Significant speed up of MSFS load times

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1

So, we all know what kind of a PITA that MSFS can be to load for most of us. It takes an inordinate amount of time. You click the icon, wait for a while with apparently nothing happening. Then the main window opens. You wait some more, only to get the “press any key” screen. Then you wait even longer to be presented with the main menu so you can get into your game.

Last night, I had my Task Manager open and I was observing that while MSFS loaded up a flight, my Windows Defender was basically going nuts. It was hogging almost as much CPU and disk resources as MSFS while loading. That got me to thinking that perhaps it was AV scanning everything in the community folder as it was loading.

So today, I went in and added my folder containing both Community and Official content to the AV exceptions. Suddenly, loading into an actual flight was much quicker. Looking at Task Manager, Windows Defender was no longer spooling up and sucking up system resources while loading up a flight.

SUCCESS!

So I got to thinking… The game still takes a long time to load, so I thought I would monitor my task manager as the game loaded. Sure enough, Windows Defender was spooling up and sucking up a ton of resources while loading up the actual game.

So I decided to experiment. I added the path where MSFS is installed to the Defender exceptions list.

SUCCESS AGAIN!

Now the screens of Mt Fuji load and process super quick, and I’m seeing the main screen in about 1/2 the time it used to take.

I can’t guarantee that this will necessarily work for you, but I would recommend taking a look at your Task Manager while loading up the game. If you see that your AV (whatever you may be using) is being hit hard while loading up the game initially or while loading up a flight, adding those folders to your exception list may help.

That said…

BIG WARNING

If you do this, be sure to scan any community mods you may grab from whatever source before dropping them into your Community folder to ensure that they are virus-free. Once they’re installed in the Community folder, they’ll be automatically considered as “safe”, even though they may be carrying the equivalent of digital plague.

26 Likes
2

Interesting! Will certainly give this a try!

EDIT
No effect: from desktop to main menu took around 1 minute and 30 seconds and that hasn’t changed at all.

What did it take for you and what does it take now to go from desktop to main menu (clicking Press any key ASAP)?

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3

Hi there.

Tried but no effect for me.

:frowning:

4

That is a fairly quick loading time in my experience so not sure you are going to be able to improve on that.

5

Unfortunate. However, I would recommend looking at your task manager before doing this to see if your AV is spooling up when the game is loading. If it is, chances are this will work for you. If it doesn’t, adding those paths to the exception list will have no effect.

Unfortunately, that’s not everyone’s experience. I have a fairly decent system with the game loaded on NVMe and it was painfully slow. Now after doing this, the game starts really quickly by comparison - much like it did for me on launch, and even with liveries and community add-ons.

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No I am aware of that and you may well be onto something. I think for people whose load rimes on a fairly decent rig is into several minutes or longer, your suggestion is definitely worth a go.

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Yeah, it was a painful load process for me. I thought it was the add-ons causing it. And it was to an extent. Removing all my add-ons did speed up load times, but not by a huge margin. It was definitely noticeable, but not to the point where it made a significant difference (except for the bad Google Maps rip scenery add-ons).

Now this makes a huge difference for me. I’d say my load times have been cut in half at least, which is quite welcome.

8

One minute, 47 seconds from launch to Main Menu screen after doing this. I didn’t do a before/after, it was pretty fast before. This did offer a slight improvement.

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9

Glad that is was of help to you. That’s roughly how fast it’s loading for me now as well. It was over 4 mins previously.

EDIT:

Previously, I timed it from the time the MSFS window first appears to the moment when I’m at the screen to make my selection. I tested before and after, 5x

Prior to these 2 changes:

It would take anywhere from 4:07 to 4:38 to load, depending on how many of my add-ons I had in my folder.

Now it takes 1:49 - 2:06 with the 2 changes and all my ‘good’ add-ons.

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10

Good work my friend.

11

1:16 using FSJumpstarter2020

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12

The other day, fs2020 was taking much longer to load than normal - took a look at the task manager and yes, it was Windows Defender hogging all the CPU.

Definitely something to be aware of.

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13

Yep I tried this and it definitely improved my loading times into the game. Thank you

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14

Definitely gonna try this. Thx for the tips

15

i like your approach to the problem.
rather than just complain about it being slow you searched for a reason and found a solution.

if more people had this attitude then the forums would be a nicer place.

7 Likes
16

You are definitely onto something here.. It helped speed up load times about 10 -15% for me.. Thank you

18

Is it worth the risk! not for me. I gained that extra 5 to 10 seconds of load time which leaves the MSFS folders open to whatever is learking out there in the wide wide world. What happens at update time when you may have several Gb of data running down those bus lanes.
Take care.?

19

Yeah I noticed that too, the loading goes fast on my side as well and what did surprise me is the smoothness in big cities, especially Paris which was very nice to not respect the rules of the minima by flying over towns but to fly at an extreme low altitude! That is how it goes on my side with this new patch, any sort of CTD since the last update, sounds good which I wish fro everybody!
Even if I’m not sure that performance was concerned in this new update but it does the job!
Window defender is eating a lot of ressources, disabling it made a difference as I noticed!

20

An interesting thread - I’m pretty new to flightsims (although I held a PPL for quite a long time) also not much of a techie, but I understood the principle the OP was alluding to.
I’ve downloaded quite a few scenery and airport add-ons and in anticipation of this kind of problem I use MSFS Addon Linker, a small free organiser which allows you to select what you wish to load with the sim. I’ve set up a few presets and before I start MSFS I select what areas I’m going to fly in. So I experimented with Taskmanager open to see what happens. Incidentally I don’t use Defender, preferring (paid for) Bitdefender which has proved fine in protecting me from naughties (including one addon I subsequently reported).
First test, delete every airport/scenery addon - time to World Map screen 1m 35s.
Second test, select everything - after 20 mins I shut the loading down, far too long for me!
But on both occasions TM reported the CPU was runnng at the same speed (around 25%) with nothing else significant taking any processing power. RAM use was the same too.
Conclusion, if you are concerned about loss of protection and wish to use Defender you can either invest in a commercial anti-virus programme or try MSFS Addon Linker.
Or start it up and go and have breakfast!!!

21

Yes, I did that from the outset and have never had any problems with delayed loading times. In fact it loads very quickly, much faster than the competitors simulator which is otherwise brilliant! I have installed to an SSD with over provisioning and momentum cache set-up and I think this probably also helps quite a bit with SSD performance. If you have an SSD and have not set-up over provisioning etc., it might be worth investigating. Charles