FlyTampa vs FSDT performance impact

[virtuali 4,421]

5 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

I have several FSDT airports and they perform pretty poorly. KLAX is extremely poor.

It's not. See the video I've posted above at KLAX. Before saying it's the airport that "performs poorly", always try to understand who's really slowing down your fps in a certain place.

An easy way to test this, is disabling the AI and loading a default airplane. If you fps goes up significantly, then you'll know the airport wasn't the cause.

[virtuali 4,421]

12 hours ago, curt1 said:

Do you like watching replays of your approach and landing?  If so, the FSDT airports aren't visible in that mode due to their Coatl engine.

That's not an FSDT problem, but more of a problem of the default instant replay not being compatible with objects created dynamically with Simconnect calls.

Of course, back then when we were the only one using this method, some users assumed we were the weirdos doing things in strange ways "because of the Couatl engine", but that's just because we were the first using such techniques.

But now, since so many developers finally realized that you NEED some kind of interactivity in the scenery to make it attractive and alive ( which means create objects dynamically ), they started using things like SODE and some even developed their own similar solutions, and the issue is way more common now and finally everybody should have realized by now it's a limitation of the simulator Instant replay feature because, of course, even a scenery that doesn't use Couatl but, for example, use SODE, will have all the SODE-created objects (Jetways, for example) disappearing from the Instant Replay, same as with Couatl because, of course, it was never a "Couatl problem" to begin with...

Edited August 3, 2018 by virtuali

[Clutch Cargo 384]

I find both FSDT and FlyTampa superb developers and I have been happy with both using their airports.  FlyTampa may be a little better at performance but if you can run one you can probably run the other just as well.

Also, consider PacSIm for US airports.  Their Salt Lake City, UT and Reno, NV airports look mighty appealing.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Clutch Cargo

[Rocky_53 1,579]

1 hour ago, virtuali said:

It's not. See the video I've posted above at KLAX. Before saying it's the airport that "performs poorly", always try to understand who's really slowing down your fps in a certain place.

An easy way to test this, is disabling the AI and loading a default airplane. If you fps goes up significantly, then you'll know the airport wasn't the cause.

Virtuali, I have the greatest respect for you as a developer, but I am afraid what you say does not ring true with my experiences and I suspect many others. Of course we can make any scenery or aircraft perform well if we drop the sliders or remove any other third party software. I'm sure KLAX would perform perfectly well if I uninstalled Orbx SOCAL, used default clouds, no weather engine and flew a default 737. With respect, that is not a plausable defence. It's a bit like saying to someone who has just bought a Ferrari and is complaining that it spins off the road in wet conditions that perhaps they should only drive it when the roads are dry!! 😃

Edited August 3, 2018 by Rockliffe

[virtuali 4,421]

 

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Virtuali, I have the greatest respect for you as a developer, but I am afraid what you say does not ring true with my experiences and I suspect many others.

There are several users that posted in this very thread that said otherwise.  The scenery is the same so, clearly, it's just wrong making a blanket statement such as "this airport performs poorly", when there are many users that have the same scenery working very well.

 

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 Of course we can make any scenery or aircraft perform well if we drop the sliders or remove any other third party software.

No. There CAN be airports poorly programmed and can cause a significant fps loss on their own, even without too many addons. I'm just saying the FSDT ones are NOT such case.

 

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Sure, I'm sure KLAX would perform perfectly well if I uninstalled Orbx SOCAL, used default clouds, no weather engine and flew a default 737. With respect, that is not a plausable defence.

Sorry, I don't agree.

It sounds as if you are trying to say that some add-ons have the "right" to slow down the fps, while others can't and you expect they would always perform at the maximum, regardless of how much other stuff you installed, which is simply not realistic.

 

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It's a bit like saying to someone who has just bought a Ferrari and is complaining that it spins off the road in wet conditions that perhaps they should only drive it when the roads are dry!! 😃

No, you just bought a Ferrari, but are complaining it's not reaching its advertised speed when the highway is already full of cars.

Edited August 3, 2018 by virtuali

[Mitch24 194]

18 minutes ago, virtuali said:

 

There are several users that posted in this very thread that said otherwise.  The scenery is the same so, clearly, it's just wrong making a blanket statement such as "this airport performs poorly", when there are many users that have the same scenery working very well.

 

No. There CAN be airports poorly programmed and can cause a significant fps loss on their own, even without too many addons. I'm just saying the FSDT ones are NOT such case.

 

Sorry, I don't agree.

It sounds as if you are trying to say that some add-ons have the "right" to slow down the fps, while others can't and you expect they would always perform at the maximum, regardless of how much other stuff you installed, which is simply not realistic.

 

No, you just bought a Ferrari, but are complaining it's not reaching its advertised speed when the highway is already full of cars.

Notice how it's always somebody else's fault. Everybody else's fault but mine!!

[pgde 571]

I use FSDT, FLYTAMPA, Turbulent Designs, PacSim and all perform well. I am not an ORBX user and KLAX works great (30 FPS) with photoscenery.

[virtuali 4,421]

48 minutes ago, Mitch24 said:

Notice how it's always somebody else's fault. Everybody else's fault but mine!!

If you continue to post unfunded opinions, you can expect to be presented with proper explanations and support evidences, as I did with the two video showing both CYVR and KLAX happily performing very well.

This, if all the other witness from several other users that posted in this very thread, saying they don't have the slightest issues with FSDT sceneries, which are entirely comparable to other similarly detailed airports from other developers, wasn't already more then enough.

So, you can decide not to trust my explanations and proofs, because I'm obviously biased (and my video surely must be fake) but at least trust the experience of other fellow users.

[virtuali 4,421]

11 minutes ago, pgde said:

and KLAX works great (30 FPS) with photoscenery.

Of course it does!

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I have all of FSDreamteam's sceneries, and nearly all of FlyTampa's.  Love them all.

Because the airports are different sizes/complexities, located in areas of different terrain and autogen densities, in the vicinity of other airports with different traffic densities, it's virtually impossible to separate out performance issues without doing a carefully controlled experiment which I doubt anyone has time or patience for.  Add to that in both cases, the sceneries from these developers span a development period of close to a decade, where new techniques and sim capabilities have concurrently evolved, and it's absolutely reasonable to expect that a scenery made 8 years ago for FS9/FSX and then ported to P3D would be somewhat less perky than one made specifically for P3Dv4 with native polys and materials.

FSDT KLAX is often thrown out as "proof" that FSDT's sceneries are sluggish.  First, it's one of the older FSDT sceneries, first designed for FS9 and FSX.  Many people also run it with the ORBX SoCal region, which is a HEAVY hit to performance in the LAX environs with or without FSDT's KLAX add-on.  When I use FSDT's KLAX, I move all of the ORBX bgls for the SoCal area to a folder away from the sim, and performance picks up dramatically.  And of course traffic in/out of ONT, SMO, BUR, LGB, SBA etc etc etc drags down performance as well.  Before we blame FSDT for all of this, somebody point me to another developer's KLAX that doesn't also have these same issues.  (Hint: there isn't one).

Similarly, airport complexity matters.  A big commercial airport like KORD or CYYZ with hundreds of gates, dozens of 3D structures, moving vehicles, trams etc, and lots of nearby large/medium airports with their traffic is going to be a lot harder on performance than a smallish island airport with three gates and maybe 20% of the objects present in a large airport.

So from a performance perspective, my answer to the OP, is this: it isn't a choice between developers that's most important, it's a choice between environments.  For best performance, pick airports that are remote (not near other busy airports or resource intensive terrrain/scenery), medium to small sized, and newer is usally a bit better than older.  So airports like FlyTampa's St Maarten and Corfu, FSDT's Hawaiian airports, or PacSim's many island airports will give significantly better performance--not because one is better than the other in terms of developer coding, but because you're not carrying a huge extraneous load of dealing with traffic/terrain/scenery away from the airport you're using.  Newer is often a little bit better, both in terms of features and performance.  And any time you pick an airport in a busy metro area, close to other busy airports, and *especially* in areas also covered by other developer's regional scenery (ORBX Vector and regions, Ultimate terrain etc) you're going to be faced with some need for compromises to get the performance you want/need (i.e. pull back some sliders).

Regards

 

[Mitch24 194]

20 minutes ago, w6kd said:

FSDT KLAX is often thrown out as "proof" that FSDT's sceneries are sluggish.  First, it's one of the older FSDT sceneries, first designed for FS9 and FSX.  Many people also run it with the ORBX SoCal region, which is a HEAVY hit to performance in the LAX environs with or without FSDT's KLAX add-on.  When I use FSDT's KLAX, I move all of the ORBX bgls for the SoCal area to a folder away from the sim, and performance picks up dramatically.  And of course traffic in/out of ONT, SMO, BUR, LGB, SBA etc etc etc drags down performance as well.  Before we blame FSDT for all of this, somebody point me to another developer's KLAX that doesn't also have these same issues.  (Hint: there isn't one).

It's not just that though. FSDT's sceneries are very poorly optimized, their couatl engine sucks up many resources from the sim. The sceneries pop up, take several minutes to load, and create stutters. It almost seems like their engine is crammed with so much stuff that it takes it away performance wise. This started to happen after KLAX. By the time that CYVR came out it was so cluttered with stuff, combined with the inefficiencies of the couatl engine, and we have a bevy of problems. Look at his forums, they are littered with issue after issue after issue with their software, it's evident of much deeper coding problems that they probably don't see. It's sad the coding is so poor, because the sceneries are indeed nice looking. 

[Nyxx 6,993]

I still use one of FSDT oldest airports LSGG, it runs well, so does NY, And LAX, if you choose to run the FPS eating Orbx SoCAL as your base with one of the PMDG or FSL etc with ASP4, etc etc then good luck getting good FPS in LAX, it’s a huge airport in a huge city area around it. It’s like running Orbx ENG with vector and saying my sim wings EGLL has bad FPS........O really!, Euro OLC same airport with FSL with all DL on and stays locked at 30fps. But ofc if sim wings did a better job then......

Use OLC and FSDT with respectable setting and even on my aging PC 30fps locked is no problem. Also 4K with any gfx is killing your FPS compared to 1080x, but if you choose to use 4K then don’t wonder where a lot of your FPS have gone.

I never use any of the Orbx full fat regions because there a killer even Vector is with all settings on is a killer.

Dont blame FSDT even there KJFK runs fine if you set up your sim to run top of the line jets.

Run full fat regions with GA and all is good, horses for courses.

 

Edited August 3, 2018 by Nyxx

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

Now that Virtualli seems to have gotten the ADDON-Manger Win7 crap worked out I can now pimp FSDT.  🙂

FSDT LAX does perform better on my system than the default airport.

Furthermore, with Orbx So-Cal and ASP4 it does run pretty damn good barring a very specific condition  .....but you have to have the hardware, and the hardware has to be tuned...

 ...oh, with regards  to the "very specific condition" pimple .... I do not believe it is related to FSDT and the related software.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

55 minutes ago, Mitch24 said:

It's not just that though. FSDT's sceneries are very poorly optimized, their couatl engine sucks up many resources from the sim. The sceneries pop up, take several minutes to load, and create stutters. It almost seems like their engine is crammed with so much stuff that it takes it away performance wise. This started to happen after KLAX. By the time that CYVR came out it was so cluttered with stuff, combined with the inefficiencies of the couatl engine, and we have a bevy of problems. Look at his forums, they are littered with issue after issue after issue with their software, it's evident of much deeper coding problems that they probably don't see. It's sad the coding is so poor, because the sceneries are indeed nice looking. 

I'd like to see some actual data to back any of this up.  First, my experiences with FSDT sceneries from FS9 to FSX through P3D v2-4, are not at all what you describe.  Yes, I've had a few issues with couatl over the years, none of which wasn't quickly fixed when it popped up.  Second, what qualifications do you have, and what evidence do you offer to support your claim that these sceneries are "poorly optimized?"  I am over on their forums semi-regularly, and I've seen dozens, if not hundreds, of posts--many from technically unsophisticated users--claiming that couatl was responsible for one problem or another, only to be disproven and/or debunked later.  Pete Dowson has the same problems with FSUIPC...I'm pretty sure that FSUIPC and couatl have both been blamed for world hunger and global warming at one point or another.

Complex sceneries from the most reputable of developers all pop up and cause a momentary stutter during loading as all those 3D objects are loaded into VRAM.  FlyTampa's sceneries do it, Pacsim's do it, Flightbeam's do it...etc etc

I also don't understand how their engine gets blamed for performance drops in the sim.  It runs external to the sim, ostensibly placed by the OS onto a lesser-used core on a multi-core CPU like most of us run these days.  I have monitored its CPU usage, and it's fairly trivial.  I don't believe there's any truth to your claim that couatl is responsible for any discernable performance issue.  I'd want to see some actual data to support what you suggest is happening before I'd buy into any of it.  As far as "sucking up resources"...as a stand-alone exe it runs in its own memory space.  Sucks up resources??  Malarkey.  You speak of an engine crammed with things, poor optimization etc--how in the world could you credibly know any of this?

Regards

[virtuali 4,421]

2 hours ago, Mitch24 said:

This started to happen after KLAX. By the time that CYVR came out it was so cluttered with stuff, combined with the inefficiencies of the couatl engine, and we have a bevy of problems.

First you said KLAX was a poor performer, now you are changing your version and are saying it started after KLAX...but of course, everybody could see from my video, they aren't very different in fps.

But again, everyone can confirm what I'm saying, because we have a TRIAL so, why you continue saying so, when everyone can see the things you are reporting are simply not true ?

Why several users that posted here clearly understand why an airport performs in a certain why and why and where fps might be lost, and why it's wrong to compare a tiny single-airport with few parking spots on an island, with an huge hub with multiple runways, hundreds of parking spots, hundreds of animated jetways located in a dense metropolitan area, but you don't ?

 

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FSDT's sceneries are very poorly optimized, their couatl engine sucks up many resources from the sim.

FSDT sceneries are optimized as **ll, and the Couatl engine SAVES resources from the sim, instead.

 

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The sceneries pop up, take several minutes to load, and create stutters.

Haven't even read my previous replies ?

They USED to do this, on a 32 bit sim intentionally because, it's best having some stutter, caused by the dynamic creation and destruction of the objects, rather than having the sim CRASH because of an OOM!

And it's not the Couatl engine which is "inefficient" doing this: it's the sim itself that, when destroys and creates an object programmatically, cannot do it in the background without stopping the sim for a brief pause. But this is what could SAVE a 32 bit sim from an OOM crash.

Under 64 bit, all memory management parameters are entirely different, so we basically never create/destroy anything until you are well outside the scenery area, so there are NO STUTTERS and NO POPUPS, as can be clearly seen in my video, and of course everybody using our sceneries with P3D4 can easily testify how much different they run in 64 bit.

About the supposed "take several minutes to load", that's obviously not true. 

First, they do not take that long. Maybe you think more to load than other airports, but that's just because most part of the scenery will start to load *after* the "Loading Scenery" progress bar, so it give the impression is taking longer to load, but it's not.

If you take any other similarly large scenery, it will stay longer in the "Loading Scenery" progress bar, so you really cannot tell if it's the airport, the AIs or the terrain, and when the progress bar ends, there's nothing left to load. Let's say this part took 1 minute.

On an FSDT airport, since 80% of the scenery is not loaded during the "Loading scenery" progress bar, but it's only created after it, you might think it takes longer to load, but the total time will be roughly the same, for example 40 seconds in the progress bar, and 20 seconds after it. In the end, you still have to wait 1 minute to use the scenery.