Just a heads up on UTX and FSX performance/stutter

[NickN]

This is just a reminder....

3 issues I have posted about in the past with UTX which can cause problems and users may not be aware


1. Night Lighting - Any Night Lighting from UTX will hit a system hard. The USA/CANADA versions are different than the EU version in that night lighting enabled in the USCAN products will affect load times and perf all day long where in EU it only affects the sim at night.

For a balance of perf and getting the light FX with a decent system and running GEX, then ENABLE the INTERSECTION lighting in the USA and CANADA tool but DISABLE the main road lighting.

That will STILL hit perf but not as bad.

YMMV on that so completely disable all night lighting for best perf results.

Other features which hit the system are road encasements and traffic which leads to my next heads up...



2. UTX Traffic AFTER the 1.3 UTX USA Patch - There was a major change to UTX car traffic in the 1.3 patch for USA. With that patch car traffic is CHANGED and NO LONGER 100% CONTROLED by the car slider. A 15% slider can equate to 30-40% car traffic as compared to UTX versions before that 1.3 patch. It adds traffic to side streets as well as highways.

The only way to completely offload the footprint UTX car traffic has after the 1.3 patch is to DISABLE MOVING TRAFFIC in the UTX configuration tool directly under the ROAD SURFACES heading.

Those on slower systems should do this. Even my better systems are not set to run more than 8% car traffic in FSX after the 1.3 patch.

Setting the FSX car slider to ZERO will not remove the load of cars on FSX with UTX 1.3 running.


3. UTX WAVE controller - There are some versions of UTX which have a BUG in the terrain config file for lake and ocean WAVES. What happens is if the user sets wave action to NONE UTX leaves the entry in the terrain.cfg file as:

Effect=

with no file call. The entry without a file call will produce a SHARP drop in performance when you enter a scene where the wave animation would normally play. In order to circumvent this and you do not want the wave animation you can verify your terrain config to see if the issue is present...

Browse to: Flight Simulator X and right click the terrain.cfg file and open in NOTEPAD. From the top menu EDIT - FIND

in the box that appears type

Effect=

Set the bullet for DOWN and click NEXT.

Continue to click NEXT and observe the HIGHLIGHTED entry as it continues down the list

Each Effect= entry should have EITHER:

Effect=wavecontroller

Effect=lakewavecontroller

assigned to it

IF you find ANY entries that do not have a controller assigned you have one of 2 choices

1. Open the UTX tool and under the CHANGE FS9 WAVE STYLE/EFFECTS settings make sure there is nothing set to NONE

That will of course turn on waves which can present animation in places you do not wish to see it.

or, if you do NOT want waves showing use method 2

2. Simply delete the line: Effect= from the terrain.cfg and continue down the list to verify all Effect= entries have a controller assigned

repeat the delete to clean out any entries that do not appear with a controller


I do think the wave issue was corrected with the latest UTX patches however do be aware of it and verify your terrain.cfg just to be sure.

Once done, click SAVE to retain the changes made to the terrain.cfg file.