Installing FSX, Orbx Scenery on Separate Drives

[Eagle Spirit 1]

Soon I will be taking possession of a new high end i7, 4770 system. My plan was to install the OS on one 120GB SSD, FSX on another 120GB SSD, and my sceneries/Rex on a 1TB VelociRaptor drive. Three separate drives, which I thought would be beneficial, as things would load faster. However, reading recently, this "non techie" mind's interpretation is that Orbx sceneries must be loaded on the same drive as FSX. So, if this is true, I've wasted a bit of $$'s with a drive I don't need. Am I wrong with my read interpretation?

 

Would greatly appreciate any input from you.

 

Please don't advise me to visit Orbx forums. I was a member, but find them, imho, to be very "thinned skinned" and very intolerant of criticism of their product. Although I hold their product in high regard, I did offer criticism, and subsequently, was  banned from their forum.  :unsure:

 

Regards, Eagle

[jime59 58]

I run 3 hard drives with no problems.

(C:) Windows 7 64bit

(D:) FSX and numerous other Games 

(F:) Scenery(Orbx) and other Downloads/Add-ons

 

You'll have no problems with your suggested set-up and the way you want to do it.

 

jime

[zmak 331]

No its not true I have my very very large ORBX folder on a separate drive. Grab a program called junction link magic and download it.

 

Its very simple to set up and it tricks FSX into thinking its downloading to its own folder but its not, your sending the files to your TB VelociRaptor drive. You can also move your fsx scenery and aircraft folders as well

[Reader 2,009]

No its not true I have my very very large ORBX folder on a separate drive. Grab a program called junction link magic and download it.

 

Its very simple to set up and it tricks FSX into thinking its downloading to its own folder but its not, your sending the files to your TB VelociRaptor drive. You can also move your fsx scenery and aircraft folders as well

 

No, it is true.

 

What you are doing is of course fine but nevertheless, the OrbX files must be placed into the main FSX

folder.

This method may place the files themselves onto the other disc but they are installed into the required location.

 

Doing this will remove any (small) advantage in loading speed gained by using an SSD, as they can load only at HDD speed.

 

@ Eagle Spirit, Your OS on one SSD, FSX on the second, OrbX files linked as zoran describes and all your other

scenery on the HDD is the best solution with your impending build.

[Rimshot 1,134]

So basically you could move all the contents of a folder to a new location and simply create a link to it? In my case Orbx is located under FSX, in C:\Flight Simulator\Orbx. Will it work if I move all content of this folder to D:\Orbx and create a link to that new folder? I assume the original empty Orbx has to stay in place, correct?

[zmak 331]

So basically you could move all the contents of a folder to a new location and simply create a link to it? In my case Orbx is located under FSX, in C:\Flight Simulator\Orbx. Will it work if I move all content of this folder to D:\Orbx and create a link to that new folder? I assume the original empty Orbx has to stay in place, correct?

yes empty folder stays in place and when the link is created you will see a shortcut arrow next to c\fsx\orbx

[greggerm 312]

May I make a suggestion?

 

If you have the space, put ALL your FSX related scenery items (perhaps with the exception of a huge photoscenery library or very rarely used scenery packages) onto your sim-dedicated SSD. You will want as much as humanly possible on that drive to take advantage of the vastly improved loading speeds you bought!

 

The only reason to put scenery files on a sidecar drive would be if you ran out of space - for that reason, perhaps it's best to install everything to the SSD first, then offload things using the junctions suggestion above when space gets tight.

 

-Greg

[jandjfrench 3]

Hi,

I don't see any need for a special program to move a folder to another location and create a link to it.  I previously wanted to move my SimObjects folder from a 60GB SSD to an HDD.  Using Windows 7, here's how:

 

1) MOVE SimObjects to C:\FS\FSX (use the new folder location here)

 

2) Run CMD.exe in the main FSX folder by pressing shift, right-clicking and selecting "Open Command window here"

 

3) Enter mklink /J SimObjects C:\FS\FSX\SimObjects to create the link. (use the new folder location here)

 

As far as installing ORBX scenery I would install it to wherever it likes and then follow the above procedure. You'll see a little red arrow on the link folder but there will be no difference in viewing or making changes to the folder contents either by double clicking the link or the re-located folder itself.

 

Don't create a link to an external drive as they have a habit of spinning down and that wouldn't be good for scenery loading.

 

Jim F.

[AVSIM Admin 4]

This is an automatic message.

 

This topic has been moved from "MS FSX Forum" to "The Unofficial ORBX Forum". This move has been done for a number of possible reasons.

• The most likely reason is that the post was off topic.
• The topic could also have contained images or a video that were not appropriate to the original forum it was posted in.
• The images might not have been "illustrative" or "explanatory" in nature.
• The topic could have been moved because we deemed it to be more appropriately placed elsewhere.

Please ensure that your posts are "on topic" and contain illustrative images or videos as appropriate. Do not post videos or images just for entertainment purposes anywhere but in the screen shot or video forums. See our image posting rules here.

 

Members who continue to post off topic posts can be denied entry to specific forums in order to reduce and remove the practice. Your cooperation is appreciated.

[birdguy 3,943]

First, Eagle, welcome to the 'banned from Orbx' club.

 

Second, I am running all of my FSX/Orbx stuff on my 500GB SSD D Drive. I put Pilot's FS Global Ultimate Mesh (all three of them)on my 250GB F Drive which also has my trainsimming programs. Pilot's mesh runs 101 GB.

 

It all runs very well.

 

Noel

[Eagle Spirit 1]

Hi guys, ty for your input.

Noel, you were banned from "Orbx Club" too?

 

Well, I ended up going with two SSD's. A 500 GB for FSX and Orbx and other sceneries, the other for my "C" drive. I have stopped the purchase of Orbx sceneries, as they sell only download versions now, it seems. Runs beautifully! Very happy with this setup.

 

Has this been moved because we have a "good ol boys" atmosphere here?

 

Eagle

[hawkeye52 8]

I think it has been moved because it was a question about if Orbx scenery can be somewhere else...therefore it was moved to the orbx forum..no secret there.

 

As for your question, I do the same as your intention, FSX plus main scenery and aircraft are on SSD and the /Orbx folder is actually a symbolic link to a different drive so windows and fsx knows no different when it runs its installers and such.  Hope this helps!

[B777ER 2,484]

I think it has been moved because it was a question about if Orbx scenery can be somewhere else...therefore it was moved to the orbx forum..no secret there.

 

As for your question, I do the same as your intention, FSX plus main scenery and aircraft are on SSD and the /Orbx folder is actually a symbolic link to a different drive so windows and fsx knows no different when it runs its installers and such. Hope this helps!

Question, I want to do this with a bunch of third party scenery. What I don't understand is say one of the airport scenery has an update with a self installing EXE file. Do you point it to the new location or the old?

[zmak 331]

You point it to the old drive. Remember the update searches for the folder in FSX and installs there but gets diverted elsewhere

[B777ER 2,484]

You point it to the old drive. Remember the update searches for the folder in FSX and installs there but gets diverted elsewhere

 

Thanks Zoran! One last question for you (or anyone else that would not mind chiming in), Is it recommended to use " junction link magic" program or just doing what is outlined above in reply #8? I am comfortable using the cmd prompt window. Just wondering if long term it is better to use that aforementioned program?