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dukeav

Traffic Optimizer for FSX/P3D

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I'm wondering what the purpose of supplying the two ICAOs is.

 

Does it affect which Ai get deleted? That would be my guess. For example, if I set-up a flight from Heathrow to JFK then all those Ai well to the east of London would be the first to go since they will never be close to my route.

 

But those out to the west - even 100 miles away I might feel inclined to keep. After all, I'm sure most would agree you don't want to sanitise the route you're flying. And each few minutes when you check and remove those in excess of the user's target would you also prioritise those behind your aircraft rather than ahead?

 

Just a thought which I think would enhance your already excellent program.

Of course you're right, this would be lovely, but I fear that it will spoil the nice simplicity of the program.

 

To facilitate what you suggest, the program would need to know where airports are in the world in relation to your flying route; I don't think that's an entirely trivial task.

 

I'm really happy with Traffic Optimizer as is, expecially that it's not very resource intensive. :smile:


- Jens Peter "Penz" Pedersen

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Of course you're right, this would be lovely, but I fear that it will spoil the nice simplicity of the program.

 

However, I do think there is one improvement which should be relatively simple to implement. Instead of basing it on the route, or departure and destination, make it vary according to the frame rae.

 

The current frame rate can be read from SimConnect or FSUIPC, so that is no problem. I think ideally I would like to see a desired minimum frame rate, and minimum and maximum figures for the desired number of AI, with the program going down to the minimum if it sees a sustained reduction in frame rate below the minimum requested, but allowed to creep up to the maximum allowed AI if the frame rate is staying above the minimum set.

 

Regards

Pete


Win10: 22H2 19045.2728
CPU: 9900KS at 5.5GHz
Memory: 32Gb at 3800 MHz.
GPU:  RTX 24Gb Titan
2 x 2160p projectors at 25Hz onto 200 FOV curved screen

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Of course you're right, this would be lovely, but I fear that it will spoil the nice simplicity of the program.

 

To facilitate what you suggest, the program would need to know where airports are in the world in relation to your flying route; I don't think that's an entirely trivial task.

 

I'm really happy with Traffic Optimizer as is, expecially that it's not very resource intensive. :smile:

 

Point taken about the need to know the lat/lon of each airport. Not sure if MakeRunways produces such data but if it does that might help.

 

But I agree that you wouldn't want the program to become sluggish because that would reduce its attractiveness.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Ray and Pete, I agree of course.

 

However, even in its current state it solves some problems quite nicely; like for example flying into (or out of) the biggest hubs of major metropolitan areas (London, NY et al.) with lots of airports and AI, you can tailor the situation so it doesn't affect traffic in your destination (or departure) airport, but still reduce total AI impact considerably.

 

Of course, in an ideal world we would be able to have as many (hyper-intelligent) AI objects in the bubble as desired, without any impact whatsoever on frames or VAS. :wink:


- Jens Peter "Penz" Pedersen

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Of course, in an ideal world we would be able to have as many (hyper-intelligent) AI objects in the bubble as desired, without any impact whatsoever on frames or VAS. :wink:

One day Penz... one day. :BigGrin:


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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By entering the departure/destination ICAOs the program tries not to delete any AI at those airports or headed to those airports. 

 

For example, consider you are at your departure airport and taking time to get ready to depart or just watching traffic. I believe that AI coming to your Airport will first appear at the edge of the AI bubble, or at least that's how most of the incoming AI will appear. Without the departure airport optimization, these AI at the edge of the bubble will get deleted as its farthest from you. This behaviour will show up in heavily congested areas, not everywhere.

 

The result will be that over time, as you just sit at your airport, you will find no incoming traffic. With the departure optimization this gets fixed.

 

Similar logic for the destination airport. When you reach the destination, you want to see AI planes on ground as well as in air. If the destination optimization is not applied then as you approach the destination airport, the airport first comes inside the edge of the bubble and traffic starts getting generated there. But now because the destination airport is at the edge of the bubble, hence farthest from you, the program is most likely to pick traffic there for deletion. The destination optimization prevents these deletes, hence when you arrive you should see decent AI.

 

So that's the theory I applied.

 

Now I have noticed one issue, when starting from Philadelphia Intl and arriving at JFK, I found that traffic at JFK was half of what I expected (i.e. half of what I would see if I started from JFK), even though destination optimization was on. My guess is that the AI engine is not created AI traffic as we approach an Airport fast enough or in the right amount. This can't be fixed without injecting traffic. That's a bit too much, so it may remain so.

 

The heading question, lets say you are going from JFK to Heathrow. The AI bubble should be 100 miles in front of you and 100 miles behind. If I look at FligthAware for how much volume there can be in a 200 mile stretch and its very very low. If your AI target is set to a reasonable level like 50/100/150, this traffic will be preserved, since its within your limit. So I theorize that heading based optimization is not needed. 

 

The FPS question. In the other thread, someone mentioned that UT2 has FPS based optimization. My theory is was FPS base optimization is not feasible. FPS being a very dynamic variable and AI traffic creation is a much more sedate process. Why FPS vs AI creation is a problem? Consider this. You are flying towards JFK and looking straight ahead looking mostly at the sea. FPS is pretty stable. Now you decide to pan you view to Manhattan, and your FPS drips drastically because of scenery complexity. An FPS based target would in many such cases end up deleting substantial AI traffic. The problem is that we adjusted AI traffic down too much when scenery complexity was the cause and inevitable, Even FPS dips caused say, by switching views, would cause AI traffic to be deleted.

 

We might say that deletion was fine and expected, but the problem is now AI Traffic creation. AI traffic gets created very slowly and it would take much more time to restore traffic, when FPS has come back to good levels.

 

I think that's probably what happened in UT2 when users tried to use the FPS optimizer. At sudden dips in FPS, the AI traffic would vanish in large parts. I don't have UT2, but this what I read around.

 

Maybe a better FPS optimization is possible by using a long term FPS average as a guide...

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The FPS question. In the other thread, someone mentioned that UT2 has FPS based optimization. My theory is was FPS base optimization is not feasible. FPS being a very dynamic variable and AI traffic creation is a much more sedate process. Why FPS vs AI creation is a problem? Consider this. You are flying towards JFK and looking straight ahead looking mostly at the sea. FPS is pretty stable. Now you decide to pan you view to Manhattan, and your FPS drips drastically because of scenery complexity. An FPS based target would in many such cases end up deleting substantial AI traffic. The problem is that we adjusted AI traffic down too much when scenery complexity was the cause and inevitable, Even FPS dips caused say, by switching views, would cause AI traffic to be deleted.

 

We might say that deletion was fine and expected, but the problem is now AI Traffic creation. AI traffic gets created very slowly and it would take much more time to restore traffic, when FPS has come back to good levels.

 

I think that's probably what happened in UT2 when users tried to use the FPS optimizer. At sudden dips in FPS, the AI traffic would vanish in large parts. I don't have UT2, but this what I read around.

 

Maybe a better FPS optimization is possible by using a long term FPS average as a guide...

 

You clearly don't own UT2, but FPS is one of the settings...

Which I personally don't use but the other settings are great for performance and AI B)

I can adjust at which altitude the AI is visible and how many aircraft at what distance are injected into the sim....

So no need for an extra polling tool for me personally lol...

Hence I prefer a one stop solution with the settings in UT2 you can do it 3 dimensional and no interference with UT injecting traffic B)

 

For all the other traffic programs out there I can imagine it to be very useful, but for UT2 I don't see the extra benefit on the contrary...

Andre,

 

No I truly didn't know! I will take a look.

 

Your welcome Jim, was under the impression we old timers knew the options....


 

André
 

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You clearly don't own UT2, but FPS is one of the settings...

Which I personally don't use but the other settings are great for performance and AI B)

I can adjust at which altitude the AI is visible and how many aircraft at what distance are injected into the sim....

So no need for an extra polling tool for me personally lol...

Hence I prefer a one stop solution with the settings in UT2 you can do it 3 dimensional and no interference with UT injecting traffic B)

 

For all the other traffic programs out there I can imagine it to be very useful, but for UT2 I don't see the extra benefit on the contrary...

 

Your welcome Jim, was under the impression we old timers knew the options....

 

Ah, the reference of UT2 was in this thread itself.

 

This point is in reference to FPS based optimization question from Pete. You say you have not used it UT2. But why don't you try it and see how my theory goes?

 

I have never used UT2, I have just read around after your comments. I did compare UT2 with MyTraffic before I made the decision for MyTraffic a couple years back, though I don't recall why I chose one over the other.

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I played with AI and FPS settings in UT2. But there were reasons why I didn't like it overall and I'm not using it now. Also for what it matters UT2 has an unpleasant bug whereas AI traffic disappears when flying over the water expanse. Anyhow, UT2 is peripheral and I stopped using it a few years ago.

 

dukeav, I really like your idea and I always thought that some additional regulation of AI traffic in hubs would be very helpful for fps in certain situations.

 

Thanks,

Dirk.

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Thank you for your efforts. Would it be possible to enable this software to run on a networked computer?

 

Menno


Menno 

i7-11700, 16GB, 1 TB SSD, 2 TB HDD, RTX 3070, Windows 11, MSFS 2020 DeLuxe, P3D 4.5

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Thank you for your efforts. Would it be possible to enable this software to run on a networked computer?

 

Menno

 

It already does. You'll need WideFS by Pete Dowson.


Ray (Cheshire, England).
System: P3D v5.3HF2, Intel i9-13900K, MSI 4090 GAMING X TRIO 24G, Crucial T700 4Tb M.2 SSD, Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero, 32Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz RAM, Win 11 Pro 64-bit, BenQ PD3200U 32” UHD monitor, Fulcrum One yoke.
Cheadle Hulme Weather

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Hi Ray

 

It already does. You'll need WideFS by Pete Dowson.

 

Well I didn't know that !!!

 

I have both programs, so this may be a dumb question, but is it just a case of unzipping traffic optimizer onto the client machine where WideFS is installed ?

 

Thanks

 

Gary

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The FPS question. In the other thread, someone mentioned that UT2 has FPS based optimization. My theory is was FPS base optimization is not feasible. FPS being a very dynamic variable and AI traffic creation is a much more sedate process. Why FPS vs AI creation is a problem? Consider this. You are flying towards JFK and looking straight ahead looking mostly at the sea. FPS is pretty stable. Now you decide to pan you view to Manhattan, and your FPS drips drastically because of scenery complexity. An FPS based target would in many such cases end up deleting substantial AI traffic. The problem is that we adjusted AI traffic down too much when scenery complexity was the cause and inevitable, Even FPS dips caused say, by switching views, would cause AI traffic to be deleted.

 

Maybe a better FPS optimization is possible by using a long term FPS average as a guide...

 

It was my suggestion, and I think I did apply the adjective "sustained", so:

 

Maybe a better FPS optimization is possible by using a long term FPS average as a guide...

 

Yes, exactly. If the FPS stayed below the minimum requested for a minute or more, then delete a few and wait and see ... etc. I think a very sedate laid-back approach is called for here, no knee-jerk deletions,

 

UT2 did not use deletions as far as I am aware, I thought it simply reduced or increased the number of injections.  It had the advantage of being able to control it like that because it didn't use pre-compiled traffic files, everything was dynamic. And of course it used proper plans for the AI to follw, using airways rather than great circle routing. Nice -- shame it isn't maintained so all the schedules and airline sleection is now well outdated.

 

Regards

Pete

I have both programs, so this may be a dumb question, but is it just a case of unzipping traffic optimizer onto the client machine where WideFS is installed ?

 

Yes, but you need the SimConnect set up too -- a SimConnect.cfg file. 

 

Pete


Win10: 22H2 19045.2728
CPU: 9900KS at 5.5GHz
Memory: 32Gb at 3800 MHz.
GPU:  RTX 24Gb Titan
2 x 2160p projectors at 25Hz onto 200 FOV curved screen

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UT2 did not use deletions as far as I am aware, I thought it simply reduced or increased the number of injections.  It had the advantage of being able to control it like that because it didn't use pre-compiled traffic files, everything was dynamic. And of course it used proper plans for the AI to follw, using airways rather than great circle routing. Nice -- shame it isn't maintained so all the schedules and airline sleection is now well outdated.

 

Regards

Pete

 

 

Well Pete for me personally UT2 with powerpack is still my first choice when it comes to AI

even with the flaws in the program ;-) I prefer the injections above the use of traffic.bgl files for number of reasons.

Indeed traffic injection is dynamic with UT2 so no deletions but more a percentage plus and min...


 

André
 

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