Hi Nico,

I made a video to show the lighting issues and share my findings with you. I know YouTube videos aren't really your thing, and I’m no YouTube star myself. But trying to explain this in text would’ve been like sending smoke signals in a windstorm — completely pointless! 

 

Here is the link to the tool I developed for testing : https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k8qjefviywsv6dbk1nqkk/Traffic-Injection-Lights-Testbed.zip?rlkey=opttmfgbcuhdmesrgi3caqz7j&st=gx6b0her&dl=1

Cheers,

Amine.

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 20241 yr by vcaptain747

Hi Amine, Hi Nico,

First thank you Amine for your work which contribute to save a great software and your feedback is important to make it better. Amazing work you did I know it takes lot of your time as Nico work.

This May explain why I noticed when first start PSXT no plane have lights then if I reload it, most of them have.

This also May explain, with the new version of RT, with aircraft traffic are introduced faster than previous version, why AI had lights in previous version 8.0 and why they dont have now.

Then do you think these issues can be resolved by PSXT code itself .

This will be a great news for night simmers;)

Cheers.

Hewpilot 

 

Hi Amine,

Thanks for all  your work! 

For your information:

• PSXT does not inject 5 aircraft at the same time per second, but with 200 ms time difference.
• The time between the Simconnect msg that an aircraft has been created and the events to that object about lights is approx 35 msec. So not instantaneous,  because Simconnect runs in one thread and traffic control in another, and events are processed by the Simconncet thread each frame. Note that in 35 msec a computer program can do a lot...;-) 

That, and maybe because I have a high-end cpu,  I see all FSLTL and JustFlight aircraft with lights, and almost all AIG with lights, without the measures you are proposing.

But not all AIG aircraft have taxi lights for instance, and, some aircraft taxi with strobes on, and then off again, and then (after a turn) on again. This happens even if I switch strobes control off in PSXT(!). (FSLTL and JustFlight aircraft are ok).

There are strange things going on in the AIG package. I have add 300 ms extra delay in PSXT but that does not solve these issues, even 10 seconds did not help.

I am off to a party now, but later this evening I'll release 8.2.0 with that 300 msesc delay and (back to) 2 aircraft /second, so you guys can see if that fixes your lights.

Thx again.

Nico

Edited September 22, 20241 yr by kiek

39 minutes ago, kiek said:

That, and maybe because I have a high-end cpu,

That is interesting

Because it’s so tedious it’s difficult to have detailed testing but I’ve noticed some models sometimes low the lights sometimes don’t and that will make sense if speed of loading makes a difference depending on scenery or other aspect.

I am running relatively low end computer and still with excellent results and smoothness, maybe that’s why it is more difficult for my system.

Nico how about for testing purposes consider not everybody has high end CPU and make the delay longer to pinpoint the problem.

We are already waiting few seconds for the injection extra few moments won’t make that much difference

mike

 

Hi Nico,

4 hours ago, kiek said:

• PSXT does not inject 5 aircraft at the same time per second, but with 200 ms time difference.
• The time between the Simconnect msg that an aircraft has been created and the events to that object about lights is approx 35 msec. So not instantaneous,  because Simconnect runs in one thread and traffic control in another, and events are processed by the Simconncet thread each frame. Note that in 35 msec a computer program can do a lot...;-) 

I think  200ms is good when injecting multiple aircrafts. if you inject 5 in a row for example, simconnect would have waited a total of 1 second (200ms *5) before starting to handle the creation confirmations and controlling the lights. That's enough time for the aircrafts to load properly and have lights. In this scenario, the more aircrafts you inject in a row, the better the light results are. 

However, if you inject a single aircraft, then the 200ms is not applied, so simconnect would have waited only 35 msec before sending the light events, which is not enough for the aircraft model to load and show the lights on , even though light SIMVARs are showing the expected value.  Off course, that might differ from one system to another.

4 hours ago, kiek said:

Note that in 35 msec a computer program can do a lot...;-) 

I agree.. and that might the cause of the issue. Simconnect is creating the aircraft  and controlling it's light within the 35msec, but the graphic processor (or whatever it is called) is having hard time to catchup when loading the model

4 hours ago, kiek said:

That, and maybe because I have a high-end cpu,  I see all FSLTL and JustFlight aircraft with lights,

I ran all my tests with a four years old i9-10850K running at 5Gh, not sure if it's still considered high end but I see light issues with AIG, FSLTL, just flight and IVAO MTL.

4 hours ago, kiek said:

I am off to a party now, but later this evening I'll release 8.2.0 with that 300 msesc delay and (back to) 2 aircraft /second, so you guys can see if that fixes your lights.

For version 8.2.0 , can we have the 35msec delay increased to 2 seconds please in addition to the increase of the 200msec delay you mentionned ? 

I hope you're enjoyed the party 🙂

Thanks in advance!

Amine.

Edited September 22, 20241 yr by vcaptain747

Hi HewPilot,

Thank you for the kind words!

5 hours ago, HewPilot said:

This May explain why I noticed when first start PSXT no plane have lights then if I reload it, most of them have.

Have you tried using the tool  I shared in the OP. Can you please do and confirm if you see that initial aircraft loading delay when you inject only one aircraft, and if you see it with AIG only or with other models too.

Thanks,

Amine.

18 minutes ago, vcaptain747 said:

 if you inject 5 in a row for example, simconnect would have waited a total of 1 second (200ms *5) before starting to handle the creation confirmations and controlling the lights.

Just for clarification:

What makes you think Simconnect waits for the fifth before handling light events for all five? Is that what you experinecd in your testtool.  I would think that 35 ms after the first aircraft creation Simconnect gets the light events, same for 35 ms after the second aircraft creation.... Do you also send the light event immediately after creation? What if PSXT has to create 25 aircraft in 5 seconds (with 200 ms intervals)?

How do you explain that there are AIG aircraft that have strobes on/off during taxiing while PSXT does nothing with the strobes?  Introducing a delay will not fix that problem...

Did you try creating aircraft in the air with your tool? From what I see in PSXT that goes much worse then on the ground , at least with AIG aircraft.

4 hours ago, kiek said:

But not all AIG aircraft have taxi lights for instance, and, some aircraft taxi with strobes on, and then off again, and then (after a turn) on again. This happens even if I switch strobes control off in PSXT(!).

Never noticed such behavior. That's because i'm using AIG model with the Light Fixer tools.

AIG and IVAO MTL are both using the new MSFS light systems with electrical cuircuits, which have been proved faulty even by AIG developpers : https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=43424.0 

Using the tool , would see that AIG aircrafts without the light fix are loaded with all their lights on. What i think is happening, is that the aircrafts are reloaded during taxi (which happens when aircraft change callsigns ), so when respawned, they come back with all lights on, but not fast enough to apply the light commands. just a therory...

Hi guys,

Here a link to 8.2.0 beta

A delay of 2 seconds between object creation and setting of the lights, and max 2 live/static aircraft injections per second.

Nico

 

Edited September 22, 20241 yr by kiek

10 minutes ago, kiek said:

What makes you think Simconnect waits for the fifth before handling light events for all five? Is that what you experinecd in your testtool

Yes, thats what i get with the testing tools, and it is supported by Simconnect logs. Please check here, and if you can use the tool to confirm, it would be great. We need to find a pattern  

 

 

6 minutes ago, vcaptain747 said:

 That's because i'm using AIG model with the Light Fixer tools.

Can you give me a link to these tools? However, if all PSXT users have to do that ...

Sorry for the typo, its just one tool, the one that I created a while ago and shared in this forum.

 

Also, just wondering if any one noticed that FSLTL Taxi and Landing lights are swapped? or is it just on my end.  

1 hour ago, kiek said:

Hi guys,

Here a link to 8.2.0 beta

A delay of 2 seconds between object creation and setting of the lights, and max 2 live/static aircraft injections per second.

Nico

 

Thanks Nico,

In my end, it seems better, I just tested at EGLL and lot of lighting aircraft around me. 

Most are JF FS TRAFFIC models , also IVAO but I have to check if all IVAO MTL models have lights.

Thanks for testing.

 

1 hour ago, kiek said:

Did you try creating aircraft in the air with your tool? From what I see in PSXT that goes much worse then on the ground , at least with AIG aircraft.

@kiekYou are right! I just tested that and confirm that for AIG, it makes a diffrance if the aircraft is injected on the ground or in the air . I'm unable to get any AIG aircraft in the air with lights  using original package with  no light fix.