GenX - Vol 7 Scotland Central....... is out!!

[Cruachan]

Hi,

I had pre-ordered this product and yesterday received notification from Flightstore that it had been dispatched

No word yet regarding Treescapes. Hope Earth Simulations Ltd are on the ball and are ready to release their coverage of this area.

And then there is........

Over to you Iain.

How lucky we are to have such talented developers eager to provide us with unmatched vicarious pleasure by satisfying our yearnings to explore and experience our beloved country from such a realistic aerial and ground based perspective.

Regards,

Mike

[Cruachan]

Arrived this morning!

Am I the first?

It's a thicker box than usual - wonder what's inside?

Will install later today - can't wait.

Mike  

Edit: in fact the box is the same size as Scotland South. Scotland Central has 5 installation disks; Scotland South has 7.

[bluebell]

Also got my copy to-day, will be installing in the next hour. 

[Cruachan]

Hi bluebell,

Lucky you - seems my joy at receiving the final piece of the jigsaw was premature
The darn thing won't install!!

I have an Alienware M18xR1 (Windows 7 Pro SP1) with all the other Scotland VFR Gen X Volumes installed + Treescapes covering those areas. However, the Vol 7 installer takes an age to load and appears to be having difficulty accessing the cab files on Disk 1. It's as if the drive is having a problem accessing the disk. I can get a file listing in Windows Explorer but as soon as I run the setup executable (tried as Administrator and disabled antivirus protection (ESET NOD32)) the drive starts what I describe as a repetitive hunting noise. Eventually the Setup welcome window opens and I can adjust the pathways for the installation. I click on Install and 240.21MB (this figure varies each time) of 3.77GB is extracted immediately. Then nothing and soon the dreaded (Not Responding) appears. Despite this notification the thing continues to load, albeit extremely slowly - after 15-20 mins 411.46MB had been extracted with '2 hours remaining'. Thinking there might be a problem with the drive I tried an external HP dvd420e drive but with identical results.

The odd thing is that the installer appears to work fine on my desktop drive under Windows XP SP3. Sadly, that's no longer a viable option as FSX/P3D performance on my AMD Athlon Dual Core 6400+ CPU is way behind what I can achieve now with an i7.

I should say that I can recall experiencing similar difficulties with one or two of the other volumes when they were installed a few months ago. On those occasions persistence reaped its reward and each Vol installed following several attempts. Not so this time.

I've written to Playsimspublishing support but, right now, I'm not feeling over optimistic. So frustrating after having waited such a long time for this release.

Just my luck - I should have curbed my initial excitement. Talk about tempting fate..lol

Mike

[chasordod]

Hi Mike,

You are not alone - I'm having the same problem. Currently, I'm copying the dvd's to hard disk and will try installing from there. It took a little under an hour to copy disk1, and it looks as though disk2 will be quicker. Not a rapid exercise, but faster than running the install off the dvd's.

These first two dvd's of volume7 are much slower to read than any of the other volumes.

Will let you know how I get on.

Charles

[bluebell]

Hi Mike,
Just finished installing and had a quick check flight from EGPD. All looks great.
It took over 2 hours for the first disk to install, the other four a lot less, just under 4 hours
in total.
Hope you get it installed that first disk seems very slow was showing 5 hour install at first.

Best of luck,
Tom.

[Cruachan]

Hi Tom, Charles

Glad I'm not alone with this.

I decided to ignore the 'Not Responding' message and let the extremely slow extraction process on Disk 1 proceed. It completed after approximately 2-3 hours (not sure exactly as I got fed up waiting around) and when I returned the installer was requesting Disk 2. Thereafter the extraction and installation continued to completion at what I would consider to be normal pace and without any errors being reported. All was done and dusted by 8.30pm. Can't say exactly but I estimate the total time taken to have been 4-5 hours.

So, it would appear that the problem does indeed point to the Setup executable having difficulty with data access on Disk 1 while running under Windows 7.

Hopefully our experiences will help to reassure others that Scotland Central will install providing you are patient and leave it alone to complete.

Off to do a defrag then free space consolidation and finally a backup - I don't intend going through this again if I can help it. It will be interesting to get feedback from Playsimspublishing Support. I'll let you know what they have to say about this issue.

Regards,

Mike

[birdmanmike]

FWIW had similar including "hunting" noise from drive. Several times - then cancelled again - DELETED the Vol 7 folder then rebooted PC.  Installed all in about 2 hours.  It gets bu**ered if you don't delete because it recognises that some files already present.  But be aware - if you cancelled then not all complete,  hence delete.  Had the same with Scotland North - wateron land - but delete folder and re-install - and be patient - and it'll go.  Be aware of the .bat patch from FS new forum ex Tony after install

And then it's over to the Iains and Vicky

[Cruachan]

Assuming my installation is okay, I thought the following might prove useful as a check:

Volume 7 File Count:

05mPhoto: Size on disk = 36.3GB (39,008,276,480 bytes)..... *see below
Scenery - 445

5mDTM: Size on disk = 883MB (926,642,176 bytes)..... **see below
Scenery - 445

Airports: Size on disk = 184KB (188,416 bytes)
Scenery - 18

Docs: 3 = 4.61MB (4,837,376 bytes)

Links: 2 = 8.0KB (8,192 bytes)

Vectors: Size on disk = 148KB (151,552 bytes)
Scenery - 4

*Size on disk incorrect as I have 9 zero length files
**File count may be incorrect - will update once this has been clarified

Mike

[Cruachan]

Hi,

Completed a quick flight in the Robinson over the Isle of Mull. I note a bit of work is still needed around the coastline and lochs where there is noticeable bleed through of default terrain textures in quite a few places. Also, I note Loch Scridain is showing a line artifact projecting from the southern shoreline. Perhaps the Scotflight update will help tidy things up as I see Glenforsa (ULL) also requires some attention.

As I said, this was a brief flight as I was keen to see the Ross of Mull where my wife and I have had many enjoyable holidays over the years. I must say I was very impressed to see many familiar areas displayed so realistically. Just needs some Treescapes embellishment now. No sign of Vol 7 being released as yet. Hopefully it's not far off.

Mike

[chasordod]

Hi,

Successfully copied the installer from DVD's to USB3 portable drive yesterday and ran it this morning. It took 9 minutes from start to finish and worked perfectly. I may do the same with other volumes - it would help my resistance to reinstalls.

Charles

[birdmanmike]

Mike, I have  36.5 GB (39,248,805,888 bytes) for the 05mPhoto  If you restarted the install - did you delete the existing Vol 7 folder?  I've said elsewhere you may otherwise have incomplete or zero length files  - I did.   My 5mDTM a bit different - 10 less files, but you may not have run the mesh  .bat patch from the Flightstore forum which which removes some incorrect stuff (you have to trust it - it's from TonyM I believe)

[Cruachan]

Hi Mike 'birdmanmike'

Darn it, you are quite right. I really don't think I can face going through all that again - I may have been lucky first time around and now I'm feeling that I don't want to risk losing what has in fact appears to have installed successfully.

The zero length files in my installation are all in the 05mPhoto folder and are 9 in number:

12_1477_380_05mP.bgl

12_1477_381_05mP.bgl

12_1478_375_05mP.bgl

12_1478_379_05mP.bgl

12_1478_380_05mP.bgl

12_1478_381_05mP.bgl

12_1479_374_05mP.bgl

12_1479_375_05mP.bgl

12_1479_379_05mP.bgl


Any chance you could zip these up from your installation and send them to me, please? it would save an awful lot of hassle. My email address is m.g.c.campbellATbtinternet.com.

Also, I'd appreciate a little help finding the mesh .bat file at the Flightstore Forum. I've tried but without any success - probably not looking in the right place.

Many thanks.

Kind regards,

Mike

[birdmanmike]

The patch page here under Vol 7  http://forum.flightstore.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7
Main forum index for FS  http://forum.flightstore.co.uk/index.php.  Trying 175 Mb upload for email via Google drive

[TonyM]

Guys,
If you have the freeware "7 Zip" installed you can simply, (once you locate the right disc - I don't have a file list), open the cab file and copy out the files you need. Literally drag and drop them into the correct folder.

When installed correctly you should not have any default scenery on display. Only place you may encounter a problem is the Mull of Galloway if you have the new ES Isle of Man installed. The IOM terrain files break the Volume 8 ones. The fix is to located the IOM terrain lower in the library than Volume 8 and all is well.

Tony