Need a small favour

[Maurice]

Ever since I installedTrafficX and now upgraded to Traffic360, I cannot see any airplanes at the gates in CYYZ even if I set the traffic slider to 100%. All other major airports show a lot of planes at the gates but not even one at CYYZ.

Even if I disable Traffic360 & go back to default FSX traffic, the results are the same...no life at CYYZ. Eventually planes start to arrive and dock at the appropriate gates but when I start FSX again, no planes can be seen for several minutes.

Can anyone with a traffic addon go to CYYZ and set the traffic to 100% and let me know if you see any airplanes at the gates and if yes, what traffic addon are you using?

Thanks,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Maurice,

There is a little known program on the FSX Gold Edition Disk 1, if you have that version, it is Airport Design Editor (ADE). You can use that to make or edit any airport in FSX. It will allow you to edit just about anything with the airport and what you need to do with it is check your traffic schedules, that might be corrupted. The traffic file is a bgl file that handles all this.

In the past, FS9, it was known as AFCAD; however, ADE is different, but the same in most respects. If you don't feel like checking it yourself, I could look into it too see which file I'd need from you (you'd email it) and then I could read over it... Still, you should look at ADE as it'd give you a new "low-key" adventure to learn about.

Best Regards,

John

[Maurice]

Thanks John. I would like to try it but I cannot find the program in question (ADE) in either Disk1 or Disk2 of the gold edition. Is it located in some sub-folder somewhere?

Thanks,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

It's supposed to be in the SDK folder...

John

[Maurice]

It's supposed to be in the SDK folder...

John

Nothing there with that name.

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hi Maurice,

I found a youtube video where a guy explains where it is, look here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5UkOV58_J0

I am flying on VatSim from KMEM-KMIA at the moment, let me know if the video helps get you there?

Oh, I know I asked you before, but you really should join VatSim or fly on it, if you're a member already (can't remember if you are). It is so much fun going through the virtual motions of being a real pilot. Also, take a look at www.vnorthwest.com; that is a virtual airlines that is not too big and are a bunch down home guys. They use an ACARS tracking program when you fly to get credit/rankings and etc. I fly every flight using it and on VatSim. I got it down so well now I should be sitting next too Mike Leavy real soon...lol...okay, that be me dreaming again.

John

[HarryZ]

Hi Maurice and Merry Xmas,

I use Ultimate Traffic 2 and set the traffic at CYYZ (Blueprint Add-on)to 100% and had no problems seeing any a/c.

Harry

[Maurice]

Hi Maurice and Merry Xmas,

I use Ultimate Traffic 2 and set the traffic at CYYZ (Blueprint Add-on)to 100% and had no problems seeing any a/c.

Harry

Thanks Harry. I'm wondering now whether this is happening just with Traffic X or Traffic360. Hopefully someone using one of those two will chime in.

Maurice

[Maurice]

Hi Maurice,

I found a youtube video where a guy explains where it is, look here:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b5UkOV58_J0

I am flying on VatSim from KMEM-KMIA at the moment, let me know if the video helps get you there?

Oh, I know I asked you before, but you really should join VatSim or fly on it, if you're a member already (can't remember if you are).

John

Hi John,

The video did not help as I could not understand or see what he was doing at the beginning. I did already install the SDK but I can't find anything related to ADE. Anyway, no big deal since it probably would not solve my problem anyway. I contacted the support people and they answered and are looking for an answer/solution.

As far as Vatsim is concerned, I am a member but every time I have gone to any airport at the time where I wanted to fly, there was never any ATC online. I tried many times and I just lost interest since I could not even hear any radio chatter. There seems to be much more ATC activity in Europe but I can't understand what they say 90% of the time.

Anyway, I may try again at some later time but right now, I'm just happy my sim is finished and that I can actually use it when I feel like it. But what still surprises me is that I don't feel like it more than once a week at most. After all this work to build a cockpit, it is sitting idle most of the time. Hopefully, the urge to fly will strike more often next year otherwise this sim is going up for sale.

Maurice

[iwik]

Hi Maurice,
I have Trafficx and the Pluscombo pack installed. With Traffic and Ga traffic at 100% i
get 13 Large Airliners parked at CYYZ gates at local time of 4pm. Immediately after fsx starts.
Hope this helps
Les

[Maurice]

Hi Maurice,
I have Trafficx and the Pluscombo pack installed. With Traffic and Ga traffic at 100% i
get 13 Large Airliners parked at CYYZ gates at local time of 4pm. Immediately after fsx starts.
Hope this helps
Les

Thank you Les. This confirms something got corrupted in my system. Hopefully the support people will be able to help as I have run out of ideas.

Thanks again,

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hi Maurice,

Did you check your system restore checkpoints to see if anything was changed and a restore point was made for it? You might find something there, and then you could restore prior too it...

John

[Maurice]

Hi Maurice,

Did you check your system restore checkpoints to see if anything was changed and a restore point was made for it? You might find something there, and then you could restore prior too it...

John

Two things John. I only enable system restore if I am going to do something 'dangerous' and then I disable it as I do not want any extra services running.
Next thing is that this isn't a new problem. I've never seen airplanes at the gate in CYYZ when I start FSX. Eventually as I said planes arrive and populate some of the gates. So this has been happening for a long time and it finally bothered me enough to investigate 

Cheers,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hi Maurice,

Totally understand about the System Restore as some folks see it as a resource user. I turned mine off, but turned it back on and I really don't see any loss while flying. So, I like the idea of being able to restore over a few frames of loss (although, I haven't noticed a difference with or without it).

As for fixing your issue, here is what I am thinking:

1. You usually start from a saved file that is setup for your projectors, and you likely just change the location and time of day via the Options>World. So, my first thought was your AI schedule is tied to that saved file, but if you change times and location the AI schedule should change with it. However, if this particular CYYZ is your regular start position based on that saved file (meaning you did not relocate) then whatever was saved when you made the file originally is carrying through. In other words, that saved file is the problem. Therefore, I suggest you make a new saved file starting from a new position load, and then input the changes in the aircraft.cfg file for the projectors.

2. CYYZ could be an airport that has only a few scheduled airplanes at the time of day you're loading into the location. Thus, the actual .bgl file for the AI needs to be edited to see what time aircraft depart/arrive, where they're coming from and going to, as well as if they're just repeaters. Repeaters are AI that depart the location and fly to a certain lat/long position turn around, return, and land. Then, they only taxi back to the active runway and takeoff to repeat the cycle again. They're tied into the schedules like the other AI that actually do go to a location. FSX default AI aircraft are not as good as the add-on AI Traffic, so FSX default traffic might do all this (for those people reading this and do not have add-on AI). You could make the default as good as add-on, but it is a lot of work.

3. The ADE program is designed like AFCAD as I said previously, by the way Maurice did you watch that video and get too the right folders? If so, have you checked your .bgl for the CYYZ airport?

4. When you installed the Traffic 360 did it make a backup of the .bgl file, if so you would have been told about it during the install? You could revert back to Traffic X to see if CYYZ works as it should or just do another install of the Traffic 360 and see what happens...

I think the best option is to look at the schedules in the CYYZ airport. Oh, are you using Blue-Print like Harry? If so, then I'd say it's Blue Print causing a conflict with the schedules in Traffic 360.

John

[blueskydriver]

Hey Maurice,

I just downloaded an AI Flight Plan Editor and it might be easier than ADE. You can find it here:

http://stuff4fs.com/open.asp?Folder=AIFP&JS=TRUE

Using this, you should be able to edit the .bgl file. Usually, it is called Traffic.bgl for aircraft and is found in the Scenery>World Folder of the main FSX folder. Make a backup of the Traffic.bgl and save it somewhere else, just is case the AI Editor does not work for you.

Just in case other people are wondering, the program works with FS9 and FSX. And, it works TTools.exe for FS9, as well as looks like the old way of doing things as far list style edits...

John

[iwik]

Maurice,
Here is an exerpt from Justflights Traffic x support forum. Maybe your cause.
They have a utillity to search for foreign .bgl files.

"If these steps fail to resolve the problem then you may have an old FS2004 format traffic database still installed into FSX. FSX is only capable of running one legacy BGL file from older versions of Flight Simulator and having one running will cause ALL other AI traffic to be suppressed including river/sea traffic and Traffic X. If you have previous used an AI program in FSX that does not use the a proper FSX format database please ensure that you have uninstalled the program. If this does not resolve the program then we have put together a tool that will search any and all folders being referenced by FSX in order to locate any old style .bgl files. This tool can be downloaded using the link below:

les

[blueskydriver]

Les is exactly right with his post about old FS9 files importing into FSX, it can be done, but with some AI add-ons it'll cause conflicts. So, unless you imported FS9 AI .bgl files into FSX, you shouldn't have to worry, but if they have a utility too use, you could give it a try.

Too me, checking the schedules at CYYZ is the easiest since the AI works normally at all other airports (as far as you know). You could just email me a copy of the Traffic.bgl file and I can check it for you... Look at my post above for the file location.

John

[Maurice]

John and Les,

Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't had a chance to try them yet but I'll let you know the outcome later this week after I get rid of our visitors

Thanks,
Maurice

[Maurice]

Maurice,
Here is an exerpt from Justflights Traffic x support forum. Maybe your cause.
They have a utillity to search for foreign .bgl files.

"If these steps fail to resolve the problem then you may have an old FS2004 format traffic database still installed into FSX. FSX is only capable of running one legacy BGL file from older versions of Flight Simulator and having one running will cause ALL other AI traffic to be suppressed including river/sea traffic and Traffic X. If you have previous used an AI program in FSX that does not use the a proper FSX format database please ensure that you have uninstalled the program. If this does not resolve the program then we have put together a tool that will search any and all folders being referenced by FSX in order to locate any old style .bgl files. This tool can be downloaded using the link below:

les

Hi Les,

Apparently this resolved my problem with CYYZ. The program found one BGL file and I disabled it and now I can see all kinds of traffic in CYYZ.

But now, unfortunately, my frame rates at all major airports particularly have taken a nose dive and I can barely get 10fps even with only 20% traffic. This was not happening when I just had TrafficX installed so the only change was the upgrade to Traffic360 which seems to add a lot of extra activity or whatever and is killing the frame rates.

So now, I will uninstall Traffic360 and go back to TrafficX and see what happens. Or maybe I should try Ultimate Traffic instead. The fun never stops with FSX   

Thanks for the tip anyway. At least I now have some traffic in CYYZ.

Maurice

[iwik]

Maurice, nice to hear that. You are right, traffic is a killer and it is real hard not to try and have as much as we would like. As you have said many times we have to learn to compromise
and us humans find that very difficult or nigh impossible.
Good luck and Seasons greetings to you while im basking in 30C temps.

Les

[fsaviator]

Mau, you know I like AI...

You would think that with the power available in PCs today, it wouldn't be a problem to max out the software based on a 10 year old standard...

My new years wish will be for someone to develop a new sim that meets our needs and makes use of all the processing and memory power out there (before the XP10 guys jump in...) and is compatible with the tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software we've invested in

[Maurice]

Mau, you know I like AI...

You would think that with the power available in PCs today, it wouldn't be a problem to max out the software based on a 10 year old standard...

My new years wish will be for someone to develop a new sim that meets our needs and makes use of all the processing and memory power out there (before the XP10 guys jump in...) and is compatible with the tens of thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software we've invested in

I fully agree but I'm not at all optimistic that it will happen within a reasonable budget in my remaining lifetime . I think you can find Nirvana or close to it but never with just one PC running 3 separate views. The biggest hurdle is processing power which progress seems to have slowed down quite a bit theses days. If FSX could use multiple CPUs, that would definitely help but the only hope there is that P3D might some day really make better use of the processing power currently available and particularly be able to unload some more of the processing to the video card.

But don't despair. You can still get quite a bit of enjoyment as long as you stay away from big airports and you turn down AI traffic as much as you can stand or just fly online with only online traffic. There are lots of smaller very challenging airports where you can practice your flying skills and not worry about frame rates. That is what I do these days and frankly I don't really miss the big airports. And if I do land in one from time to time, I have learned to live with some jerkiness while on the ground. Once you take off, things improve quite a bit and landing in large airport is quite acceptable as well; it's mostly during taxiing & turning that the jerkiness becomes very bothersome. So I taxi very slowly and even slower while turning on the ground

Finally, my advice for anyone building a sim on a tight budget would be to first put most of your money on 3 PCs for FSX or probably better on XPlane. If you need to cut corners, do it with the rest of the sim hardware and find the best deals or build as much as you can yourself. For instance, do you really need a full cockpit or could you live with a single seater like a JetMax and have truly amazing fluid graphics at a high resolution. If I were to do it again, that is the route I would take.

Anyway, this is my opinion only and you need to establish your own priorities regardless of what you hear or read. But you do have many choices these days, much more than we had even only 5 years ago and who knows what the future holds.

Cheers,
Maurice

[XOrionFE]

Great advice Maurice.

I wanted to make a couple comments about X-plane (of course :-) ).

If you can afford 3 high end pc's to be dedicated to the sim and another for your avionics then I would highly recommend X-plane over FSX.  As Warren mentioned it is tough to throw away all the software purchased for FSX but it is a small amount of dollars compared to what we spend on the whole simulation overall.   I have all of the main orbx scenerys, Rex, GEX, UTX, FSUIPC, ASE, and a ton of airports and mega scenery that I simply cannot use in xplane now but I'm not crying about it.  My overall experience with xplane is so much better than FSX for a lot of reasons including the fact that it takes advantage of all the latest technology including adding a 64 bit version recently.   One thing I really like about it is that you can load your sceneries and various plugins simply by copying files to appropriate folders rather than running installers.    You can the. In turn simply copy the entire X-plane folder from one drive to another for backups or drive upgrades or even copy to a newer computer down the road without having to reinstall everything....try that in FSX...

For running multiple views wraparound style you definitely need multiple computers as the th2go or eyefinity setup on a single PC will not work.    The plus side though is easy setup (copy your xp folder to two more pcs, check a few boxes, and type in some ip addresses and your done.e..simple).

The downsides to XP are there also but I believe they will be overcome within the next 6 months or so.  These include lack of airport scenery and other third party scenerys.  That said, checkout realscenery.com and you can see the stuff coming.   There are also plenty of large airports already and more coming all the time.   The other negative I see right now is lack of ground themes like REX has.  For instance, snow, tropical water, fall colors, etc.   the sky and weather in xplane I believe is fine out of the box but it would be nice to have better water color options and seasonal changes.   That said, I can live without those for now because all one has to do is do some nighttime flying and the effects in xplane lighting will blow away anything FSX or FSX addons can even come close to and night flying in a 737 cockpit is a great experience.  The last thing is that some of the necessary integration addons are still under development for 64 bit but their 32 bit versions are for the most part working fine.  Again, with a few more months I believe these will be done.

I will be making some more videos of my setup to explain much of this better within a week or two.  I just want to finish up my TQ and pedestal first and almost done :-).

Scott

[fsaviator]

Thanks for the rundown, Scott.

I think we are all watching your progress.  I am all for going to XP as I am not convinced that P3D is in it for the long run.  Once the utility of it ends on the USG side, I think it will be tossed aside (or taken over by someone looking to make a profit).  That is my personal opinion stemming from years of working with USG contractors, and it is not unrealistic for me to be wrong.

XP is the future, and I'm glad you're breaking brush and figuring it out.

[Joe Lavery]

Very interesting perspective on XP Scott. Excellent write up, look forward to the videos.

On the matter of AMD Eyefinity, can you not run XP on an extended view, so with an outside resolution of say 3073 x 1024? It would mean that XP would then see the resolution as a single wide monitor.

Just asking the question here, not making an argument  just wondered if that would work?

Regards
Joe.