AI traffic can be a FPS killer at even moderate settings. This situation has not changed much since FSX. Many of us like to decent amount of traffic around, but this finally becomes a tussle between volume and FPS.

 

To help this situation I have written a program which automatically tries to manage the traffic. The logic is pretty simple, you give the program a target number of AI aircraft, by default 150. Every 60 seconds the program will check how many AI Aircraft are there and then it will delete AI Aircraft above this number. Aircraft farthest from your aircraft are deleted first, so traffic around you should remain largely unchanged. 

 

You can change the target number to your choice based upon your hardware.

 

Traffic Settings within P3D:

You should set the the traffic density in P3D to something which gives you decent traffic around you. For example I use MyTraffic, so I set the density to 35%, which I think reflects RW traffic. In my situation my FPS goes from ~12 to ~18 with this program in KJFK.

 

How to use:

Unzip the contents - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_5rZp8PTz0qcFVMWGo1bl9ENG8/edit?usp=sharing

Start P3D, let it come up fully

Start AirTrafficManager.exe

"Check" the "Auto Optimize" check-box

 

The first clean-up will happen 15 seconds after you check the check-box, and after 10-15 seconds of that you will notice your FPS increase.

 

I have not programmed in VB.Net for ages, so if you are going to try this out then you are a beta-tester

 

Notes:

1. This program runs separately from P3D so hopefully will not crash it.

2. If you get a message in the console saying unable to connect to P3D, please re-start AirTrafficManager.

3. Although the check for AI Aircraft is done every 60 seconds, the clean-up happens 15 seconds after the 60 seconds

 

Requirements:

1. P3D v2.3

2. FSUIPC

 

Acknowledgements:

1. Uses the FSUIPC Client DLL for .NET by Paul Henty

I am using WOAI and I have not tried your program yet.

 

...bottom line, I know what it takes to code or at least I remember, so my hat is off to you!

Well done!

 

I wish you well.

 

Chas

Man this is incredible can't wait to try it out thanks!

UPDATE: Man this program is beautiful...in heavily congested areas I get my FPS back up to pretty much normal...

 

For example, flying around the BWI terminal control area it had about 175 AI units at 20% for my AI...

 

Since I fly GA, traffic is realy just there for me to not feel alone and add to the immersion so I just set it to 30 AI, it cut out majority of AI that were dozens of miles away and even so, the closest AI it removed was 40nm away!  BTW, I love how it mentions how many got deleted, how many there currently are, the furthest deleted and the closest deleted, great stuff!

 

This tool is just great.  I'm a C++ software dev but haven't dived into the SDK though but would love to help out with this.  A couple things to make it more dynamic:

 

1.  Make it so it can autostart with P3D using exe.xml, but would required #2

2.  Make it so that it listens for P3D kinda like ActiveSkyNext does, this allows you to close/open P3D at will while leaving the tool running or to do #1

 

Beyond that it would be just about perfect.  Great work!

You should sell your idea to LM. I've always wondered why the AI Traffic volumes were 0 to 100 percent. That makes no sense, since 50% at KALB is a small number whereas 50% in the NYC area is still .enough to bring any system to its knees. The percentage  approach is fine but there also should be a maximum number of AI aircraft, like what you have apparently done. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

Excellent tool - will post results soon.

Very nice tool.  I can confirm that it helps regain some of the heavy FPS hit from My Traffic 5.4

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

@hawkeye - the xml part, to auto-start, needs an installer to be created. Maybe sometime...

 

@jabloomf - its strange that LM did not consider optimizing the AI traffic themselves. What I do is basically a hack, but LM can do much more in terms of moving the AI traffic control logic out of the main program thread itself.

Could you make a dual version : P3D and FSX ?

 

This one is great for FSX users too.

Nice 1 cheers

What a great idea!

 

I am wondering if this works with any traffic addon? I use Ultimate Traffic 2 with P3D.

Great work! Thanks a lot.

Ultimate Traffic 2 already includes a "traffic limiter" utility, although I suspect that this probably culls traffic from anywhere, so you might see an AI plane disappear right in front of you at a large airport!

does this just delete AI at will no matter if for instance they are heading towards you and may be becoming into view?

This sounds like a great tool Luke. AI traffic is the biggest hit to my performance. I am also interested in an FSX version. If not, this tool may be what gets me off the fence to join the P3D party.

 

Ted