I am trying to optimize performance in P3D, and know that AI is pretty CPU hungry. I know there are the basic options like "turn it off" or "fly on VATSIM", but I would prefer not to do either of those. I also have road traffic relatively high, just because it looks good, and I didn't notice a huge difference with it off. I was wondering if anyone knew settings that could be turned down for better CPU performance. I believe my GPU is more than capable because it can handle Dynamic Lights with little performance loss. Usually, I am getting 20fps inside the VC of the NGX.

My Current Settings:

https://imgur.com/a/WxuPe0g

Edited September 20, 20187 yr by zanehuston777
Forgot the link...

there's not alot you can do when you're running road traffic -coupled with air traffic. ....that road traffic has to go. :-(

The old saying "Moderation in all things" springs to mind, I run UTLive @ 30% and road traffic @ 15% with no problems. Those figures give more than enough eye candy to the Sim (P3D v4.3)

Personally, I would rather drop those traffic sliders down (30-50% AI, 5-7% Road) and instead increase the settings for the autogen. Otherwise, if it is really important for you, turn those autogen sliders further down, those are the most CPU intensive settings. So, either good looking, dense autogen to a reasonable draw distance or road traffic and extremely dense AI traffic. You can choose, both is impossible.

If your issue is low framerates, then while AI has a big hit on performance, it may be a red herring and the problem may lie elsewhere, such as unrealistic slider and graphics settings. Dynamic lighting and running 8SSAA in conjunction with high settings elsewhere could bring the sim to it's knees. If you are sure the issue is AI, then like the guys said elsewhere, you need to be more realistic. I have always, even in my FSX days, turned off airport traffic to 0, this is a necessity as if you are flying with third party airports, then they are likely to have their own traffic anyway.

Turn road traffic to 5-10 if you must have it. I think I run at about 5 or something like that. As for airplane AI, this is the trick. If you are flying an airliner then set no higher than about 30 and switch off GA to 0. You don't need to have GA at a large airport and all you are doing is adding to the performance hit. Likewise, when you are flying Cessnas or similar from a GA airport, then again, set accordingly and drop the airline traffic slider to 0.

AI in FSX or P3D has an enormous hit and not understanding or appreciating the consequences of these sliders can have you running around in circles 😉

I've found a great utility that will help manage Ai. If you use MyTraffic Pro many of those aircraft will sit at a gate for hours and not do anything. I found it difficult to find free gates at some airports because they were all occupied by Ai that wouldn't depart for many hours.

Download and install RemoveAiSleepers from here. http://www.lorby-si.com/downloads.html

Freeware and you can configure it to remove any aircraft within a radius of x miles (default 30) that won't be departing in the next x minutes (default 90).

Not only does it free up many gates the reduced number of Ai will help fps.

VR P3D flyer, so I’m always after high FPS and no stutters.

Road traffic has never been great in ESP, I basically don’t use it (unlike x-plane, where it works well and looks great).

I normally struggle to find a good ai traffic solution as well. However, right now i’m actually happy, as Traffic Global is very kind to frame rates and doesn’t seem to degrade performance substantially. 

So I’d suggest that’s perhaps worth a try. I have UT2, UT Live and MT6 as well, but at the moment traffic global is the best solution for me due to its minimal impact on performance (i think partly due to better optimised models for p3d v4).

I am using Mytraffic6 at the moment as AI really is secondary to me but offcause nice to have. 

I use FSUIPC to control the AI amount allthough at default setting. I then use a keycommand connected to a yoke switch to turn AI on and off dynamically, forinstance on the critically approach were I sometimes need the performance regarding fps. 

Thanks Michael Moe 

 

5 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

So I’d suggest that’s perhaps worth a try. I have UT2, UT Live and MT6 as well, but at the moment traffic global is the best solution for me due to its minimal impact on performance (i think partly due to better optimised models for p3d v4).

2

 Traffic Global in its current state adds drastically less traffic to your traffic bubble is why it's easy on the system compared to the others.

16 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

If your issue is low framerates, then while AI has a big hit on performance, it may be a red herring and the problem may lie elsewhere, such as unrealistic slider and graphics settings. Dynamic lighting and running 8SSAA in conjunction with high settings elsewhere could bring the sim to it's knees.

Do you know if my sliders may be an issue? I really was open to any settings being too high for my system, but I now realised I phrased my question really weird. Most people are only talking about AI, but I can't really tell what my card is capable of either. What do you think that could also be having a strong impact?

Something that worked nicely for me is the AI limitation imposed by FSUIPC in terms of absolute numbers. Even figures as low as 50 aircraft nearby suffices to give a good immersion IMO.

Its a 20 year old engine that wasn't designed for AI traffic. 

And since the military don't use ai traffic then LM are not going to put resources into optimising it.

You can start the same topic every single day like you do, day in day out about AI traffic and it won't make a blindest bit of difference.   I wish it would I love ai, but it won't. 

Just saying...

 

 

Edited September 22, 20187 yr by tooting

6 hours ago, zanehuston777 said:

Do you know if my sliders may be an issue? I really was open to any settings being too high for my system, but I now realised I phrased my question really weird. Most people are only talking about AI, but I can't really tell what my card is capable of either. What do you think that could also be having a strong impact?

Zane, at 100% you are definitely pushing it too hard. You haven't said what package you're using. Only MyTrafic Pro can benefit from the tip I posted yesterday. The Ai packages that generate Ai 'on-the-fly' cannot be controlled by RemoveAiSleepers.

I have my traffic set to 75% but crucially the settings I use in RAiS reduce the number of Ai by a large margin. If you have MyTraffic Pro try it.

I also go along with those who advice reducing road traffic. It's a known fps hog. 7% is reasonable.

6 hours ago, zanehuston777 said:

Do you know if my sliders may be an issue? I really was open to any settings being too high for my system, but I now realised I phrased my question really weird. Most people are only talking about AI, but I can't really tell what my card is capable of either. What do you think that could also be having a strong impact?

Zane, if you'd like to screengrab your P3d settings and PM me, I can help further. Alternatively post them here on this thread and you'll get lots of help. 😊

1 minute ago, Rockliffe said:

Zane, if you'd like to screengrab your P3d settings and PM me, I can help further. Alternatively post them here on this thread and you'll get lots of help. 😊

He did in the first post.