First feedback

[Ankh]

Hi all, out of nowhere, here are my first impressions (even no one will be interested in those ;-)):

- Overall a nice addon increasing the immersion greatly. Very nice to see so many different passengers boarding the plane. The passengers boarding via jetway is also nice, but to me not that important. Many jetways are anyway without glass, and seeing the feet of the passengers glitching through the floor is not very nice. For me, an option to disable the passengers in jetways without glass would be nice.

- Of course, like for every new addons, not everything is working perfectly. I observed several small issues:

1. If you have small passenger numbers, they are driven in a minivan to the plane. As soon as they start exiting the van, they stand up and their heads glitch through the rooftop of the van.

2. Using multiple buses for passenger numbers above 90 is very nice. However, the totally sequential way of how the buses arrive at the plane is somehow killing the added immersion again. I would like to see doors of the bus already closing just after the last passenger left the bus, not only after it entered the plane. Then, why not speeding up the arrival of the second bus? I understand that the second bus has to go to the same spot as the first bus, but this takes forever now. Basically, the doors of the first bus could close upon exit of the last passenger, the bus could drive away and the second bus could arrive before the last passenger of the first bus entered the plane. Now, everything is sequential and slow...

3. I so far did not manage to modify the controls for placing GSX vehicles and jetways in a way that it does not take forever to change the orientation of the pushback truck for example. While moving them around works with a reasonable pace, changing the orientation takes ages with 1° per second (or something like that). I am sure that this can be modified, but I have to see how.

4. Somehow GSX Level 2 changed something in my shader and texture loading in P3Dv4.3. This is already discussed elsewhere, I will see if deleting the shaders will fix this. Otherwise, the performance is great.

5. Although a Limitation by SODE and not by GSX Level 2, I do not really like the fact that the height of the jetways where they connect to the terminal building can not be modified. I was not aware of this drawback and sadly it reduces the amount of possible jetway replacements down to even lower numbers as in MANY addon sceneries and even in some only slightly modified default sceneries (NZCH for example), the jetways do not connect on the "default" height. Even worse, it makes basically impossible to use GSX Level 2 jetway replacement for almost ALL A380 upper deck jetways, as almost all of them are connected to the terminal buildings on another level than the lower deck jetways. To overcome this, I wish that in the jetway selection there will be an upperdeck A380 jetway to select from in the near future.

6. I did not manage to find an option to change the GSX vehicle pathways. Does it exist? In my homebase (LSZH from AS), only little adjustments of the vehicle path could do wonders in avoiding GSX vehicles driving through AI or scenery objects.

Besides that, I am a happy simmer. As this addon will be constantly updated, I guess most of the issues will be addressed sooner or later. Until then, I enjoy what I get. And I will certainly be busy with adding jetways for some of my most frequented sceneries ;-)

Regards
Chris

[virtuali]

1. If you have small passenger numbers, they are driven in a minivan to the plane. As soon as they start exiting the van, they stand up and their heads glitch through the rooftop of the van.

Yes, passengers are not really designed for a vehicle which is more suitable for a seated position.

I would like to see doors of the bus already closing just after the last passenger left the bus, not only after it entered the plane.

This can be done.

Then, why not speeding up the arrival of the second bus?

This is done to minimize the possible fps impact of having the two bus visible at the same time,

3. I so far did not manage to modify the controls for placing GSX vehicles and jetways in a way that it does not take forever to change the orientation of the pushback truck for example. While moving them around works with a reasonable pace, changing the orientation takes ages with 1° per second (or something like that). I am sure that this can be modified, but I have to see how.

The F7/F8 keys rotates at much faster speed.

Somehow GSX Level 2 changed something in my shader and texture loading in P3Dv4.3. This is already discussed elsewhere, I will see if deleting the shaders will fix this. Otherwise, the performance is great.

No, it hasn't. Other 3rd party shaders, like PTA or Tomato Shader do that. GSX don't.

5. Although a Limitation by SODE and not by GSX Level 2, I do not really like the fact that the height of the jetways where they connect to the terminal building can not be modified.

Already discussed and explained.

I was not aware of this drawback and sadly it reduces the amount of possible jetway replacements down to even lower numbers as in MANY addon sceneries and even in some only slightly modified default sceneries (NZCH for example), the jetways do not connect on the "default" height

We have slanted bridges that can help you connecting if the jetway is too low.

To overcome this, I wish that in the jetway selection there will be an upperdeck A380 jetway to select from in the near future.

They are already in. You must have missed it. It's based on the real world model Thyssen made just for the A380.

6. I did not manage to find an option to change the GSX vehicle pathways. Does it exist? In my homebase (LSZH from AS), only little adjustments of the vehicle path could do wonders in avoiding GSX vehicles driving through AI or scenery objects.

You can achieve great results by changing the vehicles starting points, which will of course affect their path as well.

[Ankh]

Thanks for the fast reply, great to see that some "issues" are easy to resolve or ar no "issue" at all.

This is done to minimize the possible fps impact of having the two bus visible at the same time

Ok, understandable. But might be optional in future? Or, to overcome this, simply make the windows of the bus non-see-through and spawn the passengers only if the bus is in position? I personally would prefer this over the slow sequential flow...

No, it hasn't. Other 3rd party shaders, like PTA or Tomato Shader do that. GSX don't.

As mentioned, discussed in the other thread. However, I disagree with your statement, even if it is technically correct. Installation of GSX Level 2 DID modify how my sim performs, even if it is most probably only a secondary, indirect effect. But that's not to be discussed here...

We have slanted bridges that can help you connecting if the jetway is too low.

That is a very valuable hint, thanks. I will try by going through all offered variants. Same for the A380 jetway, I really did not find this one in the list, must have missed it.

Last thing you did not address but I wonder if it could be done: giving an option in the settings to disable the rendering of the passengers when using jetways without glass windows? I really see no reason to have them rendered in such jetways, furthermore as the feet sometimes glitch through the bottom of the jetway...

[virtuali]

However, I disagree with your statement, even if it is technically correct. Installation of GSX Level 2 DID modify how my sim performs, even if it is most probably only a secondary, indirect effect. But that's not to be discussed here...

I'm happy you agree with me it's a secondary effect. Nobody is denying this. But, being a secondary effect, makes all the difference in the world about WHAT should be done to have it fixed.

- There's just nothing we can do to fix it, because there's nothing to be fixed on our side, since there's nothing wrong in GSX. If there was, it would happen to *every* system.

- The only fix that makes sense, is to find and act on the primary cause.

Cause, and effect. Is that simple. You don't fix a problem by hunting at the effect. You find and fix the cause.

[Ankh]

Exactly, cause and effect. I had no issues, installed GSX Level 2 and now I have issues. I am not asking for a fix, I simply hope that in the other thread(s) dealing with such issues, users will provide possible solutions addressing primary or secondary root causes that might also work for me (like the shaders thing). And I am pretty sure that you will or you already have checked if GSX might have any impact, that's sufficient to me.

Could you say something on the question regarding rendering of passengers in a jetway with solid walls where anyway no one can see them? Or is it impossible to distinguish the jetways in a way that the passengers are only rendered when jetways with glass are used?

[virtuali]

Exactly, cause and effect.

Exactly. GSX is the effect, the causes are others. There's several possible explanations for what they might be on the other thread about this.

I simply hope that in the other thread(s) dealing with such issues, users will provide possible solutions addressing primary or secondary root causes that might also work for me (like the shaders thing)

That's exactly what happened. A couple of users reported fixing this through recreating the shader cache and the sceneryindexes.

And I am pretty sure that you will or you already have checked if GSX might have any impact, that's sufficient to me.

Yes, of course we are, and I posted the results of my tests in video form. We cannot obviously test *each* user system but, we had more than a dozen of Beta testers, and none of them had any issues. Just like most of users don't. We had many thousands downloads in just 24 hours, if the problem was widespread, we would have been flooded by complains by now so, clearly, there must be some other common factor or issue that cause this.

Could you say something on the question regarding rendering of passengers in a jetway with solid walls where anyway no one can see them? Or is it impossible to distinguish the jetways in a way that the passengers are only rendered when jetways with glass are used?

I'm not sure disabling them in such cases might be the best choices. Some users might want to exit from the plane using some kind of camera tool (like Chaseplane or Ezdok camera) and enter INTO the jetway to see them, make screenshots, do a video, etc.

And, some jetways are hybrid, with a solid jetway and a glassed bridge, so it would become quite complex to handle fairly quickly, with no so much fps benefit.

[Ankh]

Ok, I understand this. Perfect, lets hope I get my issues fixed with the shaders thingy, then I am up and away configuring LSZH with the new jetways etc. Thanks for the support,

Regards
Chris