Inital thoughts on Ultimate Traffic.

[Guest]

Firstly I must say that UT is in and of itself a fantastic product and I am not sorry I spent $30 on it. However The FPS hit is just waaaay too much to be practical IMO.Flying around viewing the genaric scenery is fine but anytime the view includes any portion of a major hub the frames drop from 20 to 5 with a great deal of stuttering, and this is AFTER I have reduced all the deatil and display settings quite drasticaly. This, to me is just not worth the beauty and detail that UT offers as it tends to kill any sort of immersion factor.If anyone is interested maybe we can post some FPS and system specs here. Could be just my system and I'd like to know if anyone does not have this problem and if so what kind of system and/or settings it might take to avoid.Like I said, UT is a first rate product in every way. But maybe it's just a little too ambisious at this time.My specs (with UT, viewing a major airport terminal KORD, etc): FPS:5 to 10 (down from 18 to 20 without UT)Settings: Mid-level across the board (Down from High-end without UT)CPU: AMD 1.4 Thunderbird (OC'ed and stable at 1.55)Motherboard: Epox K7+Video: Xtasy G4 Ti 4400 (FSAA makes no major change in FPS and is currently set at 2X, Ansio OFF)HD: Maxtor 7200 RPMMonitor: COMPAC 21" 1100. (Fairly old, could be part of the problem?)RAM: 1.0 Gig Pc 2100 DDRWell it's off to work I go, take care and have a great day.Andy 'Jammer' Simmons.

[greeneg 0]

Hi Andy. My guess is that you are up against the old CPU wall, even over-clocked, 1.55gHz is not going to win any speed records and FS2002 is notoriously CPU dependant. On top of that, my own experience with my previous system tells me that you are probably going to have to reduce your AI setting at a minimum. You mentioned that AA doesn't have much effect on your FPS; it was a significant driver for FPS with my geForce3 based system, again that's one of those choices. You might also get rid of some of your shadowing: that can be another big hitter in terms of FPS.I suggest that you are going to have to make some compromises and adjust things according to your priorities-- however you choose to set them.I can tell you that on a faster system, there is no essential difference in FPS between UT and Project AI with both set at 100%;if anything, the UT FPS may be a bit better than Proj AI.Good luck with it, I hope those thoughts help a bit.Best Regards,

[kerosene31 349]

I was thinking of buying but can anyone compare the performance versus Project AI's freeware traffic? Is the performance similar? I know for example if you download PAI's Air Canada, and go to Toronto, things get pretty busy, but it runs well enough on my system. Thanks

[greeneg 0]

I can't see any significant difference in Frame Rates between PAI and Ultimate Traffic on my system. I would think that if you are not having a problem with PAI then you shouldn't with UT either.

[Guest ha5mvo]

Craig,I can tell you the hit on frames is exactly the same as with PAI ( which is no surprise as they use the same models).Sure in busy A/Ps such as YYZ I have to turn the sliders down a little.Simflyers YYZ with 60 to 70% gives a reasonable 10FPS on my not-so-impressive 1.5GHz CPU (GF4 Ti4200 vid card) with all display settings right of center. On smaller A/P's I have no problems running it at 100% traffic.Oh, yes, I found AA has a very significant effect on FR so I turn it off ( never noticed a big difference in visual quality anyway).cheers//Mike

[Guest Salbado]

Never used had PAI but the UT is behaving rather well. I run a 5 PC network homebuilt, FDS, wxRE, FDS, Project Magenta, and now UT and I get about 11-15 FPS with everything maxed in complex Simflyer airports on wheels up I go to 30FPS and hold it. I think you might be getting short on CPU though as I had some trouble getting this performance with a 2.4Ghz. I beefed up to 3.06/RDRAM-PC1066 and sometimes still wish I had more horsepower...

[kerosene31 349]

Thanks to all for the advice. I think I will be installing tonight.

[Guest]

Thanks for the input. After reading a few of the other post it is starting to look as if the CPU may be the issue. I have adjusted most of the items you listed already.I have been looking at building a new system for awhile now but am having a hard time deciding wether to stick with AMD or revert back to Intel.Looks like it's time to take the leap and make a choice.Thanks again,Andy 'Jammer' Simmons.

[rpowers 5]

Does UT run with Project PAI or does PAI have to be deleted?Thanks,Ron

[Guest sssummer]

PAI does NOT have to be deleted. UT makes a back up traffic.bgl file of you previous AI automatically! I highly recommend this program. Best add on I have ever purchased.

[rpowers 5]

Thanks for that.How long do you suppose the download is @ 47K?Thanks,Ron

[Bill McQueen 0]

Andy, I don't suppose you have the "Reflections" box ticked by any chance do you within FS ? This will make a significant difference to your frame rate if you uncheck it, also unchecking Transform and Lighting will help and having the filtering set to Bilinear.Cheers :-)Bill

[Guest]

I can't tell you at 47K...but at 300K the download lasted 12 minutes.You might want to upgrade to a broad-band setup.Cheers!Mitch R.

[rpowers 5]

Thanks for the comeback.I'll just start it before I go to bed.So all I have to do is install it and do nothing with my Project PAI?Thanks,Ron

[scott967 62]

Seems to me the PAI models are a little heavy on poly count, at least compared to AI Aardvark.scott s..