SunSkyJet KPHL performance issues?

[Dillon 2,198]

I know I'm late but having downloaded this scenery when it first came out I haven't had the time to fly to it do to a very busy job I had. Now that I have more time I have been getting back into FS9 and flying to locations I've downloaded but haven't fully vetted out yet. I assumed as Shez was apart of the KPHL team there would be no issues. What I'm finding is an airport that brings my system to it's knees. The upper east corridor of the US is a pain as it is. KEWR from Imaginesim was the worst but I don't remember the KPHL area as bad. Is it just me or is SunSkyJet's KPHL a very demanding scenery to use?

[Garciamk4 1]

Okay to answer your question in a nutshell The answer is no I have that same exact scenery And I do not get any type of performance issues Mind you My system May be different from yours So to better answer your question I would recommend posting your system specs

 

Note to further elaborate On this topic I believe there's two ways to install the scenery one way is if you have ultimate terrain installed and the other is if you don't have ultimate terrain installed.

 

Tell us exactly what type of performance issues you are experiencing along with your system specs so that we can better troubleshoot your situation

 

 

[metalmike 34]

I had similar issues. The noticeable dip in frames was when I was at the gate, facing the terminal with the city skyline in the distance behind it (got as low as 17 FPS at some points, which is very low for me on FS9). When I turned my head facing away from the terminal and the skyline, I instantly gained at least 10-20 FPS.

[kiwiflyer45 123]

I think there are some legacy textures used for some of the Philadelphia city buildings by the sim itself that are there no matter what scenery you are using for the airport. As my home airport, I've tried every payware and freeware option that has ever come out for KPHL and have always had an FPs problem when looking in certain directions.

 

I hate to harp on the same issue, but I found that the problem I was having with the SunSkyJet scenery was the AI files I was using. In an area with such dense traffic (KEWR, KBWI, KIAD, KDCA, KJFK, KLGA etc etc etc) if there's a problem with any of your AI files it just snowballs and with KPHL surrounded by so much traffic, my system couldn't cope with it either. Once I fixed my AI files, I had perfectly decent FPS with KPHL - so you may want to check that out. My experience was that there was nothing wrong with the SunSkyJet scenery itself - it was other factors. That's not to say the scenery isn't demanding - it is one of the most complex and complete addons ever released for a major airport, payware or freeware. So it is obviously going to take a pretty good system to run it well. But it does run well in my experience and is one of my favorite sceneries.

 

Don't forget that you can easily remove the files for the dynamic ground traffic too, if that will help

 

Cheers

Ian

[nam1394 12]

There is a texture resizer in their forum which might help with performance. If you can't find it let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

[graemeb 15]

I found that disabling the animated vehilces improved performance a lot. I am not at my FS PC now, but one of the BGL's needs to be renamed/removed.

[saed45 38]

i just found out about this . its pretty cool thing for a freeware. gonna donate. live around kphl. awesome airport

[Dillon 2,198]

I found lowering AI when flying to the airport resolves the problem. Still testing...

[kiwiflyer45 123]

I found lowering AI when flying to the airport resolves the problem. Still testing...

You may find that it isn't necessarily the amount of AI but the possibility that some of your AI files have missing airfcraft. It's specially likely that it is one of the major Philly operators like USAir. If there is a file that is calling for a particular aircraft and you no longer have it in your aircraft folder, it will keep cycling back and forth trying to find it and in doing so will bring your FPS to its knees. I had HUGE problems with KPHL and several other major hubs until I finally fixed all my AI files - now I generally get 50-50 FPS with KPHL with full WofAI traffic plus some others I have created myself...

Stick with it Dillon - it's a great scenery and worth the effort once you get it solved

Ian

ps. The main programmer of KPHL along with Shez has promised me a tweaked FS9 version. No promised date - but he did commit to fixing some issues so hopefully that will be available soon

[Dillon 2,198]

You may find that it isn't necessarily the amount of AI but the possibility that some of your AI files have missing airfcraft. It's specially likely that it is one of the major Philly operators like USAir. If there is a file that is calling for a particular aircraft and you no longer have it in your aircraft folder, it will keep cycling back and forth trying to find it and in doing so will bring your FPS to its knees. I had HUGE problems with KPHL and several other major hubs until I finally fixed all my AI files - now I generally get 50-50 FPS with KPHL with full WofAI traffic plus some others I have created myself...

Stick with it Dillon - it's a great scenery and worth the effort once you get it solved

Ian

ps. The main programmer of KPHL along with Shez has promised me a tweaked FS9 version. No promised date - but he did commit to fixing some issues so hopefully that will be available soon

 

Thanks... I actually found lowering the AI setting solved my problem. For airports like KEWR, KPHL, and KBWI it's a must I lower AI settings before attempting to land at these airports. Your observations may be right about AI but I have limited time these days to go through all my files. Lowering AI to just under 50% gives me a fluid approach and landing at these airports no matter what time of day it is. When I get some spare time I'll dig into this further but for now I'm happy. I lower my AI setting at 'Top of Decent' and the whole approach is fluid. The area between New York and DC has an extra amount of traffic more so than most other areas of the world so it would stand to reason one can't expect settings that work in other areas to work there. FSX seems to suffer the same (or worse) issue in the NY area so it's not just FS9. Thanks as always for the tip...

[Roger Ramjet 72]

You may find that it isn't necessarily the amount of AI but the possibility that some of your AI files have missing airfcraft. It's specially likely that it is one of the major Philly operators like USAir. If there is a file that is calling for a particular aircraft and you no longer have it in your aircraft folder, it will keep cycling back and forth trying to find it and in doing so will bring your FPS to its knees. I had HUGE problems with KPHL and several other major hubs until I finally fixed all my AI files - now I generally get 50-50 FPS with KPHL with full WofAI traffic plus some others I have created myself...

Stick with it Dillon - it's a great scenery and worth the effort once you get it solved

Ian

ps. The main programmer of KPHL along with Shez has promised me a tweaked FS9 version. No promised date - but he did commit to fixing some issues so hopefully that will be available soon

 

Ian,

I know you've mentioned this before and I was curious about it. My AI traffic is WOAI so before I start going through it all, did you find any problems with any WOAI package or packages in particular?

 

Thanks

[kiwiflyer45 123]

I don't recall that there were any problems with them if they were directly loaded from the WoAI site without any mods. My problem was that I had been tinkering with them over the years - adding new paint schemes, adjusting schedules etc. The vast majority were fine even then - but it only took a few to really mess things up with my new system.

 

If you are having a problem with a particular hub, then it's probable that it's a major airline that has heavy traffic in that area. Try removing any suspect traffic files and see if that makes a difference. If it does, then just decompile them with TTools, check with an AI program like YRoute, and if there are missing aircraft, replace them until the file is "clean' - no errors. I can't promise miracles for anyone else but it totally transformed my new system from a major disappointment to everything I had hoped for once all those traffic files were fixed. Or if in doubt, delete all your files and then install them all straight from WoAI. The problem for me in doing that was that I have tweaked the models to get rid of the triangle light effect and also added modified contrail effects, so either way I ended up having to invest a lot of time. But it was worth it

 

Ian

[Roger Ramjet 72]

Thanks Ian. I went through a few packages with AIFP a while back and found no errors and they were all stock WOAI. For me, I just lower the AI to about 50% and that works fine....... and I don't have to wait in long taxi lines!

 

Cheers

[anthonyrm1 0]

I have this issue with the airport, Its visually fantastic (apart from some shimmering of ground textures), but looking towards the city the frames drop considerably. For this reason I have not re-installed it on my latest rebuild of FS9 (didnt fly there enough to really need it taking up the space).

[kiwiflyer45 123]

The shimmering can be fixed - there are some files that lack mipmaps. I use this scenery frequently and it's outstanding. I truly think if you use the provided tool to convert the textures to DXT3 and fix the shimmering with DXTBmp you shouldn't have any problems with it. You can also eliminate the ground traffic and that will give you a couple of extra FPS.

 

I use it with full AI (all WofAI traffic plus others) and the iFly 737 and don't have performance issues with it. Any PC that can run other large airports like FSDT KORD or KJFK or Aerosoft EGLL etc shouldn't have a problem at all with this scenery