How much traffic is live?

Relative noob here,

I’m on X-Box and have everything turned that can be :slight_smile:

How much live traffic should there be in the sim?

I just sat at parking at Heathrow, a really busy airport, sent the drone up and watched, there were parked planes at gates, two vehicles moving and after about 20 minutes a plane came in, no logo on it though. There were two planes moving in the park area but after watching they just seemed to move slowly from one gate to another, not the runway.

Is that level of nothing pretty normal ??

1 Like

If you want to see the real world traffic, FlightAware (that MSFS uses as its data source for traffic) or FlightRadar24 will show you the the actual traffic you should be seeing if all were represented.

With MSFS, you get 10-20% of that at best. Typically though, it’s under 10%.

2 Likes

Got it, i was just thinking it only looks like 1/10 of how busy it should be.

I do have FlightRadar and yes it’s really busy.

how much live traffic you will get depends on the data that is provided by flightaware to the MS Servers.

If you compare FR24 and FA you will see that FA has already less data then FR24, and this data by FA is not always complete so it can be used within MSFS. Experiance show that live traffic needs around 10-15min to fully sattle at the bigger airports.

1 Like

None normally that’s why I can’t fly anything unless it’s on a runway start

On the su8 beta I’ve seen several planes queuing to takeoff at Heathrow, first time I’ve seen it :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

This is what I get, sitting at a busy international airport, maybe 6 aircraft landing(and disappearing) in a 20min window. Virtually nothing anywhere else.

Does AI traffic make much difference?

I’ve always been curious about this limitation. When I start at KLAX, it’s clear that many more planes are moving at the airport than are depicted in the sim (vs live plane spotting on YT). I have always assumed that this is due to constraints on the program. You can’t have fifty planes moving around an airport at the same time - imagine the frame rates if that were the case.

My question is, if more planes were made available through FA, how many more would the sim show before it would cap the limit? Could you see 10 more? Or will they create a slider on the Traffic settings?

They are very low resolution/poly renders and at any distance it’s essentially just flashing lights. I imagine they could put a bunch up there. And once away from the airport it’s a ghost town(air town??)

1 Like

Tracking Live Traffic has always had challenges, especially if ADS-B is inconsistent, for example some get shut off right after landing.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.