I think My Traffic might be best for you. It will more easily fill up your skies and it has a better variety in GA aircraft than UT2. 

 

Can anyone else confirm this? Does MTX indeed have better GA traffic?  Since I'm almost entirely a GA flyer and will be using smaller airports (mostly in North Am, btw), I'm probably going to run into more GA traffic than the big commercial airliners.

 

UT2 boasts 1.3 mil in GA flights according to their description, but MTX doesn't really get into specifics in theirs.

 

Hmmm....

Can anyone else confirm this? Does MTX indeed have better GA traffic?  Since I'm almost entirely a GA flyer and will be using smaller airports (mostly in North Am, btw), I'm probably going to run into more GA traffic than the big commercial airliners.

 

UT2 boasts 1.3 mil in GA flights according to their description, but MTX doesn't really get into specifics in theirs.

 

Hmmm....

 

An easy way to look at it is My traffic might have more variety of GA planes to start. Again though you can add as many AI GA planes as you want and customize the types of GA planes you see in UT2. I know ORBX has a general aviation traffic add-on. I have not used it but I have seen positive reviews of it. 

All the time spent pondering about what commercial add-on to buy could have been time spent installing WOAI packages. Just saying...

I could tell you that I have UT2 and has little or no impact on P3D v2.2 with 100% traffic. On FSX, however, 100% traffic had a significant hit on FPS. Hope this helps.

 

There is no such thing as "no impact" when a system needs to do things.

I could tell you that I have UT2 and has little or no impact on P3D v2.2 with 100% traffic. On FSX, however, 100% traffic had a significant hit on FPS. Hope this helps.

how did you install it into P3D  ?

Well gang, for better or worse, I went ahead and purchased MyTraffic X 5.4. I just installed it last night, I configured it and played around with the settings a earlier, but except for maybe ten minutes, I haven't really used it much at different airports.

 

Ultimately, because of my mediocre system, I went with MTX because it seems that it will be easier on the frames (which is a big concern for me) as it has a lower res setting. I'll let you know how it goes in the next few days as I log some time in the cockpit fly around to random places in North America.

 

The only thing I've noticed so far (which might be a problem with any of the traffic addons out there) is that my startup time when I launch FSX has increased considerably. It used to take maybe 30-45 seconds, but now takes at least 3-4 minutes. :-/ Not sure if this is just a necessary evil of having a robust addon like this or if there's anything I can do about it. We'll see.

The increased loading time is problem with any massive addition of models (and liveries), be that any AI program, or be it loads of user aircraft. It's nothing you did wrong, and as far as I am aware, there's not a lot you can do about it, except maybe remove some aircraft you don't use.

I bet a SSD would help with that.  But that's not in the stars until I start building a system from the ground up ... which I hope to do this summer.  Oh well.

Just thought of something, which might be a total newbie question....

 

Since I'm only flying in North America (and usually a pretty small part of it at that!) do I even need MTX to generate flight plans for every aircraft all around the whole world?  Is there way to turn off or limit the schedules that won't interfere with with traffic in NA?  There are thousands of them and the thought of trying to do this one by one (let alone figure out which ones to turn off) in the MTX interface is daunting to say the least.

 

I guess what I'm really asking is does it affect performance (specifically my framerate, but also the general performance of FSX, which I definitely think has slowed a lot since I installed MTX) to have sooooo many flights being scheduled in parts of the globe that I'm just realistically never going to see during most of my flying?  I suppose I'm just not sure if performance is only affected by the aircraft in my immediate view of my plane, or if my cpu is also crunching the numbers for flights half way across the world.

 

After the default installation which I think went fine, with the Spring 2012 schedules loaded, with the low-res aircraft settings turned on, and with traffic turned to about 20% for commercial and 25% for GA, I'm definitely noticing a hit to FPS.  I know it's inevitable for a program like this, but I'm wondering what I can do to help that.  Thanks!

I guess what I'm really asking is does it affect performance (specifically my framerate, but also the general performance of FSX, which I definitely think has slowed a lot since I installed MTX) to have sooooo many flights being scheduled in parts of the globe that I'm just realistically never going to see during most of my flying?  I suppose I'm just not sure if performance is only affected by the aircraft in my immediate view of my plane, or if my cpu is also crunching the numbers for flights half way across the world.

 

After the default installation which I think went fine, with the Spring 2012 schedules loaded, with the low-res aircraft settings turned on, and with traffic turned to about 20% for commercial and 25% for GA, I'm definitely noticing a hit to FPS.  I know it's inevitable for a program like this, but I'm wondering what I can do to help that.  Thanks!

 

How big of a FPS hit are you having? If it's like 2-4 FPS then I think that would be acceptable. I am under the impression that AI traffic is spawned around your plane to keep the skies filled with planes as you're flying. So if you're listening to ATC or something in the sim you can hear the ATC talking to other planes that have been created around your plane as you're flying. 

 

EDIT: So basically my guess is only planes that are within a certain radius to your plane are created meaning no not every plane in the sim is flying while you are. 

So after playing with UT2 and Traffic360, I've decided just to turn off traffic all-together for P3D.  It seems like irregardless of FPS hit, traffic inherrently adds an annoying stutter that is just not seen when disabled.  The only one I've seen with minimal impact on this is Orbx Freeware AI for Australia that is out for P3D now...I've found their stuff much more immersive as well since I am mainly a GA person and their aircraft do patterns and touch and gos and all that.  So for my AI needs I just fly around australia for now.

 

Additionally, in regards to GA that doesn't get alot of AI attention except for Orbx AI packages.  For UT2 it's pretty much all default P3D aircraft and is a huge load on the FPS, for Traffic 360, the GA aircraft are never where they should be at all and only fill up the small airports and not the larger international airports even if they are also GA heavy in real life...I think their algorithm is more random for generating GA aircraft.  However Traffic360 GA variety is much better and less heavy on FPS.

 

My perfect traffic program would be one of:

1.  minimal impact P3D optimized models and no default aircraft used

2.  general aviation ai that behaves more realistically like orbx packages

3.  airliner traffic that is representative but not necessary super accurate as most people seem to desire

4.  military traffic that is representative like Military AI Works

 

Alas, such a combo does not seem to exist and I haven't tried MyTraffic yet, but I've already dropped too much on the two packages I was less than satisfied with, and have found free options (MAIW in FS9, World of AI in FSX, and Orbx GA AI Packages) to be superior at the end of the day for what I''m looking for...oh well the hunt for AI continues.

How big of a FPS hit are you having? If it's like 2-4 FPS then I think that would be acceptable. I am under the impression that AI traffic is spawned around your plane to keep the skies filled with planes as you're flying. So if you're listening to ATC or something in the sim you can hear the ATC talking to other planes that have been created around your plane as you're flying. 

 

EDIT: So basically my guess is only planes that are within a certain radius to your plane are created meaning no not every plane in the sim is flying while you are. 

 

For my less-than-amazing system it's a pretty big hit.  With ~25% of the traffic dialed up, I'm getting 10-15 fewer FPS.  At the smaller airports I tend to fly which are usually close to 30 FPS (the max setting by my frame limiter), it's dropping down to ~15-17ish with a few planes moving around nearby.  :-/  And that's with the lower res setting on and gate animations off.  Sigh.

 

 

My perfect traffic program would be one of:

1.  minimal impact P3D optimized models and no default aircraft used

2.  general aviation ai that behaves more realistically like orbx packages

3.  airliner traffic that is representative but not necessary super accurate as most people seem to desire

4.  military traffic that is representative like Military AI Works

 

Alas, such a combo does not seem to exist and I haven't tried MyTraffic yet, but I've already dropped too much on the two packages I was less than satisfied with, and have found free options (MAIW in FS9, World of AI in FSX, and Orbx GA AI Packages) to be superior at the end of the day for what I''m looking for...oh well the hunt for AI continues.

 

+1 about the ideal traffic program ... though I haven't given up hop yet.  I'm interested in the Orbx addon, but it only creates GA in North America and only in regions -- none of which I own, and so far are exclusively in the northwest and rockies.  Maybe (hopefully) they'll develop it a bit more over time.  Fingers crossed.

 

 

+1 about the ideal traffic program ... though I haven't given up hop yet.  I'm interested in the Orbx addon, but it only creates GA in North America and only in regions -- none of which I own, and so far are exclusively in the northwest and rockies.  Maybe (hopefully) they'll develop it a bit more over time.  Fingers crossed.

 

Yep, the problem right now is the only AI package for P3D2 out right now is for australia, so anxiously awaiting them to release their NA version of it for P3D2.  

For my less-than-amazing system it's a pretty big hit.  With ~25% of the traffic dialed up, I'm getting 10-15 fewer FPS.  At the smaller airports I tend to fly which are usually close to 30 FPS (the max setting by my frame limiter), it's dropping down to ~15-17ish with a few planes moving around nearby.  :-/  And that's with the lower res setting on and gate animations off.  Sigh.

 

I know you have already made your traffic choice but using UT2 you would not see that big of a drop in FPS. If anything I think the default UT2 plane models keep the FPS where they are but with regards to what I saw with MTX my FPS actually increased a decent amount when I switched to UT2. 

 

Something that helped with my FPS was not using a FPS limiter. Just run the sim at unlimited. 

You can solve a lot of AI impact issues if you concentrate on only displaying aircraft that are relevant to your flight. Take a look at this freeware program by Roland Foster. LINK

I know you have already made your traffic choice but using UT2 you would not see that big of a drop in FPS. If anything I think the default UT2 plane models keep the FPS where they are but with regards to what I saw with MTX my FPS actually increased a decent amount when I switched to UT2.  

 

I hear ya, Sportsfan.  It was kind of a toss up, but I have a feeling your system (Intel i7, 4.4 Ghz, etc.) is just not gonna feel stuff l like my modest little system.  For the time being, until I build my own PC, I'm gonna stick with the one that offers a low res version -- which means in theory I get to see as many planes flying around with for the same hit to my performance, but the aircraft won't be quite as detailed.  And that's ok.  For now.

 

You can solve a lot of AI impact issues if you concentrate on only displaying aircraft that are relevant to your flight. Take a look at this freeware program by Roland Foster. LINK

 

Yikes, I think that might be a tad over my head at the moment, but perhaps I'll try to figure it out.  Also, looks like it needs a registered version of FSUIPC, which I don't have yet.  (Did I mention I'm a newbie?)

 

Thanks everyone for you suggestions!