Seattle 2003 and SanFran 2003

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Lars,If there is a tree planted in the middle of the runway at Firstair Field, then it certainly wasn't put there by me.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,I modified the parking area at Coupeville NOLF, but I have no idea if it is accurate or not. I also realised that there is (or was) a dirt strip (runway 6/24) to the west of the main runway, so I connected these with a piece of taxiway. Once again, this may not be realistic, but I thought that it looked good. The house near the threshold of runway 24 has an AI Cessna parking spot next to it, and these taxi to and from the main runway. These are CessnaP, so they stay in the pattern and practice touch-and-go's.My version of Coupeville NOLF also includes the corrected ground elevation at the southern end of the runway. This makes the runway completely flush with the terrain (no more sinking through the runway), but the taxiway is slightly tilted. Some of the trees have sunk into the ground also, but I have just been too lazy to sort this out yet !Chris Low.

[Lars Peter 0]

Chris.I know.I do not know where this extra addon came fromThe tree was deleted after some flights:-lol Using the challenges in the library I was often send to this airfield:-wedge This was indeed a challenge of itself:-bang Thank'sLars Peter.:-wave

[Hans_Petter 1]

I'm experimenting with both volumes of Chris Low's unabridged collection now and this is what I've found:SanFran modifications, including airports and AI plan, work as intended. There's no "AI freeze" as I launch a flight. However, at this point I'm testing it out without the packages. Then I disabled the Seattle packages and tried this region once more with your AI plan and other "extra files". At first I got the "expected to find-" error message at Coupeville Nolf but the flight loaded. Then I tried other airports and the AI traffic loaded fine. After a few flights I tried Coupeville Nolf again and the AI traffic loaded without any complaints here as well.Thus, it seems the AI problems come with the packages rather than the AI plan or the airports. That's odd. I'm going to add packages for both regions and check how far I get without running into troubles. As for Seattle it would be nice to know which SanFran packages you consider to be less essential. Or, you might point out some that you suspect to clash with OT airports. Actually, I might do it the other way around and start with the "must have" packages.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,The problem with your theory regarding the packages is that they work fine for me. The SanFran 2003 and Seattle 2003 packs are the very same packs that I have installed on my PC, and I don't suffer from any problems. Therefore, the only possibility is that they are conflicting with other packages (scenery or otherwise) that you have installed.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,With respect to "less essential" SanFran packages, do you mean scenery, airport or both ? I could probably suggest certain scenery packages that I would personally choose to delete (if I really had to), but you may not agree. However, I will provide such a list if you are really desperate. :-)How many packages do you suggest deleting ?Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Chris and everybody else--my intention is to make these splendid packages work on an installation that includes the outer terrain. I have not implied that the uploads are flawed. I would love to keep it all as it is but my OT will not allow me. So, I'm really trying to being constructive here and get the best of Chris Low without sacrificing the OT :-)All the airports (regions/sanfran or seattle/airports) work with the OT installed. However, I expect to have to cull some packages to keep my version of FU3 running. I might try to delete the airport info as Hennie did with his modified packages. The limit isn't the packages per se but rather the number of icons. The other problem is airports with the same frequency but we'll see about that.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,Don't worry. I didn't think that you were trying to suggest that there were faults with my packages. I will leave you to conduct your experiments, and look forward to the results.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Positive surprise!I've just been running FU3 with all of your SanFran packages and it seems to work. I haven't tried departures from all of the airports but there's no "global" problem. The AI count runs without pausing and hanging and there are no crashes.The OT is linked to the Seattle region and this may be where we "outer terrainers" have to step carefully. I deleted the ones that you suggested and a few others that looked ficticional (ribbon, diamond etc). I noticed a substantial frame rate drop around downtown SanFran (from 25+ to 11) but I can live with that. The main thing is to get decent frame rates on short final and I don't plan to land at Alcatraz :-)Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,Final approach to runway 24 at Crissy Army Airfield provides excellent views.......and low framerates. The "10 second freeze problem" should have vanished if you do not install Golden Gate Park and Angel Island (I removed Belvedere Island from SanFran 2003, since it wasn't an essential package....in my opinion).I'm glad that SanFran 2003 appears to work flawlessly, since I prefer this region to Seattle. You say that you removed a few other airfields that looked fictional, but all of the extra airfields that I have created actually exist. You are presumably referring to Blue Ribbon when you mention "ribbon". I haven't got a clue if the position of the parking spot is genuine, but I don't have that much detailed information about all of these small airfields ! With respect to "diamond", are you referring to Black Diamond ? Once again, this is a real airfield, but I have absolutely no idea what it looks like in reality.All of these extra REAL airfields can be found in the FU3 airports document by Sergey Ostrozhinsky (available in the FU3 file library).Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Crissy Army Airfield test with Golden Gate Park and Angel Island installed: Everything looked fine as I rolled out from the parking spot. Frame rates around 17. As I took off in the 240 degrees direction I got a pause of 5-6 seconds once I was airborne. Then I turned left and flew UNDER the Golden Gate bridge for a change. As I turned left again to approach rwy 24 the sim suddenly froze. After seeing a suspended Cessna for 10 seconds or so I got to see the desktop.Next try, this time without Golden Gate Park and Angel Island. Same procedure--fps around 19. The freeze close to the observatory was shortened to about 2 seconds. Under the bridge and turn left to rwy 24--no freeze or crash, maybe a slight hiccup.It's strange that my sim crashed on heavy scenery objects rather than just slowing to a crawl. In fact, the entire freeze issue is strange. Crashes tend to ensue when there's a logical conflict and I would expect low fps rather than a sudden transition from 17 fps to a freeze. What happened to the option of dropping down to ultra-low frame rates?In any event, Crissy Army Airfield is OK on my PC (1.2 Ghz processor, Win 2000, 762 MB ram) but it seemed to be a good idea to sacrifice the Golden Gate Park and Angel Island.Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,So it seems that your OT scenery does affect the SanFran region. It is a good idea to remove Golden Gate Park and Angel Island though, since these two scenery packages have a serious amount of trees in them ! When I first created them, I didn't even imagine that they would cause a problem of this kind. In fact, I have noticed freezes in the Seattle area also (at SeaTac and McChord AFB). The density of objects in these two areas is nowhere near that of the San Francisco area though, so I'm not sure why this happens.The Presidio scenery package (the one that includes all those trees and buildings near Crissy Army Airfield) is also a large file, so this can be swapped for either Golden Gate Park or Angel Island, but it makes more sense to remove these two packages. There are several other small packages that could be removed without seriously affecting the scenery (like Mountain Lake, Lake Merritt, Coit Tower, and Buena Vista Park), but I'm not sure how much of an improvement this would make. Buena Vista Park has quite a few trees, so this might reduce the "freeze time" even further.I wouldn't dream of removing most of the other packages though. :-)Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Hans_Petter 1]

Since those packages are scenery enhancements rather than airports, where would I go to test them? I've been flying to and from lots of the region's airports but I haven't encountered any problems. To target possible problem areas I need "take off from XYZ, fly heading XYZ"Hans Petter

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,OK, I will give you directions to these packages.MOUNTAIN LAKE is a small package (some trees, one or two buildings and a couple of static cars) to the south of the Presidio scenery.LAKE MERRITT is just east of Alameda NAS. This package includes some trees, one or two buildings, and a handful of sailboats and wooden docks on the lake itself.COIT TOWER includes some trees around the tower itself (located just north of downtown San Francisco).BUENA VISTA PARK is located west of downtown San Francisco (relatively near Sutro Tower, which is the large red and white radio mast between the San Francisco buildings and the Pacific coast).I will post one or two screenshots shortly to highlight these areas.Chris Low,ENGLAND.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Hans,The first screenshot shows (from left to right) Mountain Lake, Buena Vista Park and Coit Tower.The second screenshot shows Lake Merritt.I have absolutely no idea if removing these four scenery packages will solve any problems. They are simply suggestions.Chris Low,ENGLAND.http://forums.avsim.com/user_files/7352.jpghttp://forums.avsim.com/user_files/7353.jpg