P3D airborne

[Paul K]

As for scenery, I have FTX Pacific North West and Pacific Fjords with four add-on airports (two freeware from the ORBX website) and I have just loaded Holger's Tongass Fjords X into P3D to extend the flying area further into Alaska.

Ian, I have all those too, so how did you install Tongass Fjords directly into P3D ?

I loaded into P3D because I don't know how to point to scenery outside the sim

No, I'm not exactly sure either.

[TSR2]

You chaps need to get some British stuff in there, its beginning to look like American GA central

[speedbird591]

Hi Paul. I was hanging back waiting for you to go but it all went quiet. So then I thought, sod it, and had a go myself

I used the free fsx registry utility tool from Tweak FS. I copied FSX.exe into the P3D folder and commented out the original in FSX. Then I ran the utility to change the registry install path for FSX to P3D. The installer for Tongass Fjords X allows you to change the installation path. Once it was set it's click and go - and it worked first time.

Then I ran the tool again to reset the path to FSX and renamed the original FSX.exe.

It didn't work for my Captain Sim aircraft. It wouldn't accept the P3D folder as a valid installation destination

Ben. Didn't you see my floatplane? Dave's DH89? How British is that? any other suggestions for British aircraft that would be suitable for Alaska and British Columbia would be very welcome. Otherwise I'll have to wait for FTX UK!

Ian

[TSR2]

How about a Bristol Beaufighter to dive bomb the natives?

The chippie would be quite nice, and there's DG's Auster. I think some of the chaps at Britsim had some nice GA stuff.

[Paul K]

Ian, yes, its gone a bit quiet here as the real world is making demands, and I have about a thousand other things I need to do, including reading the Operational Art Of War manual

Your method seems to be the same one that is talked about on the P3D forum, so if its worked for you, I might give it a go ( some Pathfinder, eh ? ). I'm still waiting for Orbx's new migrator tool however; you know what its like...you don't what problems now if there's a new solution coming down the pipe line . I have that registry tool too, so I'll have a go with Tongass Fjords at least. By the way the Orbx mover tool has been abandoned as too problematical, apparently.

Ben, yes, DG's Auster and Rapide are at the top of the list of aircraft to copy across from FSX. I notice an increase in P3D installers now, the new FS Add-On Hudson / Electra/ Lodestar package being one - very tempted by that.

[speedbird591]

?.. and I have about a thousand other things I need to do, including reading the Operational Art Of War manual

Is there something we should know?

Thanks for the news about the ORBX mover tool. There's plenty of time for them to find a new way before P3D v2.0 establishes itself and a way forward becomes apparent. It's still very early days and things are moving apace for developers and Prepar3d - as well as for we academic students. The glory is that things are moving at all!

It's lovely to have a stable sim with ample scenery and yes, you're right, very little tweaking to do. My sim is already working as well as I could hope for and I can just go fly when I want to without the frustrations associated with FSX performance. I might add a couple more aircraft, otherwise just wait and see what improvements and worlds that the future brings.

Ian

[petermcleland]

Ian and anyone else who is interested:_

After installing the ORBX Pacific NorthWest in my FSX, for me to point P3D to my ORBX Pacific NorthWest in FSX I would:-

Goto here:-

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\Scenery.cfg

Note...these locations are for Windows XP and they are slightly different in Windows 7.

Open the Scenery.cfg file.

Select these five entries

[Area.121]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW08_CUSTOM
Local=ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW08_CUSTOM
Layer=121
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.122]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW07_MESH
Local=ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW07_MESH
Layer=122
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.123]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW06_CVX
Local=ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW06_CVX
Layer=123
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.124]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW05_SCENERY
Local=ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW05_SCENERY
Layer=124
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.125]
Title=FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Local=ORBX\FTX_AU\FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Layer=125
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

Put your mouse cursor in the selection and RIGHT Click...Select Copy.


Goto here:-

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D\Scenery.cfg

Open the Scenery.cfg file and scroll to the bottom.

Put your cursor in the bottom of the Scenery.cfg list, Right Click and select Paste

They will appear the same as above but amend to look as below:-

[Area.127]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW08_CUSTOM
Local=H:\Flight Simulator X\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW08_CUSTOM
Layer=127
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.128]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW07_MESH
Local=H:\Flight Simulator X\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW07_MESH
Layer=128
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.129]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW06_CVX
Local=H:\Flight Simulator X\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW06_CVX
Layer=129
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.130]
Title=FTX_NA_PNW05_SCENERY
Local=H:\Flight Simulator X\ORBX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW05_SCENERY
Layer=130
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

[Area.131]
Title=FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Local=H:\Flight Simulator X\ORBX\FTX_AU\FTXAA_ORBXLIBS
Layer=131
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE

NOTE. The numbers have been changed to run down sequentially from the existing entries and the "H:\Flight Simulator X\" has been added to each Local=....(H: is the partition where I have my FSX).

Most importantly before closing this NotePad window with your amended Scenery.cfg in it, you must goto File at top left and click Save.

Now if you start P3D your PNW scenery will be there...You might like to take your aeroplane to KSEA using World > Goto Airport and Save the flight for future ease of getting there.

[TSR2]

Just to add to Peter's post above, the scenery.cfg file in OS's after Windows XP is actually in C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D for P3D and C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX for FSX

[speedbird591]

Ah! Now it becomes clear! Your explanations are always thorough and well-illustrated, Peter. Your years as a training Captain being put to good use

And thank you Ben for the important proviso for us W7 users. Having had a look at the scenery.cfg I can see that what the ORBX migrator tool has done is simply what you have illustrated. My PD3 scenery config is pointing towards the ORBX scenery files in FSX.

So, Ben, is this the same procedure you use when you put your scenery in a separate folder. Just change the address in the scenery.cfg file to that folder's address and renumber the entries? But what about all the bgls and things that go in different folders? Surely it has to be installed into a sim to make sure they go into the right place?

And final question (for now). To add the scenery to the sim settings you add it manually by browsing for the location?

Ian

[TSR2]

Hi Ian,

Its the same process, yes. If we take the UK2000 stuff as an example, my system is set up as bellow:-
FSX / P3D is installed...
E:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X
E:\Prepar3D

UK2000 Scenery is installed...
F:\UK2000 scenery\UK2000 Belfast xtreme
F:\UK2000 scenery\UK2000 Common library
F:\UK2000 scenery\UK2000 East Midlands Xtreme
F:\UK2000 scenery\UK2000 Newcastle Xtreme
F:\UK2000 scenery\UK2000 VFR scenery Volume1
etc etc.

The scenery cfg file in both sims simply points to the respective UK2000 folder on the F drive. This is what the scenery cfg file is for, it tells the sim where to read from on the PC. The only caveat might be if some addon scenery won't let you install it outside the FSX / P3D folder structure because of some sort of copy protection, but I haven't come across one yet.