crippling performance impact from high VATSIM traffic on my Squawkbox/FS9

[MichaelDay 0]

GreetingsI participated in VATSIM LAX Rush Hour event this past w/e, flying SWA336 - KOAK to KLAX. I was really looking forward to flying in this busy VATSIM traffic!I think I have a reasonable system (2.4 GHZ P4 w 512M, GF4 w 128M). I run FS9 flying PMDG 737NG, with FSNav running on a 2nd monitor, acting as my electronic flight bag. I had my SB Multiplayer Range set at 40, to be able to see lots of traffic around me. < I think this SB multiplayer range might be me my performance hog problem >My system ran smooth while flying out of OAK and cruising enroute, but as I got closer to LAX, where there was lots more traffic around,

[Vulcan 14]

The MP range will adversely affect frame rates Mike because your system is having to draw the other aircraft as well as calculate their position and flight path.Add to that complex scenery such as LAX (especially if you use add-on scenery such as SimFlyers) and you can easily be looking at a slide show.My advice would be to keep the range at 40nm while in cruise (if you really want to see the other aircraft) but reduce it to 10nm as you near a busy airport and even 5nm (I think SB goes that low) if heavy traffic.All that is in addition to the general tips for getting better FPS, it all helps.I use 2 computers for flying on VATSIM, the one running FS is an Athlon XP2500 running @ 3000MHz and I would expect poor FPS in the scenario you mentioned, espcially if I was flying an add-on aircraft such as the PMDG 737.HTH

[hopskip 253]

In real life it is very hard to see aircraft much further out than 10nm visually anyway. I keep my visual range set to 10 at all times. Not sure if that adversly effects the range of the TCAS in the pmdg 737-800 yet though. I know with AI bridge and the TCAS for the PSS products, Dreamfleet products or the addon PIC767 TCAS in FS2002, it didn't, but in FS2002/PMDG it may. But usually a plot won't show up any further than 20 NM out at any rate unless it's a high speed, same altitude, opposite direction traffic target. At any rate, a tcas caution target would be within 10 nm anyway.My advice is to keep the range at 10nm unless there is some specific reason not to...Also I tend to disable player names in the multiplayer window. I don't want to see orange callsigns flying around. I want to look out for those tiny dots in the distance. With everything going that way you can't even see anything beyond 20nm at al

[Brian Doney 127]

I used to feel the same way about the player names, but at night, that can sometimes be the only way to see another aircraft, since the CSL lights are very weak.

[Manny 1,293]

I can't see other aircrafts in VATSIM.. I am able to do everything else.I registered that DLL file with that freebie code.. I have the CSL directory... I also did that cut and paste of a bunch of code in some file....Hmm... Don't know what else to do.:(