Is my computer too slow for AfV? - Lagging sound

[Markus Kindlund 887195]

Hi!

 

I've been experiencing lagging sound when observing on Euroscope with AfV. Sometimes it sounds smooth, but most of the time the sound I hear on the ATC channels is slightly chopped up, and if I just pan around in Euroscope or scroll up and down in my web browser the sound starts lagging more. If I really push it and open up several more demaning tasks on the computer the sound from AfV gets totally unreadable and the client eventually crashes. My internet connection is solid and all my other programs and media - even some older fps games - run very reliably on my computer, which is a 4 year old ASUS zenbook with a quadcore 1,5 ghz processor, 8 gb RAM, 64-bit windows 10 and integrated realtek sound (which I'm only going to use for controlling with the new audio using an external monitor - obviously not for flight simming). I've tried reinstalling AfV and updating my sound drivers, without any improvement.

 

Any ideas?

[Gary Oliver]

Try using task manager > details > Process Priority and setting Audio for VATSIM to 'High'.

[Markus Kindlund 887195]

Try using task manager > details > Process Priority and setting Audio for VATSIM to 'High'.

 

Tried that but it didn't make a difference =/

[Nestor Perez]

Hi Markus, am I right to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume that your CPU usage is quite high when this happens?

[Markus Kindlund 887195]

Hi Markus, am I right to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume that your CPU usage is quite high when this happens?

 

Yes. It seems like if I connect to an ATC channel covering a large area or several channels at once and the transceiver count goes up, the CPU usage goes up and the sound starts breaking up more and more. Do I need a new computer?

 

UPDATE: CPU usage doesn't go down again if I reduce the amount of channels I'm connected to, reducing the tranceiver count. It stays around 35% or more for AfV alone, sometimes jumping to 70-90% for no apparent reason even when I'm on a CTR channel with only one pilot and one ATC connected.

[Andrew Doubleday]

I'm having similar issues working Minneapolis Center on vERAM and streaming via streamlabs-obs to twitch.

 

Brand new MSI GL73 laptop. i7-9th gen processor, GTI1660TI, 16 gigs of ram, etc- I'm not easily convinced that computer specs are the issue at hand with this type of issue. I'm not noticing a hugely significant increase in CPU/GPU usage while this is occurring either.

 

Working Minneapolis Center requires 56 transmitter locations with AFV (as of now) in order to effectively work top-down and hear everyone that you need to around the airspace. I seem to do fine up until around 2-3 hours into working traffic/streaming and then the audio starts to get choppy, everything lags up moving around on maps, traffic basically becomes un-workable unless I restart everything. I'm still troubleshooting and trying to pinpoint exactly the cause of the issue, but more and more signs are pointing to the AFV client causing the issues.

 

What's funny is it only surfaces when I zoom down to higher-detailed, low altitude map views working traffic in approach control airspace, for example... When I swap back to a simpler map view (high altitude maps, less detail), the problem will temporarily alleviate and the audio quality returns more to normal, but will quickly garble up again when moving back to lower altitude, more detailed map views... So this makes working traffic top-down fairly challenging.

 

Just wanted to provide some insight into this as it's unresolved at this stage, but starting to think something with AFV is causing the trouble, particularly while making use of a vast amount of transmitter locations. I'll try to regularly visit this with updates as I discover more information...

[Philipp Edlich]

I have these problems as well, my laptop can't handle more than EuroScope, AfV and TeamSpeak (Coordination) together. I tried several browsers, but I cannot open a single chart when providing ATC. Trying to get an overview via QuteScoop is also not possible. And yes, it is always CPU load and not my internet connection like I initially thought.

[Nestor Perez]

@Andrew Yes, AFV may be the program causing it, but "it" is a CPU bottleneck. As could probably be expected, the more transceivers a client uses the higher the CPU load will be. It has already been optimized quite a bit since the first version (back before release most clients struggled with 15-20 transceivers), but 50 transceivers is just excessive imo.

 

I'll bring it over to the Facility Engineers chat for further discussion.

 

The fact that it happens while streaming also proves my point, as streaming software is generally CPU-hungry.

[Andrew Doubleday]

I've ran about 5 streams since these issues (also upgraded to the new client on the 1st) and it's gone away completely. No issues to report as of now anymore. Not sure if it was a combination of changing priority of AFV in the Task Manager, adjusting some cooling settings on my fans and the new updates to the client... These all probably contributed a bit, but all seems fairly well now.