High CPU Usage during long range flight

[jwebrc 0]

i7-4710HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz, 32.0 GB RAM (Notebook) here with the same problem 

[goozburger 0]

@Dave-Pilot2ATC managed to simulate the issue, but diagnosing might be tricky, as it is some sort of CPU leak. I'm also wondering if P2A is going back over data that it has obtained through the flight and running some sort of ongoing process that takes exponentially more CPU as more data comes in. Just speculating; who knows?!

I will probably only use P2A for shorter flights of no more than 2-3 hours for the time being until a fix is found. I'd really love to use P2A all the time without it becoming unresponsive, because along with TG, I see it as an essential part of the flying experience.

[jwebrc 0]

have you tried the map with SAT image and without zooming in? I´m flying since 3h with still CPU usage average about 2 - 3%. Might it be a moving map issue ?

[goozburger 0]

1 hour ago, jwebrc said:

have you tried the map with SAT image and without zooming in? I´m flying since 3h with still CPU usage average about 2 - 3%. Might it be a moving map issue ?

Yes. I've tried all sorts of things within P2A (details in previous posts) to see if it helped the CPU issue, but it didn't. I don't think that this is anything we can fix as users of the software, and is probably something that can only be fixed by an update from Dave.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

I am actively working to figure out what is causing this and come up with a fix.

Dave

[jwebrc 0]

Just an update: 6h on flight, still CPU usage is quit good. About 3% in average. Starting P2A - MAP mode to SAT, filing flight plan - don´t touch the map. It´s the first time since I purchased P2A I have no CPU issues. Will see how it is next time......

[goozburger 0]

5 hours ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

I am actively working to figure out what is causing this and come up with a fix.

Dave

Thanks for your efforts, Dave. I appreciate it could take some time to get to the bottom of, but let me know if I can do anything to help.

[jwebrc 0]

IMO it depends on the moving map. Zooming out as far as possible giving me 1.7 % CPU in average even in long distance flights.

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

In performance testing I've done so far, Map repainting is among the most CPU intensive activities, so zooming out and not centering the Aircraft on the map are two significant settings to reduce CPU.

 

[goozburger 0]

Thanks both, I will give that a try, although I rarely centre the map on the plane due to earlier posts I saw stating that it can be resource-intensive. I did hide the map during my test flights, but to no avail; maybe it is still painting it when hidden (just a guess).

[jwebrc 0]

After 2 more long haul flights I summarize (always MAP zoomed out as far as possible and more then 8h in flight): 

- traffic global without TCAS option and no AI´s: 5 - 17% CPU, average 6.4 %

- traffic global with TCAS option and 19 AI´s: 19 - 40% CPU, average  9.8 %

Conclusion: The MAP needs much CPU. With AI activated in XP it demands more -  perhaps caused of calculating the AI positions in the MAP, even if you not have marked to see it.

I like to request two changes in further releases if it is possible:

- the possibility for deactivating the moving map and only use ATC, so you can use other tools for the position-map instead(like little navmap) which requires much less CPU. 

- an option to deactivate the position calculation of AI´s if they are activated in XP

Perhaps the culprit  is not the visualization of the moving map but the calculation of the actual position. But ignoring the AI positions would help to lower the processor usage I hope.

 

Edited May 14, 2020 by jwebrc

[Dave-Pilot2ATC 864]

You can currently disable the AI and it should have a dramatic impact on CPU.

1) On the AI Traffic page, uncheck the option for AI Traffic alerts

2) Below the map, be sure both the red and blue aircraft buttons are not engaged

This should stop the AI Traffic calculations.

I am still working on fixing this issue for future update.

Dave

 

[jwebrc 0]

thats correct what you say, Dave. But the real improvement appears when I disable AI in XP either.

[goozburger 0]

@Dave-Pilot2ATC and I have been conversing via email with a number of test flights to try to narrow down the culprit. To cut a long story short, I completely wiped my XP and P2A installations, and re-installed them with everything set to absolute defaults, i.e. a vanilla set-up. The only third-party plugin that I installed was XPUIPC 2.0.0.0, which is required for P2A to interact with XP.

I ran a couple of test flights with P2A connected to XP and a flight plan filed. During the first flight, I removed all AI aircraft (XP adds in three by default), and verified that there was absolutely no gradual CPU rise during two hours of flying (0-3% CPU usage by P2A). In the second flight, I added 19 AI aircraft into the environment, and again there was absolutely no gradual CPU rise during two hours of flying (0-3% CPU usage by P2A).

Last night, I took a third flight, but this time, I enabled airborne traffic alerts in P2A. During the first half an hour, the CPU usage by P2A went from around 0-3% to 2%-7%, so the pattern was definitely there with a growth in CPU usage. I had to pause the flight, and didn't come back to it until this morning, whereby CPU usage by P2A was between 24-33%. Before I exited XP and P2A, I disabled airborne traffic alerts in P2A, but it didn't make any difference to the high CPU usage, although from some tests that Dave did, the CPU stayed at the current level when that setting was disabled mid-flight.

Hopefully the culprit has been narrowed down, and Dave at least has a clue of the area! I think because airborne traffic alerts aren't enabled by default in P2A, it probably only affects those of use who decided to enable it. I suppose when you're testing, you disable that in mid-flight, and see no difference, but you have to disable it from before you begin your flight (or before you even open XP) to see that this is the cause of the rising CPU.

Edited May 16, 2020 by OnePhilT

[jwebrc 0]

Now I can say the culprit is definitive the add-on "Traffic Global" in Xplane 11. If you activate AI in XPlane itself it eats some CPU performance as well, but if you activate TCAS in Traffic Globel settings it is going worse - as described in some posts before. 

Conclusion: There is an incompatibility with P2A-Xplane in relation with the add-on "Traffic Global".

 

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by jwebrc