Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.
Ben! Does this mean ATC is finally getting some major TLC?
I’ve been working on bug fixes this week….
what is this?
Debugging ATC operations at KSEA. All of the funny colored lines are debug information.
No no. They are lasers and drone paths.
You caught me. Off-screen the lasers are mounted on the heads of tiny, tiny sharks.
where do i click like! 🙂
Ho Ben I am getting a new pc this christmas. 12gig Vram GTX titan Z. should be a killer hehehe (it as to pay to work holiday )
btw 10.41 with skymaxx v3 is wow at low-med setting. i can’t wait to push it at ultra-high
good work to the team!!!
Hey Alain, make sure in your NVIDIA Control Panel settings you set your second GPU(B) as dedicated (PhysX), this is in multi-GPU setup, if you don’t you will me hating your computer.. just an FYI..
I have TITAN Z with Intel i7 extreme 6 cores 12 threads with 32GB of hyperX beasts, and for awhile I was angry at everyone.. X-Plane was not running smooth with ultra setting, or mid setting, it would crash on other issues which I resolved but this should not have been the master of my troubles, I have a fast system and slow choppy results.. it just didn’t make sense.. thanks to NVIDIA support, these guys are awesome they gave me a few tips to work with which lead to the resolution to my problems.. now, I get over 30-40fps 90% of the time and some times drop in the 20’s, which is also fine. Though there are other aspects of my system which makes it run smooth, monitor ASUS ROG 278Q and western digital velci-raptors 1TB each disk of 3., enjoy.. 😉
What on earth was going wrong before you did the dedicated PhysX setup!?? Was…
1. The Nvidia driver trying to run x-plane on two GPUs or
2. The nvidia driver trying to schedule PhysX work on X-plane’s GPU?
Since we don’t use PhysX this is totally weird, but you aren’t the first user to report that firewalling physX made a difference..
Hey Ben, It was {Stutter frames} during flight, and it was constant, it almost felt like some process in X-Plane or on my system was running in the background using up whatever processes, but that wasn’t the case, it was the PhysX using the same GPU as X-Plane 10 with it’s rendering, I had to separate them. This wasn’t just happening on X-Plane 10, it also happened on my Euro Truck Simulation 2, The SIMS 4, Train Simulation 2015/2016, allot more so on Euro Truck Simulation 2, it got so bad that I just didn’t want to use my computer any more for gaming or any kinda of simulation, was almost regretting spending over 5,000$ on my system. That definitely was not something I enjoy, I went out bought another Video cards to see maybe it was the problem, it just didn’t make sense, with all that processing power and I had “Stutter frames”, thank goodness there was someone at NVIDIA who understand what I was experiencing and had a few solutions to try hoping it fixed the problem. But that’s what it was, PhysX, it wasn’t dedicated to a GPU. There’s a few other options too in the NVIDIA Control Panel settings, {Manage 3D Settings} Antialiasing – FXAA = On, and Threaded optimization = Auto, I have read some other guys say to set it to {On}, but I have tried both Auto and On and I don’t see any difference, so it all depends on your hardware setup. Just a Note: Keep in mind when you do dedicated GPU, you give up multi-GPU configuration, so if you have other programs the runs best with multi-GPU setup, you will be bouncing back and fourth with you PhysX dedicated GPU. for me, since I am all about X-Plane 10, I have no worries switching back and fourth. 🙂
Thank for all the information
No more being vectored into mountains????????? *crosses fingers*
I wouldn’t pick a mountain airport! Seriously, I do -not- think I am going to get to MVA maps with this edit. The two major focuses of my work are:
– Fixing the off-coarse bug (which is actually several bugs combined) so that you can complete an IFR flight and recover from problems and
– Fixing a whole series of operational weirdnesses in the tower that cause the airport to grind to a halt – this should mean higher arrival/departure rates, less waiting or getting stuck forever, etc.
– Some usability tweaks.
MVA is the next thing on the todo list for fixes but may not make it.
Hi Ben, looks fun! 😉
By the way, is there an easy way to understand what the message “Don’t send me co-located points! Heading undefined!” means and how to correct? Something more meaningful to help debug. Was reading this thread and others seem stumped too. And it’s impossible to recreate at will since it’s tied to AI aircraft.
No – hrm – that message should never happen. Please file a bug and be sure to include (1) the airport where it happens and (2) whether that airport has a custom ATC routing.
It’s a custom scenery I’m working on. I filed a bug a while back asking what the message was (later assumed it was coming from the taxi route). Just wanted to know if there was an easy way to debug it. What I tried after posting earlier today was to minimize as much as I could any extra vertices…but again, impossible to recreate and was rarely seen to begin with. Would be nice if XP provided more info in the log or message as to where the problem exists. Maybe I fixed it…we’ll see if it pops up again. I did find one disconnected segment…and removed it. Using the select double nodes (and other two options in WED) didn’t provide any clues. Thanks! — Greg
Mmm – a zero-length taxi segment would possibly cause this. I can’t tell you what you did specifically because this is a low level error – this is the AI aircraft complaining that ATC has given it improper instructions – but without a trace of what instructions caused the problem.
Looking good Ben !
Hi Ben
Just a quick question. Do you have any plans to change the way AI traffic works? I.e. that you can use some sort of route table instead of airplanes randomly spawning?
Some day.
There are some plugins around which let AI planes fly pre-programmed routes.
So glad you are working on this.. within the v10 run 🙂
Any plans in future to make AI more “scalable”. that is being able to reproduce major airports traffic density with no losing so much FPS ? (or perhaps make ATC open to external AI options)
Thanks
Hi Ben
What is the normal update schema for X-Plane, see you here talk about 10.50 but when do you switch from updates to full versjons? I tried to see the release notes //www.x-plane.com/subject/using//betas and draw a conclusion but it does not contain any sub-folders so I asked here. It seems you can go on through 10.99 but I would imagine there would be a way larger marketing effort to release a new version, purhaps you are working on it side by side (no need to spoiler alert), but I cannot seem to remember if there ever was a “teaser” for X-Plane 10 whilst version 9 got patched? I know you most likely cannot talk spesific on potential such new versions, but I take it you guys get to a certain point where you just say, fuck it will do a new version instead 🙂 PS.. Are you guys listning to the community in regards to new feature request, would it not be helpfull to have a “submit your wishes here” option on X-Plane.com? Anyway, good luck with 10.50, hope we see some new features too 🙂
There isn’t a fixed number of major free patches for each version of X-Plane.
Regarding a suggestion box, we’re always listening, but at this point we have already started work on features that are (1) highly requested and (2) we’re not talking about yet while they’re so new in development.
So we could do an “ask for anything” post or something but I’m not sure how useful it would be…
Thanks for the reply Ben
But I do think I speak for everyone when I say, there always be a day after tomorrow. So in a sense a suggestion box will only be helpful in the future, and adjecent to the fact that it will allow the community to participate which I do believe everyone would appreciate. Besides both you and me know that many of the suggested features will be up and forward when It comes to developement. Examples of this is what we talked about before, namely tessellation! So bottom line, suggestions are just ideas and everybody needs them weither you choose to use them are another thing. PS.. Thanks for all your hard work Ben, I for one truly appreciate it and that you take the time to update this developers blog.
Thank you for improving this. I love to use X-Planes ATC, because it is well made. It would be great, to see also improvements on the ground parts of the ATC, if possible.
Will there also be improvements in weather? Hope for a reduction in the paises caused when weather is injected or refreshed
Lifting the cloud layer limit would be even nicer. 🙂
For me, the only time X-Plane ever paused during weather loads was when I used Skymaxx 2.
Using X-Plane default clouds or using 3rd party cloud textures there are no pauses even when using a weather injector like the freeware NOAA plugin.
Good day,
Yes , good to see ATC work being done I can say that the “special” button does work to change the frequency on the radio in the aircraft so, we are very close to getting this up and running If I can help let me know Ben I do have a text in to speech app that was done in VB if you want to look at it …
captbullett
Does this mean with v10.50 the v10.40 is final in finished?
Any updates on El Capitan? I know there is a graphic update in the next version release and will X-Plane need another update there?
10.41 has been final for weeks. There may be a 10.42 with a few more bug fixes – I need to check my bug list.
El Capitan – no idea. As of now, you can get rid of the red artifacts by using NV’s driver and hoping it’s stable. I don’t have any news or insight into SASL crashing on quit in El Capitan.
Oops, didn’t know that,
I only saw postings about RC1, RC2 and RC3.
So, let’s fly 🙂
You can also tell because, when you have 10.41, x-plane’s about box says it is the latest final version. 🙂 The about box checks the servers so this information is up-to-date.
OMG, look at his framerate! Someone buy the guy a decent computer! 😉
This one was on my 3-year-old laptop and it’s struggling.
But that’s not the real factor – this is a _full debug_ version of X-Plane…no code optimizer, and extra sanity checks. So it’s going to be 2x slower than normal just from that.
when we are going to see a decent fog and 3d clouds … doh
i can confirm .
e.g. seen this while debugging atc routes on EDDP.
The taxi route network seems clean .
I tried to find some good test-case , but the behavior isn’t good reproducible .
Only a feeling :
It happens often on heavy AI/ATC load.
And at one point i saw a AI aircraft somehow jerking on the runway holding line .
Possibly pushed by the wind and blocked by the ATC/AI engine.
I wish I could be as excited as others, Ben. Sure, the ATC needs work, major work, but I was under the impression that was another developer’s baliwick. I thought you were a super scenery guy…!(Not that that is any of my business whatsoever). The features added in 10.4xx still have bugs, like distant terrain being semi-transparent. Distant is now way too close with the added DSFs, especially with a high resolution global terrain mesh. (If that needs a bug report – I’m happy to oblige with screen shots). Overall, I feel your pain, my friend. Many bugs, many hats, and never enough coffee. 🙂
Please file a bug with screenshots, maybe it is one. I think I know what you mean with transparency.
That’s all right!. Thank you very much.
But…
First, we need textures. Ground textures. City textures. Autogen.
You don’t feel you fly over London, over Paris or over Moscow.
Too long waiting for textures. Please,When? .
Thak you.
In the wonderful (!) world of FSX, the default textures and autogen are absolutely awful and the first add-on most people buy for FSX is usually one of the global scenery systems that completely replace all the textures and autogen. These add-ons are not cheap and I imagine it takes the developers a long time to tweak the textures and objects so everything blends together seamlessly.
I wouldn’t like to see LR’s limited resources being poured in to improving the default textures and autogen when they could be expanding the scenery engine to do whatever interesting things the 3rd party developers might want it to do.
Hello Ben Halloween, in the future, after correction of certain errors Could you add some little things in the landscape eg pedestrians in cities including cyclists, cyclists, amongst other things of various wild animals in remote areas, (that is, in FSX).
Ben,
This might be a little off topic, but here goes anyway.
Would it be possible, in plane maker, to have an option where one could “tie” left side engines together and right side engines together to facilitate flying aircraft with more than two engines? I have a throttle quadrant with two throttle levers (and it seems that many others do too) and in order to fly in 4 engine aircraft (B747 for instance), I have to create another instance of X-Plane with both tied to “Throttle”. If there could be a plane maker check off, it could easily be done without having multiple instances of X-Plane installed. Seems simple – probably isn’t!
Thanks,
John
I also think this is a good idea; I emailed Austin about it and had a two or three email discussion with him about it. Bottom line, no dice, he didn’t see the utility of it (and/or not worth “cluttering up” the interface). Perhaps if he hears from someone else he might reconsider. I’m looking forward to the PMDG DC-6 and all those engines, controls, etc.
Hello Ben, this is great news to know.
I also want to ask about when random static traffic on start ramps that you wrote time ago.
Thank you!!!
Hi Ben,
There was talk some time ago about being able to turn static aircraft on and off in the rendering options – is this still on the agenda? I can see that becoming an issue if the new ATC is good and more people start using it – and even more of an issue if people decide to take the next step and fly on-line with VATSIM or IVAO.
It is – it’s being worked on now. I’ll post more about this in a week or two.
Ben! Does this mean ATC is finally getting some major TLC?
I’ve been working on bug fixes this week….
what is this?
Debugging ATC operations at KSEA. All of the funny colored lines are debug information.
No no. They are lasers and drone paths.
You caught me. Off-screen the lasers are mounted on the heads of tiny, tiny sharks.
where do i click like! 🙂
Ho Ben I am getting a new pc this christmas. 12gig Vram GTX titan Z. should be a killer hehehe (it as to pay to work holiday )
btw 10.41 with skymaxx v3 is wow at low-med setting. i can’t wait to push it at ultra-high
good work to the team!!!
Hey Alain, make sure in your NVIDIA Control Panel settings you set your second GPU(B) as dedicated (PhysX), this is in multi-GPU setup, if you don’t you will me hating your computer.. just an FYI..
I have TITAN Z with Intel i7 extreme 6 cores 12 threads with 32GB of hyperX beasts, and for awhile I was angry at everyone.. X-Plane was not running smooth with ultra setting, or mid setting, it would crash on other issues which I resolved but this should not have been the master of my troubles, I have a fast system and slow choppy results.. it just didn’t make sense.. thanks to NVIDIA support, these guys are awesome they gave me a few tips to work with which lead to the resolution to my problems.. now, I get over 30-40fps 90% of the time and some times drop in the 20’s, which is also fine. Though there are other aspects of my system which makes it run smooth, monitor ASUS ROG 278Q and western digital velci-raptors 1TB each disk of 3., enjoy.. 😉
What on earth was going wrong before you did the dedicated PhysX setup!?? Was…
1. The Nvidia driver trying to run x-plane on two GPUs or
2. The nvidia driver trying to schedule PhysX work on X-plane’s GPU?
Since we don’t use PhysX this is totally weird, but you aren’t the first user to report that firewalling physX made a difference..
Hey Ben, It was {Stutter frames} during flight, and it was constant, it almost felt like some process in X-Plane or on my system was running in the background using up whatever processes, but that wasn’t the case, it was the PhysX using the same GPU as X-Plane 10 with it’s rendering, I had to separate them. This wasn’t just happening on X-Plane 10, it also happened on my Euro Truck Simulation 2, The SIMS 4, Train Simulation 2015/2016, allot more so on Euro Truck Simulation 2, it got so bad that I just didn’t want to use my computer any more for gaming or any kinda of simulation, was almost regretting spending over 5,000$ on my system. That definitely was not something I enjoy, I went out bought another Video cards to see maybe it was the problem, it just didn’t make sense, with all that processing power and I had “Stutter frames”, thank goodness there was someone at NVIDIA who understand what I was experiencing and had a few solutions to try hoping it fixed the problem. But that’s what it was, PhysX, it wasn’t dedicated to a GPU. There’s a few other options too in the NVIDIA Control Panel settings, {Manage 3D Settings} Antialiasing – FXAA = On, and Threaded optimization = Auto, I have read some other guys say to set it to {On}, but I have tried both Auto and On and I don’t see any difference, so it all depends on your hardware setup. Just a Note: Keep in mind when you do dedicated GPU, you give up multi-GPU configuration, so if you have other programs the runs best with multi-GPU setup, you will be bouncing back and fourth with you PhysX dedicated GPU. for me, since I am all about X-Plane 10, I have no worries switching back and fourth. 🙂
Thank for all the information
No more being vectored into mountains????????? *crosses fingers*
I wouldn’t pick a mountain airport! Seriously, I do -not- think I am going to get to MVA maps with this edit. The two major focuses of my work are:
– Fixing the off-coarse bug (which is actually several bugs combined) so that you can complete an IFR flight and recover from problems and
– Fixing a whole series of operational weirdnesses in the tower that cause the airport to grind to a halt – this should mean higher arrival/departure rates, less waiting or getting stuck forever, etc.
– Some usability tweaks.
MVA is the next thing on the todo list for fixes but may not make it.
Hi Ben, looks fun! 😉
By the way, is there an easy way to understand what the message “Don’t send me co-located points! Heading undefined!” means and how to correct? Something more meaningful to help debug. Was reading this thread and others seem stumped too. And it’s impossible to recreate at will since it’s tied to AI aircraft.
//forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=63214&page=2
Thanks! — Greg
No – hrm – that message should never happen. Please file a bug and be sure to include (1) the airport where it happens and (2) whether that airport has a custom ATC routing.
It’s a custom scenery I’m working on. I filed a bug a while back asking what the message was (later assumed it was coming from the taxi route). Just wanted to know if there was an easy way to debug it. What I tried after posting earlier today was to minimize as much as I could any extra vertices…but again, impossible to recreate and was rarely seen to begin with. Would be nice if XP provided more info in the log or message as to where the problem exists. Maybe I fixed it…we’ll see if it pops up again. I did find one disconnected segment…and removed it. Using the select double nodes (and other two options in WED) didn’t provide any clues. Thanks! — Greg
Mmm – a zero-length taxi segment would possibly cause this. I can’t tell you what you did specifically because this is a low level error – this is the AI aircraft complaining that ATC has given it improper instructions – but without a trace of what instructions caused the problem.
Looking good Ben !
Hi Ben
Just a quick question. Do you have any plans to change the way AI traffic works? I.e. that you can use some sort of route table instead of airplanes randomly spawning?
Some day.
There are some plugins around which let AI planes fly pre-programmed routes.
So glad you are working on this.. within the v10 run 🙂
Any plans in future to make AI more “scalable”. that is being able to reproduce major airports traffic density with no losing so much FPS ? (or perhaps make ATC open to external AI options)
Thanks
Hi Ben
What is the normal update schema for X-Plane, see you here talk about 10.50 but when do you switch from updates to full versjons? I tried to see the release notes //www.x-plane.com/subject/using//betas and draw a conclusion but it does not contain any sub-folders so I asked here. It seems you can go on through 10.99 but I would imagine there would be a way larger marketing effort to release a new version, purhaps you are working on it side by side (no need to spoiler alert), but I cannot seem to remember if there ever was a “teaser” for X-Plane 10 whilst version 9 got patched? I know you most likely cannot talk spesific on potential such new versions, but I take it you guys get to a certain point where you just say, fuck it will do a new version instead 🙂 PS.. Are you guys listning to the community in regards to new feature request, would it not be helpfull to have a “submit your wishes here” option on X-Plane.com? Anyway, good luck with 10.50, hope we see some new features too 🙂
There isn’t a fixed number of major free patches for each version of X-Plane.
Regarding a suggestion box, we’re always listening, but at this point we have already started work on features that are (1) highly requested and (2) we’re not talking about yet while they’re so new in development.
So we could do an “ask for anything” post or something but I’m not sure how useful it would be…
Thanks for the reply Ben
But I do think I speak for everyone when I say, there always be a day after tomorrow. So in a sense a suggestion box will only be helpful in the future, and adjecent to the fact that it will allow the community to participate which I do believe everyone would appreciate. Besides both you and me know that many of the suggested features will be up and forward when It comes to developement. Examples of this is what we talked about before, namely tessellation! So bottom line, suggestions are just ideas and everybody needs them weither you choose to use them are another thing. PS.. Thanks for all your hard work Ben, I for one truly appreciate it and that you take the time to update this developers blog.
Thank you for improving this. I love to use X-Planes ATC, because it is well made. It would be great, to see also improvements on the ground parts of the ATC, if possible.
Will there also be improvements in weather? Hope for a reduction in the paises caused when weather is injected or refreshed
Lifting the cloud layer limit would be even nicer. 🙂
For me, the only time X-Plane ever paused during weather loads was when I used Skymaxx 2.
Using X-Plane default clouds or using 3rd party cloud textures there are no pauses even when using a weather injector like the freeware NOAA plugin.
Good day,
Yes , good to see ATC work being done I can say that the “special” button does work to change the frequency on the radio in the aircraft so, we are very close to getting this up and running If I can help let me know Ben I do have a text in to speech app that was done in VB if you want to look at it …
captbullett
Does this mean with v10.50 the v10.40 is final in finished?
Any updates on El Capitan? I know there is a graphic update in the next version release and will X-Plane need another update there?
10.41 has been final for weeks. There may be a 10.42 with a few more bug fixes – I need to check my bug list.
El Capitan – no idea. As of now, you can get rid of the red artifacts by using NV’s driver and hoping it’s stable. I don’t have any news or insight into SASL crashing on quit in El Capitan.
Oops, didn’t know that,
I only saw postings about RC1, RC2 and RC3.
So, let’s fly 🙂
You can also tell because, when you have 10.41, x-plane’s about box says it is the latest final version. 🙂 The about box checks the servers so this information is up-to-date.
OMG, look at his framerate! Someone buy the guy a decent computer! 😉
This one was on my 3-year-old laptop and it’s struggling.
But that’s not the real factor – this is a _full debug_ version of X-Plane…no code optimizer, and extra sanity checks. So it’s going to be 2x slower than normal just from that.
when we are going to see a decent fog and 3d clouds … doh
i can confirm .
e.g. seen this while debugging atc routes on EDDP.
The taxi route network seems clean .
I tried to find some good test-case , but the behavior isn’t good reproducible .
Only a feeling :
It happens often on heavy AI/ATC load.
And at one point i saw a AI aircraft somehow jerking on the runway holding line .
Possibly pushed by the wind and blocked by the ATC/AI engine.
The above post should be a comment to :
//developer.x-plane.com/2015/10/some-work-for-10-50/#comment-12016
I wish I could be as excited as others, Ben. Sure, the ATC needs work, major work, but I was under the impression that was another developer’s baliwick. I thought you were a super scenery guy…!(Not that that is any of my business whatsoever). The features added in 10.4xx still have bugs, like distant terrain being semi-transparent. Distant is now way too close with the added DSFs, especially with a high resolution global terrain mesh. (If that needs a bug report – I’m happy to oblige with screen shots). Overall, I feel your pain, my friend. Many bugs, many hats, and never enough coffee. 🙂
Please file a bug with screenshots, maybe it is one. I think I know what you mean with transparency.
That’s all right!. Thank you very much.
But…
First, we need textures. Ground textures. City textures. Autogen.
You don’t feel you fly over London, over Paris or over Moscow.
Too long waiting for textures. Please,When? .
Thak you.
In the wonderful (!) world of FSX, the default textures and autogen are absolutely awful and the first add-on most people buy for FSX is usually one of the global scenery systems that completely replace all the textures and autogen. These add-ons are not cheap and I imagine it takes the developers a long time to tweak the textures and objects so everything blends together seamlessly.
I wouldn’t like to see LR’s limited resources being poured in to improving the default textures and autogen when they could be expanding the scenery engine to do whatever interesting things the 3rd party developers might want it to do.
Hello Ben Halloween, in the future, after correction of certain errors Could you add some little things in the landscape eg pedestrians in cities including cyclists, cyclists, amongst other things of various wild animals in remote areas, (that is, in FSX).
Ben,
This might be a little off topic, but here goes anyway.
Would it be possible, in plane maker, to have an option where one could “tie” left side engines together and right side engines together to facilitate flying aircraft with more than two engines? I have a throttle quadrant with two throttle levers (and it seems that many others do too) and in order to fly in 4 engine aircraft (B747 for instance), I have to create another instance of X-Plane with both tied to “Throttle”. If there could be a plane maker check off, it could easily be done without having multiple instances of X-Plane installed. Seems simple – probably isn’t!
Thanks,
John
I also think this is a good idea; I emailed Austin about it and had a two or three email discussion with him about it. Bottom line, no dice, he didn’t see the utility of it (and/or not worth “cluttering up” the interface). Perhaps if he hears from someone else he might reconsider. I’m looking forward to the PMDG DC-6 and all those engines, controls, etc.
Hello Ben, this is great news to know.
I also want to ask about when random static traffic on start ramps that you wrote time ago.
Thank you!!!
Hi Ben,
There was talk some time ago about being able to turn static aircraft on and off in the rendering options – is this still on the agenda? I can see that becoming an issue if the new ATC is good and more people start using it – and even more of an issue if people decide to take the next step and fly on-line with VATSIM or IVAO.
It is – it’s being worked on now. I’ll post more about this in a week or two.