Long Pauses... Possible causes?

[Robert McDonald]

I've been using Tileproxy for about three years now and almost always fly with it running. I do get pauses whenever I am flying into an area I haven't flown in before. Tileproxy has to go out there and fetch those textures and it's hard work. I've reduced the issue somewhat, by limiting my visibility to 30 miles in weather settings, and I set the height of that vis. layer at 99,999 feet. I've also tweaked my proxyuser.ini settings to balance the resolution of the textures loaded. The result is a photoreal world I can fly over in real time, and I barely notice the pauses. I've pasted my proxyuser.ini here in case you wish to try. I find the service I selected the fastest, however it takes several moments for the initial load of FSX.

 

John

 

____________

 

#

# Start a line with # to comment it out.

# Turn your text editor's Word Wrapping OFF for editing this document.

#

# Read the manual for help with configuration. Do not contact the

# author about the configuration for particular services. Thank you.

#

 

[TileProxy]

 

# Enable or disable worldwide photographic scenery coverage (Yes/True/On to enable)

master_enable=On

 

# Write a logfile to disk. In recommend to only turn this on for debugging purposes.

# When using FSX RTM or FS 2004, the logfile will grow VERY fast and affect performance.

#logfile="C:\logfile.txt"

 

# If you have concerns about possible copyright violations by caching JPEG and BMP tiles

# on your hard drive, this switch is the solution. By enabling diskless mode, Tileproxy

# will not store a single tile on your hard drive. Expect higher network usage though.

# Note that offline mode will depend on tiles being available in the cache.

diskless_mode=Off

 

# Offline Mode - No network access will occur (Yes/True/On to enable)

offline_mode=No

 

# Resolution limiter: 17 = 30cm/pixel, 16 = 60cm/pixel, 15 = 1.1m/pixel, 14 = 2.3m/pixel, 13 = 4.75m/pixel

# Lower resolutions load faster, but are visually less appealing. The 30cm resolution may only be feasible

# if you have at least 2GB of system memory.

max_lod=15

 

# The following two settings allow you to tune Tileproxy to not preload specific LOD levels. This can

# be used in conjunction with third party scenery products like "FS Altitude" that provides data only

# up to a specific resolution. If you place this scenery higher than Tileproxy's world folders in the

# scenery library then it will have precedence over Tileproxy for the specific LOD levels that it

# contains. You can then instruct Tileproxy to not preload these low resolution LOD circles because

# they are not needed anyway.

 

# Lowest LOD ring to automatically preload tiles for. Must not be lower than 8.

preload_min_lod=9

 

# Lowest LOD ring to automatically preload tiles for. Must not be higher than 17.

preload_max_lod=15

 

# The maximum number of tile contexts that Tileproxy will send to the filter driver. A context

# is essentially a very fast buffer for graphics data sitting in kernel memory that delivers

# data right into FSX. Each tile context can hold an entire LOD 8...15 tile. Higher values

# mean more use of your precious kernel memory though. The maximum number is 512. Lower if

# you run out of RAM during flight and the PC starts to use the paging file a lot.

max_contexts=512

 

# Generate Water Mask. This brings back shader-rendered water and allows

# for the use of planes with floats (Goose, Beaver, etc...). If you turn this

# option off, you get the Tileproxy behavior of Beta 5 and earlier versions.

water_mask=On

 

# Recommendation: FSX users: Use water_blending=on, water_smoothing=off

# to get soft land/water transitions

#

# FS9 users: Use water_blending=off, water_smoothing=on

# to get hard land/water transitions which

# Tileproxy tries to match pixel-exact against coast-lines

#

# Combining water_smoothing and water_blending is discouraged.

# It's slow and gives weird results.

 

# Use blending techniques to create a soft land/water transition with some

# transparency effect near the shoreline. Compatible with FSX only.

water_blending=On

 

# The distance in meters that you want land/water blending to extend from the

# shore line. Larger values require more processing. Large values are now possible,

# useful values are up to 2000 meters. Very high values may be detrimental to water

# mask resolution. Loading speed however remains mostly unaffected by this setting.

blend_distance=100.0

 

# The rate at which terrain is blended into the water color. 1.0 means a linear

# blending, values > 1.0 blend faster. Values < 1.0 blend slower. This works

# similarly to a Gamma Curve. An exponent of 2 gives a quadratic blend function,

# an exponent of 0.5 results in a square root behavior.

blend_exponent=1.0

 

# The minimal and maximal transparency of the water. The lower you choose the min value,

# the more reflective the deep water will be. The higher the max value is chosen, the less

# reflective the water will be directly at the shore line. The reflectiveness transitions

# linearly from max to min throughout the distance given by blend_distance from the shore.

# Allowed values are between 0 and 1, and alpha_min should be smaller than alpha_max or

# things may look weird.

# The following alpha_min values will not give you any dithering artifacts on all-water tiles,

# so the use of these is recommended. It is multiples of 16/239 (rounded up slighty)

# 0.0700, 0.1339, 0.2009, 0.2678, 0.3348, 0.4017, 0.4687

# 0.5356, 0.6026, 0.6695, 0.7365, 0.8034, 0.8703, 0.9373

alpha_min=0.2678

alpha_max=0.7

 

# The water color in hexadecimal RGB notation. Prefix with #. This should be blue

# or greenish blue or some shades of brown, depending on your preference.

# Values of #000000 are discouraged when using water blending - it will result

# in weird behavior at the shorelines.

water_rgb=#000D1A

 

# Try to smooth land/water boundaries by trying to match the water mask to the image content.

# This is a a somewhat experimental algorithm.

water_smoothing=Off

 

# The decision threshold for water/land when water_smoothing is enabled. 0 means everything

# will be turned to land, 1 means everything turns to water. Chose some value inbetween.

water_threshold=0.33

 

# Maximum number of bytes allocated to BMP graphics tiles in RAM at any time (0 for unlimited)

# The value below states 100 MB.

#cache_bytes_limit=100000000

cache_bytes_limit=1073741824

 

# Maximum number of BMP tiles to cache in RAM at any time (0 for no limit).

cache_tiles_limit=100000

 

# The currently active service is configured here. Only ONE active source please.

# The other source statements should be commented out.

#source=Acme Globe Service

#source=Service Example 1

source=Service Example 3

#source=Service Example 4

 

# The sources you want to be able to switch from the GUI menu.

# Separate the list entries with | and enclose in quotes. Make sure the

# names specified here are valid services which are defined below.

# You may want to rename the services according to your preference,

# but make sure you replace all occurences of the strings.

menu_sources="Service Example 1|Service Example 2|Service Example 3|Service Example 4"

 

# Experimental API Hooking section. Disable if you see strange crashes and effects.

# Currently we only have the DirectX 9 hook. More hooks are planned.

enable_hooking=No

 

# The DirectX 9 hook enables the moving map overlay. More features are planned.

enable_dx9hook=No

 

# A flag whether to show the moving map overlay initially or not.

enable_movingmap=No

 

# Dimensions and overlay colors of the moving map. Positions are percentages of the screen.

# Width and Height refer to the full 512x512 pixel texture used for the map. To get a round

# map circle, the ratio of width and height should match your screen's aspect ratio (e.g. 4:3)

# Radius is given in the map texture's pixels where one pixel represents a LOD 15 tile. A

# radius of 0 disables the round stencil and shows the entire 512x512 texture. Color is given

# in a hexadecimal ARGB notation.

movingmap_alpha=255

movingmap_color=#ff000000

movingmap_xpos=88

movingmap_ypos=15

movingmap_width=60

movingmap_height=80

movingmap_radius=60

 

#

# Here begin the service specific configurations

#

 

# This is new when you specify captcha_module

#

# On encountering HTTP 302 redirects the captcha module will send Internet Explorer's cookies

# stored for the specified service domain to the web server. It will also display whatever web

# page the service redirects you to. This could be a page requiring you to enter a so-called

# captcha. After entering the captcha correctly, the resulting session cookie will be stored as

# a permanent cookie (expiration 1 day) in your IE Cookies folder and sent to the service on

# subsequent requests. You will then be able to use the service as long as you wish, given that

# you correctly enter the captcha dialog which may nag you once every 20 minutes or so.

#

# Explaining the captcha_config arguments:

#

# cookiedomain from captcha_config specifies the domain name for which cookies are stored.

# This might be the service name plus a top level domain like ".com"

#

# cookieurl specifies a HTTP url from which an identifying cookie will be retrieved first, if

# no existing identifying cookie is found. This may be required sometimes to make the captcha

# dialog appear in the first place. This could be the service's front page URL (e.g. a search

# engine)

 

[Acme Globe Service]

cache_folder=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\cache.acme

network_module=libnettile

module_config="conn=20|rate=2.0|verbose=0|server=http://server*.acmeglobe.com|path=/terraintile?pos=%s&v=%v|quad=ABCD|balance=0123|agent=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; The TileProxy Project)"

captcha_module=captchaform

captcha_config="cookiedomain=acmeglobe.com|cookieurl=http://www.acmeglobe.com"

min_level=9

max_level=17

map_version=1

color_hack=No

color_level=0

bulk_extend=25

 

[service Example 1]

cache_folder=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\cache.service1

network_module=libnettile

module_config="conn=20|rate=2.0|verbose=0|server=http://a*.ortho.tiles.virtualearth.net|path=/tiles/a%s.jpeg?g=%v|quad=0123|balance=0123|useragent=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

min_level=5

max_level=17

map_version=213

level_mapping=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,15,15,15,16,17

#level_mapping=9,10,11,12,14,14,15,16,17,18,19 more radius HQ (13->14)

#level_mapping=9,10,11,14,14,14,15,16,17,18,19 even more radius in HQ (12,13->14)

color_hack=Yes

color_level=13

bulk_extend=50

 

[service Example 3]

cache_folder=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\cache.service3

network_module=libnettile

module_config="conn=20|rate=2.0|verbose=0|server=http://us.maps3.yimg.com|path=/aerial.maps.yimg.com/img?x=%x&y=%y&z=%z&v=%v&t=a|useragent=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

min_level=5

max_level=17

level_mapping=5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,15,15,15,16,17

#level_mapping=5,5,5,5,5,5,13,15,15,15,15,16,17

#level_mapping=5,6,7,8,9,10,12,15,15,15,15,16,17

map_version=1.8

color_hack=No

color_level=0

bulk_extend=50

 

[service Example 4]

cache_folder=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\cache.service4

network_module=libnettile

module_config="conn=20|rate=2.0|verbose=0|server=http://mapcache*.ask.com|path=/sat/%Z/%X/%Y?partner=|balance=1234|useragent=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.04506; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

min_level=5

max_level=17

map_version=1

color_hack=Yes

color_level=12

bulk_extend=50

 

bigger type for easier reading...

[AviatorBimmer]

Here's another Tileproxy screenshot post, most of the pics were from FL220

 

http://forum.avsim.n...he-high-desert/

 

John

 

John... I think we have a winner! I used your settings and set my vis to 30nm and the sim ran BEAUTIFULLY!! Not one hiccup and the scenery looked very indeed. Something I can definitely live with. Since I have UTX installed, the 3D night lighting also worked at night and looked very good aswell. Thumbs up!

 

Since I will be using TP for the scenery generation, can I just go ahead and inactivate ALL of UTX roads and stuff? Will doing so, will the 3D night lighting still work?

 

Also, what settings do you have for :

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=4.500000

 

Thanks in advance!

[TurboTomato]

I bow to your superior knowledge John!

 

The visibility thing didn't seem to make a difference for me - maybe I'm doing it wrong but I could only seem to set a 30SM visibility layer to 15000ft in REXE+?

[Guest John_Cillis]

I bow to your superior knowledge John!

 

The visibility thing didn't seem to make a difference for me - maybe I'm doing it wrong but I could only seem to set a 30SM visibility layer to 15000ft in REXE+?

 

I don't have REX, I use FSX's advanced weather setting dialog to set my vis. layer to 99,000 ft. It actually doesn't have to extend that high--it just needs to extend above your planned cruising altitude for your flight. I set it to 99,000 feet because I change cruising altitudes at times during my flight. I also use the add-on of my own creation, Soft Horizons, which helps give a more natural look to the haze as it fades into the distance. So my results may differ from those who use other environment enhancement sets (or those who don't use any). I still have Soft Horizons available here at Avsim for anyone who wants to try my add-on to enhance their skies. It's found here:

 

http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fsxscen&DLID=133758

 

John

 

John... I think we have a winner! I used your settings and set my vis to 30nm and the sim ran BEAUTIFULLY!! Not one hiccup and the scenery looked very indeed. Something I can definitely live with. Since I have UTX installed, the 3D night lighting also worked at night and looked very good aswell. Thumbs up!

 

Since I will be using TP for the scenery generation, can I just go ahead and inactivate ALL of UTX roads and stuff? Will doing so, will the 3D night lighting still work?

 

Also, what settings do you have for :

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=4.500000

 

Thanks in advance!

 

My LOD_RADIUS is the same as yours. I don't have UTX so I can't say what will happen when you deactivate it. When I fly at night, I fly with Tileproxy off and with the default scenery--and I rarely if ever fly at night since I'm in the hobby for the sight seeing :smile:

[TurboTomato]

Yeah I managed to figure out the visibility thing myself last night and set a layer to 99,999ft in FSX itself and then told REX not to set the visibility. Seemed to work really well - ok I still don't think it's quite keeping up as it should but it's a lot better than it was.

 

Oh and after slating yahoo's coverage of the middle east I took off out of Cairo headed for Doha (Qatar) and was rather impressed by the scenery. Maybe even worth a screenshot B)

[Guest John_Cillis]

Yeah I managed to figure out the visibility thing myself last night and set a layer to 99,999ft in FSX itself and then told REX not to set the visibility. Seemed to work really well - ok I still don't think it's quite keeping up as it should but it's a lot better than it was.

 

Oh and after slating yahoo's coverage of the middle east I took off out of Cairo headed for Doha (Qatar) and was rather impressed by the scenery. Maybe even worth a screenshot B)

 

Would love to see screenshots if you get the time. Regarding the pauses, I always get some when I am flying over an area for the first time using Tileproxy. If I fly over the area again, after the textures have been cached on the HD, then the pauses are much less pronounced. I tend to fly the same routes these days, using different aircraft. But there's still a lot of territory I haven't explored, especially in the Colorado Rockies. Maybe I will switch to bing and give Europe another try. I wonder how their coverage in Great Britain is?

 

John

[TurboTomato]

I'll see what I can do - got a BSOD last night though (think it was running out of memory) and had to wait ages for CHKDSK to do its stuff :unsure:

 

Unfortunately I don't know about GB as I have Horizon VFR to cover that but I think Bing's photo coverage is pretty good. Most interesting VFR flying would probably be over Wales (go from EGFF and head north) of anywhere in Scotland.

[TurboTomato]

Here you go chaps:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/393503-fl290-over-saudi-arabia/

[AviatorBimmer]

Guys, just wanted to share something I did a few days ago with the help of SAAB340 and DerStig's thread reference running your CPU with Hyperthreading (HT) on. As most of you know, I have been running my i7-3770K @ 5.0Ghz | 1.5v vcore, ever since I purchased and de-lidded it a few months ago. Obviously, I need to run it with HT OFF at 5.0Ghz...

 

Anyhow, when I tried TileProxy at 30cm resolutions, I was getting stutters and pauses galore! Pauses where even seconds at a time. No matter how much I tweaked my fsx.cfg and TP ini settings, I was unable to run TP at 30cm smooth enough to warrant it's usage. The ONLY way I was able to get a stutter free performance was when running TP with 1m resolutions and FS's LOD set at 4.50000.

 

Now, after following DerStig's thread where he shows how beneficial it is for texture loading to use your CPU with HT and SAAB340 conforming these findings with his awesome research done on the same topic, I decided to give HT a try on my CPU.

 

For this, I simply enabled HT via the BIOS and dropped my overclock from 5.0Ghz to 4.9Ghz. First couple of tries with HT ON @ 5.0Ghz, yielded instability and CTDs on FSX. As soon as I dropped to 4.9Ghz, CTDs were gone.

 

Here are the settings I am using now with HT ON:

 

FSX.cfg

FFTF = 0.66
AM = 249
LOD = 6.50000
Texture Resolution = 30cm
FPS locked @ 30FPS
1/2 vsync tweak enabled
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT = 40
Poolsize=0

 

 

TileProxy ini settings

 

Max LOD = 17
min_level=9
max_level=19
level_mapping=9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19

 

The above gives me 30cm resolution textures from Bing Maps...

 

I did a 15 minute circuit around my hometown on the Carenado C172N and it was a thing of BEAUTY! NO CTDs, NO texture blurries, hardly any visible texture swapping, razor sharp textures and hardly any stutters, it was just unreal!!!

 

Here is how the CPU cores behaved:

 

CORE 0 - 100%

CORE 1 - Showed activity

CORE 2 - hardly any activity

CORES 3 thru 7 - 100% when loading textures

 

That's 5 cores loading textures!!!

 

Guys, this thing was a beauty! Before with HT OFF, I could NOT use 60cm resolutions with TileProxy because it was stutter nation and unflyable! I'm talking about PAUSES of 1-3 seconds instead of stutters...

 

It's amazing what HT ON does for texture loading and smoothness!

 

If you are into TP and photoscenery in general and have HT off due to a heavy overclock, I recommend you give this a shot.

[TurboTomato]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

I've got the same processor as you (not allowed to overclock after the last one though :lol: ) so I'll stick HT back on and see what happens.

 

Glad you're enjoying TP - it takes a bit of tweaking but it's well worth it. I don't think people realise that there's a whole world of high-res photoscenery out there for them for free!

[AviatorBimmer]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

I've got the same processor as you (not allowed to overclock after the last one though :lol: ) so I'll stick HT back on and see what happens.

 

Glad you're enjoying TP - it takes a bit of tweaking but it's well worth it. I don't think people realise that there's a whole world of high-res photoscenery out there for them for free!

 

Give it a shot, TT! I never thought I would be able to use 30cm textures on TP with LOD=6.5000...

[LHookins]

That's 5 cores loading textures!!!

 

I think back on all the posts I've seen that said hyperthreading had no effect. There was a certain religious fervor to them.

 

Are you using an affinity mask, and if so, what value?

 

Hook

[AviatorBimmer]

I think back on all the posts I've seen that said hyperthreading had no effect. There was a certain religious fervor to them.

 

Are you using an affinity mask, and if so, what value?

 

Hook

 

I think the reason why most will say not to use HT is because enabling it will limit your OC headroom. Like I said, when I enabled HT on my system, I had to drop down my OC from 5.0 to 4.9Ghz. With 5.0Ghz and HT ON, I was getting CTDs on FSX which I had never had before. As soon as I dropped the OC to 4.9, the CTDs disappeared.

 

I am using AM = 249