RollingCache revisited, essential with aggressive culling, or set "Terrain Pre-Caching" to Ultra

You can use my solution with SoftPerfect above.

Create an image, make sure to specify a file name (or it won’t ever be saved), then afterwards you right-click it, click Properties, click Advanced, and look at the bottom.

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By the way. What internet connections do you guys have? Especially if you see major benefits to the RAM disk rolling cache.

I tried this out just now, though with a 4 GB cache it failed to create a 15 GB cache (I waited for about an hour, despite no disk activity – it did load two CPU cores for a while though, but not at all the entire time).
I didn’t notice any benefit at all over NYC. Same framerates, same popin (about 3 seconds until it stops changing after a quick camera rotation), same stutters while panning the camera too quickly. However I do have a gigabit fiber connection. It would be interesting to see if anyone getting a major improvement also has a fast connection.

I did only fly from KJFK (31L) straight ahead for about 1.5 minute (in the CJ4), so the cache size shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Tried this but when I reboot the file does not get restored inside folder temp but on the root

Don’t just copy the ROLLINGCACHE.CCC file to the RAMDisk Image folder. You must also copy the Temp directory and have the file placed in it.

eg. if your RAMDisk Image folder name is C:\Utils\FS Rolling Cache then after copying correctly you should have the rolling cache image located at C:\Utils\FS Rolling Cache\Temp\ROLLINGCACHE.CCC.

It will then copy correctly into the Temp directory in your RAMDisk on bootup.

My internet connection is only 50M bps. As you suggest, a low connection speed like this may be why I see such an improvement in smoothness.

While it will still speed up reloading data for areas you have previously visited (with rollingcache on ram disk) it is no longer needed for looking around.

Update WU6: Setting “Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching” to Ultra turns the sim behavior back to how it was pre SU5. Everything around you stays in memory and rolling cache in ram isn’t needed anymore to prevent stutters.

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This also has been my findings after going back to “normal”. But i will be turning it on again with write/load to/from disk as i currently always take off from the location i landed previously.

This was just a suplemental comment for people also flying like this or have a ‘home base’ wich is always start and end point and, have a couple of gigs RAM to spare

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Yep, it should also help when restarting landing challenges for example.

I just did a test in London and even with pre-cache on Ultra FS2020 still uses less ram than before SU5. In my case about 13GB of system ram (vs 22GB pre SU5) So still plenty left over for a ram disk!

Ahhh nice! Yeah, i keep the ram disk size to 4gb (otherwise it tanks everything as i’m quite often quite full on ram usage). I’m kind if loosing what i gained with mfs SU5, so it’s a good compromise :slight_smile:

Im not getting the rolling cache purpose. I have a dedicated 240g ssd for it. I fly the same basic area and thought the cache was for off-line flying. The other day when the servers went down the sim immediately turned off my online functionality. My scenery went back to generic quality. When the servers came back up I had to turn back on the online stuff. The sim started rebuilding my rolling cash all over again. It looks like rolling cache has nothing to do with off-line flying. Im thinking just give it the default 8g in my appdata folder and forget about it.

That is odd, the game ignoring the rolling cache while off-line flying. I guess only the manual cache is used for off-line? If that works yet.

I turned the cache back off since the pre-caching option does all I need.

Here’s my definitive answer to the whole question.

Precache Ultra (off) is the way to go for PC’ers as culling itself is another process that could actually slow performance instead of giving intended relief and that’s even with just 2GB vram tested comprehesively on my old gpu. In short MS got overly aggressive with memory saving for the then upcoming Xbox and this was just excessive.

A large Rolling Cache is absolutely pointless, even if you are circling big cities I doubt you will ever use more than the recommended 8GB. However IMO a small cache is required to keep popping in objects at a distance and for this it should be on your fasted drive although with slower media such as HDD it is probably best without. A Rolling Cache can also help overcome short wifi or internet dropouts. NVme or a Ram Cache are best although the latter must be reset if your PC has been restarted or powered off in between. In either case 4GB is enough or maybe 8GB to be sure.

As can a Manual Cache help and that’s even for total internet blackouts allowing you to play Offline (although in it’s present form that is more for the low, slow fliers like myself). Currently it is broken outside of Photogrammetry areas however I did notice in the SU6 release notes that it has been addressed. Size need not be as huge as you imagine and it is worth experimenting with.

Not always true and not for me. Software such as IMDisk lets you create an image file that is saved on shutdown and used to reload the RAMDISK on start and it only takes about 15 seconds for my 16Gb rolling cache.

I don’t know about always but for people blocking your wifi path it does, I have witnessed it. And yes a ram disk is probably better than even NVme but either should do.

What does WiFi have to do with RAMDISK’s ?

What exactly were you saying wasn’t true?

That part .

Sorry about the confusion. I quoted one sentence too many.

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reset, reload … what’s the difference? when you start the sim it is set to zero.

No it is not. The rolling cache is intact after PC reboot and requires no Rolling Cache action on your part when you start the game. Research it if you don’t believe me.

I’m not trying to argue with you, I just want readers to know the facts and not be afraid to try a RAMDISK.

With Precaching on Ultra, rolling cache is back to only being useful when revisiting an area that has already been cached (and not overwritten yet).

Scenarios where it is useful:

  • Always flying in the same area with cache big enough to fit the area in
    If you fly somewhere else without temporarily turning the cache off, the data will be overwritten
  • Approaching a major airport which requires a large loop around before landing
    A small cache is plenty for this and you might get a bit less pop in on short final
  • Sight seeing where you loop around a spot for a closer look, bush flights for example
    Small cache is plenty for this as well, unless you do entire flights over or have several different bush flights going at the same time

However it’s all minor gains, more unburdening the data servers than helping yourself out. Any cache takes more ‘effort’ by the sim. Checking, updating, disk access, instead of retrieving it from the server.

The rolling cache doesn’t help to overcome internet issues when flying somewhere new. It helps when doubling back over previously visited terrain, yet in most use case scenarios you’re flying somewhere that’s not in the cache (yet).

Turn it on for sight seeing, looping around the same area.
Off when going on a long haul flight from A to B.

However if it’s on a nvme SSD or on ram disk, it doesn’t matter either way. The slow down from checking/updating the cache is minimal to negligible. The difference is only visible when turning precaching to low (which is pointless if you have 16GB of ram or more)