So I've been having a little dilemma regarding FPS in my flight simulator. Playing FSX on a laptop, there are rare opportunities to get great frame rates with today's complex addons. I have fiddled with the settings a great amount, although I have increased the scenery settings to accommodate FTX Global.The one thing that I don't really know what to do with is AI traffic. I don't know how to get past the "dead skies" feel of having no AI, which seems to take away the aspects of realism greatly (there are almost always other aircraft in the skies and at airports in reality). Recently, though, I was at Munich in FSX with an FPS heavy plane and when I tried decreasing the traffic levels to 1 percent the amount of traffic only halved. I have considered static aircraft, but few addon airports have them. I have also noticed programs like AI Optimizer to decrease the AI LOD radius. I don't use any payware AI Traffic programs like UT2 or MyTrafficX. Does anyone have suggestions to decrease the density more greatly, or to improve the texture quality (or how to fly with no AI)? I know this is a bit of a convoluted request, so thanks for any and all help!

 

 

I don't use any payware AI Traffic programs like UT2 or MyTrafficX.

So you're saying you only use the default AI? If that is the case, you could try if some freeware packages like WOAI give you better performance, because default AI uses the standard user aircraft for AI (and a few others, which are of lower quality). This means that your computer has to handle lots of quite detailed models at larger airports. AI addons can usuall handle this better, becaue aircraft model s are less detailed, and probably also optimized for better performance than the default aircraft are. I for one also use a laptop for simming - and looking at your specs mine is not as powerful as yours, I guess - and I don't have any performance problems with AS Munich and the latest version of MTX. I have not had the opportunity to try FTXG yet, though. but  I doubt that this will have a siginificant influence on my FPS.

So you're saying you only use the default AI? If that is the case, you could try if some freeware packages like WOAI give you better performance, because default AI uses the standard user aircraft for AI (and a few others, which are of lower quality). This means that your computer has to handle lots of quite detailed models at larger airports. AI addons can usuall handle this better, becaue aircraft model s are less detailed, and probably also optimized for better performance than the default aircraft are. I for one also use a laptop for simming - and looking at your specs mine is not as powerful as yours, I guess - and I don't have any performance problems with AS Munich and the latest version of MTX. I have not had the opportunity to try FTXG yet, though. but  I doubt that this will have a siginificant influence on my FPS.

Sorry - I meant to say I do use freeware packages for my AI and the reason my performance decreased with FTXG is due to the reccommended settings which I will probably decrrase eventually.

"Does anyone have suggestions to decrease the density more greatly, or to improve the texture quality (or how to fly with no AI)?"

 

I read that AI airplanes made for FSX tax the system less than AI airplanes made for FS9.  Based on that, you could either replace the freeware FS9 AI with freeware FSX AI, if possible, or use payware AI with FSX AI airplanes.  You also have the option of flying with on-line ATC and traffic.  That would mean less traffic.  Finally, you could upgrade your hardware.  

 

I'm sure others will post other, better, options.  

SAX is pretty correct.  WOAI models were created for FS9, and when incorporated into FSX, tax your system massively.  If you want AI for FSX without a massive hit you'll need to get FSX native AI models, which are payware.  Ultimate Traffic X and Just Flight Traffic X are probably the more popular ones, but they are expensive.  I would say that if you are having FPS issues without AI, I'd be hesitant to spend a good amount of money on AI.  With AI, there is no end-all-be-all solution.

 

 

Recently, though, I was at Munich in FSX with an FPS heavy plane and when I tried decreasing the traffic levels to 1 percent the amount of traffic only halved

 

Thats because some freeware traffic package like WOAI have all the flights listed to generate at 1% traffic. It varies from package to package. Some have the flight plans set up so that the slider will use different AI settings like 5%, 20%, 65%, etc., but if you decompile some of the traffic .bgl's you will see all the flights set to operate at 1% or better, meaning that unless you set the slider to 0%, all the traffic will be visible resulting in less FPS.

 

Like someone else mentioned, using FSX native AI can also help a little, but to be honest I have never really noticed that much difference in using all native FSX AI models as opposed to FS9 native models.

 

That being said, the biggest thing I have done thru the years to increase performance concerning AI is to make sure to mip map all the AI textures using a batch program. By default all traffic packages I have used, be it UT2 or WOAI all come with un-mipped AI textures which can cause a decrease in performance as well as making the AI textures shimmer from a distance. When you add mip maps to those textures it take some of the load off the GPU by not having to try and display one sized texture from a distance. Same reason a lot of the better scenery designers mip map their scenery textures to increase performance and reduce shimmering.

Thanks for all of your help, and sorry to dig up this relatively old topic, but I was curious about AI traffic radius settings. Because the only AI I care about is that within my immediate sight line, is there any way or workaround to decrease the radius for which AI is shown? I've taken a look around the forums, though most topics seem pretty outdated. Is this a feature in any payware addons. I only ask because of the prevalence of cities for which there are multiple airports (London, for example). If flying into Gatwick, the Heathrow traffic will take a ridiculous toll on the system and FPS. If there was the possibility to decrease the radius to, say, 10NM, that would greatly decrease the problem and contribute to a huge FPS increase over congested cities.

 

There are likely none, though if anyone has any ideas they would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

-Derek