VoxATC, P3d v4.3, and AI traffic

[BigRick 3]

Since tech support from the author of the program is doesn't exist,  I turn to the community for help.  I am running the above setup.  VoxATC indexer and all runs fine.  Loads in P3D v4.3 fine and does all the initial checks and even tells me to tune xxx.xx to get ATIS.  But, there is no keyboard or joystick interaction with the VoxATC window.  The Joystick assignment program shows that the buttons are assigned and recognized but the actual program while in-sim will not respond at all. If I turn off the AI traffic or there is none around it seems to interact.  Has anyone else had problems with the new version of P3D and VoxATC?  It's been almost a year since 7.41 has been released and none of the bugs have been fixed.  I'm in the market for an alternative if this stuff cannot be fixed.  Any clues folks?  Thanx.

 

-Rick

[BigRick 3]

No ideas from anyone, I guess.  Well, until the author decides to come out of hiding and give some support and an update to fix a lot of the bugs that the software currently has, VoxATC is going on the shelf.  I have been in Flight Sim for 15 years and have never seen such a complete lack of support for the people that paid money for this program.  I'm am very disillusioned with it. 

 

-Rick

[fltent1184 4]

I just tried with P3D 4.3 & am able to get the PTT keys etc. to work from a joystick with AI traffic. So this means that there is no issue with software (which is good considering that there is no inkling of any fixes or releases from the developer).

I am probably thinking there is some conflict with your assignment; let's start from some basics:

1. Check the PTT key you are using is not assigned to something else in P3D (I have had this problem before when the joystick button had a conflict).

2. If you are using FSUIPC, check there are no key assignments which are conflicting.

3. Try in another aircraft just to eliminate any custom key mappings for a particular 3P aircraft.

4. Check if there is no other conflicting software; as a start I would run only P3D and Vox and see if it works.

5. Re-install VoxATC.

I understand your pain. My gripe with Vox has been poor performance with AI which I wasn't able to explain when compared to higher densities with UTLive. But UTLive has its own issues & all 3P ATC software have some drawback or the other.  I tried multiple but have kept coming back one way or other to Vox. The thing I liked about Vox was the ground handling along with more or less solid vectoring (AI control is also another USP considering that I have had very few to no go arounds & rare runway incursions). 

Give the above steps a try. 

[503Kento 11]

If lack of AI solves the issue, it would seem it is related to processing power.  You might up the priority of VoxATC via advanced settings and allocate the top half of your cores to it. Those setting work well for me. 

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

On 7/6/2018 at 1:59 AM, BigRick said:

Since tech support from the author of the program is doesn't exist,  I turn to the community for help.  I am running the above setup.  VoxATC indexer and all runs fine.  Loads in P3D v4.3 fine and does all the initial checks and even tells me to tune xxx.xx to get ATIS.  But, there is no keyboard or joystick interaction with the VoxATC window.  The Joystick assignment program shows that the buttons are assigned and recognized but the actual program while in-sim will not respond at all. If I turn off the AI traffic or there is none around it seems to interact.  Has anyone else had problems with the new version of P3D and VoxATC?  It's been almost a year since 7.41 has been released and none of the bugs have been fixed.  I'm in the market for an alternative if this stuff cannot be fixed.  Any clues folks?  Thanx.

 

-Rick

I think that you won't get any arguments about the lack of technical support. It disappeared coincident with the release of 7.41.  Internal Workings is a one person operation and that's no excuse to abandon the user base, but to be honest, from your explanation, I honestly don't understand what is wrong. It could be either your hardware, other software or just about anything. What you described has never been reported to my knowledge. That doesn't mean it isn't some kind of unique VOXATC bug, but it does explain why no one has ventured a guess at what is wrong with your installation. Here are some generic ideas as to how to figure out what is going on:

1. Enable detailed logging and take a look at whether there are any messages in the logfile that relate to the keyboard and/or the joystick. if there is anything out of ordinary, post the logfile on Google drive, Dropbox etc. and send the link to the log file via the official VOXATC support website.

2. To give us a better idea of what's going on, post some details regarding your hardware and software (see Kent's signature in his post above). What voices are installed. What's your sound card and your microphone? Do you have any utilities installed with the sound card? Do you have a utility that while running P3d, displays the load on your CPU cores and your GPU?

3. You mention a "joystick assignment program". I assume that's VOXATC's utility. If not, what are you using? FSUIPC5? A utility specific to the joystick manufacturer? Personally I wouldn't assign joystick buttons using the VOXATC utility. Just use the default VOXATC keyboard settings and then buy the payware version of FSUIPC5 to assign those specific keys to the joystick. This will also give you more flexibility in fine tuning your joystick than using the default P3d joystick settings (which will have to be disabled when using FSUIPC5).

4. Download the P3d4 SDK and enable the P3d Traffic Toolbox (search AVSim on how to do that).

https://www.prepar3d.com/support/sdk/

http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/sdk/world/traffic/traffic_toolbox.html

Open the Traffic Explorer from the P3d menu and see how many AI aircraft are active.

If you don't want to mess around with the P3d SDK, etc., you can also do this by downloading and running the freeware utility Little NavMap. It will display all the active AI aircraft on a map in real time, vehicle the sim is running.

https://albar965.github.io/

With most AI Traffic add-ons, an Ai activity level of 25-40% in VOXATC is more than adequate to get realistic AI traffic. Having 400-500 AI aircraft within the user's "reality bubble" will bring any system to its knees. A limit of 50 to 100 AI aircraft is reasonable for most setups. That brings up another advantage of FSUIPC5, as it has its own traffic limiter. Even when using an activity level of 30%, the number of AI aircraft nearby to the user's aircraft will vary widely from hardly any in remote rural areas to several hundred near cities with large international airports like New York and London. You need to give us a better idea of geographically where the problem is occuring. Have you tried ramping up the VOXATC AI activity levels 5% at a time to see where the problem becomes obvious? Also, I'm assuming the you have the AI activity levels at 0% in the sim. What AI aircraft package are you using?

That will do for starters. With more information we can probably narrow down the cause.

I should add one other thing. The 64 bit version of VOXATC 7.41 has very few bugs and most are not serious ones. However it exhibits quirky behavior sometimes and it will generate errors. But, more often than not, these errors are due to conflicts with third party scenery, especially airports that are poorly designed. Typographic errors in the P3d configuration files (especially scenery.cfg) are usually ignored by the sim, but the VOXATC indexer and VOXATC itself are less forgiving.

[BigRick 3]

Hello Jay.  Thanx for the tips.  I'll answer them as you posted them:

 

1) I had already enabled debugging via the advanced options and it shows no problems.

 

2)  My setup is MSI Z87 motherboard with I7-4770K CPU, Nvidia 780TI, 16 gig Razor memory.  More than adequate.

 

3)  Joystick is my Saitek proflight system and the callup is set via the VoxATC program.  I run FSUIPC too but those keys are left blank

I'm going to do some more research and see if I can figure out what's going on.  Thanx for the suggestions

 

-Rick

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Rick,

That's for the info. The 780TI is a bit on the low end for P3d4, since it is heavily dependent on the GPU, but that shouldn't affect your keyboard and joystick. You should try to download and run one of those latency monitoring problems, just to be absolutely sure that there isn't some underlying hardware problem. I use Latency Monitor:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/latencymonitor/

which freeware and can also be downloaded from several other websites, other than link above. 

If VOXATC's log isn't showing any errors, than the good news is that even if there was technical support, it wouldn't be of much help. It looks to me like you have a bottleneck somewhere and the VOXATC AI aircraft is pushing your system too much. Which AI package are you using and what AI % activity setting are you using?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Here's something else you can try. Run VOXATC in FO mode and see what happens. It shouldn't matter, but maybe we'll get a hint about what might be going on.

[503Kento 11]

In the last few days, I have experienced a similar problem.  My key map for PTT has been working fine since installing VoxATC but recently I have had occasional instances where the sound effect mic click happens 20 to 30 seconds after I push the button.  My assumption is that something is tying up the CPU and not allows VoxATC to process the button in a timely manner.  My work-around is to hold the PTT until I here the click and then talk.

I don't ever recall having this happen prior to P3D ver. 4.3

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I've seen that happen occasionally at airports like KJFK and other big international 3rd party airports. It's not a new issue with P3d 4.3. I also just hold down the the PTT button until I hear the click. Personally, I don't think that ritual  does anything, but it makes me feel useful. The CPU is just being hammered and can't keep up.

You can try moving the VOXATC exe file  to its own cores using the VOXATC advanced settings utility. You can also up its priority with the same utility. I've never seen either do much although it's probably a good idea to keep VOXATC off of core 0 which is heavily used by the sim.

If one has TrackIR, putting that exe file on its own high numbered core(s) might help, as might putting TrackIR in standard rather than precision mode.

In any case, the major "no-no" with P3d4 is reusing multiply saved scenarios. An example of that would be flying from airport A to airport B then saving the file for later use and then subsequently opening that saved scenario to fly from airport B to airport C. A saved scenario file also saves a snapshot of a number of internal sim variables related to the VC. This could interfere with the initial conditions of complex aircraft. The results are unpredictable and often impact the mouse and joystick.

Edited July 11, 2018 by jabloomf1230

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Deleted

Edited July 11, 2018 by jabloomf1230
Wrong thread

[503Kento 11]

Jay,

thanks for the tip on reuse of scenarios. That is something  I do often.  I already have Vox off of core zero.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I create a default scenario for each specific complex aircraft. Then I load the appropriate flight plan and answer yes to the question about moving the aircraft to the departure airport. A flight plan PLN file contains only the flight plan and hence can't create mischief.