To "uninstall" an add-on - confirm my logic?

[UncleJoe]

To "unintall" a freeware add-on scenery package; once I have removed all the associated files in the Addon Scenery/scenery folder (454 of them), then the also associated files in the Addon Scenery/textures folder will be moot with nothing calling them up. They'll just be taking up space on the hard drive. Is that how it works?

(Tried out a full-country add-on, but it was a MAJOR fps killer.)

[JJ FSX]

What is the free add-on? I would like to take a look at it.

[UncleJoe]

It is called "egypt_fsx" on Fly Away Simulations. Huge scenery pack covering all airfields, towns, villages, monuments, etc throughout the country. Over 450 scenery files and over 1400 texture files. Even with my sim settings turned down, I could barely pull 10 fps flying at 5000'. (and its appearance wasn't all that impressive anyway - just lots of it.)

[JJ FSX]

Some textures will still be active. I think you should remove all the textures too. After I look at the package I can advise on how to identify them over other textures. This may be a tedious task, but perhaps not, we will see.

Tips:

Never let these packages with auto-installers or not, mix themselves with the default Addon scenery folder or any other scenery. Always create a separate sub-folder (parent folder to "scenery", "texture") and use the scenery manager to activate/deactivate and prioritize them. Keep all scenery separate from each other. I always point any auto-installer to a clean Temp folder first, examine what they create without installing them to FSX. If all they do is create "scenery" and/or "texture" under the temp folder, create a parent sub-folder yourself (you can put that parent folder anywhere you want, but I suggest under "Addon Scenery", with a name that describes the scenery. Then put the two folders "scenery and texture" under that parent folder. Then activate and prioritize them with the scenery manager.

I have actually created a sub-folder under Addon Scenery called "My Addon Scenery" and then I create parent folders under that for each of my add-on scenery packages. (e.g. "FSX\Addon Scenery\My Addon Scenery\SceneryName1, ...SceneryName2"...etc., but we can create multiple folders directly under " Addon Scenery" if we want. Some scenery creators that use auto installers do this and tell the user to activate them just as I am saying here.

Many packages that don't use auto-installers do create their packages with a SceneryName (parent) folder above "scenery" and "texture". In which case we copy that folder under Addon Scenery (which of course gets the sub-folders too) and again we activate/deactivate them at will, through scenery manager. The end result is the same.

This way No scenery packages are ever mixed among other scenery packages OR the default scenery and can be easily managed and tested. Prioritized, Activated or Deactivated per our needs and whims.

Note: You can actually put add-on scenery anywhere you want, even on different drives. The only files that "have" to go under the FSX folder structure is if they include any files destined for "FSX\effects", those files always have to go under "FSX\effects". Or if they are destined for "FSX\scenery\world\scenery" they also do need to go there. (not really but I'm not going to get any more technical than I already am).

In summary; "scenery" and texture" folders should always go under a uniquely named parent folder, placed anywhere you want really, and then activated with the scenery manager. That's IF you want to be safe and have control over them. I am always aware of exactly what and where any add-ons have placed files on my system.

Caution: Never install and activate duplicate add-on airports at the same time. And NEVER! uninstall default airport scenery. It's Ok that an add-on airport goes over the top of the default but you can run into building overlap issues, bad frame rates and even crashes if you install multiple add-ons of the same airport. If the scenery creator was stupid (and didn't do his "excludes" correctly to cover the default scenery, we may still get building overlaps on default airport scenery and possible crashes. That's why its important to do flyovers and check each and every add-on airport, then make a decision of, do we want to keep them or not.

IMPORTANT:

Be aware of the bug in the scenery manager when activating new scenery:

When you double click the parent folder of your scenery you should see the "scenery" and/or "texture" folders in the white space of that dialog, (many packages don't have a texture folder so you will only see "scenery"), AND BOTH the "Name" and "Directory Path" fields (below the white space) must be populated, when they are, its time to click OK, BUT when you click OK it may do nothing. What you do at that point is just click the mouse anywhere in the white space in that dialog and it will then "take". If ever the "Name" and "Directory path" fields are NOT both populated, back out (cancel) and do it again until both fields are populated, then click OK and click in the white space or the scenery will not be properly activated and you may see a blank line where the scenery name should be, in that case delete that entry and start over activating the scenery.

[JJ FSX]

Update:

OMG some of the textures go all the way back to 1995. Many from 2001 and earlier so a bunch of these are pre-fs2004 all the way back to a dozen or so being pre-fs98! (I predict crashes are in my near future examining this scenery, lol)

I just took a short flight over some of it, I haven't done much but right off the bat I can say this. Of course being old I'm seeing some of the usual expected behavior with these old textures. DX10 mode didn't like them at all, many transparent invisible buildings (the temples and special landmark buildings) because the textures are incompatible. And in DX10 mode I got the same horrible frame rates as you, about 10fps at 1200 to 3000 feet. BUT going back into DX9 mode I get my usual full 30fps over the same scenery, at the same altitudes. And the textures (buildings) that are transparent in DX10 show fine in DX9 mode (expected).

Some particular buildings (the little brown square ones), textures popped between white/brown in both modes. That was just 3 little areas around one airport. I'm going to keep it around for awhile and check out some more areas before deciding if I will keep it or not. I installed it like I discussed above so I won't have any problem getting rid of it in just a few clicks when I'm ready.

And Yes, I have confirmed for you UncleJoe, there are, at the least, ground textures surrounding these airports and around the rivers the author speaks about in the documentation. Those will remain active if you don't remove them. So I suggest you open up the zip file of those textures and identify what you need to delete from under your Addon Scenery/texture folder and get rid of them.

[UncleJoe]

Lots of great info there!! Will work on all that before I go any further with any other "revisions". I do have the zip file of that Egypt and used it as reference to remove the 450+ scenery files. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do the same with the 1400+ textures but, oh well, gotta clean it up right. Learning the hard way at times, but learning none the less. lol

Fortunately, I don't have many other add-on scenery items; most are just airfield upgrades. And I did make sure none are duplicated.

You referenced the DX10 and DX9; I am actually running DirectX 12 with my GeForce GPU and Windows 10. And - "as far as I know" - haven't experienced any trouble with it. After removing these particular scenery files, my fps was back up to 40-50 in the same flight parameters.

[JJ FSX]

UncleJoe, You may have a video card that supports DirectX 12, but FSX is only capable of utilizing 9 and 10. By default FSX will only use DirectX 9. (All the graphics cards are backward compatible....for now). FSX was created in the era of transition hardware wise, and the ACES team that created FSX had not completed programming it for DX10 mode when FSX was released to market. Therefore, there is a checkbox on the graphics setup screen in FSX that is labeled "DirectX 10 Preview mode" and that box HAS to be checked in order to turn DX10 mode on in FSX. FSX will not likely ever utilize DirectX 11 or 12.

Now the reason its called DX10 Preview mode is because the ACES team had not yet completed programming FSX for DX10 mode when I'm sure top brass (and greedy investors) forced them to "just get it to market" and so there is (or was for a long time), a bunch of issues surrounding activating it. Until finally a patch was created it was only for previewing because of anomalies that existed at the time. And they still exist. Steam edition does NOT apply the patch. All new purchasers of FSX-SE still get the original "preview" mode only, and the anomalies below unless and until we apply the patch. These are the anomolies:

1) Flashing runways/taxiways
2) Yellow/white runway markings transparency
3) Opaque chain fences
4) Progressive Taxi markings missing
5) Missing night scenery/semi-transparent dusk scenery (often misdescribed as missing night textures)
6) Some addon cars with black headlights
7) Harder VC shadow
8) False sun on VC roof and side wall
9) ORBX FTX Global lights black background rectangles

These issues have to do with something called DX10 "shaders".

Now, as I hinted above, over the years, finally someone (a guy I can't remember his last name but his first name is Steve) did a lot of study and work and he fixed it and finally made running in DX10 mode viable on a full time basis. But we have to download the fixes. They do NOT come with FSX-SE by default. So if we turn it on without the patch we still get the issues above that originally existed. There are some additional issues but thanks to Steve, we can fix all of the above now.

There are two versions of his patches, one fixes "most" of the problems for free and the latest version of that is called Shader Release Version 3.2.3, which you can download from here:

https://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=DX10+shader&CatID=root

Be sure to get the 3.2.3 version, this link has both 3.2.3 and 3.2.2 and you don't need 3.2.2.

His payware version is called Steve's DX10 Fixer and has gone through several upgrades and he even cancelled it at one point because he couldn't support/manage all the questions by himself. I'm not sure the status of all that. I will leave it up to you to research that if your interested in it. The freeware version has been good enough for my needs and I only have that version myself.

So, if you wan't to run in DX10 mode, get and install the shader fix, turn DX10 on, and you will see a lot of visual improvement to the sim and improved frame rates cause DX10 is more efficient. And it opens up new capabilities in sky/cloud/building/land textures improvements, effects and more, many of which already exist but aren't recognizable in DX9 mode.

But be aware, running in DX10 mode will introduce issues with older freeware/payware aircraft & scenery textures, mainly fs2004 aircraft that are converted to work with FSX cannot run in DX10 mode, they will be all "white" because many of them only converted the textures and not the "models", because converting the "models" is a ton of work.

I love DX10 mode and run FSX in it exclusively. I have sky and cloud texture upgrades that look much better in DX10 mode as well as do many aircraft and land textures that are better served by DX10. And so I have eliminated and never download fs2004 converted aircraft UNLESS they went to the trouble to fully convert the models to "native FSX" models. I only download "native FSX models".

Well, I digress, sometimes I'm interested in something older too. Just know that while we fly or view something old, meaning converted fs2004 (and earlier) aircraft and scenery textures, we have to turn off DX10 mode as I just had to do while helping you with this old Egypt scenery, its older textures on those temples were transparent in DX10 mode but were fine in DX9 mode.

Hope this helps you have a better experience with FSX.

Happy flying in DX10 mode!

JJ FSX

[UncleJoe]

Wonderful ! You are just a treasure trove of information that's really not out there (or mentioned, but not explained). I am feeling quite fortunate to be learning such things before I'd gotten too deep in add-ons or "revisions". I have not yet activated the DX10 Preview option simply because "it worked" as is and I understood no reason to experiment with something that, before now, had not been explained beyond curiosity. My add-ons to date have been minimal while I strive to learn and use the varied default equipment supplied (gauges, Garmins, 2D/3D, etc.) and the payware I have invested in is newer stuff from Stream, REX, or Orbx. So any malfunctions and subsequent losses I may incur will be in freeware.

After I dispose of all these texture files, I will move into this patch and learn what else to trim out for optimum function. It's a good thing for me that I am retired now and have nothing but "free time". lol

And I do understand what you're explaining. I like to think that I am computer literate as I used to work as a hardware tech in computers (HP and MS cert) years back. And was deep into "simming" with such as the NASCAR Racing series, IL-2, Falcon 4.0+, and such of the 80's to mid 90's with some file modding and a LOT of repainting. But my experience is dated, so there is much new to learn.

[UncleJoe]

Cleared the 1400+ unwanted texture files. LIGHT BULB! Remembered the easy way = "Copy" all the texture files in the original download folder, "Paste" and "Overwrite" into the Addon Scenery/texture folder. Then when the overwrite is complete, all the pasted files are highlighted -- hit the Delete key and, poof, all gone.

Also began restructuring my add-ons by "Add Area" in the Scenery Manager - working great. Thanks.

Next to test out the DX10 preview setting and see what I might gain/lose there....