Hey guys,

 

I know some of you purists might wish to kill me for this question but I'd like to know how the 777 does at x16 time lapse? I currently fly the 737NGX and use x8 time compression for cruise (I don't fly a route, just direkt from STAR to SID). So how is the general behavior of this beauty at x16 time compression? Is it stable or has it problems to maintain the flight level like the NGX?

 

Thanks!

Hi,

 

I have only tried to test it a few times.

I usualy never use FSX slew mode cause I fly short 1 to 3 hour flights only.

But now with this x16 available I thought I would give it a shot.

 

The first thing I noticed was that scenery around me got blurry as my hardware could not draw scenery this fast.

No problem though for me cause you want to get somewhere fast right, so no need for scenery to be looking all nice.

 

But then I got into "trouble". the x16 PMDG mode is a smart mode and it goes back to normal speed (1x) if needed and then accelerates back up to x16.

But as it drops to 1x speed I get a sim pause and I get a small window that says "loading Land, Sea,Air file" or something like that.

then it would speed up again to x16 and a minute later it would drop back to 1x speed again.

And again with the loading "Land, Sea, Air file" window.

I was keeping FL340 steady at M.84. No waypoints were crossed so I dont know why this happens.

 

VAS full?

 

Anyway after 4 times of the sim halting to a pause like this after barely a minute at x16, loading stuff again, I thought it be better to stop this before something becomes corrupted.

(I dont know if that can happen this way)

Also, I was not getting anywhere anyway at this rate!

 

I later tried a normal FSX x16 slew and it did fine.

But when I selected 1x speed it also would come up with this "loading Land,Air,Sea file" thing.

So maybe this is normal??

"loading Land, Sea,Air file" 

 

if you turn off your AI planes and ships that will go away

Ok thx I will try that

From my experience, the 777 is pretty stable. I think once in 6 flights it got into a situation where it had issues not being able to back out of 16x. There is a reset button on the middle Cdu but I reset the time acceleration through fsx menus.

 

I have not had the issues of slow draws at 16x. I still get the same looking scenery.

 

The intro manUal recommends 4x as the loading screen will not appear at 2 and 4x. The quick loading screen will appear at 8 and 16x. However at 16x, 1 minute becomes 4 or 5 seconds. When you don't have time, that's awesome.

 

Occasionally with a weather injector (opus) you'll be jarred out of accelerated time with an overspeed. Not sure if it's opus, the plane, or fsx. The overspeed condition corrects itself almost immediately as time compression is dropped.

 

I would suggest 4x if you are going overland with cities. For example KJFK to KMIA. I would suggest 8x over sparsely populated regions and 16x for oceans and deserts. However, don't take my advice! Try it yourself and see what works for you!

 

The 777 has enabled me to do flights I would have never done due to time constraints. I hope every add on plane gets this feature. I cannot put enough superlatives in the post to thank PMDG for the auto cruise for those of us who like to fly but don't have a lot of time..

 

The 777 has enabled me to do flights I would have never done due to time constraints. I hope every add on plane gets this feature. I cannot put enough superlatives in the post to thank PMDG for the auto cruise for those of us who like to fly but don't have a lot of time..

  I completly agree !

With auto cruise 8X seems to be the sweet spot for me. If set to 16x, it slows down too many times to be effective. With 8X it only slows for change of headings at waypoints.

 

Tom Cain

I've been only giving it a max of 4x, but I believe it'll easily take the 8x, maybe even 16x without running into problems, provided you do not have heavy loads on the sim, by scenery, AI traffic, groun & sea traffic (like zoran pointed out), etc...

 

Aerowinx PS1 had another feature - jump to one of the waypoints ahead. You could warp into that waypoint, but would be unable to use the jump again during at least 5 min I believe. All flight paremeters where re-calculated and adapted to the fuel comsumption, etc..., during the jump.  I believe the PMDG 777 adapts the same way (  ? )

"loading Land, Sea,Air file" 

 

if you turn off your AI planes and ships that will go away

So, that seems to work.

when all AI traffic is disabled, 16x time compression does its work beautifully and does not stop every 1 minute to load that Land/Sea/Air file.

 

But is it meant to be like this?

You have to disable all AI traffic for time compression to work?

Everybody else here has AI traffic disabled?

Anyone at all?

My experience has been that 8X works fine, but 16x causes some issues. I know of many people who have no issues at 16X however. The way I figure it, even the longest flight is going to be achievable in under 2.5 hours at 8x so it's fine by me!

Anyone at all?

Yes, it is meant to be like that because FSX actually turns off AI traffic at high time compression settings. So when auto-compression causes a drop below 16x you will inherently come across that "loading" screen as the AI traffic is re-loaded.

Anyone at all?

 

I have AI traffic enabled, and don't have issues with 16x speed. DLL modules and sim connect in my experience are a problem however. I had some crashes with auto cruise and FSUIPC so I had to remove it (barely use it anyway). I also had a crash when REX was injecting weather so I only inject weather at 1x speed now and while the sim it paused - usually at departure airport and then at TOD. Hope that helps. Considering all the things that are being calculated in the background, auto cruise is reasonably stable. Its the external programs and dlls interacting with FSX that I think you need to watch for.  

With auto cruise 8X seems to be the sweet spot for me. If set to 16x, it slows down too many times to be effective. With 8X it only slows for change of headings at waypoints.

 

Tom Cain

4x for is reasonable and keeps fsx from reloading. Over 4x, fsx reloads ai traffic than is not ideal for me especially if I have fellow ai planes heading in the direction of my destination.

So, that seems to work.

when all AI traffic is disabled, 16x time compression does its work beautifully and does not stop every 1 minute to load that Land/Sea/Air file.

 

But is it meant to be like this?

You have to disable all AI traffic for time compression to work?

Everybody else here has AI traffic disabled?

It is meant to be like that. At normal time, ai traffic calculations are easily manageable, however, at higher sim rates, it becomes too much so fsx turns it off after 4x.

Ok thanks guys, for the replys and reassuring me that the behavier I see is normal!

 

I will try 4x and 8x and see with that does with AI traffic on.

If I am in a real hurry I will turn AI traffic off and use x16 :-)