Obviously this is a question/issue for the LM developers, but I wondered if perhaps the actual simple flight simulation calculations for AI and the ATC logic for ground taxi and air flight plan rules could be moved out of the main CPU that currently is max busy rendering the 3D scene along with the GPU. It would seem that these calculations would be somewhat asynchronous from the main thread - although it might induce some frame stepping if you are close to the AI object at high speeds (formation flying).  I know by actually adding 30 to 50 static aircraft to my airports, that the additional graphics load is not chiefly responsible for the fairly extreme FPS penalty for high percentage AI. I personally dislike seeing "ghost" airports so I just use Instant Scenery or SbuilderX (ADE or etc..) to add a reasonable number of GA, Bizjets, or airliners to an airport and I always am amazed that I lose just 1->2 FPS. Most of us are flying now with 4,6, or even 8 actual cores and still see good ole CPU#1 chugging away with just texture loading fibers/threads in the others. Of course, maybe LM already has moved some things into the other cores - don't know.

   Along the same lines, why not be able to move some of the sophisticated logic in high fidelity aircraft like PMDG 777 to another core - I just don't believe that the virtual cockpit graphics is the huge FPS robber. I notice that the logic code for the FlightOne FTN750 can be assigned to another core (their map graphics requires about 3.5 milliseconds out of the 25 milliseconds to maintain 40 FPS).

  This issue wasn't that big of a deal when performance per core was doubling every 18 months or so, but since it has been stagnant for about 5 years at 4.0Ghz, more effective use of our cores would be welcome even though the code rewrite could be challenging.

 

Just a thought

Good thought...maybe post it up in the P3D forums and see what the devs have to say about its feasibility.

 

In the meantime, the freeware Air Traffic Manager does a very good job of managing the number of aircraft within a radius (and lowering the impact on frames)...come to think of it, this would be great to have built right in as an option within 3D. 

In my opinion this is a great idea, indeed. However, I doubt it can (and will be) integrated into the simulator as only a minority has a Client connected and LM usually prefers to leave such enhancements to 3rd party developers.

 

Perhaps you can suggest this to the AI developers as an option. Given that the developer of UT2 got lost in space, this would refer to Burkhard Renk / MyTraffic, and Just Flight / Traffic 360. They both are working on Prepar3d2 compatible versions right now.

 

Kind regards, Michael

I thought that too Michael, but then wondered that the threading for the default AI traffic had to be core within the sim (thought someone could probably correct me).

 

Certainly an opportunity somewhere...

I think this should be doable. UT2 does it already. Its engine is working separately and outside of the simulator. You can set both in-simulator sliders to 0, and it does its job. If memory serves me right, once there was even a discussion if UT could be brought to run on a Client via WideFS, but as far as I recall all corresponding attempts failed.

 

Supposedly, this would have been the best start and UT2 actually works excellent in P3D. However a quick glance onto the UT2 forum shows there's no chance for any further development and it's not worth spening any further effort into this. Thus one of the other developers had to be convinced of the idea.

 

Kind regards, Michael