Poor performance with Taxi lights - only at certain airports

[pegruder 65]

Came across a strange one.  Most airports no matter how long the taxi route the taxi lights feature of vox never seemed to have made an impact.  Requested taxi clearance at CLT and my FPS went sub single digits after the taxi route was drawn.  This also happened at IAH as well.  I've been to several other airports with varying lengths in taxi route all with no issue.  Anyone else come across this?  This is a must-have for me at unfamiliar airports as I mostly fly in VR.  Makes taxiing about SO much easier!

[scotth6 74]

Yeah I noticed this today at FSDT Vancouver.  Everything was pretty smooth during startup (using fs2crew and vox atc) but when I requested taxi everyting turned in to a slide show.  I had the same slide show when approaching KMSP the other day though, so I'm wondering if it's just vox atc eating up all the resources.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

One can disable the green taxi guidance lights in the Advanced Settings utility and then in the VOXATC gauge window there is an option to enable taxiing directions (which is not the same). This displays hideous purple cones which point in the correct taxiing direction. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

As to performance issues, I only run VOXATC on my two highest logical cores (7&8). See advanced settings.

[scotth6 74]

Thanks Jay.  I did find the ability to disable the lights, although they are handy and fairly unobtrusive visually.

I think I will need to re-enable Hyperthreading and give your settings a try.  So far I have tried with 3, 0, 2&3, 0&1&2&3, but all seem to be struggling when combined with any addon airports.

Cheers,

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I wouldn't bother enabling hyperthreading. It won't make much difference. Without it, just put all add-ons on the highest physical core. Create a BAT file to run P3d and your add-ons. Here's mine:

start /b "" /affinity 0xC0 "c:\Program Files (x86)\NaturalPoint\TrackIR5\TrackIR5.exe"
start /b "" /affinity 0xC0 "E:\Program Files (x86)\HiFi\AS_P3Dv4\AS_P3Dv4.exe"
start /b "" /affinity 0xC0 "E:\Program Files\REX Sky Force 3D for Prepar3D v4\rexskyforce.exe"
start /b "" "G:\Program Files\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d v4\Prepar3D.exe"
start /b "" /affinity 0xC0 "E:\Program Files (x86)\Little Navmap\littlenavmap.exe"

The AMs are with hyperthreading enabled (8 logical cores). Notice I don't mess with the AM of P3d4 itself. I've never seen any benefit of doing so. In fact, I detect little benefit from using this BAT file (other than it makes me feel good).

[scotth6 74]

OK thanks.

I disabled HT a long time ago as I thought (and read) there was some benefit running FSX and P3D without it.  From memory it was because the CPU ran cooler at the same speed with it disabled.

Now I have a number of addons, especially VOX ATC, which seems to require a bit of CPU, I thought it might be beneficial to re enable HT.  I suppose I will need to experiment.

I actually thought you meant that you had HT enabled before when you said cores 7 and 8.  I have VOX ATC set on the last two 6 & 7 (7 & 8).  I'm actually in the middle of the flight between Vancouver and San Diego as I type this, and changing to these settings and disabling the taxi lights helped a lot at CYVR.

Cheers,

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I do have HT enabled but I also said it has virtually no advantage over HT disabled. My system came set up that way so I never bothered to change it.

[pegruder 65]

 

On 6/7/2018 at 8:27 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

As to performance issues, I only run VOXATC on my two highest logical cores (7&8). See advanced settings.

A little thread resurrection - because for some reason I never tried this - but I think it totally worked!  Im back on my Vox kick.  I've been using P2A for awhile but it sucks with no traffic control and separation.  I've had to lower my AI settings just so I dont have constant conflicts upon landing.  Time to start putting vox through its paces again!

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I tend to run all my add-ons on cores 7 and 8 and leave the rest to P3d4.  I can't prove that it's a better option, but I rarely see stutters, slow autogen loading and blurry textures. Most add-ons (weather, ATC, etc.) aren't constantly loading the CPU heavily and can be relegated to a logical core or two. With VOXATC, the only difference that I have encountered is when it creates all the AI traffic at the beginning of a flight, especially at busy airports. It takes it a few seconds to create all  the AI aircraft, since VOXATC can't hog all cores at once.

[pegruder 65]

9 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

I tend to run all my add-ons on cores 7 and 8 and leave the rest to P3d4.  I can't prove that it's a better option, but I rarely see stutters, slow autogen loading and blurry textures. Most add-ons (weather, ATC, etc.) aren't constantly loading the CPU heavily and can be relegated to a logical core or two. With VOXATC, the only difference that I have encountered is when it creates all the AI traffic at the beginning of a flight, especially at busy airports. It takes it a few seconds to create all  the AI aircraft, since VOXATC can't hog all cores at once.

Certainly makes sense, no idea why I never tried it.  I get the initial performance hit when the AI load in but other than that its smooth.  One can only hope MSFS2020 gets some built in ATC treatment as good as this!

[Mad_Mac 21]

12 hours ago, pegruder said:

Certainly makes sense, no idea why I never tried it.  I get the initial performance hit when the AI load in but other than that its smooth.  One can only hope MSFS2020 gets some built in ATC treatment as good as this!

Don’t hold your breath on the built in ATC. It seems they weren’t planning to include any (Not even the FSX drop down menus) ATC in the initial release, until they heard how important this was to the community. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

ATC integrated with AI aircraft is probably the most challenging aspect of flightsim coding. If I was MS, I would just buy the rights to the VOXATC code.  They're going to get a big surprise if they try to use RL traffic ADS-B data. It's not available for all countries and it's not that precise for ground traffic. 

[pegruder 65]

11 hours ago, Mad_Mac said:

Don’t hold your breath on the built in ATC. It seems they weren’t planning to include any (Not even the FSX drop down menus) ATC in the initial release, until they heard how important this was to the community. 

No breaths held here for sure. I have 0 expectations for the new sim. At least I can't be disappointed that way. All the fancy videos make it look like everything we've all wanted but I'll believe it when I see it. As nice as the visuals and weather are that whole package needs to be there.  Atc and other aircraft are a big part of flight operations so they need to get it right. 

9 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

ATC integrated with AI aircraft is probably the most challenging aspect of flightsim coding. If I was MS, I would just buy the rights to the VOXATC code.  They're going to get a big surprise if they try to use RL traffic ADS-B data. It's not available for all countries and it's not that precise for ground traffic. 

I agree. I wish I was a better programmer I'd give it a go myself. I'm sure this is a little more complicated then the Python and Google go Lang scripts I put together for network automation at work. The RL traffic is nice (I've used that psxconn app) when it works, ground control is awful however as you mentioned. But even still there's no atc chatter in the background or control of them in relation to your aircraft so it still breaks that immersion. Only vox has been able to deliver on pretty much all counts. 

[vadriver 247]

8 hours ago, pegruder said:

Only vox has been able to deliver on pretty much all counts. 

Chris

Have you tried P3D452's new feature ..........."Fixed issue where airport runway secondary landing attributes would be ignored and processed as primary landing attributes"

It along with Vox742's traffic engine now allows one to close runways (say for east ops only at VHHH) and have / include for downwinds to both AI and yours ...... of course you need to study the TAF beforehand to decide whether east or west suits.

Vox's arrival assignments are also more predictable despite its late read of weather.