X-Plane 10: Proyecto XPFW AI Aircraft

The X-Plane Freeware Project’s AI ACF Series

With the release of XP10 our simulated world literally changed around us, but we now face a big trifecta of framerate hits: 1st: AI , 2nd: HDR lighting and 3rd: A.I. aircraft in an AI ATC environment.

-Regarding , if you dial it back to somewhat to around 20% to 30% of – in Austin speak – “Little Cloud puffs” then the SIM will work a little smoother; with HDR rendering, it is an “on or off” proposition… so we can run Ben’s global lighting or we can’t, and in the end that really depends on the power of your computer. Laminar’s fine tuning of future releases of XP10, to get better framerates from this very important feature of the simulator, will prove crucial over coming months.

-The 3rd major framerate killer is found in A.I. Aircraft, and this was clearly shown very early in the beta program when Austin noted that you could run 20 or more A.I. Aircraft in XP10 because it now, unlike XP9, used the separate cores of your graphic chips to render the individual aircraft files to make the system more efficient. To a point it works, but it still dragged framerates downwards because we now have even less framerate space to spare than we had in the first place! So in reality, unless you have a powerful multi core machine, you are really in back in the same position you were in XP9.

But this is X-Plane, and in our community we don’t have people that just accept the status quo; no, we have a community of brilliant people that can think outside the box. “Lateral Thinking” is the phrase that comes to mind here, the process of looking at a problem and getting to a radical solution, simple in theory but outstanding in practise.

Morten from XPFW (X-Plane Freeware Project) thought of the idea of stripping some of their aircraft files of all things needed to fly them while leaving all the important things that the XP10 A.I. system needs for use as simple A.I. Aircraft files. The results are very small files that fly perfectly in XP10′s A.I. environment and do everything we want an A.I. Aircraft to do, but do it now with a very, very small framerate hit.

A standard XPFW Boeing 747-400 is noted as 48.6mb in size and the framerate hit is usually around 2 – 5 frames per second (FPS); multiply a few of those standard B744’s and your quickly running at zero FPS. Now with Morten’s reconfigured A.I. version, these kick in at 6.3mb per A.I. aircraft so you can run eight of Morten B744’s for the “price” of one standard version, and the result is…..simply amazing.

In fact, I set up nine A.I. Aircraft files in the Aircraft and Situations menu and I had a framerate of maybe 2FPS, sometimes I couldn’t even see any loss at all, but the effect is overwhelming.

Come into XP10 with this system running and with radios tuned to GND (Ground) or TWR (Tower) and your headphones are suddenly filled with ATC chatter and commands, followed by a procession of departing aircraft marching right by you, and aircraft are landing all around you as well, and even with all this activity going on your FPS doesn’t even flicker, so if you have a medium to fast graphic chip and plenty of framerate to spare then 20 A.I. Aircraft should be easily possible! Think about it!
So if this is the potential, now ask the question: if these file are so small, could the default of 20 A.I. aircraft be increased? Well, only one person can answer that, and perhaps this will be addressed by Austin one day soon.
But I did note a few things that you need to be aware of. By adding this many files to your Aircraft folder, you are going to create a daunting matrix of files, and naming and choosing these AI ACF could rapidly become a confusing mess.
Personally I think such files should have a designation of say “AI” in the file, like “AI Boeing 747-400 Qantas”, so you know you are using a A.I. File, and also, it might make more sense if they were stored in a separate AI aircraft folder?
Second, a tip: If you use a certain geographical airport like Bangkok, then you need a lot of “Thai” B744’s and not many United livered aircraft, so what I did was find the file you need in your aircraft folder, like “B747-400 Thai”, and duplicate the file, then rename it “AI B747-400 Thai aft 2” and then duplicate again and name it “AI B747-400 Thai aft 3”, and then load them all into your A.I. “Aircraft and Situations menu”. This way you can have a fleet of “Thai” liveried aircraft running around Bangkok Airport instead of inappropriate liveried ACF. This pre-sorting also makes it easier to work out where you’ll need your AI ACF, and again, could they be put into separate folders?

At this date in time Morten has released the Boeing 747- 400, Boeing 727-200 and Airbus 319 in this AI form, and he noted that all XPFW aircraft will be converted, which is simply great . The thought of dozens of Boeing 757’s taxiing around is very juicy indeed, but what of the future?

Again a few questions come to mind:
First, should any newly released payware or freeware ACF come with an A.I. version included, and second, what about our eternal favorites like the x737 and QPAC A320? Will their creators spend the time necessary to convert these files? I mean, with no B737’s and A320’s around the traps, this would simply not work out well in this busy new XP10 landscape!

So, with the simple genius of an idea, Morten has allowed us to use our A.I. System to the maximum, instead of the minimum, and the resulting environment creates an amazing world all around… you just as Austin promised. Yet now we will have too raise our own game to match this newfound complexity. It is now a very noisy, complex, fast moving environment around us, and you will need to be alert and know where you are going and what you have to do at all times, if not you can be crushed by a Boeing 747-400 heading out to a runway or simply have one land on you.

Another small tip, it is a great idea to have a peek at the local map around your airport as it gives you the traffic patterns to follow, and this will help you avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you can use it as a guide to approach and departure. In time the AI ATC will expand to use real world SID (Standard Instrument Departure) and STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Routes) as part of the system, but for now using the local map gives you a visual guide of how to interact with the ATC and the Aircraft around you.

We will go into the ATC system in the near future, but for now, and with a big thanks to Morten and the crew at the XPFWProject, I can only think of one thing now to do with all those big B744’s at your favorite airport:

Links to files mentioned in this review:

B717: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15443

B727: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15401

B737 Classic: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15418

B737-800: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15508

B747-400: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15388

B757: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15474

B767: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15429

B777: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15411

B787-8: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15602

A319: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15406

A320: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15426

A380: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=15543

That’s about all we’ve got ready for today, but already the files are piling up! We’ll have a look at XPFR’s LFPO Paris Orly courtesy of scenery guru Robert Arts up for you next, some other new and revised files from XPFR, as well as the latest from the Org, so stay warm, fly safe, and have some fun. That means no slipping on a hard tile floor and breaking your wrist, too. One this week was enough, right jiggy?

Y’all be good, and we’ll seeya soon. C&S

http://xplane10.wordpress.com/

P.D..: Es absoutamente CRIMINAL PARA LOS OJOS (en mi monitor simplemente veo una columana de texto que ocupa 1/3 del ancho de mi pantalla...¿y los otros 2/3, que?) leer este texto en el blog de donde procede... hace tiempo que apenas soy capaz (por el hartazgo de tan mala organización) de leerles un texto completo por muy interesante que sea.

P.D.2: actualización de packs AI

P.D.3:

Citar

A new way of writting is possible... or not?

Simon Chipsim xp10reviews@rocketmail.com

I agree! We've been looking at new formats for a few weeks and are about to make a change...for the better we hope! C

Parece que algo van a hacer... por el bien de nuestros ojos!!!