P3D+ V3.3.5.17625 (MC) - crashes, stutters and low fps

[pierrevw]

Hi guys,

We are experiencing a lot of issues with our MultiChannel setup.

We currently use 4 strong high-end computers (Intel 5960 @ +/- 4.1 GHz, NVidia 980/1080, etc.). They all run Windows 10. The first PC is running the main P3D application along with ProSim, and 3 other PCs are clients, each rendering one single HD view and connected to one single projector. The final display is a cylindrical screen where the 3 projectors shoot a 210° image.

First kind of problem: lots of crashes. It is not always the same moment/scenery/configuration so it is very difficult to identify the reason. Would be much easier if we could exactly reproduce the crash, but it seems impossible to get the same crash twice. Anyway, it seems that these crashes always occur during a major change in the scenery :
> weather update
> terrain update
> re-positioning of the plane
We notice that it is not always the same computer that first crashes, but it is always one of the clients. Sometimes it is a CTD, sometimes a "Windows stopped the application". Most of time we notice a "KERNELBASE.dll version : 10.0.10586.494" problem in Windows logs.
Also, we have to say that as soon as 1 client crashes, the 2 other clients immediately hang and it is not possible to start again without killing all P3D applications (even the server), then relauching all 4.
We see there a major problem with MC configurations: should 1 single PC crash, you need to restart all the system.
We made a lot of investigations and tests, without any success for the moment. What could we do ? Is MC stable enough, or yet a little bit in "beta testing" ?

Second problem: poor frame rate and stuttering. Our computers are strong enough to render at least 100 fps - and they can achieve this if we use P3D in standalone configs (no MultiChannel). Even with all settings to the max.
We tested a lot of settings, V-sync/no V-sync, anti-aliasing, terrain definition, autogen density, etc. Even with all cursors to minimum values, it is very bad most of time. So it is not related to the rendering itself at the individual computer level. It should be something in the global sync between the server and the clients... By the way, our LAN speed is 1 Gigabit and is fully tested.

Thanks for help and advice.

Kind flying regards,

Pierre

[ftnet305]

Dear Pierre,

I had similar problems with low framerates and which bothers me the most overall system instability with common crashes after a few minutes. Focused training is not possible that way. It is very disappointing as I got myself a nice force feedback yoke from Brunner and invested some thousands of € into 3 new computers. I was trying merely all setups without satisfying results. By now the overall time and money put into the system makes me feel bad as I have not touched the system for weeks yet still hoping for a professional solution. By the way: Using X-Plane is no better...

I have never tried a Redbird simulator but read that they use P3D as well. So it must be possible to get things run properly and even certified. It would be nice if P3D devs could give the community a hint on how these system are run / how much and what hardware they use and if these simulators do also use the Multichannel. There is no information anywhere on the web. Maybe someone could unscrew a real simulator and let us know how to start from scratch...

Sorry, if you where expecting a helping comment but hopefully P3D can come up with help please.

Thanks,
Michael

[Beau Hollis]

Thanks for reporting your findings. There are number refinements and bug fixes coming in the next release. We've fixed a number of crash bugs, and made some performance improvements. We're also clarifying the documentation, and adding more alerts with more specific messages to help users catch configuration issues such as mismatching names and IDs.