ProjectAI and AI Aardvark have, for some time now, provided us with high quality but non-FPS eating AI aircraft. Recently, PAI have supplied us with some superb airline packages for over 50 airlines (I don't actually know the exact number), complete with full fleet and summer/winter schedule.

Payware addicts such as myself, however, knew that a payware AI package would, however, provide an even wider and better range than any type of freeware package(s).

Thus, a new payware AI package came out. Named Ultimate Traffic, it contains over 400,000 scheduled flights, more than 700 repaints for 40 aircraft and a program that has a world map and an automatic PDF creator for airline schedules or departure/arrival airports.

I bought this from a GAME store in Central London for £30 (around $17), which, even though I have bought many payware software, is a bit pricey for this type.

Installation was nice and easy, asking you to choose it for FS2002 or FS9, and took around a two minutes on the test PC. After this, however, you must open up the Ultimate Traffic program and compile which flightplans you want and whether you want liveries that haven't been painted to be compiled with a defaul blue paint (more on this later).

Now for some shots and Munich Intl, Boston Logan Intl and Atlanta. All of these airports are intercontinental and very busy (Atlanta is one ofthe airports one of the busiest airports in the world, of not the busiest), so high traffic is naturally expected at each of them:

Munich Intl:






Boston:






Atlanta:



As you can see, the amount of traffic added is quite a lot, and there is a wide variety of airlines.

Here are some more screenshots from Houston, Boston and Chicago:

Boston Intl:




Houston Intl:






Chicago O'Hare Intl:





Quite visible, the amount of airlines in Ultimate Traffic is very extensive. Just look at Chicago and you'll know what I mean.

Hub airports are extremely busy as proven in the shots of Houston: it really does create an 'atmosphere'.

Even though Project AI still produce similar results, if you came to the same airport a few hours later, the aircraft have all gone, as the PAI schedules have reduced night flights, whereas Ultimate Traffic has rather high-reaching flightplans.

The final part of our review takes us to the world's busiest international, and my nearest airport - London Heathrow Airport, and also the conclusion.

British Airways is the dominant airline at EGLL, as shown in these screenies:

Terminal 4:




Terminal 3:






Terminal 1 & 2:






==============================

Conclusion

Ultimate Traffic's title really says it all - it really is ultimate and the amount of traffic compared to any other freeware package is quite massive.

Probably just about the only con here is that it only tells you in the instruction booklet, which you can only get when you buy it, that not all aircraft have been painted to every livery, which, I'll come clean and say that I expected it to be quite the contrary - I expected for every airline included to be painted in a traffic addon that I paid £30 for. Beacuse of this, there is an option when compiling which you can choose for the installer to compile flightplans for airlines that haven't been painted - if you do choose to install them, they will appear with the correct type of aircraft, but with a default paint of either red or blue.

However, I acknowledge that this is not a very easy thing to do and it maks up for it with the Ultimate Traffic Updater, which connects to the Ultimate Traffic server and from which you are able to download addons for the addon   :-

- Aircraft Repaints
- Addon scenery AFCADs (FS8/FS9)
- Default scenery AFCADs (FS8/FS9)

Frames will of course fall on whatever kind of system you have, if you look at the traffic then your FPS will drop about 23 frames at least. I could average about 44 FPS at Heathrow, with Heathrow Pro installed and actually looking at the whole structure of the terminals and traffic.

So, my final score for this is payware package is:

8.3/10.

All in all, this is an addon that I recommend fully. If you truly want to experience real and proper traffic, then you must buy this.

Test System:

Dual Intel Xeon 3.6 GHz w/HT,
16 GB Crucial Ballistix PC4000 RAM,
PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB,
Western Digital 74GB 10,000RPM HD x2

==============================

END OF REVIEW

Very nice review....I just flew into KEWR (Newerk International Airport) from KBOS and when I was approaching ie. 20 miles away about 20-40 aircraft could be seen bunched up like crazy (I had 70% UT on)...then I lowered it to 3% were it was more realistic...

I should check it out.