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Guest fsxflyerofa380

Which is better for FPS: Ultimate Traffic X or MyTraffic 5.1b?

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Since nobody weighed in on this, here I go. After flying around awhile with the default traffic and with traffic at 100%, I am not at all satisfied so I started looking into purchasing a traffic package for FSX.After dissecting and inspecting FSX's default trafficAircraft.bgl, I found that there were many flights that did not ever fly because the aircraft that were called for didn't even exist in the aircraft list. I don't know what those guys were on when they made this traffic file, but I could have done better in my sleep. I have done a lot of custom traffic work in FS9, so I know how difficult and time consuming it is. I am over that now and will not put that kind of work into FSX traffic. I will gladly pay somebody to do it!Also, the reason for the FPS drop is mainly due to the fact that FSX flies each aircraft using the very detailed textures of the default FSX aircraft. Not good at all. I have decided on MyTrafficX because of the positive reviews I've read.The three top reasons I chose this product:1. It's Vista compatible,2. Has 150 low-polygon aircraft so lots of planes will cause minimal impact on FPS, and3. It comes bundled with MyTraffic 2006 for FS9 as well. Two for one. From a review at http://www.fsforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=29:"One thing I like about this product is it's performance. Not only does it not pummel frame rates, but it can actually increase them in some situations. How? The developers at Aerosoft have modelled low polygon planes and low resolution textures so that it uses a minimum level of computer resources, whilst ensuring they still look good."OK, so the planes don't look that great up close. Big deal. I won't be picky because I only want the ambiance, the company in the skies. Good luck with whatever you choose. I will be glad to answer questions on my choice once I get it set up and running. Dolph

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Guest JimC1702

Don't overlook Just Flight's "Traffic X" which is due out in about two weeks. Also, take a look at World-of-AI, the price is right!JimDell XPS 420 Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0 ghz3 gb dual channel 800 mhz DDR2 RAM512 mb nvidia 8800GT500 gb SATA drive 7200 rpmSoundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music22" Acer widescreen LCDWindows Vista Home Premium

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Guest pwheeler

The one big plus for Just Flights Traffic X is that I believe its the only traffic addon with 100% made-for-FSX new models. The others still use some models that were designed using the FS2004 SDK and thus are not as frame rate friendly.Paul

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Paul,That's not entirely a true statement. ;-) My Traffic X has had FSX Ai planes out for almost a year now. True there are aircraft still in the package that are old models, but you have a choice to use DX10 flight plans and most of all Commercial aircraft (Both Jet and Prop) are in the new and improved FSX format.It's constantly being improved and a new upgrade is due out soon as far as I understand it.Edit: for spelling

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Guest jshyluk

I am going to speak very generally and at length about what I know of add-on traffic programs. I've reviewed at least two for AVSIM, and to tell the truth I get them confused with one another.With any add-on traffic program, you are likely going to see modest frame rate benefits, but probably nothing that will rock your world.First, as mentioned, default FSX uses the high-polygon, high-resolution textured flyable models as AI aircraft. I think there is a slight difference between FSX and FSX Deluxe in this regard, but it won't make a difference to frame rates. Every traffic add-on that I can think of uses lower-polygon models and more importantly, less detailed textures. There is a problem with textures that were designed for FS9, as they are not optimised for FSX, and can cause slow-downs or graphical glitches. It's actually quite a bit of work to convert textures for FSX if you are looking at hundreds of liveries. So, pretty much every traffic add-on with FSX textures will give you a boost in frame rates. As I said at the top, though, the gain will probably be modest at best. Why? Mostly because of the Aircraft Density sliders. At the outset, I would ask you to question why you have the aircraft slider set to 100%. If you are just looking for "ambience" and "company in the sky", the 60% is the maximum setting. You will get the bonus of better frame rates, and you will have a level of traffic that looks decent. Of course, the flights will all be fictional, but I have yet to see a "Global Freightways" 747 tootling around the real CYVR. If you want real-life aircraft liveries flying on-time schedules, that's a way different proposition from saving frame rates. In this case, the more you spend the better the results that you will get. AirNav FS Live Traffic X comes to my mind as the most expensive option, but it's fantastically easy to set up, and the flights are very realistic as they are based on streaming data from the FAA (Flights outside of North America are very scarce, though). I doubt that there is a better traffic scheduler than the one that AirNav uses, but it's also expensive.http://www.avsim.com/pages/0607/TrafficX/TrafficX.htmOn the other end is freeware World of AI, which I have not used. The models look decent and the flight schedules are all there, but it's up to the user to do a lot of manual installation. Instead of money, you spend time and effort. No matter what add-on you choose, if you want crowded skies, chances are you will boost the slider past 100%. That usually loads flight sim with dozens if not hundreds of aircraft. And then your frame rate goes back down again. It's a choice between having 2 high-detail aircraft in the sim or 20 low-detail ones. If your traffic add-on has good scheduling, then you won't see too many "traffic jams" on the ground: the timing of the flights will keep most aircraft spaced reasonably apart. However, real-world schedules do not take into account the creeping taxi speeds in FSX, and FSX has trouble handing large numbers of aircraft in the air. Also, your frame rate may take a big hit in large airports as many of the new AI planes make calls for animated jetways and ground support vehicles.Recall that FSX generates visible aircraft in a "bubble" around your position in the sim. Aircraft outside of that bubble are merely theoretical. As you travel around, the bubble follows you. Every time you enter a new scenery region, the bubble gets re-set (you see the loading screen in-flight). If you have a large number of AI aircraft activated, FSX tends to re-set those theoretical aircraft positions inside the bubble. Then you get dozens of ATC call-outs as the sim tries to sort out a cluster of new AI aircraft.If you have too many AI, you will also see constellations of aircraft on take-off and landing. This is due to the bubble system I mentioned above. You will see four or five aircraft try to take off or land at once. FSX will begin to "disappear" flights if they are in conflict for too long, which is creepy if you desire real-world flight plans. Then there's VoxATC, which generates its own traffic in a totally different manner from FSX. It tackles the probem of flight generation not from the point of view of the time table, but from the view of air traffic control. It pretty much throws the rules of flight schedules out the window, but you do get plenty of "company in the sky". Although the low-detail AI models do reduce frame rate hit to an extent, in order to see all of the real-world flights, you have to boost the sliders at least to the point where you cancel out the benefit of using low-detail models. Even then, FSX is not well-equipped to handle that many aircraft at once. Well, that's a pretty long post. At the end of they day, I've decided to uninstall the traffic programs I have collected. I just fly with the default traffic as that's what FSX is most comfortable with. I rarely put the sliders above 60%. Sometimes, I use half of that, and I also like (wait for it) setting the traffic sliders at zero! Of course, it boils down to personal tastes and what you want to see in your sim. Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

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Guest ziporama

Adding to what Jeff wrote,AI is one of the most CPU intensive activities in FS, and will bring any system to its knees, including the latest super-duper liquid hydrogen cooled monsters.I think it's important that you read the reviews, and pick the package you are most comfortable with.Bottom line is that a good AI experience almost guarantees low FPS in the current architecture, especially at the larger airports, especially if you have a complex add-on as your user aircraft.The only item I know that uses more CPU power than the AI system in FS is the jetway animation at large airports.Etienne

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i have used ultimate and mytraffic, and found that for the same density settings mytraffic seemed to generally have a better framerate. if i recall correctly i used the setup option to only use the fsx models.i run with relatively low settings, 10% on mytraffic felt like around the same number of planes as 50% with default traffic, i usually run at around 20% which gives a bit more traffic than the default for the same framerate. it's still low enough that i don't really have troubles like aircraft bunching up or anything and generally i'm 2nd or 3rd in line for takeoff at most. in general i prefer seeing real world airlines at the airports and hubs so that's mainly why i like it. also, with radar contact it is cool that many of those real airlines have voice recorded for their callsigns. seeing the military aircraft flying around is a nice touch as well.cheers,-andy crosby

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Thanks for the detailed explanation. To be frank, I can't use my sliders at 100% for long because I cannot stand the slideshow. I'm always trying something, config settings etc. It's starting to get old so I still fly FS9 alot.

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Guest pwheeler

Sorry, I was not aware MyTraffic X has the option to exclude the old FS2004 models.However, I stand by my statement that Traffic X will be the only AI addon with 100% FSX SP2 SDK models - 84 of them to be precise. There will be no FS2004 models to 'fill' things out.I'm no Just Flight fan - I've got my issues with the way they renamed 'Traffic 2005' to 'Traffic' when FSX came out to try and ensnare the unsuspecting FS novice into thinking it was a new product (like me at the time!) - and even after 2 service packs its still doesn't work 100% with FSX. I also spent good money on all the 'pluspacs' too and it looks like these will not work with Traffic X.Despite this I will be purchasing Traffic X in two weeks as it looks on paper to be the most complete and fps friendly to me. We shall see...

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Guest SkullxBones

Please report back on the comparison between MyTraffic X and the new Traffic X. I use MyTraffic X now and am happy with it but I don't want to buy Traffic X if it's more FPS hungry than MyTraffic X.

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I have both MyTRAFFIC X and the default traffic loaded. What I did was deleted the heavies and the Goose, and a few others. I left only the C172, Mooney, Cub, Beaver, and Maules which aren't included in MTX. Since I fly only custom GA it didn't bother me to do so.Anyway, I have a sky full enough, decent FPS, and only one thing to pick on. It seems that default and MTX have different ideas on which runways to use. I saw two GA acft go through each other on take-off yesterday. They are running independently. Sounded like ATC prefers the default traffic, as I would expect.Dolph

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Guest fsxflyerofa380

Well Ultimate traffic x :) is better for the textures that are not highly detailed. Still they still tahe alot of fps. I use Woai wich updates every pakage every year for the flight plan. ;)

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