Author Topic: Thanks.  (Read 2520 times)

MPII

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Thanks.
« on: May 11, 2017, 04:38:38 am »
Seems like everywhere I go, especially since the ADX rantings about the coatl engine, that everyone is complaining about one issue or another.  I've purchased nearly every scenery you have.  When KMEM came out there were glitches, but I literally couldn't start P3Dv3 for a week plus without getting some automatic update you were pushing through.  No issues since, I know it took hard work to create it and then stand behind it.  You didn't charge people in advance then not deliver, or release it knowing it had compatibility issues, or fail to update when you discovered something.  And I do remember that big texture and FPS upgrade you already completed for free.

I think sometimes in our efforts to anoint a next big developer we forget or lose perspective that some developers have been doing this a LONG time with high quality and actual concern for their products.

Last weekend I was doing some DAL turns in the PMDG NGX.  Flew KSAN./.KATL./KMEM./KATL.  All airports were recent high end 3rd party sceneries.  Winds and runways kept shifting but I ended up flying a visual traffic pattern and approach to 18R, taxied into B20 and GSX was ready, the SODE jetways were as real as I've seen implemented etc.  The timing of my flight back to KATL resulted in a dusk departure, the lighting effect were stunning.  Breathtaking visuals that far exceeded every other airport I've seen (and I literally have nearly every high end 3rd party North American airport out in the last 5 years).  No studder/pause coming in or out. 

I don't always agree with everything you say/do, and I've been frustrated waiting to buy KCLT and KSDF for what feels like over a year *BUT* I just wanted to say thanks.

Your efforts are noticed and appreciated.  Keep it up.

virtuali

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Re: Thanks.
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2017, 08:09:26 am »
Thank you for your comments.

Yes, KMEM had issues on release day, but that's just because we tried doing something nobody ever done before, like a brand new collision system which allowed features never seen, like a working EMAS that actually stops the plane, or the ability to visit the control tower in first person.

Some of them might have some additional impact, but how much they are noticeable, depends a lot on how many other addons are running at the same time, especially those that tax the Simconnect communication channel, which might result in some stuttering so, we couldn't foresee any of these problems, since we surely don't have so many products running at the same time while developing a product.

As you correctly said, your flight from had "No studder/pause coming in or out", which is of course how the current P3D version is, right now, since lots of them were caused by having to adjust the FSX-compatible version of the scenery in realtime to prevent ground flickering, but the native P3D version we released after a while doesn't have the problem.

And, we disabled by default the "GearBumps" feature, which also resulted in some additional processing required so, it's now optional. The next update will have the option to disable even more stuff. Things that other sceneries don't have in the first place, such as the precise collisions on buildings, which should improve things even more.

Also, with VAS being a so limited resource on 32 bit sims (this will end soon), we had to do aggressive memory optimization, because there would be no way a scenery as large and detailed as KMEM would ever fit in memory. And we succeeded, because while some surely reported stuttering in the initial release, basically nobody had OOM problems at KMEM, which is something that is affecting EVERY big and detailed scenery that has been released recently.

It's really simple, memory optimization doesn't go along with smoothness.

The best way to have a "smooth" scenery, is simply NOT doing any optimizations and just load everything once. If you a LUCKY, and the user hasn't loaded too much stuff, the sim might not OOM, otherwise there's just nothing you can do, and the sim will crash, especially when used together with memory-hungry hi-end airplanes.

The more you carefully optimize, by giving all objects their own specific loading range, and create/destroy objects when they are not needed, you PREVENT OOM crashes, but you will surely introduce some additional processing, because the sim *itself* take a bit of time to create/destroy an object, in addition to the OS itself, which (following the sim request), might do some operations to reclaim the memory that has been just freed up.

I hope that everyone will agree that some "stuttering on approach" is surely better than "crashing on approach"...

But of course, with 64 bit basically upon us (I don't think it's a big secret that all major sim platforms are going to be 64 bit in 2017), lots of these issues will be less of a concern, so we'll be able to lift many of our self-imposed restrictions on loading ranges, which means stuttering should be a thing of the past, since we might be able to afford a bit more of leeway to gain smoothness, since the OOM threshold has been moved forward. And, while on 32 bit there's just nothing you can do, except than optimizing the software to restrain itself, on 64 bit you can BUY relatively cheap hardware ( upgrading to 32GB, for example), to get an OOM insurance.

And again, this will finally demonstrate how useful Couatl is.

Since the whole logic of our sceneries is handled entirely by a very small set of Python scripts, it will be enough to update those, and ALL sceneries that use it will change their behavior, without having to change the scenery itself. The scenery script can adapt automatically to the simulator platform used. It's already doing it now, to handle some differences between FSX and P3D, but the next versions will behave differently it it detects a 64 bit host platform, affecting the logic of memory management, and going back to prioritize smoothness over memory savings. This will be valid for every scenery we made, without requiring much effort to go back working at them individually.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2017, 01:50:02 am by virtuali »

MPII

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Re: Thanks.
« Reply #2 on: May 11, 2017, 10:08:51 pm »
Thanks for the explanation.  I saw your interview on avsim for the Gold Star award; but my eyes glazed over trying to keep up...

For the record, I purchased my PC 2+ years ago (i7 4790 @ 4 Ghz, 16 GB RAM, NVideo GForce 970, Win 7 64 bit). 

I'm running P3Dv3, PMDG NGX, GSX, ASN16, ORBX NA, FTX Global, Trees HD, FS2Crew voice, FSFX 737 Immersion, FSL SpotLights, REX Texture Direct/Soft Clouds, with AIFP AI (lots of Fedex).  No studders; no OOM.  It's so stable I sat at KMEM B20 between the turns prepping, loading flightplan, setting up the FMS...just let GSX unload/load and restarted FS2crew...No crashes or reboot required...

Really looking forward to P3Dv4 WITH FSDT addons.  Just saw the latest FB KCLT previews...Bravo!!!!!!