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AI Traffic products. Let's have a serious discussion about these.


Mac_Maddog88

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So yesterday I thought ti would be fun to fly the Leonardo Maddog out of Flightbeam KSFO with default airliner traffic at 50%.


A simulation that was smooth and normally in the 40-50 FPS range dropped down into the 20s. Are you kidding me?


 


I'm looking at AI traffic addons. 


None of them seem perfect. They all have tradeoffs.


Performance over nice models.


Nice models over performance.


 


We have Aerosoft's My Traffic, Justflight's Traffic 360, and Flight1's Ultimate Traffic 2. I hear people going back and fourth about which of these is really better. As I said, I have yet to purchase one so I cannot tell for myself which is the best. 


 


Which one would give me better FPS vs. Default and still look nice with good models and have realistic flight plans? I want to get to the bottom of the issue and settle which traffic program is better here.


 


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I've been using My Traffic for about 4 years now..got 2010 version loaded at present.

I have my traffic sliders at about 20-25% and it's all ok.Any higher than that and you can't even get on runway for takeoff as just too

Much traffic around the airport.

Pitfalls I see are some airports just don't show traffic on the ground...TNCM comes to mind..drives me nuts.

everytime I start there I got an empty airport,but with traffic airborne and inbound..usually by the time it lands I'm long gone.

I remove all my default AI traffic when I install FSX so don't have any of those baby's flying around.

FPS seems ok with my slider settings

quality of aircraft is not great though so don't expect it to be...undercarriage is especially dodgey on most of the aircraft.

But it does me and I'm happy enough with it.

I used to use WOAI years ago..now those aircraft are excellent...but the whole process of loading and updating the aircraft was too time consuming for me.so I just stick with My Traffic.

Cheers stu

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I for one was using Traffic 360 with FSX before I made the move to Prepar3d. The visual models that JF produced were really quite pleasant to look at. The schedules manager was also pretty clever, allowing you to set seasonal schedules and pick and choose the airlines that you wanted to see around the world. Unfortunately, me, like many others had terrible issues with performance. I know JF are aware of this but there doesn't see to be anything in the way of progress made with it yet, especially if you look at their forums. It's a shame because if they put together a P3D installer and sorted the performance, I would probably use it.

In my understanding Ultimate Traffic 2 seems to be the most popular among the simming world and generally gives the impression that the tradeoffs with graphics and performance are levelled. But, I shall leave it to those who use it to make a more informed statement!

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I actually have all three of those titles... all three have different pluses and minuses, but from your post, I suspect FPS is you main concern.

So far, I have to say, my program of choice is Traffic 360. It has good models with some decent animations, includes GA and military flights, and performs very well on my system. I get about 20FPS in Seattle using Orbx PNW which is pretty good and enough for me (30fps with no traffic).

The other two, for similar levels of traffic had much lower frame rates.

I will say however that the model quality is probably highest in Ultimate Traffic 2, in my opinion that is.

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Ultimate Traffic 2,  Buy it and forget it.  Reliable as man's best friend. Injects real world traffic as per airline schedules into the sim. A small # of their AI models are quite simple to look at, but you can always get rid of them in favour of nicer looking models of the same aircraft from other developers. Fully customizable, with respect to airplanes, flight schedules, GA traffic density, Airline traffic density, etc etc.. Why, you can even set it up so your AI Traffic consists of some or all of your aircraft and custom repaints and liveries. Imagine flying in to Heathrow, and being surrounded by PMDG airliners everywhere as your AI Traffic (not that anyone here would want to,.... unless one likes to see a slide show ?).


 


The downside is, lack of up to date schedules (but you can make your own), and updates from the developers. For me, I just want to see decent looking GA and commercial traffic and don't care how up to date the schedules are. If I don't like a particular model, I replace it with a more appealing one, but this is quite rare. Works very well for me, and fulfills my needs, virtually no fps impact at my 35% density settings. Injects a lot of aircraft into the sim, even at 35% setting.  If you go past 50% density,... airports get very busy, lots of go-rounds happen, and landings and takeoffs become a true test of patience, and border on frustration. 


 


Cheers,


MZ  


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I am an Ultimate Traffic 2 user as well. MZee is correct with his description "Buy it and forget it"

I purchased it way back in 2009 now and have been using it ever since, never tinkered with it too much, bought the latest schedules as they are released for the $6.00. So for a package I have been using for almost 6 years now I am happy with it. Only issue is the last schedule the released was 2013 so they haven't updated for a while. but for me that is not a problem as in 2013 their was a few more 747's around so you still get to see them in the AI Traffic, but no 787's in the schedules.

The only other traffic I use is the ORBX FTX Freeware when in Australia and New Zealand because lets face it, Graham has done an amazing job and fantastic attention to detail. So I shut down my UT2 and fire up the FTX traffic when flying in Oceania.

Cheers

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Petfy's suggestion to base your decision on your actual needs is a good one. Do you do a lot of ATC interaction and need a lot of flying AI? Do you like virtual plane watching with aircraft on real schedules? Are you just looking for eye candy to fill out airports? If it is the latter, I would suggest something like the AI traffic optimizer freeware which deletes distant traffic that you will never see and helps with frame rates.


 


Anyway, a complex airliner at an complex airport on top of an urban area in an ORBX region with traffic at 50%? FPS in 20s sounds pretty good (at least not knowing weather and autogen).


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MyTraffic2013 works great in FSX SE.  


 


For P3D 2.4:


 


MyTraffic2013 and MyTraffic 3D sort of works in P3D 2.4.  No Migration Tool needed to install MyTraffic 3D but some config. editing is required.  The result is good commercial traffic but sparse GA traffic.   With 2013, a Migration Tool is required in addition to the config. editing.


 


 


C.


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I use AI Flight planner with and use AIG web site to get the latest summer and winter flight plans.


I also use ai retro aircraft and flight plans from 60's/70's/80's.


Would never go back to boxed version of ai traffic.


With ai flight planning you always have up to date traffic as it is happening the real world.


 


Regards


Ian


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I for one was using Traffic 360 with FSX before I made the move to Prepar3d. 

 

I know JF are aware of this but there doesn't see to be anything in the way of progress made with it yet, especially if you look at their forums. It's a shame because if they put together a P3D installer and sorted the performance, I would probably use it.

In my understanding Ultimate Traffic 2 seems to be the most popular among the simming world and generally gives the impression that the tradeoffs with graphics and performance are levelled. But, I shall leave it to those who use it to make a more informed statement!

As far as I read in the JF forum, they're just testing a Prepar3d2 version of T360. It remains to see how it will turn out after being released.

 

As many others, I am using Ultimate Traffic 2, at present. One of its advantages is its configurability ("In-game Settings") to get a trade-off beween framerate hit and number of aircraft displayed. Its main disadvantage is the developer seems to be in heaven now, and I foresee the day it will not run any longer at all.

 

BTW, there should exist a freeware tool (called AI Traffic Optimizer or similar) regulating the radius of AI traffic usable in conjunction with the "other" AI traffic programs except UT2 being based on the internal FSX/Prepar3d AI traffic mechanism and slider.

 

Kind regards, Michael

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Hi Guys and Gals. Seems like with all add ons it breaks down into personal choice. At the mo I am using JF 360 and no problems but my son uses UT 2 and I have borrowed that before now and it is very good. I am going to start another topic in a min about Rex that should be good. Cheers Derek.

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I guess I'm the odd one out here. I am using MyTrafficX Pro 5.4b in P3D 2.4. I had been using 5.4c, but it crashed P3D regularly. 5.4b is stable. The models are a bit clunky, but it generally only costs me 2 about frames per second (35% airline 45% ga). That's the trade off. Burkhard is still updating the product and is testing a P3D version at this point; and he is active in his forum. The interface is rather dated, but you don't have to visit it often. The best thing is for about 6 bucks every 6 months, you get to download live schedules...as often as you want. I haven't used UT or 360. I haven't felt any need to make a change. No criticism of those products implied here.


 


Cheers


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Petfy's suggestion to base your decision on your actual needs is a good one. Do you do a lot of ATC interaction and need a lot of flying AI? Do you like virtual plane watching with aircraft on real schedules? Are you just looking for eye candy to fill out airports? If it is the latter, I would suggest something like the AI traffic optimizer freeware which deletes distant traffic that you will never see and helps with frame rates.

 

Anyway, a complex airliner at an complex airport on top of an urban area in an ORBX region with traffic at 50%? FPS in 20s sounds pretty good (at least not knowing weather and autogen).

I do a lot of ATC interaction. What I am looking for mainly is as you said, eye candy to fill out airports. I want a way where I'll land at San Francisco and there'll be all sorts of airliners parked at the gates and in line for takeoff and maybe a few landing; but once I get further away from the airport and are cruising AI traffic is the least I could worry about. 

 

I think I'll give that AI Traffic Optimizer a try, it sounds exactly like what I want! Thanks for the suggestion!

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I agree that the choice of an AI Traffic add on is mostly personal preference. But unlike weather injection add ons, where ASN is a bit better and the rest are still very good, the AI arena really doesn't have even one top notch entry. They all have some flaw that reduces immersion.

UT 2 has the best models and reduces traffic to match your hardware's capabilities. But it hasn't been kept up to date.

My Traffic 5 has the best schedules and variety of liveries. It is also in constant development with a new version 6 presently in beta testing. When combined with the freeware Traffic Optimizer, it can also be nicely matched to one's system capabilities. Some of the models are a bit clunky looking, though. Both MyT 5 and UT 2 can be made to work with P3d without too much effort.

Traffic 360 has been a bit buggy for me and doesn't work at all for me with P3d.

Maybe MyT 6 will change all this or maybe there will some day be a version 3 of Ultimate Traffic. The market is ripe for a solid product.

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Just to add to the confusion! I am a UT2 fan and love the program, but............... it doesn´t work in WIN 8.1 and the development team has repeated many times that they have no intention to fix that!!! YES in WIN7 it works just perfect in P3D 2.4. YES I have followed ALL suggestions in a lot of forums for a "workaround" for Win 8.1, but no...... it doesn´t work.  :  :


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Just to add to the confusion! I am a UT2 fan and love the program, but............... it doesn´t work in WIN 8.1 (

Wow, it this applies to Win 10, too, which I have no doubt (anyone tested?), it will soon go the way of the Dodo. That's the desitiny of a non-maintained program.

 

Would be high time for a native P3D2 program (where with native I refer to a P3D2 optimized one).

 

Kind regards, Michael

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I use UT2 and like it even though it hasn't been updated recently it still provides the correct traffic mix at airports. I have it set at about 75% and it seems to avoid the over abundance of planes at some airports. It also allows you to clear traffic away on the approach to avoid go-arounds. Another great feature is the use of actual airways so when flying you see a lot of traffic above and below on the same routing. One problems seems to be the loss of traffic while flying overseas - the traffic will just disappear when too far from land navaids, but if you don't do a lot of trans- ocean flights it provides nice traffic.


Larry


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I was surprised nobody had mentioned UT2 uses real world flight plans that follow real world airways for IFR flights until Larry mentioned that.  It does significantly increase the number of commercial flights you will see on High Altitude Jetways, etc if you are also using them.  It can also smooth out the arrival process at some large traffic volume airports, but this can be hit and miss too.  For me, one of the downsides of UT2 though it that is doesn't include ANY military aircraft or flightplans.  Your military airfields will still be barren.  I can live with that by just adding some other separate freeware military AI along with my UT2.  


 


I've own both UT2 and MyTraffic (both current versions).  I've bounced back and forth between them over the years.  When flying real world IFR flightplans, I rarely see any other AI aircraft En-Route wiih MyTraffic, because all the AI in it are flying Great Circle routes nowhere near being on airways. 


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I was surprised nobody had mentioned UT2 uses real world flight plans that follow real world airways for IFR flights until Larry mentioned that.

While unique in not flying direct tracks like the other AI programs, the routes are far from realisitic. They are pretty generic, just as accurate

as what you find created by the default FSX flight planner. Granted you can create and edit the routes yourself, but it can be a huge undertaking.

Still even with that flaw, UT2 provides the nicest looking AI offered by the payware options.

UT2's better models/repaints are a mild hit in performance compared to the vast improvement in quality over the other offerings.

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I have been using my traffic x professional 5.4C for the past  many months and been happy with it ever since....it has many options to choose from performance model, quality models, wide screen models..then it has different schedules like: 1970's to 2014 schedules..even 2015 is being worked on...then there is real time schedules...and i have set my traffic to 35% and i see  good amount of traffic in almost all the airports...


 


So i am having an optimized fps to realism setting and hence i love this AI add on...


 


cheers


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I have used Ultimate Traffic 2 in FSX and P3D, and I am very happy with it. However, I disagree that airports get oversaturated with aircraft beyond the 50% level. In fact, using default UT2 results in relatively empty airports (unless you have the fictional "Daedalus" colour scheme active, and who wants that?) when compared to some other AI traffic software (unless this is not the case in the USA; I only fly around the UK and Ireland). I have the airliner (weekly) setting in UT2 at the full 100%, but I needed to integrate lots of additional aircraft schedules to get the airports up to real world levels of activity. This includes adding airlines that are not part of the UT2 database, real world airline paints that are missing (which is why the Daedalus planes appear), and cargo airlines (hardly any included in UT2). I use MAIW (Military AI Works) packages for military planes, although these are not integrated into UT2 (they are normal BGL files).


 


It has taken a considerable amount of time and effort to get this done, but the results are worth it. I have updated many of the airliner models (with FAIB, AIA, DJC, TFS models etc), and replaced the handful of relatively poor models in UT2 (ATR, CRJ, A380 etc) with better quality models.


 


I find that the best time to see airports packed with UT2 planes is early in the morning (between 6AM and 8AM). There are fewer planes at other times of the day, but there is still enough activity for them to appear realistically operational.


 


As for framerates, well.......a LOT of AI planes are going to affect your framerates. I don't know how framerates with other AI plane packages compare with UT2, but I do know that I would not accept lesser quality models and textures than the ones I have now. They look superb!


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I also use UT2... well, as a basic tool. The schedules are outdated now, yes, but using Power Pack it is quiet easy to update whatever schedule you want. Usually, the flightplans available online work directly, it simply takes some time to compile them into UT2. And yes, I also replaced a huge number of aircraft models from UT2, FAIBs A32X, 737 and 747-8i just as an example. I also added tons of missing textures to replace those nasty "daedalus" generic repaints. And I finally tried to add a lot of missing engine variants (e.g. the UT2 A330 comes with the RR engine variant only). Last but not least, I completely replaced the GA traffic models with the FTX general aviation models. So, in the end, yes I use UT2 as AI traffic tool but after some years, most of the stuff is custom now (I even took care to have all models added being FSX-native conversions).


 


Regarding FPS: I have GA set to 30% and airliners set to 50% and this gives a significant FPS hit but it is still faaaaaar beyond the FPS impact I have when flying in cloudy weather conditions. Means: I easily have 20FPS or more on heavy airports in clear weather. Overcast, rain, or whatever weather effect drops the FPS in my case much more than the AI traffic does.


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Just for the record......if you are using UT2 with the "Daedalus" repaints DISABLED, then you may still see a handful if you have incorrectly integrated any new addon schedules. It was annoying at first, but then I realised that it is actually a useful indicator that you have a problem. The difficulty (assuming you add new and updated schedules "in bulk" like I did) is identifying which addon airline is causing it!


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So I shut down my UT2 and fire up the FTX traffic when flying in Oceania.

 

Can you please describe how you shut down UT2 for when flying in Oceania so that there is no conflict with FTX AI.

 

Also, are there any issues with running UT2 at the same time when online with VATSIM and WOAI??

 

Thanks...

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Could someone please help me put the frame rate impact of these traffic addons into perspective? How is it compared to the standard FSX AI traffic?


 


Currently AI has the most impact on my frame rate. Without AI traffic I can fly over downtown Seattle (Orbx PNW) in my A2A Cub with 30 frames average even at highest settings (Autogen max, LOD radius 6.5). But when I add just 15% GA traffic (0% airliners) my framerate drops to 20 or even below.


 


Are these traffic addons lighter on frames?


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Anybody tried ICE AI Traffic? 


It's free and fills your airport with crapload of planes. Had to disable it as on my laptop it takes a quite a long time to load and when I'm working I'm too impatient. The only issue are some liveries missing for European carriers. The new version (5.1) should fix that...


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Hey Vlad,


 


the ICE traffic programme is severely frowned upon by the AI community, since they do not have the all the authors' permission to include their work in the ICE package.


 


Personally, I enjoy putting AI traffic in myself. I use the plans from AIG, their forum is very active and their plans include an AIFP config which allows installation usuing Don Grovestine's excellent AIFP programme. There are a number of very active painters on their forum producing really high quality stuff, which is usually available in both FS9 and FSX format (ie DDS format for FSX/P3D2). I always check the textures and make sure that any older files I convert to DDS format. My P3D2 looks and performs great, with 60% airline and 60% GA traffic I get no noticeable frame rate loss. Sure, it's a bit of work to set up, but I enjoy doing it, and to be honest it does not sound as if it is more work than getting UT2 to play nicely with updated models, textures and plans.


 


Cheers


Jack


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Could someone please help me put the frame rate impact of these traffic addons into perspective? How is it compared to the standard FSX AI traffic?

 

Are these traffic addons lighter on frames?

 

There are several factors that come into play with AI addons.  Generally, they will add a higher number of AI aircraft to your simulation when you use the SAME PERCENTAGE of AI traffic selected.  For instance, if you are using only the included default AI that comes with FSX and your slider setting in 50%, after adding an AI addon you will start seeing a LOT more aircraft in FSX because the AI addon contains a lot more aircraft than the default FSX.  So yes, you could see a drop in frame rates if you used the same PERCENTAGE of AI aircraft available.

 

How the addon's AI are "made" can also make a difference, as some posters have already mentioned.  There are "good" ways to make the aircraft that may actually allow you to use a higher number of AI without causing an increased load on your computer.  Conversely, there are "bad" ways to do it too.  A good AI addon may actually allow you to INCREASE the AI percentage slider and get more AI into the simulation without causing a performance problem.

 

A third factor that a lot of FSX users (and maybe P3D...I'm not sure about P3D) may not know about is that it's not ONLY the AI aircraft that can cause performance problems for you.  It can be the "moving gates" at major airports they use.  If those are activated, your computer has to use processing power to make them move.  Throw in a lot more AI aircraft at major airports, and you increase the number of active moving gates (the passenger tunnels that move to/retract from the airplane while it is parked at the gate).  These can reduce your computer's performance something fierce depending on the "power" of your computer.  One of the nice things about UT2 is it allows you to turn OFF those gates if you want to while still using the AI aircraft at higher scenery settings in FSX.  I routinely turn the moving gates off when using higher levels of AI, and can keep my AI traffic percentage sliders higher for major airports without getting a performance reduction in FSX.  That can make a big difference if I am flying a "complex aircraft" at or around those airports.  On the other hand, if I am just kicking back in my recliner chewing on a chocolate brownie and a cup of coffee doing "plane spotting" (loaded up FSX, went to Tower View, and am just having fun watching the traffic flow at an airport), I can turn the gates back "on", crank up the AI, and be thoroughly amused watching the hi-jinks that takes place in the traffic flows because of the limitations of FSX AI traffic handling.  And the gates then will be moving back and forth for the AI parked at them too!  

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Another vote here that it's best to use the program best suiting your actual flying needs. As for me, I fly a lot of short flights (50-400 miles) using both very small and medium-sized airports. Ultimate Traffic 2 has worked very well for me both in terms of providing interesting aircraft and in terms of FPS. The cost is reasonable and the results are satisfying. Good luck and good results to you as you make your decision.


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I have been using my traffic x professional 5.4C for the past  many months and been happy with it ever since....it has many options to choose from performance model, quality models, wide screen models..then it has different schedules like: 1970's to 2014 schedules..even 2015 is being worked on...then there is real time schedules...and i have set my traffic to 35% and i see  good amount of traffic in almost all the airports...

 

So i am having an optimized fps to realism setting and hence i love this AI add on...

 

cheers

 

 

Same here.  I think these are the most FPS friendly AI models, or that is what I have read.

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