joepoway

My two cents. I’ve tried them all and I stuck with Pilot2ATC it works with P3D and MSFS2020 and has by far the best support I have every seen. Yes every one of them has limitations but P2ATC meets my needs. Joe

I use ChasePlane and in the preferences section I believe is where it’s located you can override P3D HDR and set cockpit and external separate lighting settings. It’s not perfect but much better. Joe

Try opening the hangar and doing a full overall, just a guess. Joe

I use ChasePlane and found if I enable it’s feature to override and control the lighting and saturation levels I can make significant improvements. Additionally you can make separate adjustments for your cockpit views and external views I believe so one size doesn’t fit all. Joe

Is this really the consensus on Global? It seems I read in the post some said it was better. I’m not sure what the final thoughts really were. Clearly Vector is out but not sure if Global is just a matter of personal taste or if it’s better or worse. Regardless it doesn’t seem to effect f performance but clearly a large amount of files to manage I suppose. Joe

I understand, that’s makes sense. Thanks for the response. Joe

Perhaps a long shot but turn off the engine and open the A2A hangar and do a complete overall maybe something has been damaged and the aircraft files remember this. Joe

Are there any MCE commands to turn on the lower Com Panel - Int, Cab or PA buttons that could be incorporated into a procedure? Joe

I just wanted to say everything I have identified as an issue or requested to be modified has been addressed and is working flawlessly! I have been flight simming for well over 15 years and have purchased and used well over 100 add-ons over the years. I can honestly say the lever of timely support, prompt communication and results to ALL my inquires has been virtually unmatched. It's also great to see that Multi Crew Experience is still supporting P3D and willing to make improvements. I am finding me experience with MCE to be quite rewarding and coupling it with my VR experience is extremely beneficial. Thanks again to the entire MCE team !! Joe

Hi Ray You had requested me to re-post this topic for use in the "Tips, Tricks and How To's" section of the forum. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ The following is a summary of a post I recently made regarding the new Affinity Mask (AM) options within the P3Dv5.3 configuration file as an attempt to explain what the AM is doing. The P3D configuration file is located: Users > xxx > AppData > Roaming > Lockheed Martin > Prepar3D v5 > Prepar3D.cfg If you are not familiar with making edits to this file with something like Notepad++ I suggest you proceed with caution and make a backup of the file before proceeding. If something goes wrong you can always delete the file, when P3D is launched it will generate a new configuration file. However, preferred settings within the various options pages will have to be re-established that’s why a copy reinserted would be more advantageous if necessary. Before I start the following link will lead to a very useful tool developed by a fellow forum member @mammyjammy This tool will enable you to make various choices for any processor and provide the AM values to insert in the P3D config file. This summary does not go into detail in the use of the calculator, but the author has given excellent instructions on its use. P3Dv5.3 Affinity Mask Calculator I also want to acknowledge Steve Waite @SteveW , a long-time key contributor to this forum, for providing great insights and valuable testing helping me to understand this complicated and sometimes confusing AM topic. Note when P3Dv5.3 was installed or upgraded on your PC a default AM was generated and exists in your config file at the top of the file already. Many people think they are not running an AM in P3Dv5.3 but in fact a default one exists. To be clear you do not have to change the default it will work as is. However, we have found it useful to modify the settings particularly if you are running a processor with Hyperthreading (HT) enabled as the P3D default AM settings don’t fully optimize the HT feature yet. Additionally, processors with more than 4 cores can benefit more because of the greater number of options. When assigning processor core AM settings, I recommend using the same core settings for "AffinityMask" and "P3DCoreAffinityMask" and not setting the "P3DCoreAffinityMask" as a subset of the “AffinityMask”. Different opinions can be found in the forum but my opinion is to set them the same, @SteveW has main posts on this subject if you want to research it. Also, there is discussion about leaving the first core free from P3D use so the Windows Operating System can use it to assign things, I have found no real benefit while testing both Windows 10 and recently Windows 11. Additionally, if you don’t have an abundance of cores, you may actually be hindering P3D performance. Again, I’m not saying you shouldn’t explore this I’m saying I found it to not be valuable on my system which can be seen in my signature at the bottom of the post. Assuming you have used the AM Calculator or another tool and have decided on the core assignments you want there will be 5 lines of code that need to be looked at. The following is a recommended example for a 6 core processor with HT enabled: [JobScheduler] AffinityMask=4053 P3DCoreAffinityMask=4053 MainThreadScheduler=0 RenderThreadScheduler=1 FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2 For those of who like binary notation it would look something like this from right to left: 11,11,11,01,01,01 = AffinityMask=4053 11,11,11,01,01,01 = P3DCoreAffinityMask=4053 00,00,00,00,00,01 = MainThreadScheduler=0 00,00,00,00,01,00 = RenderThreadScheduler=1 00,00,00,01,00,00 = FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2 In simple terms (I hope) from right to left in the above example think of the logical processors as P1, P2, P3, P4 and so on to P12 for this 6 core with HT example MainThreadScheduler = 0 puts the MainThread on P1 which is on the first of 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P2 (HT of first core) therefore no scenery rendering etc. is put on the same shared core as MainThread RenderThreadScheduler = 1 puts the RenderThread on P3 which is on the second of the 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P4 (HT of second core) therefore no scenery rendering etc. is put on the same shared core as RenderThread FrameWorkerThreadScheduler = 2 puts the FrameWorkerThread on P5 which is on the third of 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P6 (HT of third core) therefore no scenery rendering etc. is put on the same shared core as FrameWorker By doing this you are directing P3D where the main threads should be run and run on separate cores (new feature with v5.3) and keeping any other P3D activities or programs launched by P3D from using the "sister HT's" (in my terms P2, P4, and P6 with the AffinityMask and P3DCoreAffinityMask = 4053 in this example) of those three primary thread cores in use. Additionally, I recommend using a utility to coral (keep off) other high use add-ons off the first three cores including the "sister HT's". This prevents any sharing of the primary P3D threads with other apps. That would mean nothing else on P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, and P6 which is my "plain English" reference it's really C0, C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5 in things like Process Lasso if that makes sense. The following is a suggested example for an 8 core processor with HT enabled like my current i9-990ks: [JobScheduler] AffinityMask=65493 P3DCoreAffinityMask=65493 MainThreadScheduler=0 RenderThreadScheduler=1 FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2 All the same logic as above applies this just utilizes more cores but assignments for the 3 primary P3D threads are the same first 3 cores. The AM=65493 prevents the same 3 “Sister HT” cores from being shared with the P3D primary threads. It’s important to realize when hyperthreading is used the number of cores does not physically double. Hyperthreading shares each physical core creating a virtual core so to speak. You want to assure the assigned cores for the 3 P3D primary threads are not shared by other P3D tasks or heavy hitting add-ons. If the loading of any of those cores reaches 100% with the additive combination of say P1 and P2 (C0 and C1) in my above example stutters may arise. Additionally, regarding HT on or off for use with P3D there are dozens of opinions, mine is if you overclock and it's stable and you don't have heat issues, I would use HT but as stated above keep things off the "HT portions" of the first three cores assigned for the three main threads of P3D. As mentioned above it is also beneficial but not essential to assign AM to heavy hitting add-ons that are still free to use any of the cores on your processor. I use Process Lasso to keep those apps off the assigned cores for the 3 P3D primary threads. When all the add-ons are launched with P3D running every app can be seen on the Process Lasso process page and each app can have a custom affinity mask (core assignment) assigned. If you use Process Lasso, be sure to use the “Affinity Always” assignment so it’s permanent and not a onetime assignment. The following are a few Process Lasso discussions on the forum but there are many other tools available. Process Lasso Forum Topic Continued Process Lasso Forum Topic I hope this helps. The complexity of understanding modern processors, all the terms and actual behaviors can be very confusing, I only hope I haven't added to the confusion. Joe

The patch works great. Thanks for the ongoing prompt support it’s wonderful to see a developer staying on top of P3D improvements. As a long time simmer I can say my recent purchase of MCE has been quite satisfying and only wish I would have added it to my simming experience sooner. Thanks again! Joe

Hi Ray, Here's a link to all the details of Process Lasso: https://bitsum.com/processlasso-docs/ When using Process Lasso you launch the app and it launches a "Management Console (GUI)" and a "Core Engine (Governor) Startup". The GUI app allows you adjust any settings you like. Once you have established all your preferences you actually don't need it anymore however you must have the "Governor" running for Process Lasso to make Affinity changes or anything else you use it for. In the GUI you can go to Options>General>Configure Startup and disable the GUI but must keep the Governor set to lauch at startup I use "Start at login for all users". The "Governor" runs in the back ground with no discernable impact and will handle all the settings adjustments to affinity masks automatically as apps are launched. You don't have to disable the GUI at startup and when I am optimizing or debugging I use the GUI for useful data gathering and it also has no discernable impact on performance. I also coral Process Lasso itself to the desired cores I want it to use in it's GUI as I do with all the other processes. Hope this helps Joe

If you use Process Lasso while everything is running in terms of P3D and it’s addons you can look at all the processes running. Then you can select the process you want and click on it and in the drop down select change affinity. Then make sure to select the always drop down. Next I usually select the clear to start with no cores and then check off the ones I want. When you exit this process will always be modified to the new desired settings when launched. I’m not advertising for Process Lasso it’s just what I have been using for several years after I moved away from Simstarter. Joe

Yes Ray I referred in my explanation to his second scenario, you are correct. However I would not use that scenario I would use the first recommendation since I have seen no real benefit from leaving core 0 for the operating system. I should note I use an i9-9900ks with hyperthreading On so I have more cores but the principle is the same. In the recommended scenario 1 : 11,11,11,01,01,01=AffinityMask = 405311,11,11,01,01,01=P3DCoreAffinityMask = 405300,00,00,00,00,01=MainThreadScheduler = 0 = core 0 00,00,00,00,01,00=RenderThreadScheduler = 1 = core 1 00,00,00,01,00,00=FrameWorkerThreadScheduler = 2 = core 2 In simple terms (I hope) from right to left in the above example think of the logical processors as P1, P2, P3, P4 and so on to P12 for 6 cores with HT MainThreadScheduler= 0 puts Main thread on P1 which is on the first of 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P2 (HT of first core) therefore no scenery rendering etc is put on the same shared core as MainThread RenderThreadScheduler = 1 puts Render Thread on P3 which is on the second of the 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P4 (HT of second core) therefore no scenery rendering etc is put on the same shared core as RenderThread FrameWorkerThreadScheduler = 2 puts FrameWorkerThread on gets P5 which is on the third of 6 cores P3D is told with AM=4053 not to use P6 (HT of third core) therefore no scenery rendering etc is put on the same shared core as FrameWorker By doing this you are directing P3D where the main threads should be run and run on separate cores (new feature with v5.3) and keeping any other P3D activities or programs launched by P3D from using the "sister HT's" (in my terms P2,P4, and P6) of those three primary thread cores in use. Additionaly I recommend using a utility to coral other high use add-ons off the first three cores including the "sister HT's". That would mean nothing else on P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, and P6 which is my "plain English" reference it's really C0, C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5 in things like Process Lasso if that makes sense. I hope this helps and doesn't further confuse things. The way cores, LP's, and HT with all the affinity mask stuff are described is very confusing and I hope I haven't added to the confusion 🙂 Lastly regarding HT on or off there's a million opinions but mine is if you overclock and it's stable and you don't have heat issues I would use HT but as stated above keep things off the "HT portions" of the first three cores assigned for the three main threads of P3D. Good luck Joe

Steve has written previously how even though with Hyperthreading you have 2 LPs they actually share 1 real core. Therefore as I understand it if both LP's for say for core 2 are at 50% that consumes the entire cores capability so in reality if you use LP2 and not LP3 in the above recommendation it allows 100% of that core to be used by the Main Thread Scheduler only and not share Core 2 with background P3D rendering tasks or anything else assuming you've used something like Process Lasso or SImStarter to keep other things off LP2 and LP3 in this example. I guess if LP2 never ever exceeded 50% and any P3D rendering or other activity would never exceed 50% on LP3 if it were activated then yes maybe that virtual LP was wasted. However whenever the total of the two LP's or the single LP hits 100% stutters may occur. As I understand it hyperthreading does not double your computing power. If you look back or search Steve's posts he explains this in detail with math examples. I hope I have explained what I think I have learned from Steve accurately and well enough. Joe