I haven’t been active on social media much the past few weeks. Since Monday, 16 March I’ve been working from home and being in the IT field, I feel as if I’m just as busy in this remote configuration as I’ve been at any time based in an office. Still managing the same projects, much of the same work and even some new challenges as a company of over 100K employees all fight for available bandwidth across a VPN network. The good news is everything seems to be holding together well and we’re all just trying to make the very best of the situation.
Health
My wife and I, (along with all my family members around the world) are all healthy. In early March and well before the grocery store shortages began, my wife and I began shopping for essentials as we suspected things would get bad here in the US. We didn’t hoard, but we added to our pantry some essentials and even some non-essentials such as snacks. After all, if we’re going to be confined to our house for any length of time….might as well enjoy it with some Twinkies, Oreos and bean dip. No, this doesn’t get consumed together. LOL
Parents Role Reversed
I’m really not sure at what point in life the role of parent/son gets reversed. After my mom passed away last year, I’ve had a few opportunities where I needed to apply a little more persuasion with my dad than I’ve ever done before. My dad will turn 77 this fall and for the most part he’s doing well coping after my mom’s passing. But I had to be a bit forceful a few weeks ago about insisting that he go to the grocery store and purchase a little extra food than normal and also that he limits his visits. He gets it and I rest easier being 1,000 miles away from him that he’ll be OK through this.
Coping Mechanisms
We all have different coping mechanisms when it comes to how we deal with the stresses of life. My wife and I both lost our moms last year. She and I were very eager to celebrate the new year and say goodbye to what we thought was a crappy year (2019) and hello to what we thought would be a very good year (2020). Needless to say, the jury is still out on just how this is all going to unfold and what things are going to look like on the other side. But as I said, we all have different coping mechanisms….
While I’m busy with work, I’m still stuck at home. I’ve been spending a bit of time doing some virtual flying. It had been a few months since I had seriously spent any time with Prepar3D (P3D) and I’m enjoying flying long-haul flights where I can start the flight up before my work begins and either land during my lunch time or after my day ends.
This week all I’m flying are cargo runs as I still can’t believe we have as many real-world passenger flights flying all over the world and furthering the spread of COVID-19. But I digress. As I said, the flights I’m flying are cargo runs with Fedex. I’ve done some flights to and from Memphis, but now embarking on some imaginative flights to help shuttle medical supplies, food and perhaps even some toilet paper to some far away places.
Final Thoughts
I’m no expert. But we all need to do our part to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Stay Home! Wash your hands! And while we all need to stay informed, limit your exposure to the 24 hours news cycle to just a few minutes each day (perhaps a few times a day).
I may storyboard some of my flying adventures and post them here to my blog. Who knows….
Until next time….
Please stay safe! Remember, the life you save…might just be someone else.
Hello friends. I hope you are well. It’s been just over one month since I announced my pause from YouTube. Yes, I’m still calling it a pause for now and I haven’t really done anything with the “rebranding” I spoke about a month ago. At least with YouTube in mind.
The SimplySafeMods project is going very well. Via the SimplySafeMods website, I’m hosting over 40 Farming Simulator 17 and 19 mods from a small handful of mod developers. The site continues to perform well and while I don’t typically toot my own horn, I’ll just say that I believe it’s the easiest mod download site to use (perhaps outside of GIANTS Modhub). No need to register, no advertisements, no need to click multiple download links to get what you want and best of all, fast download speeds. But enough about all that….
Sim Gamer
A few weeks ago my good buddy Eustace Pharmer (aka Atomic 67 G) had been discussing some gaming titles he enjoys and I decided to give Astroneer a try. Thankfully, Steam offers a full, no-questions asked refund (within limits) because I realized within about 30 minutes that this game wasn’t for me.
This is absolutely no reflection towards anyone who enjoys Astroneer (or any game like it) and likewise, this is no reflection on me. We like what we like. We all have gaming styles which we enjoy and like many of you, my time is limited…so I tend to play what truly interests me. This little Astroneer experiment caused me to take a short pause and look at some of the games I already own, but haven’t played recently.
When I built my current gaming machine (GBS Beast Mark V) in May 2018, I took the time to install Prepar3d, Farming Simulator, American and Euro Truck Simulator and a few others. Two titles which didn’t make it back on the SSD was Train Simulator and Train Sim World. I’ve now corrected this.
I Love Trains
Who doesn’t, right? When I was a child, I had a Lionel train layout and about 18 years ago the bug bit me again and I built a fairly large platform layout in my basement. The platform I built (about waist high) was “U” shaped and consisted of two 6 x 12 platforms and one 6 x 8 foot sections. I could run multiple trains, perform switching operations and I’ll admit….I was starting to get out of control with my ideas. Keep in mind this was an “O” Gauge layout.
When I came to my senses (or should I say when my wife helped me come to my senses) and instructed me to turn the basement area into an office and bedroom, I made the move from a physical train layout to a virtual one with the help of Microsoft Train Simulator. Of course, MSTS went bye-bye years ago. I replaced it with Dovetail Games Train Simulator (can’t remember which version I started with)
The Chicken or the Egg
I’m not sure and it doesn’t matter for what we’re discussing here. Obviously Dovetail Games Train Simulator came along well before they introduced Train Sim World. Initially I was under the impression that Train Sim World (TSW) would eventually replace their Train Simulator offering, much like Dovetail’s Flight Sim World was going to replace….er, well nevermind.
Anyway…as we firmly set here in the year 2020…both of Dovetail’s train simulation products are tagged as 2020 versions. My recent gaming memories of both of these products when I had them last installed was Train Sim World was buggy as heck and regular Train Simulator was stable (or at least more stable).
I’ve been enjoying both of them actually. As I’ve owned TS longer than TSW, I have more DLC and I’ve been going back through some of those. But I’ve gotta hand it to Dovetail Games…TSW 2020 is far, far more superior than what it was when I first played it. So I suppose like wine and cheese, good things come to those who wait.
What Next?
I have a few draft articles in the works regarding my rekindled experiences in both TS and TSW. I’ll discuss my opinions of these two rail simulation platforms in future postings. But for now, I have some coal I need to haul in TSW.
First, THANK YOU! Thank you for taking the time to read this posting. Perhaps you’ve come here from my brief YouTube announcement, from a posting in Discord or you just simply stumbled onto my blog site. Whatever the reason….I truly appreciate you taking the time from your busy day to read this important message.
Getting to the Point!
I realize I have a tendency of using 10,000 words when perhaps less than 100 will do the job. So with that, I’m switching gears and making plans with regards to my gaming social media life. For the time being, I’m stepping back from the creation of “Let’s Play” videos from my GrizzlyBearSims YouTube channel. I believe this news has truly been a long time coming.
For the past year, I’ve struggled with the creative motivation needed to keep my channel current. I’ve taken lengthy breaks in an effort to recharge my batteries, but once I restart I once again hit the brick wall called burnout. Unfortunately, with my heavy work schedule and other life commitments, the stop/start would only continue to stop…then start.
Don’t Touch That Dial!
Please Don’t Unfriend/Unfollow Me Just Yet! I’m going to make some changes to both my Discord channel and eventually my YouTube channel. These changes will be a rebranding effort to support SimplySafeMods.com. What? You haven’t heard about SimplySafeMods?
SimplySafeMods
If you’ve been around my YouTube, Discord and this blog site for very long, you know my thoughts on some mod sites. I wrote an article a few years ago where I identified a few “reputable mod sites for Farming Simulator Mods”. Unfortunately for all of us, several of the sites I listed as “reputable” are no longer around. This includes PC-SG, FS-UK and Mod Central. I created SimplySafeMods.com in an effort to offer a safe, reliable, fast and absolutely free alternative to the scam mod sites such as uploaded.net.
At SimplySafeMods.com we work directly with the original mod author so you can be absolutely sure the mod you download is genuine. In addition, SimplySafeMods is 100% ad-free and offer fast download speeds.
At the present time, SimplySafeMods is hosting both Farming Simulator 17 and Farming Simulator 19 mods. Please take a few minutes and visit the site and browse our selection of mods. You might be surprised at just what you’ll find available with some truly awesome new mods coming very soon.
Rebranding Plan
The first thing you’ll notice change is with Discord. The GrizzlyBearSims Discord channel will be rebranded to become SimplySafeMods. I want a method for both mod developers and the users of their mods to have a way to communicate with each other in an effort to provide reasonable support. Discord is a much better solution than a clunky forum.
Finally, I will eventually rebrand my YouTube presence to also reflect SimplySafeMods. I believe YouTube can be used to help promote SimplySafeMods as well as be a platform to host mod reviews etc.
This is not goodbye
I have zero regrets about the time I’ve spent making YouTube content. I’ve met some really incredible individuals who have become dear friends to me. This is just about shifting gears and focusing on a new project. I will continue to be around Discord and will continue to watch all the great content from those of you producing it.
Before you go, please do me a favor. First, visit and join my Discord channel and say hello. Second, visit and bookmark SimplySafeMods.com. Browse the FS17/FS19 mods and see if anything interests you. Then stay tuned to both Discord and SimplySafeMods for new mod releases.
SCS Software recently released the Utah DLC for American Truck Simulator. The price for this DLC is $11.99 USD. As you can see from the image below, the west portion of the lower 48 is beginning to fill in. Albeit fairly slow.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race?
Well….in some cases this might be true. However, for those of us who purchased ATS on release (2 February 2016) the pace at which new states have been added could be compared to pouring molasses on a cold winters day.
To better put things into perspective, allow me to draw your attention to the map below. As mentioned, ATS was released on 2 February 2016. On release day, ATS included the two states of California and Nevada (Green). As Arizona wasn’t ready on release, ATS released this as a free DLC on 6 June 2016 (Yellow). It was then another 17 months before we saw the release of the New Mexico DLC (Red) on 9 November 2017. The main reason for the delay of New Mexico was due to the decision SCS made to rescale the map. I believe the map rescale was necessary and taking the necessary time to complete it was also the correct decision.
However, it was another 13 months between the release of New Mexico and the release of Oregon on 4 October 2018 (purple).
2019 was the first year where SCS released two states in the same year. With Washington dropping on 11 June 2019 and Utah 7 November 2019. Could we see a third state release before the end of the year? I won’t be holding my breath.
What’s Next and When?
Guessing the “what’s next” is certainly easier than the “when”. It’s safe to say the next state to be released will either be Idaho or Colorado. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on Idaho. This would tie in to I-90 in Washington and I-84 in Oregon which connects to I-15 headed to Utah. In other words, it would allow better routes out of Washington/Oregon in eastern Nevada, Utah and Arizona/New Mexico.
If Idaho is next, I would then believe we will see Colorado then Wyoming come next. While I have no idea all that goes into the creation of these DLC maps, I would assume the states of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana could each be less work (due to the sparseness of each) especially when compared to California.
Coast-To-Coast
While my opinion matters little to SCS, I would hope we could continually see 3-4 new states released each year. However, if you can’t simply wait to drive from one coast to the other, you really should check out the awesome Coast-To-Coast map. I’ve been a fan of the C2C map since it was first created. The C2C project officially kicked off soon after the initial release of ATS and has evolved into a very nice mod map.
The Coast-to-Coast map began as a personal project of the main developer (Mantrid) and then grew into the large endeavor it currently is. I don’t always have the C2C mod active, but when I update it after not driving it for a few months I’m always pleasantly surprised at the level of progress made. While there are other mod maps for ATS, C2C is and always has been my absolute favorite.
Yes, it’s true! The brand spankin new Audio for VATSIM is live. Since I participated in the beta test last June, I bet I hadn’t logged more than 10 hours on VATSIM. While life has been busy the past few months, to be honest I had very little desire to fly on VATSIM until the new audio was available.
As I’ve stated before, I’ve been a VATSIM member since 2001 and over the past 18 years very little has been done to improve the audio. As I’ve aged, my hearing is starting to pay me back for all those rock concerts I attended in my younger days and I just don’t hear as well as I did in my younger days.
The new Audio for VATSIM is truly magnificent. Now we wait for Microsoft to release Flight Simulator 2020 and the virtual aviation world might just be perfect.
If you haven’t flown on VATSIM for a long time and if part of that reason was due to the poor audio, then you really should give this new audio a listen. I’m absolutely loving it.
For as long as I can remember, the desire to eke out another frame or three has been the desire for many who constantly stress over FPS (Frames Per Second). I’ve stated my opinion on FPS many times and will do so again. Basically I tune my P3D setup for maximum smoothness. I don’t have stutters, I don’t have blurries (at least not many) and I don’t lose sleep at night over a few FPS here and there. About the only time I even check FPS is during initial setup of the sim or after installing a new airport scenery and my own curiosity gets the better of me.
Snake Oil Everywhere
For nearly as long as we’ve been chasing the near unobtainable 60FPS in FSX/P3D, many have developed solutions and/or come up with tweaks to the .cfg file claiming/guaranteeing more FPS if you buy this or if you change that. While I’ve tried some of these over the years, I’ve just learned to laugh the rest away as simply being snake oil. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “snake oil”, it originates from far simpler times, when someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself a fraud, quack, charlatan etc. etc. Unfortunately, there’s just very little that can be done to P3D to increase FPS other than lowering graphics settings or investing in higher performance hardware.
Even with the 4th generation of Prepar3D finally taking advantage of the performance advantages of a 64 bit architecture, the application itself continues to be much more CPU intensive than GPU and still struggles to take advantage of multithreading at the CPU level. This means if you simply look at task manager/process manager, you may very well see core 0 is 100% maxed out with the other cores simply appearing to do nothing. Would you go to the grocery store and queue up behind a long line of customers standing at check-out lane #1, when other check-out lanes have no wait? But I digress…
Hyperthreading and Affinity Mask
Depending on what you’re reading, where you’re reading it and who is discussing it…you’ll find different schools of thought regarding hyperthreading and affinity mask settings. With regards to hyperthreading, the term hyperthreading is a technology developed by Intel which essentially doubles the cores on the CPU. I’ve tested with hyperthreading enabled and disabled. At one time I myself believed turning HT off was the better solution. However, as P3D has evolved, the development team at Lockheed Martin have done a better job at getting P3D to utilize multithreading and I personally believe with P3D v4.4 and v4.5 you are better off with Hyperthreading enabled.
Affinity Mask is another tweak/buzz word from many years ago. The tweak was made directly to the .cfg file and was based on the number of CPU cores. Like previously mentioned, there’s very little need with the latest version of P3D to make ANY changes to the .cfg file.
Back to the original question
The subject of this writing was supposed to be about Process Lasso. To be honest, in the late days of FSX and the early days of P3D, (before P3D v4 64bit) the above mentioned tweaks and the use of Process Lasso was something I held in very high regard. Applying these in just the right way would often mean the difference between a smooth running sim (yes, with optimal FPS rates) AND less likely to run into OOM’s or out of memory errors versus throwing your hands up and heading to the corner to cry. However, with my most recent gaming machine build, I’ve found these to be more problematic than not. I’m also not the only one who once swore by all these tweaks to abandon them.
But….but, yes if you have a less powerful PC and struggle to get the most out it then I would strongly suggest giving Process Lasso a try. Process Lasso can be downloaded for free from the bitsum.com website and it’s a 100% safe website/download. Once installed, Process Lasso is easily configured.
In the Process Lasso application, click on the Active Processes tab. With P3D (or FSX) open along with all the normal add-ons you typically during a flight.
The first suggested change is to classify P3D as a High Performance Process. Right-click on the Prepar3D.exe process and select the “Classify as a High Performance process”.
Again, P3D on some CPU’s might gain some performance by setting the CPU affinity to dedicated cores. Typically we would reserve cores 0 and 1 for all other applications and set P3D to the rest.
As you can see below, I’ve set P3D to cores 2 – 11.
The screenshot below is how I set up all other running applications I use alongside P3D.
It’s really that simple. Process Lasso will automatically start and apply these settings each time you startup the PC. I would highly suggest you first establish some performance benchmarks. In other words, load up your sim at an airport and try to setup the exact same conditions for each test. Then apply the settings I’ve suggested above and test again. If you’ve gained a few FPS and all seems to be stable, then leave it and enjoy a few flights.
Bottom Line
Most likely if you have a similar beast of a machine like I do, then most likely these tweaks really aren’t necessary. As I’ve stated above, I’ve tried all the tweaks which once worked to give a slight increase with earlier versions of P3D and FSX, but didn’t see any performance gain on the new machine. As a matter of fact, I’ve experienced some issues during testing and come to find out, many others experienced the same issues.
While P3D v4.5 is still somewhat built on the old ancient FSX foundation, the developers at Lockheed Martin have truly moved the chains in the right direction and I’m confident one day soon we’ll get to where we need to be. Thanks for reading.
For well over a year, we’ve been hearing the news about the new Audio for VATSIM project. We’ve all watched and listened to videos covering this brand new audio system which promised to replace the very much outdated audio system currently in use. Some of us have also been granted early access to experience it for ourselves. I participated in one such beta test back in early June and couldn’t believe my ears. You can read about my experience here.
After I experienced the new Audio For VATSIM first hand, I struggled to enjoy the old VATSIM audio. While the last two months have been hectic and rarely left anytime for my hobbies, 14 October can’t come soon enough as I’m truly looking forward to spending some time flying on VATSIM and enjoying both the sights and SOUNDS.
In addition to sore, tired muscles from a weekend of major DIY work (see photo below), I also woke up to some really awesome news about the upcoming (sometime in 2020) Microsoft Flight Simulator. More about this in just a bit.
Major “Honey Do” list work
One of the reasons why I haven’t been very active posting articles on my blog site has been primarily due to the fact that most weekends since I’ve returned from my European Vacation, I’ve been either up a ladder or crawling around on my hands and knees. Long story short, we returned from vacation in early August to find an upstairs leak that had ruined our kitchen ceiling. While much of the work to repair the kitchen ceiling was covered by insurance (and performed by contractors), we decided to also repaint and redecorate much of the rest of the house in the process. After all, new paint in the kitchen will just make the 12+ year old paint in the rest of the house look dingy.
The above picture is me working on painting the edges where the wall meets the ceiling.
The second photo is me preparing to install a new light fixture in the entry hall way.
We still have a few more weekends of work before it’s all done. But once it’s done, the entire interior of the house will have a fresh, new coat of paint. But enough about this. I’m getting tired just thinking about it.
Microsoft Flight Simulator News
You may recall, I discussed the new Microsoft Flight Simulator which we all first heard about back in June. You can find these two articles here and here. In both articles, I expressed my guarded reservations but tried to be as optimistic as possible on this news which hit the flight simulation community by complete surprise. After all, many of us are still bitter about Microsoft turning their back to the community not once, but twice and we all questioned why they would want to re-enter the flight simulation space.
Watch This Video
If you have 32 minutes of spare time, I would like to direct you to a video by FroogleSim. Pete discusses his recent trip out to Microsoft to see and experience the brand new Microsoft Flight Simulator which has been in development for the past 5 years. Unlike some of Pete’s other videos on this subject, he actually did a very good job and he admits he was initially wrong about the opinions he first expressed back in June. Again, if flight simulation interests you…then the video below is a must-see.
My Thoughts
OMG! Yes, literally…Oh My God! Bottom line, we still just have to wait and see. But I’ve seen enough and heard enough to realize that 2020 is going to be an amazing year in flight simulation. We don’t have all the answers to the million and one questions yet to be asked. Initially this new sim from Microsoft may not be able to tick all the boxes (multiplayer, third-party add-ons etc.), but I believe Microsoft Flight Simulator will once again regain its place at the top and re-write history. I personally don’t see it immediately replacing P3D/X-Plane, but once we can begin to have access to a wide range of study level aircraft, online multiplayer (VATSIM) then I believe both P3D and X-Plane will begin to see a decline.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hopefully will return soon to posting more content about flight simulation and other simulation based game topics here. Until then….
Before I get to the meat of this blog post, please take a few minutes to visit and SUBSCRIBE to my good friend Duckzorly Gaming’s YouTube channel. He produces excellent content on a variety of games including Farming Simulator 19, Two Point Hospital, Cities Skylines & Satisfactory. As I said, his content is some of the best on YouTube and if you’re not a subscriber, please do me a really big favor and click the Subscribe button. I assure you…you won’t be disappointed.
In addition, if you are anxiously awaiting the release of the upcoming Farming Simulator Platinum DLC (Claas DLC) then you’ll want to watch Duckzorly’s recent video release where he covers the history of the Claas company and provides a detailed preview of the upcoming DLC. DZ did an outstanding job researching and presenting the history of the Claas company and their evolution into one of todays leading manufacturers of agricultural machinery.
Farming Simulator 19 – State of the Game
I could literally fill pages and pages and even more pages on this blog site about my own views regarding the current state of Farming Simulator 19. However, much of how I feel is exactly how many of you already feel. As a matter of fact, Duckzorly released a video titled FS19 – State of the Game which if you haven’t watched it, YOU NEED TO! His thoughts, feeling and desires for future versions is 100% spot on.
Yes…I know! It’s almost one hour long. If you don’t have a full hour of time to watch in one sitting, then please pick it back up at another time. Duckzorly covers all the “Hot Button” topics which many of us have been discussing at great length in forums, discord etc. for many months. Please watch his video below and I’ll provide my final thoughts below.
My Final Thoughts
I’ve been playing the popular Farming Simulator since FS15. I absolutely fell in love with this game with the FS15 version. This love affair continued into FS17 as the game itself was made better with the addition of the Seasons Mod. During the late summer and fall of 2018, our excitement for what we believed would be FS19 was replaced with sadness, bitterness and dissatisfaction in a product and a developer who we’ve historically held in high regard.
As I stated earlier, I could fill pages and pages with hundreds and thousands of words regarding my own bitter experiences with FS19. While it’s better now than it was on release. My personal opinion is Giants simply don’t care. They seem to have their priorities mixed up and in less than one years time, we most likely will start to see information regarding the release of Farming Simulator 21. How will Giants tease us with FS21? Most likely with just a bunch of CGI illusions and snake oil but hopefully I’m wrong.
I’ll return shortly with more thoughts on Farming Simulator 19 and more, very soon.
Well…let’s see. The last time some of you heard from me was just before my wife and I embarked on our three week European vacation. This was back in mid-July. That seems like it was ages ago…and I suppose it was.
The trip was mostly uneventful. I say mostly…only because both my wife and I got sick during the trip and we had to change our plans as a result. We spent the first several days recuperating and then the heatwave hit. Needless to say it was HOT! We were in England on the hottest day of record and it was miserable.
On our flight home, we both were just ready to put it all behind us. After all, 2019 hasn’t been the best our best year. Shortly after the new year, my Mother-in-law passed away and then in April my own mom died. This vacation was supposed to be a time for my wife and I to relax and it was anything but. But as I said, we were on our way home and as the old saying goes…”There’s no place like home”.
After arriving home we found we had a leak in the upstairs master bathroom that had ruined the ceiling in the kitchen. For the next several weeks our house resembled something out of the movie Outbreak. I half expected Dustin Hoffman to come walking out. We had a giant containment room setup in the kitchen with loud fans and air scrubbers running for 5 days and then the entire downstairs ceiling had to be repainted.
To cap it all off, our upstairs AC decided to stop working and this resulted in about a week of learning to sleep in warm temperatures which just reminded us of the England trip.
Fortunately, things are slowly starting to come together. We managed to make it through the long Labor Day holiday weekend without any major issue and we’re both looking forward to fall.
I’m sorry I’ve been mostly absent from discord and social media. Needless to say…I’ve just not really been in the mood. I will try to change this in time.
For nearly as long as we’ve been chasing the near unobtainable 60FPS in FSX/P3D, many have developed solutions and/or come up with tweaks to the .cfg file claiming/guaranteeing more FPS if you buy this or if you change that. While I’ve tried some of these over the years, I’ve just learned to laugh the rest away as simply being snake oil. If you’re unfamiliar with the term “snake oil”, it originates from far simpler times, when someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is himself a fraud, quack, charlatan etc. etc. Unfortunately, there’s just very little that can be done to P3D to increase FPS other than lowering graphics settings or investing in higher performance hardware.
