Traffic Limiter option for Planned Airport Ground Lmiting

[Pete Dowson]

For anyone interested in trying a new option and letting me know how they get on, download the interim update 

FSUIPC4962c_TEST.zip

This allows you to set a separate preference for deleting excess traffic at your planned airports of Departure and Arrival. (Sorry, not alternate as well at present, but I might consider adding this if folks do actually use it enough and the facility appears to be useful).

The new parameter, in the [Traffic Limiter] section of the FSUIPC4.INI file is

PlannedAirportsPreference=50

As with the others, the default is 50, but it will be set the same as a previously set GroundPreference value initially.

For this to operate fully you need to have a plan loaded in FSX/P3D. Since it doesn't know your planned departure until the plan is loaded, it will initially assume that the nearest airport IS your departure airport. This will be confirmed or changed when the plan is loaded.

The "GroundPreference" value determines the probability of excess aircraft being deleted from any airports within FS's "reality bubble" EXCEPT your departure and arrival airports. In that case it is this parameter which decides the probabilities. So you could, for example, set the GroundPreference to 75 to get rid of more ground traffic at other airports, but put this one down to 25 to ensure more traffic at your planned airports.

When you first run FSUIPC with this new feature, it will set the added PlannedAirportsPreference value to the same as the GroundPreference, so that nothing will change unless you change this or the other parameter.

It is tested here but I'm not sure yet how effective it is for real flights,, which I've not got time for at present. Keep your current FSUIPC4.DLL to return to in case of problems, and let me know how here you get on, please.

Pete

 

 

[Lifenbaucher]

Thank you for introducing this feature. I will test it and report back

[jabloomf1230]

I can't add too much except that it appears to work via my limited testing with a few flight plans and it doesn't seem to break anything either. I'm just curious, though, what happens when there is no flight plan loaded at all?

[Sabrefly]

With the previous settings no matter what I changed in the limiter (except total 100 aircraft max) arriving at EGLL always left Terminal 5 quite empty to some reason. I'm curious if this new parameter might change it.

Thanks

[Pete Dowson]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:27 AM, jabloomf1230 said:

I can't add too much except that it appears to work via my limited testing with a few flight plans and it doesn't seem to break anything either. I'm just curious, though, what happens when there is no flight plan loaded at all?

As I think I said, for departure the nearest airport is chosen. There won't be an arrival airport, so the function won't work for the arrival.

Pete

 

[Pete Dowson]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:56 AM, Sabrefly said:

no matter what I changed in the limiter (except total 100 aircraft max) 

Sorry, you mean the limiter value, in the Miscellaneous tab? I use 250 as my limit and get lots of (mainly BA or course, with the odd Iberia) at EGLL Terminal 5 -- and without this new parameter. Maybe with an airport with as many gates as EGLL you sre simply being too restrictive at  some number below 100? (You didn't say what you changed FROM to 100).

Pete

 

[Lifenbaucher]

It works well, I have the total set to 130

However I have noticed that the deletion of traffic at the preferred airports tends not to be randomly spread, but by distance...

If I am at the Queens terminal @ EGLL (gate 200's) then the furthest reaches of Terminal 5 are usually empty whilst the rest of the airport is well populated

Conversely if I am at Terminal 5/ or landing into 09L/R then the furthest reaches of Queens Terminal and T4 are quite empty...

Just what I have noticed, my settings are:

[Traffic Limiter]
TrafficLimit=130
AirportPreference=60
GroundPreference=60
NearerPreference=50
PlannedAirportsPreference=5

Maybe its something to do with the NearerPreference? I do not quite get what and how the AirportPref / NearerPref link into the PlannedAirportPref

Thanks for introducing this tool

[Pete Dowson]

4 hours ago, Lifenbaucher said:

However I have noticed that the deletion of traffic at the preferred airports tends not to be randomly spread, but by distance...

If I am at the Queens terminal @ EGLL (gate 200's) then the furthest reaches of Terminal 5 are usually empty whilst the rest of the airport is well populated

There is a slight preference for keeping traffic nearer the aircraft, to avoid aircraft suddenly disappearing in view. But the preference for NOT deleting aircraft at your planned airports is much stronger. Just manipulate the numbers more.

There's no actual comparison of distance between the ground candidates once more than 0.5nm away and up to 5nm away. Over 5nm the chances are a bit higher again for deletion, So between 0.5 and 5 nm the deletion should be pretty random.

4 hours ago, Lifenbaucher said:

Just what I have noticed, my settings are:

[Traffic Limiter]
TrafficLimit=130
AirportPreference=60
GroundPreference=60
NearerPreference=50
PlannedAirportsPreference=5

Well, with settings much less extreme than that (I have the last one set to 20 not 5), I still get a decent spread of aircraft throughout EGLL, which is my standard test airport.

I'm wondering if that limit of 130 isn't rather too low for somewhere like EGLL? I set mine to 200 at least. with the FS slider to to 50% using Mytraffic6.  If a full EGLL would use up almost all of that 130 and the mechanism runs out of candidates to remove when new aircraft are added, it will be just deleting the furthest ones no matter what your preferences.

Take a look at the traffic list in the Traffic Explorer next time to see if there is a rreasonably distribution of traffic elsewhere, not just all at the airport.

Pete

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

Following on from the above, I'd be interested in knowing WHY folks limit the AI Traffic by deletion. Is it

1. To stop it degrading performance (frame rates)
or
2. To stop it using too much memory (VAS)

In my case it is the former. I don't see AI Traffic using much VAS (or at least, not measurably). And the frame rate saving is something I really only need at or near major airports.

So I think I'll add another parameter, to tell the limiter to only delete traffic to get down to the Traffic Limit if the frame rate drops below a certain defined value. This parameter would default to 0, so it wouldn't change current behaviour unless you set a higher value. In my case, since I limit the frame rate in any case to 30 fps, I'd set this parameter to 29. So, it would only actually remove traffic if the frame rate dropped (even just temporarily) below 29.

Pete

 

[jabloomf1230]

This would allow for fine-tuning the AI limit number. I suspect most people just pick a round number like 100 or 150 and then see what happens. Ultimate Traffic 2 has such a "frame rate" parameter and it seems to work okay. However, this improvement to the FSUIPC limiter would help out those people using My Traffic 6 and WOAI, etc..

[Pete Dowson]

58 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

However, this improvement to the FSUIPC limiter would help out those people using My Traffic 6 and WOAI, etc..

I use UT2 AND MT6! ;-)

Pete

 

[Sabrefly]

On 2/18/2017 at 1:09 PM, Pete Dowson said:

Sorry, you mean the limiter value, in the Miscellaneous tab? I use 250 as my limit and get lots of (mainly BA or course, with the odd Iberia) at EGLL Terminal 5 -- and without this new parameter. Maybe with an airport with as many gates as EGLL you sre simply being too restrictive at  some number below 100? (You didn't say what you changed FROM to 100).

Pete

 

 

It's not that EGLL Terminal 5 lacks AI at departure time, but in my case it's empty when ARRIVING EGLL RWY27L/R and taxiing to Terminal 5 with TrafficLimit=100 and the rest of the parameters =0. I'm curious if you notice the same in same scenario. Perhaps your Limit=250 will work better filling in the void. In my case I thought 250 would be quite a strain on VAS, but I should experiment, I recall though I noticed FPS hit and that's when I set it to 100 from whatever higher, 300 (I don't remember).

Thanks,

[Pete Dowson]

3 hours ago, Sabrefly said:

In my case I thought 250 would be quite a strain on VAS,

I've never really noticed any worrying measurable hit on VAS from AI. I suppose it depends on the quality of your AI model graphics. I use MyTraffic mainly, plus UT2 (to give me more traffic on Airways). I think WOAI models are heavier, from what I've read.

It may be that arriving at EGLL with other large airports not far away (Gatwick, for instance), they limit of 100 is just too low. By all means experiment.

3 hours ago, Sabrefly said:

I recall though I noticed FPS hit and that's when I set it to 100 from whatever higher, 300 (I don't remember).

I've implemented the Frame Rate target mechanism I mentioned above, and that seems to work well for me. It'll be in 4.963 to be released within a day or two.

Pete

 

[Sabrefly]

1 minute ago, Pete Dowson said:

I've implemented the Frame Rate target mechanism I mentioned above, and that seems to work well for me. It'll be in 4.963 to be released within a day or two.

Pete

 

I'm on MT6 the Frame Rate target option sounds very interesting.

Thanks,

[Lifenbaucher]

On 2/21/2017 at 0:25 AM, Pete Dowson said:

There is a slight preference for keeping traffic nearer the aircraft, to avoid aircraft suddenly disappearing in view. But the preference for NOT deleting aircraft at your planned airports is much stronger. Just manipulate the numbers more.

There's no actual comparison of distance between the ground candidates once more than 0.5nm away and up to 5nm away. Over 5nm the chances are a bit higher again for deletion, So between 0.5 and 5 nm the deletion should be pretty random.

Well, with settings much less extreme than that (I have the last one set to 20 not 5), I still get a decent spread of aircraft throughout EGLL, which is my standard test airport.

I'm wondering if that limit of 130 isn't rather too low for somewhere like EGLL? I set mine to 200 at least. with the FS slider to to 50% using Mytraffic6.  If a full EGLL would use up almost all of that 130 and the mechanism runs out of candidates to remove when new aircraft are added, it will be just deleting the furthest ones no matter what your preferences.

Take a look at the traffic list in the Traffic Explorer next time to see if there is a reasonably distribution of traffic elsewhere, not just all at the airport.

Pete

 

 

 

Yeah you are right EGLL alone saturates the 130 limit so there are no aircraft anywhere else, though EGLL does look quite full. I will try and increase the upper limit and try...

I only use MT6 as UT2 is not compatible with P3D v3.x, and have the slider set at 35% (which I read represent true world flights, and not include artificially injected flights)

The only reason I champion such a great traffic deleting tool as yours is the impact AI traffic has on framerate, particularly at large airports and large cities. Without the limiter there would be near 350 AI traffic in the London area which has an recognizable affect on fps.  

But can I make a suggestion - maybe put a bias to favour deleting aircraft at "Parking" spots instead of "Gates". Especially at EGLL - in the eastern corner of the airport there are lots of "Parking" spots for aircraft undergoing maintenance. An area which during normal simming we would never come near?

Thanks

 

[Sabrefly]

8 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

I've never really noticed any worrying measurable hit on VAS from AI. I suppose it depends on the quality of your AI model graphics. I use MyTraffic mainly, plus UT2 (to give me more traffic on Airways). I think WOAI models are heavier, from what I've read.

It may be that arriving at EGLL with other large airports not far away (Gatwick, for instance), they limit of 100 is just too low. By all means experiment.

Pete

 

Is it difficult to add this functionality to WideClient? Thus you could change the AI Limiter parameters dynamically from a client pc by just adjusting the values in wideclient.ini and restarting WideClient. Further I imagine then lua savvy guys could provide a simple interface to change AI Limiter parameters on the fly from a WideClient pc.

Thanks,

PS: Unfortunately neither AirTrafficManager nor AICull are flexible enough like FSUIPC now in managing number of AI.

[Pete Dowson]

9 hours ago, Lifenbaucher said:

But can I make a suggestion - maybe put a bias to favour deleting aircraft at "Parking" spots instead of "Gates". Especially at EGLL - in the eastern corner of the airport there are lots of "Parking" spots for aircraft undergoing maintenance. An area which during normal simming we would never come near?

That should be taken care of by selecting only parked aircraft without clearance or in closing down stages. I do that already.

Currently I don't know the gate nmuber. I'm not sure if Parking ad Gates are always clearly differentiated.

1 hour ago, Sabrefly said:

Is it difficult to add this functionality to WideClient? Thus you could change the AI Limiter parameters dynamically from a client pc by just adjusting the values in wideclient.ini and restarting WideClient.

It spoils the point moving the ACTION to a client PC, because it can't act immediately so it wouldn't be so smooth an immediately effective. It would be the same as the external limiter already available.

Better to accomplish what you want, surely, by having offsets with the parameters which can be changed by program or Lua scripts run from anywhere.

Pete

 

[f.skywalker]

Hi Pete,

please can you Post your Settings for me:

I use UT2 with P3D 3.4 HF3

 

[Traffic Limiter]

TrafficLimit=xx

AirportPreference=xx

GroundPreference=xx

NearerPreference=xx

PlannedAirportsPreference=xx

 

Thanks from EDDM

Frank

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

2 hours ago, f.skywalker said:

please can you Post your Settings for me:

I use UT2 with P3D 3.4 HF3

Why my settings? What you want to set depends on what you want to see happen. I might like my traffic differently to you, and currently I am using FSX-SE not P3D, which makes a lot of different. P3D performance seems to be much more adversely affected by AI than FSX.

Also your list of parameters is out of date. In the currently supported version of FSUIPC (4.963) there's also "TargetFrameRate", which can turn off the limiter if the frame rate is better than the given value. Don't use that if AI Traffic using VAS is your main concern, but on FSX-SE I would mainly be concerned with frame rates and smoothness, because AI seems to use hardly any memory.

Incidentally, I use MT6 and UT2.

Pete

 

[f.skywalker]

Hallo Pete,

I need only a few hints.
Unfortunately, it is not easy to see everything.
So many people with different Options.

I would like to find a middle value and just wanted the Settings from the developer.
In each forum there are different opinions on the settings.
That's why I want to know your values

 

Sorry about my bad englisch...i use google

 

Frank

 

[Pete Dowson]

10 minutes ago, f.skywalker said:

I would like to find a middle value and just wanted the settings
From the developer.

The "middle" values are 50% for the preferences, of course -- that's what will be set by default.

I like to see more at the airports and enough landing and taking off to be realistic. So I decrease the PlannedAirports and Airports preferences, and increase the Ground and Nearer ones to compensate. I can't tell you my current figures as my cockpit is not on at present, but I usually make them something like 20-25 versus 65-75. I adjust them occasionally according to experience. Don't forget these are only percentage probabilities, not rigid requests.

The actual limiter needs setting according to how much you can tolerate before performance (and VAS usage) is a real factor -- mine currently is at 250, but it would have to be lower in P3D. It also depends of course on how much traffic you allow in UT2 itself (there are sliders there -- mine are at about 40 and 30 at present, but they are only that low because I also use MT6).

If you use MT6 or WOAI then the value of the slider in FS/P3D is also a major control. Mine is usually at 50 or 60.

The new value, "TargetFrameRate" is best set a bit below your set frame rate limit, or left at 0 if you want to disable it because of VAS concerns. My frame rate limit is currently set to 32 and I set this target to 28, but i am changing to a surround screen with 3 projectors so I'll have to accept lower frame rates in future I think.

Pete

 

[f.skywalker]

Thanks Pete,

 

this are my Settings that i use from the beginning.

[Traffic Limiter]
TrafficLimit=100
AirportPreference=70
GroundPreference=20
NearerPreference=70

 

I do not know that Traffic Limiter is set up to 100.

I read that is from 1-99

 

I will test this with 200 and  PlannedAirportsPreference i will test with 50

 

Frank

 

 

[Pete Dowson]

The limit has always been just a number, not a percentage like the preferences.

Pete

 

[f.skywalker]

Hallo Pete,

i can not find the entry PlannedAirportsPreference in my fsuipc.ini

I have installed  FSUIPC4963

 

 

Frank

[Mark777]

Is it possible to toggle these settings on and off with a hot key?

Is it also possible to toggle the traffic slider on and off with a hot key?  (This I think is a yes).

 

Why would I ask?   Well the new live traffic program PSXseecon will inject live traffic into the sim but does not play nice with traffic limiters or if the AI settings in the sim are above zero.  The issue is that if you want to combine Live Traffic and Vatsim traffic you have to set up either all or nothing of one or the other.  In a situation where you may be starting out on Vatsim at a busy airport (EGLL, KJFK, etc.) you would want to turn off live traffic and see the actual Vatsim traffic, however, once away from your departure airport on on to perhaps a destination with no Vatsim traffic as well as very little enroute Vatsim traffic it would be preferrable to turn on the live traffic.