Better WideView Performance Tip

[tomcat78]

After spending many weeks tinkering with the WideView software for FSX, i found that no matter what i tried, i could never seem to achieve the same glass smoothness on my 2 client PCs (View left 45 degrees, View right 45 degrees), as i could on my server (Center view).
When using WideView, you soon learn that the Performance of this software depends on the trade off between the buffer size, and update rate. The bigger the buffer, the longer the delay of the clients response, giving out-of-sync results, but the clients run smoother. The smaller the buffer size, the shorter the delay(better sync), but stutters galore on both clients. No matter what i tried i could not get a desirable balance.
One day i noticed the left client was running as smooth as the server and i wondered why? It turned out that flight sim, on that client, had been paused accidentally. I have learned that if you pause FSX on all the client PCs running Wideview, The performance becomes equal to, if not better than, the Server PC (depending on hardware Specs, and "Lock frame to sync" setting in WideView). Everything still moves (you wouldn't expect it to paused).
It allows you to make your visual buffer very small, without impacting on all the client's smoothness. Only drawbacks seem to be that cars and rain don't move.
Hope this helps someone, and later i might post my current settings. Regards;

TOMCAT

[Peter Dowson]

I have learned that if you pause FSX on all the client PCs running Wideview, The performance becomes equal to, if not better than, the Server PC (depending on hardware Specs, and "Lock frame to sync" setting in WideView). Everything still moves (you wouldn't expect it to paused).

Yes. This is because the continuous aircraft positioning being done by WidevieW is then no longer fighting with the simulation engine in FS. Pausing stops the simulation, but, as when you use "go to airport" or load a new flight, it does not stop the aircraft being forcibly re-positioned.

Slew mode is also an alternative way of doing the same sort of thing. In FS9 and before the only way to forcibly re-position an aircraft with any chance of smoothness was in paused or slew mode. Whilst FSX's SimConnect specifically allowed "on-the-fly" position settings it is still not possible for an external agency to supply new positions faster than the internal Sim computations can produce them -- switching the latter off is the only answer.

I'm actually surprised that WidevieW doesn't set the pause or slew mode itself.

Regards
Pete

[tomcat78]

Cheers for the explanation Pete!
So would Widetraffic be able to sync traffic across all views, if the clients remain paused?
Is there a way of getting the cars and rain to move, whilst the clients remain paused?
Regards

TOMCAT

[Peter Dowson]

So would Widetraffic be able to sync traffic across all views, if the clients remain paused?

I don't know. If it provides traffic by controlling all their positions dynamically, as I suppose it must, then yes -- it would be the same as moving the user aircraft.

Is there a way of getting the cars and rain to move, whilst the clients remain paused?

That sounds most unlikely.

Regards
Pete

[lucianon]

I'm actually surprised that WidevieW doesn't set the pause or slew mode itself.

Hi Pete!

WidevieW uses Simconnect FREEZE event to block user's aircraft, preventing it from fighting with FSX flying engine. WV versions before 3.0 were using SLEW instead (which was activated automatically at startup), but now no SLEW nor PAUSE mode is necessary. This ensures that all the FSX features run as expected, exactly as while you fly.

@tomcat78
When PAUSE is active, some FSX features do not run anymore (moving clouds, special effects, rain, elapsing time, moving sun, most animations) making FSX obviously faster, as it have to do less things (although there is any significant difference in every system I've tested at my home & office, so I would investigate better about possible problems affecting local FSX setup). In any case, if if you feel better in PAUSE mode, knowing the limitations, just feel free to use it. Widetraffic MAY work in PAUSE mode, as long as Widetraffic's option "All the aircrafts are always handled as intelligent shapes" is NOT activated.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Luciano.

[Peter Dowson]

WidevieW uses Simconnect FREEZE event to block user's aircraft, preventing it from fighting with FSX flying engine. WV versions before 3.0 were using SLEW instead (which was activated automatically at startup), but now no SLEW nor PAUSE mode is necessary. This ensures that all the FSX features run as expected, exactly as while you fly.

Ah! Right -- never thought of that. Good idea!

Thanks Luciano!

Pete

[tomcat78]

Hi Luciano,
You have realy thrown a spanner in my works now . Im confused because my two client PCs are able to run FSX fine when WidevieW is switched off. As soon as i turn on WidevieW i get stutters on both clients (the server is fine). This led me to believe that that it had to be something to do with information exchange over the LAN. I had a theory that the client PCs do not need to pull as much information over the LAN when they remain paused, and had nothing to do with local processing of FSX on the clients (because they run fine without WidevieW). This was only my theory based on my experience. I hadnt noticed any drawbacks in pausing; the sun and clouds still seem to stay in sync on both server and clients (if you enable update time and weather from the server, in the WidevieW settings). The server and my 2 client PCs have identical hardware specs. (I7s Overclocked to 4ghz).
I would very much like to hear from anyone who has experienced the same problem as me, and has been able to fix it, without pausing, because i do like my rain and cars to move. Maybe even post the setting that worked for you.

Regards

Tomcat

[tomcat78]

Im very curious now about this simconnect FREEZE, and why i get better results when i pause. If the stutters are caused by local processing, then what is having a detrimental effect on my smoothness when WidevieW is active? As has already been stated, WidevieW has solved the problem of fighting with the FSX engine. If my systems can obviously cope with FSX processing, then there must be something else causing the stutters, that ceases when i pause FSX. Something immune from simconnect FREEZE.

Thanks Luciano and Pete for your insight.

Regards

Tomcat

[tomcat78]

Just an update.
I decided to add a 32 bit machine into my sim, and use this as the server/controller (for greater hardware compatability).
Now i am using the 3 64 bit machines as clients, for scenery and panels.
After re configuring the wideview settings to match the hardware change, i end up with the same outcome.
I just cant seem to find settings that give the clients any desirable performance, without pausing them

Regards

Tomcat

[BeaconOne]

Hi,

It’s been a while since Tomcats last post on this thread and he might have solved his problems ages ago, however, I’m new here and have been playing around with Wideview only for some weeks and experienced same/similar problems as described in the opening post of this thread. I hope you people don’t mind it’s brought up.

I would like to add, that during testing and troubleshooting I made an observation that got my attention for a moment. As it is recommended, I had FSX running in windowed mode during configuration. When the FSX-window was set unactive (by clicking the desktop) it ran smooth. This might have something to do with what Luciano explains earlier in this thread but, actually, it doesn’t concern me anymore because now the system is running smooth.

The setup at the moment is an E8500 with Win XP Pro (32) running as server and an i7-950 with Win 7 Pro x64 as client. There is also a Matrox TripleHead2Go connected to the client.

After some troubleshooting I had found that the server was sending a decent amount of packages but only a fraction of them was received by the client. I installed a NIC (RTL8139D) in the client and connected it directly to the server network interface with a proper cable. To achieve this I had to remove the sound card that I had installed in the client machine when assembled. (I’ve never liked integrated audio solutions and prefer a sound card.) This was necessary due to lack of space (PCI-slots available) on the motherboard (Asus P6X58D-E). After these actions the system started to perform and I felt really stupid when I realized that I had not been running the latest drivers from Marvell for the mobo-integrated NIC. I decided to try one more go with the integrated NIC (with latest drivers!) and removed the RTL8139D. Note that at this point the sound card was still left outside. I got acceptable performance with this setup too. I thought the problem was the outdated Marvell drivers. It was, but that’s not all… I installed the sound card back and – surprise – performance dropped! Okay, the sound card had to go, period. I enabled the mobo onboard sound and again – performance dropped. Since the client don’t need sound in this FSX setup I disabled it. The disadvantage is of course that the lack of a sound device limits the computers use for other purposes.

This reminded me of a “battle” several years ago with an unstable PC. I can’t remember exactly but it had something to do with conflicting IRQ’s. Maybe this was (is?) something similar?

The conclusion is that the problems experienced here had nothing to do with Wideview but most certainly were (or are) related to OS and/or hardware. This could of course be discussed but as many of us know, hardware related (also OS) compatibility issues are not uncommon. These issues might remain hidden for most PC-users but pop up when a (time)critical software like Wideview is used. My tip to all wv-users is: Do not overlook your hardware when setting up a system and throw away or disable everything that you don’t need.

Now that I got performance I could not resist pushing it a little further and connected both PC’s to my LAN and even left the firewall/anti-virus software (F-Secure) running. Surprisingly I still got acceptable performance and thanks to the intelligence in Wideview my system runs smoothly despite the server can’t produce nearly as many FPS as the client is capable of. It remains to be seen what happens when I add Ultimate Traffic to the setup.


Regards,
Henri