DAFSIM initial troubleshooting

[Karl]

7 of us evaluated DAFSIM under a load last evening and encountered performance issues. I believe that we might be able to solve these. This thread should serve as a place place notes and ideas for the troubleshooting process.

Some of the issues observed were:

• Stuttering
• Other users' aircraft rapidly blinking in and out of view.
• Jittery movement of some or all of other aircraft seen
• Significant periodic reduction in frame rates.

I sent the following to Ben at DAFSIM a short time ago.

_________________________________________

Hello Ben,

2 weeks ago I registered with the forums and received an initial confirmation but nothing further. The forum user name is "karlh" (see the attachment for a copy). Would you complete the registration authentication process for me please?

The reason I wish to look at the forums is that we encountered some issues last night when we connected 7 of our members to DAFSIM. I have a pretty strong system. I took off as the last of the 7 pilots and immediately experienced stutters. Stutters that I haven't seen on the system that I use. Over the next hour or two we saw other users' aircraft flickering and moving in jittery manners. We saw significant reductions in frame rates at different times.

I flew with 5 other pilots from Germany earlier this week while connected to FSVintageAir's system. I've also spent an hour or so with FSVintageAir on a group flight last weekend. I heard no discussion of these types of performance issues nor did I see any myself. Our diagnostics last night involved trying three different strong PC's each with very stable high speed internet connections. We also tried changing the upload speed limits.

Our plan to resolve our questions is to communicate with the other groups, view the forums, and of course get your views of the issues.

This is a significant issue for us. Throughout the year we average 4-5 group flights every week. The average number of pilots in the group is perhaps 20 with some of the flights having closer to 40. The video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw0NEUaoLzc will give an idea how our flights and activities differ from what typical groups do. A slightly more entertaining example can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lv3gyvAI4s.

I appreciate your assistance.
Karl

___________________________________

[Captain Duke]

Hi Karl,

Later in the evening, 3 of us flew at the same airport. I'm sorry I don't remember who, I'm to new to recognize others yet. We saw that when all 3 of us were in the air, there was no flickering and no reduction in performance. As soon as one of us was on the ground, we had issues. We were on the vintage server.

If you need it, my system is a Clevo P770ZM laptop with a 4790K desktop CPU @4.2GHz, 980M gpu, 16GB ram, running on a Samsung 951 m.2 SSD.

[Karl]

I've receive the following response from Ben:
__________________________________________________ _________-
Hi Karl,

• Regarding your registration to the forum, it has been discarded due to the word "vendor", so just apply again and I'll accept it.
• The flickering you are experiencing is a bug that I have created when I tried to fix the latency.
  It is not a question of strong PC, nor high bandwidth internet connection, we ca stick with a very basic PC and a classical simple ADSL connection, that is still enough.
  What happens is that the algorithm of latency compensation will draw the AI planes in an advance position (by extrapolation). This is perfect to fix the latency problem, however, when a plane is about to land, the algorithm draws it ahead his real position, this leads in a plane drawn "below the ground level" and this moment, the simulator starts blocking because simconnect does generate a lot of error messages.
  
  I can fix this quickly of course, but I started a major change in the software and I must wait to finalize it to release a new version, that's why it may take a few weeks.
  
  So please, bear with me as I am doing my best, real life is very time demanding.
  If you need to talk about it, you know my Skype.

Stay tuned on www.dafsim.com to get the latest news.
Regards,
Ben

[Storm]

Karl, I am super-impressed with that response. This definitely looks like something we should have patience with and persevere with. :eagerness:

[Karl]

Karl, I am super-impressed with that response. This definitely looks like something we should have patience with and persevere with. :eagerness:

I agree. I was surprised by last night's issues but not alarmed. Perhaps this is because I've had a couple of more successful forays with other groups in the past week as opposed to last night being my first experience with DAFSIM. His concise and quick response helps to reassure my positive outlook for our use of DAFSIM.

[Karl]

Some users experienced "Out of Memory" crashes. I found this on the DAFSIM forum ( http://www.dafsim.com/forum/index.php?topic=840.0 )

______________________________
Hello,

for those who experience "out of memory" errors with some addon aircraft since the last update, here's a quick workaround:

Find the FSX.CFG and change as follows
[SIM]
OPTIMIZE_PARTS=0 to OPTIMIZE_PARTS=1 or add OPTIMIZE_PARTS=1

Always do a file backup before making any changes.

Good luck, have fun!
Carsten

_______________________________



I also found these threads in line with issues that we saw. Additionally they provide some insight into Ben's temperament and willingness to further the development of DAFSIM.

http://www.dafsim.com/forum/index.php?topic=834.0 [relates to port forwarding]
http://www.dafsim.com/forum/index.php?topic=858.0 [relates to other users not being visible]


You can't even view the forum without registering. For those interested. I received a response to the forum registration in an hour or so.

[Travis]

Thanks Karl for both of the post's above. I also agree with Storm.

[Captain Duke]

Thanks Karl for both of the post's above. I also agree with Storm.

Agreed. Thank you everyone who is working on this.

[N404]

for those who experience "out of memory" errors with some addon aircraft since the last update, here's a quick workaround:

Find the FSX.CFG and change as follows
[SIM]
OPTIMIZE_PARTS=0 to OPTIMIZE_PARTS=1 or add OPTIMIZE_PARTS=1

For info; my CFG had OPTIMIZE_PARTS=1 and I experienced "Out of Memory" crashes ( :O )

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

Thanks to everybody who continues to work on concurrent cross-platform solutions here at msFLIGHTS.net. Much appreciation to FSVintageAir and Ben at DAFSIm also. I'll participate in this project just as soon as real life permits. Currently, however, I only have time to watch your efforts and your progress from the wings.

I have only today TeamViewered into BigBox in Henderson for a quick look at the Windows desktop. I see DAFSIM command prompt windows and DAFSIM file browser up indicating either BigBox is being used in addition to other community servers (Karl's array and Kalo's powerful laptop) or else I am looking at last night's DAFSIM server operation remnants. I also see the Windows login screen frequently requiring the Windows user password. This idling behind the Windows log in screen is unusual behavior for BigBox as a server.

BigBox could currently serve no more productive role and service to our community than a concurrency experimental and development server and it is available in whatever role the community and staff deem most valuable at any particular time. As you all know, the one DAFSIM msFLIGHTS.net server license is installed on multiple servers (a server of Karl's, Kalo's big laptop and BigBox). Only one of these servers using our one DAFSIM license can be active at a time. If expedient, I will apply to Ben for a second DAFSIM license and install a second community DAFSIM server more permanently, always on, on BigBox.

Additionally, the router ports forwarded in Henderson are a mess. Ports forwarded include ALL the recommended ports in Wingman's old port forwarding post in this forum, ALL the FSHost recommended forwarded ports forwarded to the IPv4 address for the computer that I fly on that is no longer in Henderson, the single Steam port 27014 (BigBox never hosts FSX Steam) and now the DAFSIM forwarded ports. Additionally, I turned the router firewall OFF for the FSHost test last week and never reinvoked router firewall. Advise me what you need re: BigBox computer and forwarded router ports or feel free to configure these yourself via TeamViewer and advise me what you did and why.

I have yet to wire up my client flying computer here in Seattle but I will tackle installation and configuration later today. I'm using ATPJet server (~msFlights.net~ NA Steam server) as my only currently operational household computer.

[Karl]

[QUOTE=ROBERT DUNN 2;20032]

I see DAFSIM command prompt windows and DAFSIM file browser up indicating either Big Box is being used in addition to other community servers (Karl's array and Kalo's powerful laptop) or else I am looking at last night's DAFSIM server operation remnants.

Bob, you’re sometimerz is getting the better of you or you’re doing too much. We discussed last night that the DAFSIM server would be left running until a need arose to do something else with Big Box.

I also see the Windows login screen frequently requiring the Windows user password. This idling behind the Windows log in screen is unusual behavior for BigBox as a server.

When TeamViewer disconnects it reverts to the login state that the PC was in prior to the TeamViewer connection. When I rebooted the machine, it was at the login screen when I TeamViewered in. Thus, when I disconnected it went back to that state of waiting for a login.

Big Box could currently serve no more productive role and service to our community than a concurrency experimental and development server and it is available in whatever role the community and staff deem most valuable at any particular time. As you all know, the one DAFSIM msFLIGHTS.net server license is installed on multiple servers (a server of Karl's, Kalo's big laptop and Big Box). Only one of these servers using our one DAFSIM license can be active at a time. If expedient, I will apply to Ben for a second DAFSIM license and install a second community DAFSIM server more permanently, always on, on Big Box.

At this point I don’t think that is necessary. I'm concerned that it may be an unwarranted complication as we establish a repore with Ben. In the end whatever machine is running the DAFSIM server should be accessible via TeamViewer and can be managed that way. So just as with the FSOpen paid license, we shouldn't need more than one running at any given time.