Performance problems

[martin[flytampa]]

Attached test-patch that increases fps at SABA and TFFJ. In case of SABA I saw it going from 50 to 180 up close. Turns out FSX can't handle high poly platforms very well and since the terrain at SABA is a lot higher poly in V1.5, so was the platform for it. This patch doesn't change the terrain visually, its just a lower poly platform. Same at TFFJ.

[DMullert]

Hello Martin! I can confirm that this little update does addresses the performance issues I was experiencing at SABA. I am still struggling with the starting location problem - I posted a separate topic with screenshots on this matter.

Thanks!

Dennis

[armchair_pilot]

Hello, I can also confirm that the new files resolved the issues at SABA and TFFJ, frames are going through the roof! Now there's only TNCM left.
Anyway this is great support you're delivering here, haven't seen this done by other software developers that often, if at all.
Thank you Martin!

Max

[martin[flytampa]]

Sofar I'm unable to identify any specific issue at TNCM 1.5 other then all options like AI-Ships and 3D people etc costing a few extra fps.

This comparison was performed with the same settings, each version installed with all options except AI-Ships.

In performing these tests i noticed that having multiple copies of the AI-Ships' traffic files, it multiplies the number of ships causing massive fps loss. Note that V1.1 and 1.2 keep the traffic file (named: Traffic_flytampa_aiship_22FJ.bgl) in the folder /Addon Scenery/FlyTampa-Maarten/scenery/ while V1.5 has it in /scenery/world/scenery. Make sure only one file with that name exists on your system (or none if you want to kill AI-ships).

[martin[flytampa]]

Another angle, same results.

[cmpbllsjc]

Thanks Martin.

These seems to have solved my performance problems at TNCM. I am guessing that once in the air, the close proximity of TFFJ and SABA were causing the bad FPS and extra system load that was causing the blue ground tile squares.

Since installing the patched files, I took at few trips around TNCM with all the options installed in the 777 and was getting FPS between 40 and 60 most of the time and no blue ground tiles popping up.

Thanks for taking care of it so quickly.

[altstiff]

My frames did not improve with this patch.

And I narrowed it down to the AI Ships, they cost me 15FPS so something is not right.

I did check and I do not have a double AI ship traffic file either.

Did you change the AI ship models or something Martin? I recall the old version it was not a frame rate killer like this new one.

[martin[flytampa]]

My frames did not improve with this patch.

And I narrowed it down to the AI Ships, they cost me 15FPS so something is not right.

I did check and I do not have a double AI ship traffic file either.

Did you change the AI ship models or something Martin? I recall the old version it was not a frame rate killer like this new one.

Oddly no, unlike the rest of the scenery which go got completely recompiled, neither the ship models, nor the trafific bgl were touched at all.

[altstiff]

Yeah it is strange for sure. V1.2 they had no impact on frame rates.

V1.5 my frames are a rock solid 30FPS (locked) even in the NGX. I can go with the moving people, lots of traffic and I might go down to 24FPS but add those ships in now and they clobber my system to it's knees now.

Guess I will have to live without the asshole sail boarding in front of the runway as I am on short final now

(Truth be told, while on Saint Jean beach a couple years back some guy did just that!)

I shot this from the water while there...

[armchair_pilot]

I checked my scenery folders, no duplicate entries there. Todays test showed that with the 777 and AI ships my fps suddenly dropped from 20 to 15 and finally 10fps by doing nothing but looking down the runway. Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

EDIT: Once in the air I'm getting fps as low as this.. (Both are from the same shot, facing TNCM)

[martin[flytampa]]

Yeah it is strange for sure. V1.2 they had no impact on frame rates.

V1.5 my frames are a rock solid 30FPS (locked) even in the NGX. I can go with the moving people, lots of traffic and I might go down to 24FPS but add those ships in now and they clobber my system to it's knees now.

Guess I will have to live without the asshole sail boarding in front of the runway as I am on short final now

(Truth be told, while on Saint Jean beach a couple years back some guy did just that!)

I shot this from the water while there...

Just to make sure, you are certain that you saw the AI-Ships in previous versions? I ask because just having the AIShip option checked during install didn't necessarily mean that the showed up. In V1.1 and 1.2 if you ran for example WoAI the AIShips would get excluded because of their traffic BGL formatting.

[martin[flytampa]]

I checked my scenery folders, no duplicate entries there. Todays test showed that with the 777 and AI ships my fps suddenly dropped from 20 to 15 and finally 10fps by doing nothing but looking down the runway. Doesn't make any sense to me at all.

EDIT: Once in the air I'm getting fps as low as this.. (Both are from the same shot, facing TNCM)

Could you please perform the following test to help figure out the issue:

Go into the folder Addon Scenery/FlyTampa-Maarten/scenery/
and move all BGL files from that folder to another Temp folder (like /FlyTampa-Maarten/scenery/TEMP).

Load TNCM again and don't mind the messy airport. Just use slew mode to get into a similar position to where you took the shot and see if FPS behave similarly. They might be slightly higher because the airport isn't rendering but if the go down dramatically again the only thing left would be the ships. If this is the case, run it one more time after deleting FSX/scenery/world/scenery/Traffic_flytampa_aiship_22FJ.bgl and check the fps behavior now.

[armchair_pilot]

Okay moved the bgl-files to a temporary folder and moved the aircraft up to a similar spot. Fps improved, I noticed a min. of 23 and a max. of 30, no significant low drops.
Copied the files back and only removed the AIship file, on the runway, frames were stable at 20-21, dropped to 15 at times but then back up to 21. It seems that the ships are definitely causing a big drop after time, though I still don't get why the performance is so poor in general. Could it be an issue with ATI? What performance are other people getting in comparison with OMDB?

Max

[altstiff]

Just to make sure, you are certain that you saw the AI-Ships in previous versions? I ask because just having the AIShip option checked during install didn't necessarily mean that the showed up. In V1.1 and 1.2 if you ran for example WoAI the AIShips would get excluded because of their traffic BGL formatting.

This could be you are on to something Martin.

I do use WOAI for AI and I do not have any FSX compliled flight plan traffic BGL's (I know FS9 compiled plans cancel FSX out).

Did you change the traffic compile BGL format in V1.5 from FSX to FS9?

I do notice from screen shots of past flights to TNCM as I am on real short final that I have two cargo ships in Simpson Bay and a cruise ship near Baie Nettle. But I do not see any wake from AI ships moving about.

If you switched the traffic compile from FSX to FS9 for V1.5 this would explain why I seen no AI in the previous versions and I do now (and now the frame rate hit that comes with it)