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Guest baksteen33

Commercial AI vs. PAI/WOAI packages

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AI traffic is the one and only component of my setup that absolutely kills my fps. I am almost content with my fps, which hover around 25-30 fps for GA and 10-20 fps for more complex glass-cockpit addons, but I am almost unable to fly more complex planes with a reasonable amount of AI traffic, because my fps dip into the mid/upper teens whatever I do.I am currently using MyTraffic X and just want to hear experiences from other users. I have also tried Ultimate Traffic, but most of their models seem to be outdated and need to be manually updated with PAI/WOAI packages anyway to squeeze out some reasonable fps.Is GA-Traffic and WOAI the way to go? Are there any other packages that can be recommended? What AI package is everyone using?Pat

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Guest baksteen33

Hi Pat, I hope a word from the My Traffic team is OK too. :-) A general 'problem' with My Traffic is, it uses all of FSX's new features. MT moves the ground vehicles (not too much of an influence) and the jetways = large fps hit. At airports, the last three notches of the scenery complexity mainly adds jetways. The more AI AC there are, the bigger the hit will be. One tip is to prioritize your IFR vs VFR preference. Or disable one of the traffic.bgls, for example military if you don't care for it. Personally, I wouldn't set the scenery complexity setting higher than 'Dense' on your system. Also, perhaps make sure you don't exceed ca 250 AI movements? That's ca a limit where things will start to choke. Alternatively, we could take a couple the jetways out of the AC.cfgs so the aircraft in question doesn't move the gates any longer. I frankly wouldn't know to advise in this respect. It's fps gain vs the loss of one of FSX's coolest features. It looks kind of awkward to see those pretty flight attendants standing in front of nothing and waiting forever. OTOH, the performance without moving jetways is outstanding. The (MTX) AI aircraft themselves cause a comparably low fps hit. Would you or anybody else be interested in this 'unfeaturing' or are the animations not worth loosing? Out of curiousioty, Which MTX version are you using? Did you upgrade to v.5.1a? Cheers and kind regards Jaap My Traffic team

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Guest Daniel42

Interesting post Jaap. Wouldn't this be more of an issue when starting up? At that time all the jetways would have to move but once they are in position, they only need to act per plane. Or does something similar happen when you are flying and a new airport comes within AI range?Reminds me of the FPS hit some road/river add-ons give: their extra load is not that much, but all the additional cars FSX will put on the roads kill the FPS completely.As far as AI goes... for FSX I never used anything but MTX. Support is really great and work is in progress to create all true FSX models and textures. (looking forward to the 747's :) )Daniel

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Guest baksteen33

Hi Daniel, many thanks for your kind words and reply, appreciated. >>Wouldn't this be more of an issue when starting up? At that time all the jetways would have to move but once they are in position, they only need to act per plane. Or does something similar happen when you are flying and a new airport comes within AI range?<< Excellent question! You'll see both, first when you boot FSX and then whilst moving along. Coming into dense areas like Chicago or NY triggers a lot of processes if the AI AC are set to do so. I can easily almost double my framerates if I de-activate the jetways. AIM, instead of modifying the aircraft.cfgs, the most elegant way to look for a sweetspot would be to reduce the scenery complexity setting. It's a bit of a mixed bag, FS9 looks and performance vs FSX eyecandy and a lesser performance. Fortunately, we can do both and it's the user's choice as far as we're concerned. If you think it's worthwhile exploring, I could create a thread at simflight with the details, necessary files and a couple of screenshots. Everybody, please feel free to give us your guidance in this matter. If there's interest, we could then see how to officially implement such options. Right now, it's still experimental, 'it' hasn't been tested with FSX SP2 for example. Cheers and kind regards Jaap

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Wouldn't this be more of an issue when starting up? At that time all the jetways would have to move but once they are in position, they only need to act per plane. Or does something similar happen when you are flying and a new airport comes within AI range?When you start an FSX flight - all the aircraft which are parked at jetways and setup to use jetways at the airports within about 120 nm of your aircraft will start moving all the jetways at the same time. This gives you a major performance hit.But airports farther out are not loaded, not setup - the AI aircraft are not created.When you fly along, an airport will come into that range from your aircraft. The scenery will be read, the AI traffic files will be read and all the AI traffic will be created. There will also be many extra cycles if there is not sufficient parking for all the AI at an airport.We've seen this peformance hit occur since FS2002 and it still occurs in FS2004 and FSX.But FSX has the added hit of all the jetways at the newly loaded airport start moving at the same time.Whenever you fly toward a major airport with a lot of AI, expect there will be a major temporary hit about 120 miles out.

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Guest baksteen33

Hi Reggie, you're right, 120 miles is probably the first hit (FSX's AI tracking range). Technically, this 120 miles range shouldn't be critical with MTX. As far as we would dare to judge, the jetways come into the equation at ca 12 miles. That's when the second, big hit occurs. I'm stunned how much power those jetways use. Some recent experiments blew me off my chair. I'll attach a (reduced, sorry) screenshot. Cheers and kind regards Jaap

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Hi Jaap and thank you for the response.I didn't even consider disabling one or more of the traffic bgl's and the impact on the ground vehicles. I will try that. Thank you so much for the tip.I am not sure, if that is possible, but would it be possible to remove animations for AI only? If so, sure, I think that sound interesting. I agree that the ground traffic is a very cool feature, but, if kills my fps on approach then I would choose a fluid approach ;)I am using v5.1a.Thank you so much!Pat

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In my experience...mytrafficx kills framerates to unplayable levels at large airports. WOAI packages along with PAI packages have very small hits with the same amount of traffic.Most of it has to do with the models. WOAI models are top notch both visiually and performance wise.

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Guest baksteen33

@ Bonchie, I fear you're comparing apples with oranges. Since it uses FSX's features like moving jetways, etc, the performance hits seems harder than AI which doesn't use animations. Technically, we couldn't do what was done with for example FSLive/FS9 (real US schedules), had it not been for the good performance of the MT-models. With traditional FS8/9 models, it's pretty hard to get beyond 3-400 AI-movements without suffering a severe FPS-loss. I attached a screenshot in my second post, please have a look at it. I can guarantee you, no other AI can do that at almost 900 movements. FYI-2, that amount of movements became possible by removing the jetway entries in most MT aircraft.cfgs (which use jetways). Now, I would fully agree if you said we were silly to never approach it form this end. :-) No doubt about the visual quality of WoAI, with the amount of man hours maybe no wonder? @ Pat, the ground vehicles vs moving jetway equation and potential performance improvements seems ca 1:4 to 1:6. So, the most efficient would doubtlessly be to take out jetway entries in aircraft.cfgs. We knew the jetways were tough on performance, but I only realised how much recently. What I could offer concretely, so you could implement it easily and quickly, are ca 30 (v.5.1a) AC.cfgs without the jetways configuration. You could dump all of them at once or only a few if you want to keep some of the action. Theoretically, these files should allow to fine tune performance very nicely. The price is less eye candy. For example: Case your favourite airport is mainly visited by A320s, 321s, B717s, 734s, 735s, 736s, only take out half of the jetways of these aircraft to start. You'll be surprised if you have your scenery complexity at 'Dense' or higher. ;-) Should I take your reply as a 'Yes' to start a 'MTX unfeaturing' thread at simflight? :-) I can't attach the files here, they're too large. I should be able to open such a thread by tomorrow. Cheers and kind regards Jaap

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Guest baksteen33

Thanks for the pointer, Lith1um. It will definitely be handy for another - perpetually unfinished! - project... :-) The AC.cfg.zip is roughly 1MB, so, no problem to host it at our site. FWIW, the idea is receiving a mixed welcome so far. More perf seems appealing, but many do seem to prefer to keep the jetways moving. Cheers and kind regards Jaap

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Guest Lith1um

Personaly I would rather have the extra performance to spend elsewhere. I spend relatively little time actualy at airports.I have several major airports within 120m of my home field. So I can live without the jetway performance hit.Although every once in a while I do load up a major airport and just sit and watch the activity at night.MTX is awesome. I especialy like the new Frontier lineup in this thread, http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=65519

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Guest baksteen33

Alright, Lith1um, please stand by. Thanks too for your kind words. I'll create a 'MTX Unfeatured' thread ASAP and post here as soon as it's up. Having said that, if somebody has a better name, please don't hesitate. MTX IncPerf? :-) IncPerf = incredible performance I'll attach a further screenie, JFK with relatively high amounts of (jetways-free) traffic. Other than scenery complexity 'Dense', I don't have the AI-settings or further records for this shot. This seems an excellent option for users to choose from. On mid-end systems it will make a big difference. Since Groundvehicles are minor contributors in comparison, I left those entries in. And the chair is nailed to the floor now, for safety reasons..! :-) Cheers and kind regards Jaap PS, screenshot was made on a Q6600 at 3.1GHz

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Should I take your reply as a 'Yes' to start a 'MTX unfeaturing' thread at simflight? :-) I can't attach the files here, they're too large. I should be able to open such a thread by tomorrow.Yes, very much appreciated!!Pat

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Pls advise here when you open the thread elsewhere.Thanks.

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