewhat wasteful when it can find better use as C: drive in another computer.
For the current price of such a 990PRO I can buy 4 4TB HDD’s, LOL
It will most definitely slow the loading of the sim but less than you might think. The sim scans and reads the manifests, etc for each addon on when it starts but does not load all the objects, etc until it needs them. The parts read at startup are relatively small.
Try it and time the startup and loading times. Easy enough to put back — before you move the drive — if you don’t like it.
From experience with having hard drives fail in the past I would stick with only ssds. Buy a smaller cheaper one if you don’t want to waste the big one, but I don’t think it’s worth it to use a mechanical Drive at this point in technology, both for reliability and speed.
My experience with SSD’s failing is bad. They die on you without warning, usually the controller chip passes out while the memory cells stay intact. With some over-provisioning you can extend the life of a SSD to a certain extent, it will map out bad memory cells before the controller chip dies.
Better SSD’s have both over-provisioning and a ‘count down clock’ indicating their general health and remaining life expectancy.
HDD’s will give a warning when their S.M.A.R.T parameters pass a certain value so you can rescue your valuable data in time.
Compact computer cases give today’s powerful video cards little room to ventilate, and hot air gets blown directly at the main SSD which sits usually just above the first PCI5 slot.
With a typical nVidia 5080 dissipating up to 350 Watts, it produced a lot of heat that has to be ventilated out of the case during long flight sessions. A vertical GPU mount can help a bit here.
- Get MSFS Addons Linker if you are tired of slow load times. I don’t know if it has other performance advantages but that alone was worth it.