VisualPSX Suite released

[GodAtum]

Another question. What is the easiest way to load the aircraft at a gate?

1/ Somehow get VisualPSX to be locked (maybe I do not understand but this is intermittent)
2/ Use PSX to move the plane into a gate

I have tried this but the gates in PSX do not seem to line up correctly with UK2000 EGKK and EGLL the gates I have tried.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

PSX gates are positioned at the exact latitude and longitude that the authority publishes (and that will be printed on a Jepp chart if you have one for that airport). They come out of the same database as the navaids, fixes, and runways. There is no doubt about their accuracy unless you discover a typo (which happens all the time, authorities are not flawless, and this is not a political statement).

If sceneries don't line up, you will need to move around a bit. That can be done at the instructor panel. Just jot down the actual position next to your Jepp gate chart and you can go there next time. Or create a situ.


Hoppie

[GodAtum]

Actually GSX can teleport the plane to a gate, I'll try that!

[Kurt]

Hi Garry.

Got VisualPSX and TrafficPSX up and running but have some questions:

1 What fluidity is to expect, It stutters quite a bit on my setup even though PSX server with boostserver enabled runs between 70 and 72 fps. FSX runs on a different pc at 30 fps stable. The stutter is lowest at cruise, more close to ground. I have experimented with the different framrateoptions in PSX and the result is the same.

2 i cant see any trafic in FSX even though i have ticked Send PSX traffic to FSX. All status fields in VisualPSX and TraficPSX shows green Flight.


I noticed that during initial setup the dotnetfx35setup.exe just ran when clicked- no further dialog or effect was noticed. In my programlist in windows there is only some dotnet4.5 things. Maybe this has something to do with my issues?

Thank you for making this addon  :mrgreen:

[GodAtum]

For anyone interested, I will be trying out the iFly 747 freeware tonight to see if it give more authentic lights.

[Ivo de Colfmaker]

Hi,
I want to use prepar3D as scenery generator, but it has no default 747.
Tried the link provided in this thread but prepar chrashes when loading it.
The file is copied in to the simobjects/ airplanes folder, do I miss something or do something wrong here?
Thanks
Ivo

[ahaka]

Kurt,

Does FSX stutter when you're running it "standalone" without PSX and VisualPSX?

[Kurt]

Kurt,

Does FSX stutter when you're running it "standalone" without PSX and VisualPSX?

Hi ahaka.

Just tried it and no FSX alone is smooth at 30 fps without stutter under exact same conditions as when it is driven by PSX

[ahaka]

That's what I thought. It seems that when FSX is controlled through a network, it puts a rather significant additional load to the sim. Whether it has to do with the network traffic, CPU use or what, I'm not sure. It might have to do with the network not being able to send enough information to FSX, or it could be that VisualPSX is trying to force FSX to sync with the PSX frame. I don't have PSX yet, so I can't experiment with this myself until I get my copy.

I would suggest you try the following:

1. Try running FSX with minimum graphics setting. Try changing the FPS limiter to unlimited vs. locked. If you have any Nvidia vsync tweaks such as vertical sync 1/2 refresh rate, try turning it off/on and see if there's any difference. See if this has any effect on smoothness?

2. Assign visualPSX to use a core on the client machine that FSX is not using.

What are the specs of the computer running FSX?

[Ivo de Colfmaker]

In the mean time got VisualPSX up and running.
So no need to answeron my previous post.
Thanks
Ivo

[Ivo de Colfmaker]

Thank you very much  Garry for this wonderfull add on .
Gonna love it each second
Ivo

[ahaka]

Kurt,

Another thing that came to my mind that might be worth trying:

Run a networked instance of PSX on the FSX computer, and let VisualPSX gather data from that same instance. So there will not be network traffic used for the PSX -> FSX connection.

[GodAtum]

How do I move the airplane in FSX and update it in PSX? the positioning page is not accurate enough.

Also the coordinates for EGLL are incorrect. Eg at 542, charts show 512808.88N 0002846.03W. But PSX is at N51 28.1 W000 28.8.

[Kurt]

Kurt,

Another thing that came to my mind that might be worth trying:

Run a networked instance of PSX on the FSX computer, and let VisualPSX gather data from that same instance. So there will not be network traffic used for the PSX -> FSX connection.

Hi again, Thanks for trying to help me out

- will do that next, - in the mean time I have experimented with the setup as per your earlier post and with ALL gfx settings to minimum on FSX i get around 180 FPS and just a little less stutter. The stutter remains more or less unrelated to GFX settings .

I don't know how to assign CPU core to programs in win 7 but i will google it and try later tonight.

My specs for the FSX machine (that is quite old) is:

Core 2 Duo @2,4Ghz
nVidia 8800GT 384GB
4GB Ram
Raid IDE setup

[Kurt]

That's what I thought. It seems that when FSX is controlled through a network, it puts a rather significant additional load to the sim. Whether it has to do with the network traffic, CPU use or what, I'm not sure. It might have to do with the network not being able to send enough information to FSX, or it could be that VisualPSX is trying to force FSX to sync with the PSX frame. I don't have PSX yet, so I can't experiment with this myself until I get my copy.

I would suggest you try the following:

1. Try running FSX with minimum graphics setting. Try changing the FPS limiter to unlimited vs. locked. If you have any Nvidia vsync tweaks such as vertical sync 1/2 refresh rate, try turning it off/on and see if there's any difference. See if this has any effect on smoothness?

2. Assign visualPSX to use a core on the client machine that FSX is not using.

What are the specs of the computer running FSX?

Hi.

Just ran a cpu utility to see utilization and with just FSX running the first core is at 100%, - and the second core fluctuating between 60% and 100% , - might be the reason for the stutter. I found out how to assign applications to individual cores and it made no difference if I gave FSX one core and VisualPSX the other one. (core 2 was almost idle when Visual PSX was assigned to it)

In the mean time I found out something that might indicate something:

When flying through precipitation its direction in FSX shifted between horizontal and vertical in sync with the stutter IE it seems that the FSX representation of the aircraft hops between full stop and full speed synchronous with the stutter.

I will move visualPSX to another machine and test again later tonight or tomorrow

Thanks

[jb747]

How do I move the airplane in FSX and update it in PSX? the positioning page is not accurate enough.

Also the coordinates for EGLL are incorrect. Eg at 542, charts show 512808.88N 0002846.03W. But PSX is at N51 28.1 W000 28.8.

As mentioned earlier, when using addon scenery in FSX/P3D the artists don't always follow the exact gate assignment coordinates... or runway alignments for that matter.  That's why Pete Dowson developed MakeRunways.  It's not a major issue, just move the B744 in PSX to it's gate more precisely once you get it close.

Also, in the Instructor Station the aircraft coordinate alignment is rounded off to the nearest tenth of a minute as your numbers above show.

What I have done is position my flights at the scheduled departure gate for all of the airports that I fly out of and save the situation file.  So it's available for departure the next time I want to fly out of that airport.

Cheers,

Jon

[ahaka]

Hi.

Just ran a cpu utility to see utilization and with just FSX running the first core is at 100%, - and the second core fluctuating between 60% and 100% , - might be the reason for the stutter. I found out how to assign applications to individual cores and it made no difference if I gave FSX one core and VisualPSX the other one. (core 2 was almost idle when Visual PSX was assigned to it)

In the mean time I found out something that might indicate something:

When flying through precipitation its direction in FSX shifted between horizontal and vertical in sync with the stutter IE it seems that the FSX representation of the aircraft hops between full stop and full speed synchronous with the stutter.

I will move visualPSX to another machine and test again later tonight or tomorrow

Thanks

Hey

This could indeed indicate that the stutter has something to do with the network traffic (lost packets or something similar) Thats why it's worth trying the psx+visualpsx+fsx on the same machine.

Given that your cpu is dual core, assigning the cores wont really help.

It could also be that your fsx computer is just simply too slow, although 180fps is crazy lol. Fsx is best run with a quad core, i7 machine.

I will probably get my copy of psx in about a week or so, and I'm also planning to use it on two computers like you. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Let me know how it goes!

[Garry Richards]

Please check that Nagle is disabled in both SimConnect.cfg and SimConnect.xml. The manual shows the format for each file. An incorrect setting there is known to cause stuttering.

[Phil Bunch]

I thought that FSX is known to be essential a single-core application, and not much if any helped by having a multi-core PC?

Perhaps the major benefit from upgrading to a more powerful PC would be to gain access to a faster clock rate, faster RAM, and perhaps faster I/O?  Usually, a better video card also comes along with a newer, more powerful PC (speaking in generalities, of course).  My understanding is that the video card performance usually plays a big role in FSX frame rates.

I hope my comments and recollections are helpful in some way.  I also hope they're basically correct and that I'm not just misremembering these things.  I also have to  install FSX and see what sort of frame rates at various FSX parameter settings I can get.  I recently read (in this forum, I think) that the level of detail in the clouds setting often has a major role in FSX frame rates.  I'm sure other things also matter.

A local Ethernet connection should be pretty fast, assuming that one's Ethernet card isn't somehow performance-limited.

[Tércio Sampaio]

Hi,

Sadly the FSX have much performance problems like stutter and huge fps flutuation. It have a old code and in 32 bits. It support multi cpu but not cpu hyperthreading.

Not to mention that it have a strong "short cover" problem (when you fix some problems, it uncover others and inverse the same). To a point that if you put it beauty and with less stutter it becames unstable and creates OOM crashes. and how more addons you insert, how more problematic it turns. In FSX sometimes its so strange that you can have between 300 fps to 7 without change options. Or 30 with a complex scenery and aircraft with all configs maxed, then only 10 with a cessna 172 with everything in low in a low complex scenery. Sometimes its a weird and unpredictable experience. The stutter in fsx (that its a super classic of it) for me entirely kills all the immersion and feeling of being there.

To FSX as it is a 32 bits software it will not use more than +/- 3 GB, the important thing is avoid addons that require more memory, because it will not address more than 3GB, so it will pinpoint many times the disk to read textures files and so, creates stutter. As it not supports hyperthreading, even if you have a i7 it will only work with 4 cpu's. Its important to have much Hz as possible on them (a +3GHz is much better than a 2.4 GHz). Finally a decent graphic card always help and the maiority recomends a nvidia one, less issues with fsx (but not means that a ati not works good also). The fsx is more intensive with CPU than GPU if you already have a good GPU.

Regards