Exactly How Much?

Autothrottle

Autothrottle

Charter Member
Hello all,

With all the new addons being thrown out there for CFS3, how much can the game truly handle?

It came with 36 stock aircraft, but I ve seen simmers with as much as 300 or more. Can the game engine handle that many?

Also, how can this game operate without sticking or crashing with so many aircraft available? It seems a marvel to me.
 
I've never heard of an upper limit of aircraft you can have in your aircraft folder. However I would imagine there is a limit to how much scrolling you want to do on the aircraft selection menus:icon_lol:
 
My limit is how long I want to spend sitting there while it loads up. I've been pruning my installs, ETO in particular, as a result...
 
Autothrottle said:
Hello all,

With all the new addons being thrown out there for CFS3, how much can the game truly handle?

It came with 36 stock aircraft, but I ve seen simmers with as much as 300 or more. Can the game engine handle that many?

Also, how can this game operate without sticking or crashing with so many aircraft available? It seems a marvel to me.
Click to expand...

:kilroy:Autothrottle, I do testing for ETO. ETO is basically CFS3, but on steroids. LOL

I have, in one testing install, all of ETO through the 1.20 update period, including the FP 2 ETO USAAF Heavy Bombers pack, and the future 1.30 Update. All this and numerous planes from everyone needing mission packs tested.

This install contains 506 aircraft. It does work.:d

ndicki said:
My limit is how long I want to spend sitting there while it loads up. I've been pruning my installs, ETO in particular, as a result...
Click to expand...

:kilroy:Nigel, a very good point, that. LOL Especially after running the BDP Zapper. I use a calendar to time the start-up afterward. LOL:d
 
I have over 1000 aircraft in my CFS3 set up about 500 or so in ETO ..
Maw has about 500 also..
And they work fine..
 
I agree with Nigel the load up times increase drastically when you have hundreds of aircraft. Also if your global layer has all the CFS3 add ons combined then load up really becomes monotonous.
 
That is very truthful.. When I start CFS3.. I usually get a cup of coffee, and come back, perhaps fill my pipe also..
Do my chores, eat lunch or dinner. Then Play CFS3.. LOL..LOL..

And not forgetting it seems to take all most as long to completely dump out when I finish..
Aged three years, one nite playing CFS3 waiting for it all to load..
LOL..LOL..
 
It isn't just my aircraft I've been pruning; my computer (which may be a little long in the tooth, but it's still not that bad! P4 2.8C and 1.5 GB RAM) cannot load the ETO music file - 26,398KB compared to 1,512 - and the huge volume of scenery in some of the airfields, and... The result is that when you click on "Quit mission" or whatever it is once you've done, it locks up completely as it tries to reload all that for the UI. As a result, I've canned the music, and am removing scenery objects from the ACC airfields. I'd suggest in fact releasing "lite" versions of the airfields, with fewer trees and static aircraft.
 
personnaly, I have several different aircrafts folders, I just rename the one I want to use before I start ETO: Bomber Command - NJG, ETO, ETO stock, W40 and MTO.

Doing this, I don't have to load all the aircrafts each time I start CFS3.

what I also do is that I first run the mission builder. As the first load is always longer, I can do something else when it's loading (such as being on SoH!! :jump:). Then, when I start CFS3, it's much faster.
 
This brings me to a related question:

How many planes can the game handle in a particular mission?

In FS9 it were 99 if I remember well (I quit and went to CFS3 because I found it so boring after I managed to land planes (took me 6 months to do it well).

Is there a similar limitation in CFS3?

RemcoC
 
For missions in CFS3 I think it just comes down to frame rates. If you make the mission too aircraft heavy then the FPS just gets way too slow.
 
t isn't just my aircraft I've been pruning; my computer (which may be a little long in the tooth, but it's still not that bad! P4 2.8C and 1.5 GB RAM) cannot load the ETO music file - 26,398KB compared to 1,512 - and the huge volume of scenery in some of the airfields, and... The result is that when you click on "Quit mission" or whatever it is once you've done, it locks up completely as it tries to reload all that for the UI. As a result, I've canned the music, and am removing scenery objects from the ACC airfields. I'd suggest in fact releasing "lite" versions of the airfields, with fewer trees and static aircraft.
Click to expand...

Thats odd Nigel I have a slower pc and only 1 gb ram and have never had a problem. The load time is slow (subsequent starts are much quicker) but I can run with the sliders maxed out in free flight.

For the airfields try removing the parked aircraft - one or two a/c can have as many polys as all the buildings and trees put together. Is there something else running in the background that's hogging resources? Have you tried FSAutostart or similar to close down uneeded applications?
 
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