ai still the main fps eater regardless low poly ac.

[Guest Pabra]

I'm using the latest aardvark ac but little difference in fps meaning still low around airports. Disabling all ai gets frames back to normal.I really expected better results with low poly ac :-( . I do have a low end system but still...

[Dillon 2,197]

My specs are as follows:Dell 1.5gig1gig RDRamGeForce4 TI 4200100gig HDI had to uninstall MyTraffic because of the same reason you discribed even though all the aircraft had a low poly count (they still knocked my frames way down). I liked the concept of MyTraffic but they really need to update their models to GMAX. I guess it doesn't matter about the poly count, heck I don't know what could solve this but a patch which we will not see. My machine is fast enough to deal with the default AI in most cases so for me it's best to stay with those for now. I haven't had any experiance with the Aardvark AC you mention but I'm sure I would experiance the same results as you.

[Guest]

Sir that's because A.I. has little to do with your video card thecode for A.I runs on your CPU and not on your video card so while you card has to display the above poly's the A.I routines run on themain system CPU. So your video card has to do a holding pattern whilethe main CPU does it's thing and then transfers that data back overthe slower system bus back to your video card so it can display your"A.I." aircraft on the screen. Hope this helps to explain things. Dan

[Guest Pabra]

I understand the way the cpu has to calc. the ac but the aardvark ac has physically less polygons as seen in the .mdl which is smaller than the default ac.Maybe the model is smaller but not smarter in design. I have some small scenery that cripples my system opposed to large ones that run smooth. This could be the way it's designed.

[wsieffert 0]

Ahem! They are GMAX aircraft models. Most, if not all, were supplied by Project AI.

[wsieffert 0]

Take a little trip to KATL, especially if you have the Project AI Delta package installed. Even 15 miles from the airport, when you turn onto the runway heading, the FPS will take a dive. Not only does the scenery engine have to display the airport, but it also needs to render all those AI, even though you probably can't see them. The closer you get the worse it gets. I have to pause the simulation and reduce the AI to below 50% to get decent FPS or smooth flying.Try this test, go to an airport that causes low FPS due to AI. Hover facing the airport, select the slew mode (Y), then rotate the aircraft 360 degrees using the 1 or 3 key on the keypad. Watch the FPS as you rotate.

[nigelgrant 4]

Unfortunately, the AI traffic density question at this stage of its develpoment/ is not built on a very rational base. If you set your AI traffic at 50% that means only the flights setup in the flightplan file at 50% or greater will show, ie at any location - if ALL flights are 50% or over in the flightplan ALL will show; conversely, if ALL flights are setup at less than 50% NONE will show! So this aspect depends on the mix of the flight plan designer.But this is further complicated by the number of gates available to accomodate these flights. Where there is too much activity at an airport I eliminate some of the gates.AI traffic would be better if the flights were not assigned a % appearance but the AI slider would randomly select the numer of flights to achieve that percentage. Maybe this is for the future.NigelVancouver

[akriesman 0]

Hi Dan (Happy Holidays),I think you bring up a good point. It really seems like FS2002's "management" of the AI system takes a big hit on the CPU, not just the polygon display.I would not have expected this, but it appears to be the case.Allen

[Hornit 3]

I have to echo wsieferts comments. I have an athlon 1.4 ghz machine with 512mb ram and a GF4 4200 with 128mb ram. Most of the time in this sim I can run around at 25-27 fps (locked at 27) In heavy sceneries I get in the mid teens sometimes a bit higher. If I turn on Ai to anything above 40% it becomes almost unflyable, especially in places like ATL with two runways operating. It will go to single digits. I'm sure a faster CPU will help, but my hunch is not too much. We will have to wait for really fast CPU's for the crowded skies we all want to see. While PAI is a great thing, its mostly for screenshots IMHO. FS doesn't do a good job with AI in general, even default AI can cause quite a hit. If you want to fly in these places, turn some things down and the first ones to go would be the high detail add-on sceneries and AI traffic. Hornit

[Dillon 2,197]

Why then do they look so much like FS98's aircraft? You would think new GMAX models would look a lot better these days than they did a few years back when we were using Bao's Flight Shop. MyTraffic has a Northwest 727. I just went to ProjectAI and they have not yet painted a Northwest 727, MyTraffic does say they've used ProjectAI's models but these planes don't look as good as the default aircraft. All I know is they ran on my system worse or just as bad as the default AI, might as well stick with the better looking models. Maybe FS2k4 will have more variety.

[1mikel151 71]

Sad but true! I have the same specs as you Hornit, with the G4 4600 and 1 gig of DDR and I just now installed the PAI, it is wonderful, but even though I have my system tweaked and have it all maxed out, it does get pretty slow at times. I also installed some 'unofficial" flightplans, went to KMSP and could barely move with all the NW traffic there! LOL Tried the gulfstream as AI at my VAs corporate headquarters in Santa Monica and it was a big frameater!I should be getting a new P4 3+gig soon, sure that will make some of a difference. Gotta love ALL the gates at KLAX full though! LOLRegards, Michael

[Guest]

Badly designed scenery done with the "old tools" can kill frame ratesof course!! Even on the sceneries I've done we not only have to take great care on how we construct our meshes (models) but we have to be very careful on what tools we use as well. You see every time your video card has to go into "holding mode" waiting for 2002 to "translate" some improperly done call for it's services or in the case of "A.I." for those routines to be carried out by the CPU you will get a frame rate hit (your card knows nothing about when UAL orBA is flying from A to :( So until either CPU's run at 10 Ghz or we all have an FS that can run on multiple CPU's we will all just have to put up with A.I killing our frame rates. Anyway it's Xmas everybody so have a nice one!! Dan

[Guest]

Hi Allen until we all learn the innards of Dir X really work(and that could be real fun!!) Think of how much low level programing isneeded to "do" A.I. in hardware! way beyond what we are all trying todo over in the scenery forum with things like shadow calls and trying to figure out things like octrees that the hardware allready"understands" To"do" A.I. in real time would be far harder I beleveas many of the calls are to do with 2002 and not direct calls to thehardware. Anyway sir have a very merry Xmas! Dan

[Guest]

the trick is to turn off aircraft shadows,they are a huge FPS eater and visually you don't even notice the shadows are not there.I have a P4 1,5GHz,265RAM and a Gefore364MB,have nearly every slider maxed out,have all PAI official and unofficial traffic at 100% and still get very good framerates,even at Heathrow.

[Guest]

The one tried and true trick to increase framerates in AI:1. Turn off aircraft reflections2. Turn off aircraft shadows3. Set aircraft textures to the lowest level possible.These can be found in the Options>display>aircraft menu.Yes, this will make the AI aircraft look really blurry BUT when you are on approach to KATL, you dont see them anyway. Your framerates will improve dramatically and you will be able to land. You can even leave the AI slider at 100% and still get good results with this. For the lower end systems, you should see an improvement of at least 2-3 fps. Land, Taxi in, and park. Then you can go back into the menu, and turn all these things back up to see the AI looking good again.Also, these changes are instantaneous....meaning that FS does not have to take precious time to re-load any thing (since you are not changing scenery settings).Lagaz.(My system: AMD Athlon XP 2200+, PNY GeForce4 Ti4600, 528MBPC2700 RAM, Sound Blaster Live! Value, Asus A7V333 with two 40Gig Hard drives on the RAID array)