Ultimate Live Traffic Preview

[fluffyflops 1,858]

It must be a very clever program Steve if it Downloads the nat tracks and pacots every day, analyses the 1800z issued weather from the UK and USA met office and decides on a route.

Even more so it must be extremely clever as at easyJet for example they have 4 company routes for the lgw to agp routes. Which changes daily. Trust me I worked  for them for eight years. 

How does it know which China entry point from Mongolia to use, the long haul airline I now work now for has issues with this on a daily basis.

Steve I apologise in advance for sounding obtuse and arrogant,  I love Ut2,  but I also remember the developer doing a runner. 

I cant help but think it's a xxxxx being polished here,  but we have all just been though a overpriced and overhyped airbus with a right fmc that sometimes doesn't work  and that you can't taxi in a straight line without giving yourself a heart attack.  

One minute you say its "live and connected the next you don't"  plus in ut2 there was no a380 or 787s and now there suddenly is.

Like I said Steve,  sorry for being an arse but we've been burnt before with these new "all new better than ever before capers" 

 

 

[vcarlo 529]

I don't believe Steve ever said it "is live and connected".  This thread is confusing because others are injecting their thoughts about the other recently released freeware "LIVE TRAFFIC" from Nico.

Personally, I think Steve has provided a good insight as to what Ultimate Traffic Live will be and what it won't be.  I am looking forward to the release of Ultimate Traffic Live and want to thank Steve for helping to clear up some questions I feel most of us had.

[MehdiAli 5]

But the liveries never get updated too.. i mean i bought UT2 thinking it was amazing and tbh 5or6/10 

[stevem72 10]

Hi Steve

Thanks for chiming in here with some more info on UT Live.
However, your explanation actually provides more questions than answers lol. I'd be grateful if you could provide further detail in the following areas:

"With the simulation engine using flight plans" - does that mean you've moved back to a bgl format??
"Note the size of UT2. UTLive is actually considerably smaller" - is that not because it appears that you only provide 2 flightplans?? If so, are add on schedules going to be produced for free, or are they going to be payware?
"A plane may be delayed because of weather conditions in various regions. There may be maintenance delays. And this effects the entire ecosystem. When a plane is delayed, it affects its arrival, and next departure. Bad weather in a region may cause many delays in another region that has good weather, as planes have not arrived yet. So the simulator responds accordingly, even to a single flight delay" - are these weather/maintenance "delays" going to be generated randomly, or are they based on real world data (which seems odd as you state its NOT based on a real world data feed)??
"Generic repaints can now be toggled on or off is a new option" - Nope....this option was/is an option in UT2.

Again, whilst I fully understand its early days in the marketing blurb some more detail regarding:

What aircraft models does it use, what repaints (if any) will be provided?
How will it follow sids/stars etc,
Can it run on a networked PC?
Will there be a demo available?
Will I still be able to use any existing flightplans with it?
Will I still be able to add repaints/models, will it be much less convoluted?
Will there be a "power pack" or similar to be able to convert/add flightplans that aren't shipped/available?
Has the flight over water issue been fixed?

would be much appreciated!!

Thanks again
Regards
Steve

[Christopher Low 5,353]

"With the simulation engine using flight plans" - does that mean you've moved back to a bgl format??

If it does, then a solution to the "AI planes doing crazy things" bug needs to be implemented.

[Steve Halpern 176]

Will try to answer a few of the questions posted. Sorry if some were missed...

Note that these answers are not final, and there may be slight variations in the final product.

It does not download tracks. But it works better over water, and weather can cause delays and affect the entire simulation of aircraft. Weather is read from your imported simulator weather, and flights are affected accordingly.

You can import company routes if you want.

No, it is NOT bgl format. That would be static. The engine "stages" the entire world, and the cause and effect system is applied like I mentioned earlier. This new traffic engine is core to the entire experience.

New schedules will not likely be free. Commercial grade data is VERY expensive. They will be priced pretty low, like UT2 schedules. The data size in the product is considerably smaller because you only have waypoint and airway data. The previous UT2 had preset points along the route. i.e. interval points between waypoints. UTLive is a lot more dynamic.

The delays for weather will be read from conditions in the simulator. If you are connected to a live weather feed that sets weather in the sim, that affects everything. You will get the occasional maintenance delay too. Obviously that is simulated.

To clarify on the generic repaints... they will be OFF by default. You will have to turn them on if you want them on. Of course we hope to expand the repaints as things progress, and each repaint means less generic planes.

The product uses the same models, a few new ones, some removed repaints that no longer apply, and quite a few new repaints that will bump the flight count up.

Regarding SIDS/STARS: Routing is done using SIDS without runway transitions, followed by enroute airways. STARS are used until ATC vectors the plane towards approach.

Can it run on a networked PC? We have not tried it. The engine does not use a lot of overhead. But it theory it may. It is not required that UTLive be installed in the directory structure of any simulator. One install can work for multiple simulators.

Will there be a demo available? No demo. Our 30-day refund policy is in force, so if the full product does not suit you, you should be able to get a refund. This is why we do not have many demos.

Will I still be able to use any existing flightplans with it? It allows you to import and use custom flightplans for your aircraft.

Will I still be able to add repaints/models, will it be much less convoluted? Yes you can add your own models and it is straight forward.

Will there be a "power pack" or similar to be able to convert/add flightplans that aren't shipped/available? Do you mean schedules? UTLive allows you to create custom schedules via a simple XML based file structure, and then import it.

Has the flight over water issue been fixed? Yes!

[GSalden 4,657]

Thanks Steve for your explanation...

[pmb 5,137]

5 hours ago, Steve Halpern said:

Can it run on a networked PC? We have not tried it. The engine does not use a lot of overhead. But it theory it may. It is not required that UTLive be installed in the directory structure of any simulator. One install can work for multiple simulators.

Maybe you can keep a close eye on this. I've outsourced quite a lot of stuff to a networked PC (Moving Map FS-FlightControl, SPAD,neXt managing all the controls/panels, AS2016+ASCA, Envtex) and I am quite proud sporting relatively good performance on a non-overclocked machine and no VAS issues (okay, this hopefully will be a thing of the past for all of us soon).

All traffic programs I own (UT2, MT6, T360) incur a prohibitive framerate hit if run with higher numbers of aircraft at larger hubs. The only one with better performance is Nico Kaan's PSXseconTraffic which I use at present - running networked, too.

Kind regards, Michael

[vcarlo 529]

A prompt and informative response Steve.  Thanks so much.  Agree with Michael regarding the program's use via networked PC.  With Flight 1's refund policy, this will be a day one purchase for me. 

[stevem72 10]

2 hours ago, pmb said:

All traffic programs I own (UT2, MT6, T360) incur a prohibitive framerate hit if run with higher numbers of aircraft at larger hubs. The only one with better performance is Nico Kaan's PSXseconTraffic which I use at present - running networked, too.

Kind regards, Michael

Hi Michael

Slightly off topic but just a note on the above as I experience the same "improved" performance with Nico's program too.

However, I believe the performance gain is because Nico's program actually has to load less aircraft than UT2 etc.and not through having any lighter overhead.

For example, if you're at Heathrow then UT2 will clearly load all of the aircraft in the air around you....clearly as will Nico's program....so no real difference between the two.

The key difference arrives where UT2 (and other AI programs) will also load/spawn/inject the aircraft that are on the GROUND at ALL other airports/airfields (min or & major) around you and not just at Heathrow whereas Nico's program doesn't.

In the above scenario, UT2 is having to inject aircraft on the ground at major hubs such as Gatwick, London City, Luton, Stansted as well as at all of the smaller airfields around London within the standard fsx ai radius etc etc which is what drags anyone's performance down around most of the bigger hubs....as bigger hubs are usually in bigger cities....with more airports around etc.

Using Nico's program these ai...on the ground...aren't needed to be loaded/spawned/injected en masse....the only ground traffic that gets loaded is at the airport your are departing or arriving at.

This is where I believe the performance gain comes from - I have actually compared the 2 using the sdk traffic explorer (as you or anyone else can) and Nico's program can load up to 60% LESS ai models through not having all those additional extra ai on the ground bogging down the sim.

I'm not at all saying Nico's program is better....its not.....it still has flaws big time...I'm ust trying to explain where this myth that seems to exist of it "having better performance" comes from

I hope this makes sense.

Back on topic!!

Regards

Steve

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Keeping track of all those AI schedules and pinpointing every AI aircraft's  geographic  location is what also bogs down FSX  and P3d. Nico's app pulls the positions out of thin air, so to speak since it's just reading the locations of the nearest airborne real life planes off of a remote server. 

Addons like UT2, MyT 6 and WOAI have literally  thousands to tens of thousands of individual flights active worldwide at any given time and the sim has to figure out, based on the user's  aircraft  location, which small subset will be visible  within the reality bubble. 

And at the moment  Nico's  app doesn't move AI aircraft  around on the ground at an airport since most non-airborne real life planes have their ADS-B units turned off. Coding the AI ground movement  along taxi paths is a performance killer too. And finally, there's also no impact due to the sim's default  ATC reporting locations of the AI  to the user.

 

 

 

 

[pmb 5,137]

Steve72 and Jay, you both are certainly right. It all comes down what you expect to see. For my purpose, I find Nico's program a pretty good fit right now. I don't need all the taxi positions and movements to be calculated in Europe when flying around the SF Bay Area. Instead I enjoy better fps being always a concern. And we don't speak about 60 fps as some people absolutely claim to need for fluent flow, but high traffic settings in the traditional AI programs at larger hubs combined with high-quality scenery and high display settings can draw fps under 20, being inadmissible.

This said:

- The "old" UT2 has certainly been the best performing among the three traditional ones using comparable settings.

- Nico's program for sure has a number of flaws. Some may be remediable, but others (like the low live traffic when I - Europe based - fly in Europa at night) are inherent.

Kind regards, Michael

[Flic1 976]

This really sounds like an interesting product.  I have lately resorted to using AIFP and have manually added quite a number of airlines and it has actually worked out great.  I keep AI limited to 60 through FSUIPC and I get a realistic amount of traffic at the airports.  I have read with interest about the other Live AI program from Nico but if I'm not sure I like the idea of no AI (or very few) on the ground.  That's when I like to see it!  I like to taxi in and see the correct airlines at the correct gates, etc.  In the air?  Well I don't really care as much.  I think having actual airways, SID's and STAR's implemented is fantastic.  I was a UT2 user in the past and look forward to this new version!

[JasonW 32]

Steve, it sounds like you guys are on the right track for a great AI add on. Can you comment on if this new version will include the major freight carriers such as FedEx or UPS? 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I'm surprised  that no one has thought of developing a new AI utility  that would read your user flight plan and all the BGL AI  schedule  files and then create a "light weight" AI BGL file that would be tailored to the flight plan. This would reduce drastically  the amount of caching  and bookkeeping  needed to keep track of AI aircraft.

This approach  is analogous  to how AS16 parses the user's  flight plan to optimize weather generation.