UT2: how good is it?

[Drumcode 1,914]

It uses real world schedules and only launches planes about 20 minutes before a scheduled departure. If nothing is scheduled, nothing is there

Ahh, makes sense now. Is there a time rule for arrived planes as well? 20 mins after arrival it's being removed from the airport?

[PIC007 82]

Ahh, makes sense now. Is there a time rule for arrived planes as well? 20 mins after arrival it's being removed from the airport?

I am guessing there is, but I never stick around long enough to find out. I just leave my settings on 100% commercial and 5% GA, until I get annoyed with the puddle jumpers and disable them :(

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Ahh, makes sense now. Is there a time rule for arrived planes as well? 20 mins after arrival it's being removed from the airport?

Yes, they vanish 20 minutes after arrival and appear 20 minutes prior to take off.Like I mentioned in this thread a few times, if it's an issue for the user and you have the time, you can get around the "20 minute" rule by using Power Pack and importing the schedules from WOAI or anyone else who puts out a traffic.bgl schedule for an airline. So for example, if you want all the American Airline planes to be at an airport the whole time from when they land until they take off again, you can take a current AA traffic schedule that you download from here, Alpha India Group, or where ever else and import it using Power Pack, then assign the paints and they will not disappear 20 minutes prior or after flight. Some people have done this, but then the risk is having too much traffic and lower FPS. Frankly I have never bothered because I have been happy with the amount of traffic during normal day light hours. For the middle of the night its not a big deal to me.Either way, there has to be a compromise. Run UT2 at 100% and get good FPS but not as much parked traffic in the middle of the night, or run traffic .bgl's and suffer worse FPS if you run it at 100%. In that case of the traffic bgl's you will probably have to lower the traffic slider anyway which will probably result in the same amount of traffic you would get with UT2 at 100%.Neither is perfect.

[Mike T 220]

Yes, they vanish 20 minutes after arrival and appear 20 minutes prior to take off.Like I mentioned in this thread a few times, if it's an issue for the user and you have the time, you can get around the "20 minute" rule by using Power Pack and importing the schedules from WOAI or anyone else who puts out a traffic.bgl schedule for an airline. So for example, if you want all the American Airline planes to be at an airport the whole time from when they land until they take off again, you can take a current AA traffic schedule that you download from here, Alpha India Group, or where ever else and import it using Power Pack, then assign the paints and they will not disappear 20 minutes prior or after flight. Some people have done this, but then the risk is having too much traffic and lower FPS. Frankly I have never bothered because I have been happy with the amount of traffic during normal day light hours. For the middle of the night its not a big deal to me.Either way, there has to be a compromise. Run UT2 at 100% and get good FPS but not as much parked traffic in the middle of the night, or run traffic .bgl's and suffer worse FPS if you run it at 100%. In that case of the traffic bgl's you will probably have to lower the traffic slider anyway which will probably result in the same amount of traffic you would get with UT2 at 100%.Neither is perfect.

Unfortunately, this is a less than ideal solution. If I now have to go back and import WOAI schedules to make my airport look like it would if I had installed WOAI in the first place I'm not sure what the reason is to buy UT2 just to get what I had anyway! Not to mention the fact that there are literally hundreds of different airlines that I'd have to import to get the realism that I have now for free (thanks to the dedication of the freewre AI authors). So that's the dilema and the reason I requested a refund. The UT2 models are a great improvement over UT for FS2004 but the AI engine is a poor design IMHO especially for those who have a high end system capable for having 100% AI at large airports.There is an easy fix and all they had to do was tie the UT2 traffic compile options according to the way the user wants to have the traffic presented. A simple checkbox to ask the user: do you want realistic traffic which will cause full airports and a performance hit depending on your system or a checkbox to do the 20 minute spawn thing. If you have the horsepower there is nothing like being number 15 in line for the active at KORD with 10 airplanes behind you. There is also nothing like watching the type of traffic change at the airport as the evening draws closer and the transatlantic heavies start hogging up the airport. UT kills this realism at the start of a flight. Similarly after a long heavy flight into a large airport there is nothing like seeing the chaos of other aircraft going about their business when you arrive. But when you land and the airport only has a few airplanes and most of the gates are empty...especially late at night when only a few flights are leaving this is terrible! For instance, lets say your flight starts at 7:00pm at JFK. Well the majority of the aircraft leaving within the next 20 minutes are often heavies so that's the only aircraft at the gates and the rest are empty. If there are only 5 aircraft leaving in 20 minutes there are only 5 aircraft other than yours at the entire JFK airport! If you land really late instead of being met with an airport full of planes shut down for the night you are met with a ghost town. I use 100% AI airline traffic all the time and never had to touch that setting once but others might which is fine. That's why they need to make this option user configurable without having to spend hours or days of time after you spend money on a package that should do it for you.

[DalSingh 1]

Right now I have MyTraffic 5.3 (I think). That's very nice, because it gives you tons and tons of aircraft (also many Russian ones), and tons of flightplans for them to fly. However, I always stumble over one thing: I really dislike the actual airplane models. I think they are rather bland, and after using (and still using) WoAI's packages in FS9, going to MyTraffic is an enormous step down. The freeware models WoAI uses are much better, honestly, than the models included with MyTraffic. So here's my question: How does UT2 fare? I have read reviews about it, and the general impression I got, was that the models are very good but the entire thing also seems FPS intensive. Can anybody give recommendations/views?

My Advice is, stay away from UT2....I used UT1 on FS2004 and it was fantastic, great looking AI aircraft, easy to use interface and most importantly of all, on screen traffic.So naturally I invested in UT2 for FSX.... and thats where the problem began....Traffic takes quite a long time to spool up, around 15-20 minutes for aircraft to actually take off and land at the airport... once the 'spool' time is over, the traffic begins to flow and all is good until you click on a menu item. If you click any menu item from the FSX tool bar, such as options, the entire traffic will reset, all on screen AI traffic will disappear and you will have to wait 15 minutes again for the traffic to restart.... it completely unrealistic and breaks the realism.Flight1's response was that they use a different method to inject AI traffic into the simulator, one downside of this new approach is that it has to redraw the AI everytime an item from the menu bar is invoked.... UT1 never had this problem. There is absolutely no way I could live with not being able to use the FSX main menu and risk losing AI traffic that takes ages to start.It's also true that you get a lot of empty airports with hardly any traffic - flight1 say they are using real schedules however.Instead I now use MyTraffic X 5.2 and what a fantastic add on it is, instant traffic, good density traffic everywhere, I am thrilled with it. The AI models do not look as good as those feautred in UT2 but when I click on an item in the FSX toolbar and come back to the sim guess what.... my AI is still there!! As for flight schedule accuracy I would say its 90% bang on based on the airports I have flown to.... and the GA is great too.Word of warning on the UT2 30 day refund:Within 2 days of owning UT2 I couldn't bare it no more, I requested an immediate refund - I had paid via PayPal, it took over a week to get my money back. They fobbed me off with support tickets telling me they had refunded me and PayPal takes a few days for refunds to come through, this is false as I trade using PayPal and refunds are done instantly if not within 24 hours... they honestly made me feel like I was being fraudulent....Any member of Flight1 reading this is welcome to PM me for more details, I have the ticket number following the farce I had to go through to get the refund.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Traffic takes quite a long time to spool up, around 15-20 minutes for aircraft to actually take off and land at the airport...

LOL, I think something was wrong with yours. When my flight first loads it takes about 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on the airport I am at for the traffic to load. Once its loaded I have planes landing sometimes within minutes. If mine took 15 to 20 minutes to spool up as you put it, I would have refunded it also. When UT2 first came out I diabled it until the first service pack came out since it was causing problems with loading. Now with the first SP installed I haven't had any issues. They also just put out another update the other day that adds as newer schedule and corrects some time zone issues. As to why you get a lot of airports with no traffic is hard to say also. I am wondering if you didn't get the latest updates or the update that increased the level of GA?As far as Mike's issues it's hard to say why his doesn't perform like mine does. At places like ORD I have lot's of traffic lined up in que to take off. In fact sometimes I have so many in front of me that I am unwilling to sit there for 15 minutes waiting to take off that I will zap the traffic get on the run way and restart it them. Yeah I know it's more realistic to have to sit in long lines to take off, but frankly I am more interested simulating the flight itself than sitting behind 10 planes waiting to take off.This is what makes a market though, not everyone likes the same thing. If we all did there would be a lot less choices. These AI program discussions remind me a lot of the FS9 vs. FSX threads.

[DalSingh 1]

LOL, I think something was wrong with yours.

Nothing wrong with mine, it was even noted in their support forum... it definitely takes a while for aircraft to take off and get them into approach...That wasn't really the deal breaker though, its the vanishing traffic when a menu item is invoked, to that is fundamentally broken.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Nothing wrong with mine, it was even noted in their support forum... it definitely takes a while for aircraft to take off and get them into approach...

Seems like something wrong to me, although I am just basing that off the fact that it only takes mine about 30 seconds to 1 minute to appear, but once they appear there are already a/c in the sky and on long final within minutes. Based on that, that's why I thought something was wrong with yours or didn't have the most up to date product. I used to be in their forum a lot and don't ever remember seeing anyone posting that problem, but like I said if mine acted like that I would have refunded it also.

That wasn't really the deal breaker though, its the vanishing traffic when a menu item is invoked, to that is fundamentally broken.

I know a FAIL right as they say these days in the FS forums, lol.I hardly ever access the menu once I begin a flight, but when I do access it and come back into the flight all my traffic reappears basically right where it was prior to entering the menu. I'm surprised yours never came back up?Anwyays, glad you got your refund and don't have to deal with in anymore.

[heightsmite 5]

Nothing wrong with mine, it was even noted in their support forum... it definitely takes a while for aircraft to take off and get them into approach...That wasn't really the deal breaker though, its the vanishing traffic when a menu item is invoked, to that is fundamentally broken.

I did some short flights with the J41 from PMDG yesterday after reading this thread. The day before, I had reinstalled UT2 after months of MyTrafficX. I did download the latest version from Flight1, and I added the recent service pack. The first time I tried UT2, I was seeing annoying pauses or stutters when traffic was being injected, I believe, every few minutes which lasted about 5 to 10 seconds. That was unacceptable for me. This time, that injection related stuttering seems to be gone, or at least barely noticeable. I should note that after removing UT2 in the spring, I overclocked the i7940 to 4.07 ghz, and I tweaked the FSX setup based on the advice of Bojote & Nick (once again, very BIG thanks to those two, and the others, who have contributed so much EXCELLENT advice; my FSX is a pleasure to use now). I think that had everything to do with UT2 running OK here (not to mention nearly everything else in FSX). I specifically tried going to windowed mode & back as well as opening & using various menus; all traffic remained as it should. As far as traffic loading at startup, it takes about 30 seconds, and I see loads of traffic, so much that I had to crank the display settings down in FSX. I do think, overall, UT2 has a slightly higher frame impact that MTX has, but I have to spend some time adjusting settings & seeing what happens. No real complaints so far; both are very good programs for me; just have to play around and see which one stays loaded.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

The first time I tried UT2, I was seeing annoying pauses or stutters when traffic was being injected, I believe, every few minutes which lasted about 5 to 10 seconds. That was unacceptable for me.

Same thing happened to me when I first got it. In fact the pauses bothered me so much that I went into the EXE.xml and diabled it until the service pack came out. Now I dont have those pauses like before and keep the Distance to Spawn at 25 to 50 miles. Just a note if you didn't see the other post a few days ago there is a new service pack availabel that fixes an issue with time zones and also includes a free updated airline schedule.

[jjjallen 37]

Same thing happened to me when I first got it. In fact the pauses bothered me so much that I went into the EXE.xml and diabled it until the service pack came out. Now I dont have those pauses like before and keep the Distance to Spawn at 25 to 50 miles. Just a note if you didn't see the other post a few days ago there is a new service pack availabel that fixes an issue with time zones and also includes a free updated airline schedule.

The best feature of UT2 IMO is the ability to toggle traffic OFF (ctrl+shift+t) when I need extra FPS or don't want to hear all the radio chatter..  When traffic does load, usually after a flight is saved, there will be a 1 second pause that I like as an indicator that traffic is active.  Overall UT2 should get 4 1/2 stars IMO.  The biggest complaint that I have is with GA traffic sliders at 75% I still can't find a parking spot at a small airport on the weekends.  The way around this is to disable traffic (ctrl+shft+t), park, save the flight, and then traffic will reload.Also, I don't fully understand how the daily and weekend traffic sorting works.Until the next UTII thread then!jja

[DalSingh 1]

I did some short flights with the J41 from PMDG yesterday after reading this thread. The day before, I had reinstalled UT2 after months of MyTrafficX. I did download the latest version from Flight1, and I added the recent service pack. The first time I tried UT2, I was seeing annoying pauses or stutters when traffic was being injected, I believe, every few minutes which lasted about 5 to 10 seconds. That was unacceptable for me. This time, that injection related stuttering seems to be gone, or at least barely noticeable. I should note that after removing UT2 in the spring, I overclocked the i7940 to 4.07 ghz, and I tweaked the FSX setup based on the advice of Bojote & Nick (once again, very BIG thanks to those two, and the others, who have contributed so much EXCELLENT advice; my FSX is a pleasure to use now). I think that had everything to do with UT2 running OK here (not to mention nearly everything else in FSX). I specifically tried going to windowed mode & back as well as opening & using various menus; all traffic remained as it should. As far as traffic loading at startup, it takes about 30 seconds, and I see loads of traffic, so much that I had to crank the display settings down in FSX. I do think, overall, UT2 has a slightly higher frame impact that MTX has, but I have to spend some time adjusting settings & seeing what happens. No real complaints so far; both are very good programs for me; just have to play around and see which one stays loaded.

Dave thanks for the response.I never really had any issues with stuttering, its simply the fact that when I invoke a menu item the traffic would disappear and restart all over again.... for example, say I'm taxing behind a UT2 737 and the I decide to change the time/season.... once I have done this and got back to the sim, that UT2 737 would of been reset back to the gate, it was incredibly frustrating.There are threads about this on the UT2 support forum and that's where I discovered its one of the side effects of UT2 new injection methods.... on that basis I wasn't prepared to go any further. I would gladly link you to these threads but since I am no longer a customer of UT2 I cannot access the forum.This was back in May 2010.... does anyone else have this problem? After being in the sim for 10+ minutes with traffic moving are you able still see the AI (midair, taxi, in motion) after coming off a menu item such as "view map", "adjust realisim", "change time/season" .... I'm not talking about seeing aircraft at gates because that is where they start.I loved UT1, and wouldn't mind UT2 if it wasn't for the traffic disappearing - if AI is no longer disappearing then they must of fixed that with the latest service packs right?

[jwenham 1]

I never really had any issues with stuttering, its simply the fact that when I invoke a menu item the traffic would disappear and restart all over again.... for example, say I'm taxing behind a UT2 737 and the I decide to change the time/season.... once I have done this and got back to the sim, that UT2 737 would of been reset back to the gate, it was incredibly frustrating.

UT2 flys real world schedules so when you change the time and or season of course the plane would not be in front of you anymore. I really dont see what is so frustrating about it.

[DalSingh 1]

UT2 flys real world schedules so when you change the time and or season of course the plane would not be in front of you anymore. I really dont see what is so frustrating about it.

Apologies, that's a bad example and your quite right in that respect... ignoring the date/time/season, if I went to realisim settings, or to change the weather the whole AI would reset...Say I'm on a taxiway in a que with 5 aircraft infront of me... if I go to a menu item such as "weather" and then return back to the sim the whole AI would vanish from the taxi way... (they would return to the respective gates etc)...Personally I do find that an annoyance and terribly unrealistic - I'm hoping that in the latest service pack they may have found a way to fix the issue thats all.The issue has been described here before:See Point 2: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/269267-ultimate-traffic-2-vs-traffic-x/page__view__findpost__p__1681579

[jwenham 1]

Apologies, that's a bad example and your quite right in that respect... ignoring the date/time/season, if I went to realisim settings, or to change the weather the whole AI would reset...Say I'm on a taxiway in a que with 5 aircraft infront of me... if I go to a menu item such as "weather" and then return back to the sim the whole AI would vanish from the taxi way... (they would return to the respective gates etc)...Personally I do find that an annoyance and terribly unrealistic - I'm hoping that in the latest service pack they may have found a way to fix the issue thats all.The issue has been described here before:See Point 2: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/269267-ultimate-traffic-2-vs-traffic-x/page__view__findpost__p__1681579

Please dont take this the wrong way as I am not trying to be a smart A#$ but exactly how realistic is the weather totally changing in a second ... I understand your point and I too was unhappy as well with what you are describing but after using it now for some time I dont even think about it any more. It is just one of those things we must live with and the few issues with UT2 out weigh the bad. :(