FearlessTower
11-05-2003, 03:28 PM
Well, I was one of those simmers who didn't feel like waiting for UT to be upgraded and went ahead and downloaded MyTraffic. Now that the UT upgrade has been released and I happened to have $30 burning a hole in my pocket I went ahead and downloaded UT for FS9. For those that are still riding the fence over which to buy, I thought I'd share my initial observations on both.
Both packages offer large amounts of AI traffic including GA and Commercial aircraft. Ultimate Traffic is based on real world schedules while MyTraffic is just a collection of AI flights not meant to represent actuall airline schedules. Basically I would have to say that the biggest difference between the two is the level of detail.....and here we get into tradeoffs! The AI aircraft models and textures that come with MyTraffic are far less detailed than the FS9 default aircraft or Ultimate Traffic planes. In a few cases they are almost FS98-like in apearance. From a distance you won't notice the difference as much, but taxiing around the terminals you will notice it. On a positive side, this means that there the AI aircraft have much less of an effect on framerates. With my AI traffic slider set to about 70 percent, I was getting better framerates than with the default FS9 traffic.
I would have to say that Ultimate Traffic is much more demanding on CPU resources, but that is a result of the much greater detail in the AI aircraft models and textures. While not quite as detailed as most flyable aircraft models, the UT aircraft look much more realistic, especially when taxiing around the terminals. The down side is that this does impact performance. With UT and my AI traffic slider at 70 percent, I get about the same framerates, possible a frame or two less in perfomance than I did with FS9 default traffic. However, I get at least twice as much AI traffic at large airports than with the default FS9 AI using the same setting.
Bottom line is that to really appreciate UT, you probably need a relatively powerful system. I would guess that if you have less than a 2 GHZ CPU, you will probably get more bang for your buck with MyTraffic. Personally, I am running a 3.2 GHZ PIV and I prefer the great level of detail that UT has to offer compared to the better performance of MyTraffic. It did take much longer to download/setup, but overall I am very pleased with Ultimate Traffic, although MyTraffic is a great product in its own right.
I won't go into the other features that UT has to offer, since I haven't had time to play with them, but wanted to put out some intial impressions to help any one out there still trying to decide. If anyone is using UT with a slowere computer and still getting good performance, feel free to correct me. Hope this helps.
Andrew
Both packages offer large amounts of AI traffic including GA and Commercial aircraft. Ultimate Traffic is based on real world schedules while MyTraffic is just a collection of AI flights not meant to represent actuall airline schedules. Basically I would have to say that the biggest difference between the two is the level of detail.....and here we get into tradeoffs! The AI aircraft models and textures that come with MyTraffic are far less detailed than the FS9 default aircraft or Ultimate Traffic planes. In a few cases they are almost FS98-like in apearance. From a distance you won't notice the difference as much, but taxiing around the terminals you will notice it. On a positive side, this means that there the AI aircraft have much less of an effect on framerates. With my AI traffic slider set to about 70 percent, I was getting better framerates than with the default FS9 traffic.
I would have to say that Ultimate Traffic is much more demanding on CPU resources, but that is a result of the much greater detail in the AI aircraft models and textures. While not quite as detailed as most flyable aircraft models, the UT aircraft look much more realistic, especially when taxiing around the terminals. The down side is that this does impact performance. With UT and my AI traffic slider at 70 percent, I get about the same framerates, possible a frame or two less in perfomance than I did with FS9 default traffic. However, I get at least twice as much AI traffic at large airports than with the default FS9 AI using the same setting.
Bottom line is that to really appreciate UT, you probably need a relatively powerful system. I would guess that if you have less than a 2 GHZ CPU, you will probably get more bang for your buck with MyTraffic. Personally, I am running a 3.2 GHZ PIV and I prefer the great level of detail that UT has to offer compared to the better performance of MyTraffic. It did take much longer to download/setup, but overall I am very pleased with Ultimate Traffic, although MyTraffic is a great product in its own right.
I won't go into the other features that UT has to offer, since I haven't had time to play with them, but wanted to put out some intial impressions to help any one out there still trying to decide. If anyone is using UT with a slowere computer and still getting good performance, feel free to correct me. Hope this helps.
Andrew