AutoSave - one second stutters with P3D v5.2 and FSUIPC 6.1.2

[TextRich]

Greetings.  I am a longtime FSX:SE and FSUIPC 4 user who last weekend made the switch to P3D 5.2 and a registered copy of FSUIPC 6.1.2.  An issue I have noticed that was not apparent using the same setting in FSUPIC 4 and FSX:SE is that when FSUIPC 6 AutoSaves, my sim freezes for one second.  This happens with no other add-ons enabled or running and with both third-party and default  P3D aircraft.  Is this a known issue?  I do not get those stutters when I disable AutoSave.  Please let me know if you would like more information.

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, TextRich said:

I am a longtime FSX:SE and FSUIPC 4 user who last weekend made the switch to P3D 5.2 and a registered copy of FSUIPC 6.1.2.  An issue I have noticed that was not apparent using the same setting in FSUPIC 4 and FSX:SE is that when FSUIPC 6 AutoSaves, my sim freezes for one second.  This happens with no other add-ons enabled or running and with both third-party and default  P3D aircraft.  Is this a known issue?  I do not get those stutters when I disable AutoSave.

I replied to this where you posted on AVSIM, but I'll repeat it here for completeness.

This is a well known result of the saving of the files for the flight. FSUIPC does nothing except send the save request to P3D and delete the oldest in the cycle.

The same would occur if you did it manually (plus the time to enter the menus etc) -- the extra in FSUIPC is just the deletion of the oldest save in the cycle. It has always been the case and the code in FSUIPC can't be any more efficient as it is so simple. You could stop the deletion of the oldest in cycle if you want -- just use the "also save" option instead of the regular cycle of a selected number.

If you've never noticed before then it must have been because of more efficient disk organisation (eg less full) or something else related to the file operations. FSUIPC cannot influence how and what P3D saves in the flights and associated files.

Pete

 

[John Dowson]

1 hour ago, TextRich said:

AutoSaves, my sim freezes for one second.  This happens with no other add-ons enabled or running and with both third-party and default  P3D aircraft.  Is this a known issue? 

I haven't noticed this on my dev system, but I think I have auto-save disabled there. I will check this later. Note that this has always been an issue with more complex add-on aircraft (e.g PMDG), but has not really been an issue before with stock aircraft. Unfortunately I have just removed v5.1 from my systems so cannot compare to that, but I can check the times against my 4.5 installation.

Note also that all FSUIPC does is call the SimConnect SDK facility to save the flight, so if there is an issue it is with the SDK and I won't be able to do much, except report to LM. I will let you know.

One thing that has been known to cause such issues is anti-virus software, scanning the saved flight file as its being saved. You could check this and add an exception to the saved flights download folder to prevent this.

I see Pete has also just replied....

[TextRich]

Here's my reply from my AVSim forum Pete alluded to:

Quote

Thank you for getting back to me.  I just racked my brain for a few minutes wondering why AutoSaving was so smooth in FSX but not P3D and I realized something: I have not yet told my antivirus to exclude Lockheed Martin folders like I did with FSX folders.  So I have just done that.  I just tested again and the now stuttering is much more brief when AutoSave is being used, and Also Save has even shorter stuttering and sometimes it does not stutter.  Have I overlooked something else?  Perhaps P3D 5.2 just isn't as efficient with saving as FSX was for me.  All in all, it is definitely an improvement and I'm glad as I need it since I tend to forget to save at critical moments before a sim crash.

I just read John's reply for the first time.  Yes, I overlooked antivirus.  In addition I use a SSD so it isn't an issue of fragmentation, etc.  I agree with you that it may be a P3D issue that hopefully can be fixed by LM to make autosaving much more smooth.  AutoSaving was never this slow in FSX and I just got P3D for the first time last weekend after I gave up on managing VAS LOL.

You both are legends and thank you for supporting us simmers all those years.

[Pete Dowson]

6 minutes ago, TextRich said:

AutoSaving was never this slow in FSX

I think it depended very much on the aircraft concerned (the amount of data to collect). PMDG add-on aircraft are notorious for flight saving as they freeze their operations whilst collecting all of the internal data for saving in several additional files, on top of those which P3D produce.

I suppose it is inevitable that as the simulation of aircraft and flight gets ever more sophisticated and detailed that the collection and saving of data for each possible saved restart instant will take longer. There are several answers. One is to be satisfied with only a save every 30 seconds or more, and put up with the short freeze, and another is to use the recently added facility to trigger an autosave by added FSUIPC control, and so choose your own moments (by buton press, perhaps).

There is a plug-in to do this automatically when on approach, as perhaps being the most usual part of a flight needing a retry. See:

Pete

 

[John Dowson]

1 minute ago, Pete Dowson said:

One is to be satisfied with only a save every 30 seconds or more, and put up with the short freeze, and another is to use the recently added facility to trigger an autosave by added FSUIPC control, and so choose your own moments (by buton press, perhaps).

Note there are actually two controls, one to toggle auto-save on/off (auto save must be activated), and another to trigger an auto-save. 

[TextRich]

Thank you both.  I am using the same aircraft for both sims (a simple Virtualcol with different versions for FSX and P3D) but yes, I have heard of the PMDG complex saving issue.  I also recall that P3D has an option to save the status of a panel along with the save file so I wonder if that makes the save a little more complicated than FSX's, which did not offer that option.  Sometimes resuming an Autosaved flight in FSX with an add-on aircraft entails re-starting the engines if the sim crashed in cruising altitude.

Pete, I see that the script is for FSUIPC 4 only.  I am a little confused... is it to prevent autosaving during approaches?  Or to enable autosaving during approaches only?  Does FSUIPC 5+  already do that?

[John Dowson]

1 hour ago, TextRich said:

I am a little confused... is it to prevent autosaving during approaches?  Or to enable autosaving during approaches only?

It is to prevent autosaves during approach, but I'm sure that it could be adjusted to only enable on approach if needed. However, it is only for FSX and P3Dv1-3 - at least thats what it states, but I don't know why it wouldn't work in P3Dv4 & 5. I haven't tested or looked in detail, but maybe some of the offsets it uses are no longer populated/available in P3Dv4/5.

[spokes2112]

Hi guys,

The script I wrote for FSUIPC v3.x/4.x was done so some prerequisites could be used to turn on/off the auto save. Because the auto save in these versions of is basically a fixed function in FSUIPC I had to write a full save routine - requisites, save files, file name format, increment files etc.. The stock FSUIPC (v3/4) autosave works brilliantly already, it is just the problem that it is either on or off, switched within the UI of FSUIPC.

FSUIPC v5+ now has a control (C1151) to toggle on or off the built in excellent, extensive autosave. All that is needed is a little lua to tell when to  turn it off for performance explicit operations. ex.. If gear handle is down then disable auto save, else keep autosave on.

My full lua would be overkill in this situation, even if it did work. 

Roman

 

 

[TextRich]

Thank you Roman.  I'll look into adding that toggle to my controls and adding a reminder to my checklist for final approaches.

[sisoffi]

On 6/18/2021 at 6:44 AM, spokes2112 said:

Hi guys,

The script I wrote for FSUIPC v3.x/4.x was done so some prerequisites could be used to turn on/off the auto save. Because the auto save in these versions of is basically a fixed function in FSUIPC I had to write a full save routine - requisites, save files, file name format, increment files etc.. The stock FSUIPC (v3/4) autosave works brilliantly already, it is just the problem that it is either on or off, switched within the UI of FSUIPC.

FSUIPC v5+ now has a control (C1151) to toggle on or off the built in excellent, extensive autosave. All that is needed is a little lua to tell when to  turn it off for performance explicit operations. ex.. If gear handle is down then disable auto save, else keep autosave on.

My full lua would be overkill in this situation, even if it did work. 

Roman

 

 

Hi Roman,
I see that you are alive and well but I do not understand why you are not going to answer me anymore either on skype or the messages I sent you. At least be honest with yourself and give me a reason why you stopped answering me because no one has figured it out yet. There is no obligation but at least one message telling me that you are busy and that you can no longer follow me would be honest from you. A greeting

[Charles Samour]

On 6/17/2021 at 10:01 AM, Pete Dowson said:

I replied to this where you posted on AVSIM, but I'll repeat it here for completeness.

This is a well known result of the saving of the files for the flight. FSUIPC does nothing except send the save request to P3D and delete the oldest in the cycle.

The same would occur if you did it manually (plus the time to enter the menus etc) -- the extra in FSUIPC is just the deletion of the oldest save in the cycle. It has always been the case and the code in FSUIPC can't be any more efficient as it is so simple. You could stop the deletion of the oldest in cycle if you want -- just use the "also save" option instead of the regular cycle of a selected number.

If you've never noticed before then it must have been because of more efficient disk organisation (eg less full) or something else related to the file operations. FSUIPC cannot influence how and what P3D saves in the flights and associated files.

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

Thanks for this explanation.  I do some really 'dumb' things occasionally 🙂 and I had turned on 'auto-save' thinking that any changes I made within FSUIPC would update immediately, not knowing that this caused P3D to save files.  Well, long story short, when I turned off this setting the stutters I was experiencing in v. 4.5 stopped.  That's what I get for not carefully paying attention to setting changes!