Scenery initialisation

[Graham (GA2)]

Hi all,

I recently "upgraded" to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 7 Pro on the same PC and I have a few issues to sort out. Whilst I start Condor 2 in single or multiplayer mode, there seems to be an issue with initialisation. Once running, everything seems to work OK, on the whole.
It was never particularly quick to load up in Win 7 but it is now very slow and seem to have got worse since I re-intsalled my Kaspersky Internet Security prog. Before loading Win 10, I upgraded my GPU to Nvidia GTX1050Ti and doubled the RAM size to 16Gb. I also used a new Samsung SSD to do a fresh install. CPU is not the latest but it is a Core2 i7 @3.4GHz and quite capable.

Does anyone know of a conflict issue or some parameter setting that may have a bearing on this?

Cheers for any help,
Graham

[Paul_UK]

I've no idea how clean the install is when upgrading Win7 to Win10 but that is potentially part of your problem.

As you mention yourself things slowed after installed Kaspersky ensure you add your Condor2 directory to the exclusion zone in your AV. That means your AV won't scan files within your condor2 directory as they're opened. You'll have to look up how to do this for Kaspersky as I use NOD32 which will be different.

[Graham (GA2)]

Hi Paul,

Win 10 would not install over Win 7 which is why I bought a new SSD. I was getting some general problems with Win 7 whinch is why I decided (against my better judgement) to upgrade. No matter how many times I tried, Win 10 would just not intall so I was left with little choice but to start from scratch. It also, flatly refused to recover my Win 7 backup, but that's another story.

Good tip about 'exclusion' though, thanks! I'll dig into that this afternoon.

Cheers,
Graham

[Paul_UK]

That's great to hear, that means the install should be relatively clean. Ensure all drivers etc are updated. I don't know much about AMD as I've not had an AMD CPU since the Athlon XP3200 days. With Intel you want to ensure AHCI is activated. On my old PC I had to install and only after install could I activate AHCI in BIOS.

With my current PC however it just worked. In Device Manager I can see under IDE ATA/ATPI controllers that Standard SATA AHCI controller is installed and working. You could run a bench test on your SSD to check it is read / writing at the correct speeds too. Unsure which is the best free one to use these days. Some are better than others for SSD as they don't run the life out of the SSD as much as others. Some SSD's come with their own software which can check this. I think Samsung Magician can do this test for example on Samsung SSD drives.

[Graham (GA2)]

AHCI is activated (whatever that is).
Landscapes folder added to excluded scan (I think).
SSD read/write speeds are a lot faster than the original HDD, according to Samsung Magician.

Result?
No real difference; it still takes a couple of minutes to load up and give 'not reponding' message if clicked on.
I guess I just need to upgrade motherboard & CPU at some point.

Thanks, anyway.

[Graham (GA2)]

This is what Task Manager reports during start up.
I have tried various exclusions with in the AV prog and indeed, even turned it off completly but nothing seems to change. It can take upwards of about 2 minutes just to initialise the landsape. The bits before and after, likeground objects , weather etc., are fairly quick to load. It's just the "initialisation" phase that seems to screw up.

CondorStart.png

[Paul_UK]

Can I ask what weather settings you're using for this flight. Particularly 'flats activity'. If that is set to Low it can cause a very slow loading time. Set it no lower than 'normal'.

Usually though that causes the hang at calculating weather.

Did you run bench tests on your SSD to check it's operating at the correct speeds?

[Graham (GA2)]

Weather is usually pre-determined by whoever set the task. Attached is the data from Monday's Eurobattle task.
Yes, Samsung disk is faster then the old one by quite a lot @ 547MB/s read and 513MB/s write.

CondorStartWeather.png

[Paul_UK]

Those speeds are the results from a bench test using Samsung Magician? If so all seems well there.

There have been reports of conflict from Google drive and Nvidia Experience software with Condor.

Can you time your initialisation phase. Which scenery are you using too? Test using default Slovenia. I'll time mine tomorrow so we can compare. Or setup an fpl, share it on here and I'll use that so we are comparing apples for apples.

[Graham (GA2)]

Well, there's a turn up for the books!!

Yes those figures are from Samsung Magician.
I just did as you suggested and tried the 100km triangle from Lesce-Bled in Slovenia. Amazingly, it initialised the landscape in around 7 seconds!!
I guess it's a small map compared to something like AA 02 but that it a huge difference. I didn't change any of the default flight parameters from the task. I did uninstall GeForce Experience though.

[Paul_UK]

Turned out there was no problem after all then excellent as I was running out of easy things to look at.

As you've discovered the larger landscapes do take longer to initialize. Now sit back and enjoy the fun Condor provides

Just remember to never set 'flats activity' to low. I believe it will compute but it takes a very very long time.

[Graham (GA2)]

Yes thanks for your assistance! The thing that bothered me is the fact that Task Manager etc reports "Not responding" but I guess it sorts itself out eventually. I even set up a 8GB page file 'incase' but to no avail so I guess memory is not the problem. The CPU & GPU do not seem to be overloaded either, when starting up, so who knows.

Now, just have to figure out why the Arcus model is such a 'pain' to fly!!

[Bre901]

Yes thanks for your assistance! The thing that bothered me is the fact that Task Manager etc reports "Not responding" but I guess it sorts itself out eventually.

If a windowed application is busy doing a long computation, it does not communicate anymore with Windows (unless explicitly stated by the programmer in the code) hence the "Not responding" message

I even set up a 8GB page file 'incase' but to no avail so I guess memory is not the problem. The CPU & GPU do not seem to be overloaded either, when starting up, so who knows.

The CPU is not overloaded because Condor uses only one core but it uses 100% of it (if you have 4 cores, the processor usage should be at 25%)

[Paul_UK]

Yes thanks for your assistance! The thing that bothered me is the fact that Task Manager etc reports "Not responding" but I guess it sorts itself out eventually. I even set up a 8GB page file 'incase' but to no avail so I guess memory is not the problem. The CPU & GPU do not seem to be overloaded either, when starting up, so who knows.

Now, just have to figure out why the Arcus model is such a 'pain' to fly!!

Some useful info there from Bre. I've never checked what windows is saying whilst things are initialising etc. I just sit waiting leaving it to do its thing. Probably best to turn pagefile back to windows managed now, especially if 8gb is larger than the windows managed size.

What are your issues with the Arcus? Both it and the DuoDiscus are lovely to fly. Obviously not as nimble as the 15m gliders but it does have nice big 20m wings

[Graham (GA2)]

I don't know what the Arcus model problem is but I find it difficult to trim out to glide properly and can be very twitchy in the climb. The balance between trimmer and flap settings appears to be disjointed: once established, it is barely necessary to touch the trimmer in the real thing. I have the luxury and priviledge of flying an Arcus in reality and if it flew like the Condor one, I would probably sell it.
I thought I had it sorted until I "upgraded" to Win 10 whereby all my settings were lost and I had to start again. The EB29 flies like a dream as do the 18m JS3 & Ventus 3 so it is not a 'span' problem. I also like to think that, after many years and many hours that it is not all down to pilot incompetence. Perhaps it is particularly tricky tasks where I have used it. I have flown the Duo model only once but it did seem more easy to fly than the Arcus.