Can one download of the XP-11 Scenery files be used with: XP-11 Mac, XP-11 PC, XP-10 Mac, and XP-10 PC?

Question

I have just purchased the Digital Download of XP-11 Beta which includes XP-10 Digital Download.  I have a fairly capable MacBook Pro which should run either version on low settings for now, but I am also building a dedicated PC Desktop for XP-11.  I would also like to run XP-10 occasionally, or at least until XP-11 is out of Beta.

My plan is to have 4 total installations (XP-10 on Mac, XP-11 on Mac, XP-10 on PC, XP-11 on PC)

Due to the large ~60GB scenery portion of the download, I would like to only have to download the scenery files once (specifically the XP-11 Scenery) if they are compatible with all 4 variations.  Or as least as few times as necessary if there is only partially compatibility.

I have already downloaded the scenery for XP-11 Beta.  I have read that the XP-11 program is backward compatible with XP-10 scenery, but is the XP-10 program forward compatible with XP-11 scenery? If XP-11 scenery is the same or better than XP-10 scenery, and XP-10 will properly load the XP-11 scenery, I will only need to download each of the program variations and then "share" the same scenery library between them.

Answer 1

You can copy the XP11 scenery from one directory (say, on your mac) over to your PC.'s XP11 installation. Re-run the installer once you do, and it should 'check/find' the new files. I have done this with my own XP11 OS X vs PC installation and it works fine.

The XP10 to XP11 formats I *believe* are the same (DSF-800 format, I had a look inside them yesterday); however the XP11 data is likely newer than the XP10 (due to updates in OpenStreetMap's database, etc..).

You can try it and let us know -- technically XP10 should be able to read the XP11 ".DSF" files. XP11 can definitely read the XP10 files (already tried).

Comments

Thank you for your thorough response.  I am unable to experiment with the PC side of things at the moment due to a lack of hard drive and ram for the build - they should arrive by Tuesday.  But the confirmation of PC and Mac interchangeable scenery files is reassuring and your insight on the XP10 vs XP11 scenery compatibility is hopeful as well.

I understand each operating system will need to have its own large "Global Scenery", but is there a way to 'share' the same Global Scenery folder between XP10 and XP11 on the same computer/operating system?

I tried testing on my Mac by moving the original Global Scenery folder outside of the X-Plane 11 folder and then creating an alias(shortcut) folder called "Global Scenery" which pointed to the original folder. This resulted in a "Missing Scenery" error message when trying to load the scenery files.  I then reverted back to the normal folder and sub-folder structure of the Global Scenery folder, but this time tried using an alias for each individual .dsf file.  This also did not work.

I don't think the error has anything to do with needing to re-run the installer to check for scenery, because if I replace the non-working alias .dsf file with a copied-and-pasted actual .dsf file the scenery will load without error automatically by simply restarting XP-11 and resuming the previous flight.

But being that the Global Scenery file is 66.26GB, I would hate to have to keep two copies of it on each operating system if there is a simple way to "point" X-Plane to look in a custom location.  By only needing one instance on each machine I could save 132.52GB of disk space, and depending on workaround options, could also create a network shared Global Scenery folder and only need one instance total for all 4 install combinations, thus saving almost 200GB of redundant storage space.

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What you want is a "Symlink"

i.e. point a directory to somewhere else on your file system

Windows and MacOSX support this.

It's not a "shortcut" nor an "alias".. Google for "NTFS SymLink" and OSX for "Symbolic link" (command in OSX is along the lines of  "ln -s /some/remote/path/ /my/local/path/where/i/want/it/to/show/up")

i.e. in terminal:

ln -s "/Volumes/WindowsDisk/Users/Me/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Global Scenery/" "~/Desktop/X-Plane 11/Global Scenery/"

this will make a symlink on your OSX version which points to your Fullly Installed Windows installation. Flip around as you see fit. Fix the paths above as required.

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Thank you for pointing me in the right direction with the “Symlink”.  After a slight learning-curve, I was able to successfully load scenery files, which were located in a folder outside of the install directory, into X-Plane 11 using your guidance.  Due to my PC’s power supply dying hours after installing my new SSD, I have been unable to experiment with a PC-Mac folder share/link.  I think I should be able to get it to work, but will report back with any problems I run into.

Meanwhile, I have been testing the compatibility of the XP-10 and XP-11 Global Scenery files.  As expected, and previously confirmed by other XP-11 users, XP-11 is backward compatible and will load both XP-10 and XP-11 scenery files without issue.  But as also previously stated, there likely isn’t any advantage to using the XP-10 scenery instead of the more recent XP-11 scenery.  

Unfortunately, it looks like X-Plane 10 is NOT forward compatible and is unable to load XP-11 Scenery Files and results in the following two error messages:

“Missing Scenery
This region has missing scenery!
Areas with no scenery will have nothing but water around them.
The missing file is +40-100/+46-093.dsf.
Would you like to install the missing scenery now?
Continue with Water Only        Install Missing Scenery”

“Be Advised
The following scenery package has a problem and will therefore not be loaded:
Global Scenery/X-Plane 1- Global Scenery/
It requires an additional library scenery package that is not installed or it is missing some of its files.
Learn More     Understood”

I have tried pointing to the scenery files using a symbolic link as well as directly copying and pasting the actual folders and files into the appropriate locations.  I have verified that XP-10 will correctly load newly added XP-10 scenery files without re-running the installer or needing additional folders/files by testing with XP-10 scenery files downloaded through the XP-10 installer. Replacing the XP-10 .dsf file with the XP-11 .dsf file reverts back to the error messages.

Maybe there is a simple solution like there was with my previous problem.  But if anyone knows of a way to make XP-10 work with the XP-11 scenery files, I would love to hear about it as it would save a lot of storage space.  Otherwise I guess I will just have to download the XP-10 scenery files as needed.