So what is the best traffic addon when it comes to performance? Visual quality of the planes isnt that important

Thanks,David

I like TrafficGlobal from Just Flight. No problems with performance. Its still being improved!

Yup, I'd second that. Traffic Global is still in early access, so there is the odd issue (mostly concerning which stands various airliners go to, for example, there are EasyJet Airbuses on stands they don't use in reality at EGCC, but I can't say that bothers me too much, it's not impossible to find that occurring although it is fairly unusual), so, nothing major, it works okay, fills your airports up with airliners which take off and land, the models are pretty good and the performance hit is not bad at all. If you put P3D on about 60 percent airline traffic, that equates fairly well to the real world in terms of how many airliners are kicking about at the real airports.

A major plus point is that it is a no-brainer to use. It does have a lot of custom functionality you could mess around with if that's your thing, but if you aren't bothered with that malarkey then it is literally a case of installing it, ticking a few option boxes and clicking on 'generate AI' and you're done, and I like programs with that level of simplicity because I want to fly my aeroplanes and look at nice AI traffic without any hassle, rather than spend ages faffing about with files just to get something to work. It works with versions 3 and 4 of P3D and all versions of FSX too, which is another plus point if you use more than one simulator.

With it currently being in early access, you get it at the reduced price of £27.99 as opposed to what will be its full price (on release) which will be 34.99, plus you'll get 140 JF Reward points too when you buy it, so that's another £1.40 off the price of anything else you'd care to buy from the JF web store, or you could view it as it basically costing a shade over 25 quid if you regard that additional loyalty bonus as a discount.

I haven’t touched Traffic Global since I bought it. Has the install process gotten any better?

Couldn't tell that it changed, but I only had problems installing it the first time and the problem was on my side and the P3D settings.

Now I already installed it at least 5 times and having no issue what so ever getting it running.

 Traffic Global is still in a very early phase of development, it's still missing lots of airlines. Also one of the major issues is that the schedules are all based on 24 hour repeats (MyTraffic was very similar). In other words, each aircraft flies just one return leg a day and then sits dormant to repeat itself the next day. Optimization, nil.

 Also at Seattle, for example, there are no Horizon Airlines and Alaska Airlines is ALL non-winglet B737-900's. Over to LAX and the only international or heavy traffic is a Cathay B748F and a single Delta B772. There is also currently no regional feeders (Embraers or CRJ's) for any of the major airlines.

 TG certainly does have potential, but it's got a long way to go still. The models and liveries are alright, certainly better than MyT but not quite as nice as most from UTL and nowhere near as nice as what's available in the freeware option.

Performance wise, it all comes down to the number of AI in your bubble. It will vary from user to user and their own systems of course but a similar number of AI from any of the products will yield approx the same performance it just depends on how good you want the traffic to look.

UTLive is very good. No impact on FPS.

As far as I understand, the OP was not asking about quality of planes or schedules but about performance (i.e. impact on fps/stuttering). Here's my experience (in that order):

1. PSXseecontraffic (i.e. real world live traffic)

2. UTLive/UT2

3. Traffic Global, My Traffic

with a gap between options 2 and 3 (as always, this means on my system and with my setup).

All of them can be controlled to an extent, either using internal settings or external tools like FSUIPC. The above judgement is with (very) roughly comparable traffic.

Kind regards, Michael

 

 

Edited September 24, 20187 yr by pmb

I love UTL. Install and you're done. Nothing to set up further. (Apart maybe from the amount if AI which can also be changed on the fly.) Simple as that. Doesn't seem to have any impact on fps on my PC. I used MT in the past and it had a clear impact on fps. That was a few years ago though... ;)

13 minutes ago, J van E said:

I love UTL. Install and you're done. Nothing to set up further. (Apart maybe from the amount if AI which can also be changed on the fly.) Simple as that. Doesn't seem to have any impact on fps on my PC. I used MT in the past and it had a clear impact on fps. That was a few years ago though... 😉

Plus one.  UTL injects traffic and does not use .bgl files, which have a negative impact on performance.

3 hours ago, vp49p3 said:

 UTL injects traffic and does not use .bgl files, which have a negative impact on performance.

 Meh, there's never really been any real proof of that, except for the very first time you load a new bgl. Performance wise it comes down to how many aircraft and being displayed within the sim. Using the same models in UTL as BGL's will result in approximately the same performance. PSXseecontraffic is the same, it performs better simply because it's displaying less traffic in any given instance.

Edited September 24, 20187 yr by Dave_YVR

16 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

 Meh, there's never really been any real proof of that, except for the very first time you load a new bgl. Performance wise it comes down to how many aircraft and being displayed within the sim. Using the same models in UTL as BGL's will result in approximately the same performance. PSXseecontraffic is the same, it performs better simply because it's for displaying less traffic in any given instance.

I tend to disagree here. I made a test between UTL and TG at KSFO. There were definitely less aircraft on the airport (as seen on my moving map) while fps were lower when using TG. All other settings equal. Both with the same plane static on the same threshold.

May depend on my system, but that's what I observed.

PSXseecontraffic may have an advantage on my system as it's the only one I can run networked.

Kind regards, Michael

2 hours ago, UAL4life said:

I haven’t touched Traffic Global since I bought it. Has the install process gotten any better?

Same here. I am still waiting that it leaves alpha/beta state. UTL, which I am currently using is not much better ....

Too much beta!

Guys

I have not tried any of the others, so I can't make a comparison. I have downloaded several versions of TG, as they email me when a new version is ready. I am hoping that in the near future some GA aircraft will be included as that is what if fly mostly. It is certainly easy to use, and for me as a computer nerd that is what i need!

 

1 hour ago, Nemo said:

Same here. I am still waiting that it leaves alpha/beta state. UTL, which I am currently using is not much better ....

Too much beta!

Way too much Beta! Tho I am a hypocrite, back before it came out I was hoping they would do release as soon as possible even pre release! Ah well...