Just to add to my post above, giving advice about scenery addons is like a scenery developer giving advice about aircraft. Because people hold PMDG with some awe, they take everything that is said as gospel, like the preacher of the second coming.

Nothing personal, but i think the post from RSR was very much over the top. I have seen links at various FS websites like Orbx, and most are saying, Oh my god, well I am not going to install anything until the addon has been made V4 compliant. Funny thing is, PMDG and ORBX are the two that are not V4 compliant when it comes to installing their own products.

Bit like conducting an Orchestra in a brothel.

11 hours ago, Travelling_Wilbury said:

 

Bit like conducting an Orchestra in a brothel.

;-)

Is this taken from direct experience Julian?  ;-)))

I also agree with rest by the way. Much as I believe RSR and his team are exceptionally talented, I also believe large grains of salt are required when ANYONE makes such bold statements. Especially when it concerns software OTHER than their own.

 

For the sake of pure interest, I am currently running a 'trial setup' with a P3Dv4 installation....

I'm doing almost the opposite to that advice. Although ONLY using the XML addon method, I'm installing a 'shed load' of my old v3 payware addons; both aircraft and scenery alike. Obviously, I'm doing this fully aware that I may have issues, which is why I made several full backups of my entire system, with all my flight sims freshly installed before starting;-)

Obviously (again), I shall not keep this installation, but I'm curious to see what type problems start to arise first. Me thinks I've got too much time on my hands;-)

I've had to add a few 'official patches', to some sceneries, but so far I've noticed ZERO difference in sim behaviour, apart from the expected longer loading times of scenery etc. No freezes, stutters or CTDs etc.  v4 is still way out performing my old v3 installation with the same addons; both better visuals and better frame rates.

I've only been running this for a few days so far, but have flown numerous addon aircraft, to and from, numerous addon sceneries.

Addon devs, fear not, I shall most definitely NOT be looking to you for support while I run with this arrangement;-)

The only DEFINITE thing I've noticed so far, is that addon scenery packages are far more 'v4 friendly' than aircraft, but then that's not unexpected.

NONE of the addons I've used so far are installed within the v4 root folder, other than Orbx scenery. Its all on a separate drive.

 

23 hours ago, Dougal said:

I've had to add a few 'official patches', to some sceneries, but so far I've noticed ZERO difference in sim behaviour, apart from the expected longer loading times of scenery etc. No freezes, stutters or CTDs etc.  v4 is still way out performing my old v3 installation with the same addons; both better visuals and better frame rates.

Is this with 'dynamic lighting' on? I have heard that many non-native P3DV4 sceneries (e.g. straight ports) can result in a fps drop or stutters when dynamic lighting is on.

On the opposite I would be curious to know wether a SDK P3DV4 compiled scenery can also be used in V3...

2 hours ago, Cargostorm said:

Is this with 'dynamic lighting' on? I have heard that many non-native P3DV4 sceneries (e.g. straight ports) can result in a fps drop or stutters when dynamic lighting is on.

On the opposite I would be curious to know wether a SDK P3DV4 compiled scenery can also be used in V3...

I get a pretty hefty hit on fps anywhere with dynamic lighting on. Though I do have my settings fairly high. I'm only noticing the fps hit though.... no stutters or anything else.

On 6/19/2017 at 3:04 PM, X24 said:

Don't unzip the files. The installer uses them exactly as you downloaded them. In Central, click on the product, and then click on "installation options" and select the one that says "install from my manually downloaded file" and then navigate to the zip file location.

Thanks 

Hey,

I have a freeware global textures replacement (Which basicly has to be copied to SCENERY/WORLD/TEXTURE). I try to install it as texture but with no luck... Any help of how should I do it?

Hi waelphoto,

please provide your xml file.

 

Mike

On 6/6/2017 at 8:06 AM, captain420 said:

I believe this should be stickied or pinned. There are several threads going on about people trying to copy over existing add on airports to P3D v4 with success. But there seems to be a fair amount of confusion on a few others, including me on how to properly do this.

 

It would be nice if someone can explain the process in detail or if someone can provide us with a video tutorial on how to manage these add-ons for P3D v4, it would benefit the community greatly.

I am sorry to say, I dont see why this is a sticky

This thread has grown to 12 pages long and is like herding cats when it comes to what the OP asked for.

It just seems to be full of peoples random inputs on what they did pertaining to their scenery or someone flogging a product. (no offence, kudos to you and your product)

Not once in the 12 pages, is there a full explaination of what to do or how to do it. 

Either someone comes up with a guide or it be removed as a sticky. 

When a guide is written by someone, I may remove it as a sticky but if you want information on the process, it is available within the 12 pages. But you have to read through the posts.

 

Vic

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experience in the community.

I use a lot of Ray Smith created airport sceneries in FSX. Would this XML method work with those in P3D v4? Most of his airports generally consist of dropping a few .BGL files into the FSX directory structure. In some cases, he has us copy some textures from JFK jetways but it's always the same procedure so once you do it for one airport, you never have to do it again.

Here is an example from one of his airports, all of the following quoted content was created by and belongs to Ray Smith:

Quote

Runway Operation Files:
The CYEG_CW_RS.BGL file is with the Xwind runway activated where both runways will be used Simultaneously,    
The CYEG_RS.BGL file is the same as the default runway operation. 
Assigned parking is the same in both files.

To Install:

1. Take the runway operation file of your choice (only one) and the CYEG_CVX.bgl file and place both of these files into: Flight Simulator X/Addon Scenery/scenery folder

2. Take the CYEG_OBJ.BGL file and place this file into: Flight Simulator X/Scenery/Global/scenery folder

3. There are jetway extensions added, and to see these you need to add the textures for them, please follow these steps:

NOTE: If you have already done this with any of my other airports then this step is not necessary. 

Browse to the FSX\Scenery\NAME\texture folder, 
Go down the list until you see jfk_jetway.dds (day texture) and jfk_jetway_LM.dds (night texture).
"COPY" them from that folder and "PASTE" them into the Scenery\Global\Texture folder.

4. Start up the Flight Sim and the changes will be present

IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE ONLY USE ONE RUNWAY OPERATION FILE AT ANY TIME:
  i.e: make sure there is only "ONE" of the runway operation files and the CYEG_CVX.BGL file are in the Addon Scenery/scenery folder at any time, remove/delete any other CYEG.bgl to avoid incorrect parking and other airport conflicts.

If you have any AI Traffic Addons please make sure they have "NOT" installed another Afcad for this airport as this will also cause a conflict.

PLEASE NOTE: when using ATIS with the CYEG_CW_RS.BGL file you will hear the fake runways as well as the airport runways, this is the method used in activating non parallel runways and should be ignored or if preferred use the version CYEG_RS.BGL.

Thank you,

Jas

Edited June 29, 20178 yr by n4gix
Removed excessive quoted material

20 hours ago, jasonboche said:

I use a lot of Ray Smith created airport sceneries in FSX. Would this XML method work with those in P3D v4?

Ray Smith updated most if not all his airports for P3Dv3.2 (or thereabouts, not sure of the minor update number) to fix an issue with taxiways being invisible in P3D.  Any of those can be used with the add-on.xml approach.

I have created a "Addon Scenery" with Scenery and Texture subfolders in my P3Dv4 addons directory.  Put Ray Smiths AFCADs into the Scenery subfolder.  Under Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-Ons\ folder create a "Addon Scenery" subfolder and in it place a new add-ons.xml file. Add an <Addon.Component> for Addon Scenery pointing to the Scenery folder where the AFCADs are going to be placed.  All AFCADs placed there will be automatically picked up by P3D.

8 minutes ago, downscc said:

Ray Smith updated most if not all his airports for P3Dv3.2 (or thereabouts, not sure of the minor update number) to fix an issue with taxiways being invisible in P3D.  Any of those can be used with the add-on.xml approach.

I have created a "Addon Scenery" with Scenery and Texture subfolders in my P3Dv4 addons directory.  Put Ray Smiths AFCADs into the Scenery subfolder.  Under Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-Ons\ folder create a "Addon Scenery" subfolder and in it place a new add-ons.xml file. Add an <Addon.Component> for Addon Scenery pointing to the Scenery folder where the AFCADs are going to be placed.  All AFCADs placed there will be automatically picked up by P3D.

FSX/Scenery/Global/scenery/ files would go into the Scenery folder as well?

15 minutes ago, jasonboche said:

FSX/Scenery/Global/scenery/ files would go into the Scenery folder as well?

No, the files that go into /scenery/global/scenery only go into /scenery/global/scenery.  These are loaded below all addon scenery quite far down the list.

If you have scenery that adds files to that location, then that can be the <p3d>\Scenery\Global path or your <addon> \Scenery\Global location outside P3D with an add-on.xml file for "Global Addons," which will include autogen, effects, sound and simobjects.  I think all of this is covered earlier in this thread.

This thread has to be read in its entirety until a guide is written by someone.

I have been considering moving from FSX to v.4; but am not very computer literate. With Orbx, A2A, Real Air, and on and on. I don't think there is any way that an old guy like me can manage it. And that's too bad!!