Making Constructive Sims Run Faster

The items below typically can be adjusted without having a detrimental effect on the simulation. However, keep in mind what you are adjusting and what affect it will have on an individual platform. Severely adjusting frame rates can affect a simulation. Adjusting event or replay outputs will not affect a simulation outcome.

• update_interval on movers

  Setting the update_interval to less than 5 to 10 seconds for movers generally creates run time issues.

  However, guided movers absolutely need lower update intervals if used as a weapon.
• update_interval in scripts

  Calling a script on a platform once a second is costly.

  Think about extending it out to 10 or so seconds or longer.
• frame_time in sensors

  Going below 1 second takes up a lot of resources. In addition, think about the time it takes to form a track.

  Example: If it normally takes a sensor 10 seconds to form a track once positive sensor detections occur, set the frame_time to 3.3 seconds for a 3 of 5 hits_to_establish_track.
• dis_interface

  Inputs that can be changed to radically change the size of a replay file (make it smaller which cuts down runtime) are:

  suppress_comm_data - Do you really need to see the blue comm lines in visualization tools?

  heartbeat_timer - set it up to 100 (from a default of 5).

  entity_position_threshold - set it up to 10 meters (from a default of 1).

  entity_orientation_threshold - set it up to 10 degrees (from a default of 3)

  Keep in mind that setting these values DO NOT AFFECT THE SIMULATION.
• event_output

  Do you really need to log every detection attempt by the sensors?

  Do you really need to log every track update?

  Anything that is selected requires I/O which is expensive.

  Again, selection of event items to retain DO NOT AFFECT THE SIMULATION.
• csv_event_output

  Do you really need to log every detection attempt by the sensors?

  Do you really need to log every track update?

  Anything that is selected requires I/O which is expensive.

  Again, selection of event items to retain DO NOT AFFECT THE SIMULATION.
• observer

  If used to write to output or to log file can be expensive.

  Use care though as these may be used for simulation runtime also.
• write_ln or debug statements

  Comment out every writeln and turn off debug statements. Writing out to the screen requires I/O.
• replacing default mesh networks in comms

  The default network type in comms is the mesh network, which scales very poorly with many

  members in the network: [(n * (n - 1)) / 2 ] edges, where n is the number of comms in the

  network. If larger networks are needed, try switching to a more scalable network type (such as star)

  or define the network entirely via the use of the generic network type to avoid excessive performance

  penalties to using the mesh network.