Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Anybody else on group flight having trouble?

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Anybody else on group flight having trouble?

DVA1427
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on December 14 2003
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
Tri-Jet Triumph
Globetrotter
Moose Club
US Capital Club
Everett 250 Club
Quincentenary Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary

"Livin' in the Dog Pound!"
Kannapolis, NC

558 legs, 1,984.3 hours
250 legs, 611.8 hours online
384 legs, 1,530.5 hours ACARS
38 legs, 82.7 hours event

Posted onPost created on April 24 2004 10:21 ET by Lewis Gregory

My Roger Wilco is trashed and unusable, I'm only getting about 1/3 to 1/2 of what gets sent. I lost everybody off TCAS once already and had to drop and reconnect to USA-SE (was on USA-S3) and drop and reestablish the multiplayer session. I've never seen this before, my cable modem's not showing any unusual activity. I sure hope it clears up before Denver...

Lewis Gregory

Senior Captain, MD-11

Posted onPost created on April 24 2004 10:46 ET by Lewis Gregory

Weird. My connect just throttled down to nothing and I got dumped, unplugged and replugged the cable modem and it worked fine again. Shrug.

Lewis Gregory

Senior Captain, MD-11

DVA1582
Captain, B737-800

Joined on March 03 2004

Arcadia, IN USA

48 legs, 165.1 hours
47 legs, 161.4 hours online
5 legs, 16.7 hours ACARS
4 legs, 10.8 hours event

Posted onPost created on April 26 2004 05:22 ET by Robert Isabell

Say there Lewis,
I thought that I was the only one that had experienced the same thing. I was just cruising along fine until I got in the DEN Center airspace when the unexpected happened to me. Some how I was disconnected from the VATSIM net. I reconnected, but something was wrong, becaused right after that I had just got my handoff to APP when all of sudden everything just stop, I mean just stop. I was about to disconnect from net and chaulk it up as a hung program and start to investigate the situation when ATC came back through text and told me that "Sir you seemed to be pause" now that was really wierd, because I didn't pause it. In real life aircraft at an ALT of 9000ft just don't stop in mid air, exspecially on final APP to landing.

Robert Isabell (DVA1582)

DVA1582
Captain, B737-800

Joined on March 03 2004

Arcadia, IN USA

48 legs, 165.1 hours
47 legs, 161.4 hours online
5 legs, 16.7 hours ACARS
4 legs, 10.8 hours event

Posted onPost created on April 26 2004 05:27 ET by Robert Isabell

Oh, by the way, I'm one of DVA's rookies that enjoyed every second of the group flight even though I kno that I have to practice and practice and practice to get better.

Robert Isabell (DVA1582)

DVA057
Senior Captain, B777-200
COMM

Joined on June 02 2002
Events Century Club
Six Century Club
Online Quintuple Century Club
Everett 500 Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary

"We Are ... Penn State!"
Atlanta, GA USA

672 legs, 1,338.4 hours
531 legs, 1,076.4 hours online
392 legs, 786.1 hours ACARS
190 legs, 406.3 hours event

Posted onPost created on April 26 2004 07:17 ET by Terry Eshenour

Robert,

Delighted that you enjoyed the big group flight Saturday. Your PC performance issues were probably related to VATSIM server lag and/or an overload on your PC's resources. Group flights particularly when large numbers of aircraft are in the radius of your multiplayer range can affect frame rates causing stuttering. Many of us, veterens and rookies, experienced performance problems Saturday.

When you step back and think about the number of complex applications that have to work perfectly for inflight experience, it is a miracle that it ever works. I feel it is remarkable what we can do.

There are a variety of factors that influence performance including PC capabilities, video card se-up, video drivers, video card control or application control, FS version (FS9 can be more demanding), aircraft panel, add-ons, and others.

I too experienced for the first time performance issues that were not resolved in flight. I put the blame on video driver upgrade that initially showed a 25% improvement in framerates. Afterwards I discovered that the drivers weren't tweaked for performance. Also learned that if you use FSNav's multiplayer that it can affect performance particularly at congested airports. Adviced given by David Schaum is to not activate FSNav multiplayer in the terminal area.

Another performance enhancer is to "off-load" add-on applications (ServInfo is a resource hog when crunching data updates) to a networked PC using WideFS. Tip #2 is reboot your PC and limit the number of background applications. This is particularly important if you are running WIN95 or WIN98.

Take your time and work through changes one at a time as you attempt to tweak your system for max. performance. Most of us never stop trying for ultimate performance. It is the nature of the hobby.

Sorry for the long winded explanation.

Terry Eshenour

Senior Captain, B777-200

DVA237
Senior Captain, MD-11

Joined on January 18 2004
Century Club
Online Century Club

New York, NY USA

181 legs, 323.2 hours
177 legs, 318.5 hours online
34 legs, 65.9 hours event

Posted onPost created on April 26 2004 10:26 ET by Mike Sweeney

Snap, I had problems on Saturday too and I think Terry's explanation has helped me understand what happened. In my case, I think it's pc resources which are unable to cope with large amounts of multiplayer traffic. Although the CVG-DEN flight went ok for me, I suspect this was because I was at the front of the pack and CVG was not very congested when I was the first of the DVA arrivals.

On the follow-up flight from DEN-LAX, I was not as lucky. All was fine until on final runway 24R at LAX. A friend on the ground at LAX had warned me to reduce the multiplayer range in SB because LAX was FULL of aircraft. I set the multiplayer range down to 5nm but on final, frame rates slugged to a stop and then the entire computer froze on 4nm final. The only thing I could do to ensure a disconnect from vatsim was remove the cable to the internet and shutdown.

Terry, thanks for your explanation of all the possible variables which can cause the problem and a few tips on how to resolve them next time.

Mike
DVA237

"The trouble with jogging is the ice falls out of your glass."

Mike Sweeney

Senior Captain, MD-11

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