Anyone understand DLC in the Community folder how it works in loading in to MSFS?

[malpal]

Does anyone understand how free community addons work? If I have 30+gig of downloads for eg. in the community folder will MSFS have to load the whole 30 gig each time I load the game? Or will it only load the file needed for eg Mt Rushmore fix when I fly in or near that area? Otherwise to load all that extra content each time would slow loading times I guess?Help would be appreciated.

[malpal]

Thanks Peter I guess you keep in a few major ones and delete and re-add the same file each time you fly in an area that needs the corrections? Would you say this is how you would attack it?

[HoloByteus]

I can only postulate on how it works based on understanding of previous sims.

MFS isn't loading everything in the community folder at boot that would take considerably longer in addition to being pointless, but it is indexing content to understand where it's at on the planet, where it supersedes existing content or possibly even other addons and update scenery indexes to know what to load when you do pick a flight. Content with large .BGL files will probably have the biggest impact on initial boot. Content with large texture folders and CGL sat imagery will probably have more impact on flight load times, like loading in at Aerosoft's Trondheim 3.7GB airport.

The solution to this is to help MFS out by not loading addons you have no intent on using that session. Fortunately there's a great tool to help automate this process using symbolic links. You can group scenery however you want and enable/disable with a click. You do this before running MFS, there's a video that explains this further. This also enables you to organize scenery in your addon's folder.

https://flightsim.to/file/1572/msfs-addons-linker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqLpvpCDRws&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=LostPilot

[opjose]

In addition to what Holo mentions above MSFS scans the Community folder at start to check the version levels of everything installed INCLUDING YOUR FREEWARE STUFF.

It compares what you have installed with online info.

If you have deleted items from your community folder MSFS spends an inordinate amount of time looking for the missing content listed in the "content.xml" file.

Just delete the file and let MSFS recreate it to restore the normal load speeds.

[[ MARMITE ]]

Diposting pertama kali oleh opjose:

In addition to what Holo mentions above MSFS scans the Community folder at start to check the version levels of everything installed INCLUDING YOUR FREEWARE STUFF.

It compares what you have installed with online info.

If you have deleted items from your community folder MSFS spends an inordinate amount of time looking for the missing content listed in the "content.xml" file.

Just delete the file and let MSFS recreate it to restore the normal load speeds.

Good to know, thx for the tip !

Marmite

[HoloByteus]

Diposting pertama kali oleh opjose:

If you have deleted items from your community folder MSFS spends an inordinate amount of time looking for the missing content listed in the "content.xml" file.

Just delete the file and let MSFS recreate it to restore the normal load speeds.

I don't think this is true, there's no point in looking for an addon not installed, nothing in there is a requirement, it just needs to know what is. It doesn't reference it at boot but generates it at boot and it's probably just used by the Content manager. There's just not much information in context.xml other than addon title and it's state, active or not which is probably for future expansion that would allow you to disable the addon in content manager.

[Manwith Noname]

It shouldn't but I have also seen comments of people having slow load times after removing addons until they delete the previous content.xml.

[opjose]

Diposting pertama kali oleh HoloByteus:

I don't think this is true, there's no point in looking for an addon not installed, nothing in there is a requirement, it just needs to know what is.

Incorrect.

The contents.xml file is opened at start to look for updated content, including your freeware add-ons.

If you have removed or updated the add-ons the sim spends an inordinate amount of time checking for the missing add-on.

[HoloByteus]

Diposting pertama kali oleh opjose:

Incorrect.

The contents.xml file is opened at start to look for updated content, including your freeware add-ons.

If you have removed or updated the add-ons the sim spends an inordinate amount of time checking for the missing add-on.

Did you find that in a dev note or something, if so we need to submit a DCR on that because that's a silly waste of time. Users are expected to add/remove content outside the sim so why bother looking for non-existent content and why even use a file that doesn't track version info to check update status? It will have to scan the entire community folder regardless of what's in content.xml to get the current status and that's all it should care about.

Addon version info is stored in the manifest.json for each addon which it finds as it scans every addon in community and then adds them to a table in memory or possibly some other file no doubt since that info isn't tracked in content.xml. Content.xml could be helpful for tracking ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ folder addons, that would be fairly easy to test. Just remove a Japan airport and see how it's reported. I'd bet it's just listed as an available download... not missing meaning it scans the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ folder at boot as well.

[opjose]

I've monitored the folders and files the sim tries to open as it starts.

It hits all of your community folders just before the opening movie, and again afterwards.

If you have an existing file it scans the contents.xml file and your community folder manifest,json files before the start movie and before the "checking for updates" and again when you enter the content manager.

If there is no existing file the scan occurs but the file is not built until after the "checking for updates" appears.

You can see the effects by adding a slew of new content to the community folder, running the sim, then removing some of the content and updating others before trying again.

If you leave the old file around the start can hang or go from taking a shorter amount of time to a very long duration.

Some people report that the sim fails to start and have blamed the content.

I experienced this and tried to hunt down what I thought was an "offending" package when the sim would not start... the content was not to blame.

Deleting the contents.xml file solved it.

[THartmann9374]

:Let me straighten this out. If I go ape over putting 100+ GB mods into the Community folder, it will be super slow if I don't do anything about content.xml? So, if I delete content.xml and it will recreate and faster loading? That means I need to delete content.xml every time I remove a mod from the Community folder, right?

[Oz Gaming]

Where pray tell do you find this Content.xml file ??? I've looked all over the place in the MSFS files and can't locate it.

[HoloByteus]

It's in AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\content.xml for Steam anyway.

I add/remove mods all the time with Mod Linker and only deal with what I'm using changing so it's extremely doubtful it would be worth the effort to delete it.

Love to see some compares with moving from all mods enabled to all mods disabled without deleting it and then again with deleting it. Easy to do, just rename the community folder.

[Oz Gaming]

OK thanks, found the xml file. It still had 9 mods listed as Active which I had removed from the sim so I deleted them from the list and saved the file again.

[HoloByteus]

It looks like content.xml tracks any addon's ever loaded not what is currently activated.
After deleting it, Content.xml was first accessed when checking for updates appears and at it's conclusion about 5 seconds later it is generated/updated. The difference in update scan time was was nada. Where you see load delays is during boot long before content.xml is ever accessed and due to what content IS in community it has to index. The key solution is to limit this to what's needed that session.

[opjose]

I have over 120 :Community entries totalling about 32 gigs at the moment.

If I don't delete Content.xml after making large changes, the sim can go from either taking 5-8 minutes to load to the "checking for updates" screen or not loading at all.

If I do delete Content.xml this issue goes away.

The time from double click to the first movie goes from 3-4 minutes w/o deleting content.xml to 30-45 seconds when I delete it..

If I find the sim doesn't load I'll delete the file and run it again, then it loads right up w/o issues.

Your results may vary but I find it fairly consistent.