How to disable the Track Recording?

Hi,

we are trying to find out a way to disable the track recording from our dedicated server.

Does anybody know how to do that? Is it even possible? :huh:

If it is not possible, then would there be way to change the recording directory (to put it on an other hard drive)?

Thanks in advance for your help. :)

Regards,

Pouka

Hi Pouka!

I have been asking a very similar question on these forums already here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1053812#post1053812

So far there seems to be no way to do any of this unfortunately...

Stopping the recording of tracks could also be a good alternative to increase performance, i have no idea if this is possible though...

Note that servers appear to record the track at the location where the mission file is located. So in principle if that is located on another disk, the track will be written there as well. However, there also appears to be a track file in the temp directory (not sure what exactly it is called, I seem to recall lastdefault.trk or something similar). If this is written during flight then this may not solve the problem.

i pretty sure i found a setting of such a nature in fc1 but have not poked around enough on fc2/bs/dcs

i too want to turn it off as i dont use it.. (i dont need to re watch A-10's flying and tanks exploding since i dream about it all the time) :pilotfly:

Thanks a lot for your answers. :thumbup:

It's a shame there is no simple "tick box" in the option menu to disable this recording. :huh:

The recording location trick is very interesting though. We may try to investigate that way. :smilewink:

Again: Thanks a lot!

Regards,

Pouka

How to disable the Track Recording

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Why not set a scheduled task to clear out track files on a regular basis so your HD doesn't fill up?

I have not tried it but it looks like you can change the values for the maximum time or size of a file that is stored in the temp folder. Look in: \scripts\net\default.cfg

Just for MP tho.

-- file size/age limits for Temp/

 

track_size_limit = 1*1024*1024*1024 -- 1 GByte

track_age_limit = 365*24*60*60 -- 1 Year

 

log_size_limit = 10*1024*1024 -- 10 MBytes

log_age_limit = 7*24*60*60 -- 7 Days

Good find!

So, in effect, if one sets the limit to a very low value, to say 1kb for both track and log files, would that mean the recording will cease almost as soon as the mission is started?

If that's how it works then this is a very good workaround to disabling the tracks, since it will only be affecting the first few seconds of the mission and then it should be fine....

Anyone tested this?

Have a look at scripts\net\cleanup

Add an item to remove tracks if need be.

Personally, the tracks aren't that big compared to modern (cheap!) hard disks. I never throw any of the files away since it is hard to get back if you decide to look at them later (you'll learn a lot from watching tracks and TacViews).

Have a look at scripts\net\cleanup

 

Add an item to remove tracks if need be.

 

Personally, the tracks aren't that big compared to modern (cheap!) hard disks. I never throw any of the files away since it is hard to get back if you decide to look at them later (you'll learn a lot from watching tracks and TacViews).

I see there is also the "path" paremeters...

i wish i had any lua knowledge, but it does look like the Temp folder path can be changed? Say to another drive? That would be the best solution, IMO

@Moa, can you have a look at these in the above file u mentioned:

lfs = require('lfs')

function fmatch(path, ext)
   return
       lfs.attributes(path, 'mode') == 'file' and
       string.sub(path, -string.len(ext)) == ext
end
   

function get_files(dir, name)
   local files = {}
   list = lfs.dir(dir)
   f = list()
   local cur_time = os.time()
   while f do
       local path = [color=Red]'Temp/'..f[/color]
       if fmatch(path, name) then
           age = cur_time - lfs.attributes(path, 'modification')
           size = lfs.attributes(path, 'size')
           table.insert(files, {path, age, size})
           --print(f, age, size)
       end
       f = list()
   end
   return files
end

As for reviewing tracks, and ACMIs, I agree on their learning value, however for the sake of optimizing performance at least for non-important lobby flights, i personally would be willing to sacrifice that, especially since i can always access the server tracks (on our server at least) when needed be.

Hi Breakshot,

My suggestion was to remove the tracks rather than disable them. On last weekend's OPFOR event the 60 players on (including youself) didn't notice any significant lag while recording the server track, yes?.

I'd be surprised if streaming a track out (at the relatively slow rate of 40 MB/hour => around a measly 10 kB/s on drives/busses that can stream around 2000 to 10000 times this rate) makes a difference for a modern drive with write-behind caching enabled (which can buffer in RAM & disk buffers until the system is able to do I/O).

Possibly more significant for server performance is limiting the frame rate using graphics.cfg. Stallturn is deliberately limited to 15 fps (because I watch VNAO carrier traps from time to time) but could be lower, say 10 fps with only a little noticeable effect. This drops the CPU load enormously and improves the latency in responding to client (network) requests.

Im not concerned with the server (our servers are tweaked and configured with max fps etc etc.), im concerned with whats going on locally on my machine.

Your theoretical example, although makes sense on paper does not represent reality. I think everyone can agree that for example writing ACMIs when flying a big mission produces stuttering, yes? in fact, FPS and CPU load is of little concern here as mine is fine (capped at max 50fps) on High settings and CPU load stays around 25-50% due to fps cap as you mentioned.

So now, with the ACMI example in mind, tracks and constant barrage of error logs etc etc. (FC2 and DCS have tons of this compared to FC1!!) have similar impact as ACMIs = micro-stuttering. This of course can vary from system to system or the mission load, but trust me, its there!

Therefore, Im looking for a way to take the load of the FC2 'games' hard drive from writing all these files, and have all the temp data written on another drive for the above reasons, I hope you now understand the issue here. Oh and yes, there was no problems whatsoever for me during the OPFOR event. :) However there are certain missions when u are talking about active moving units, tank battles, artillery and rockets firing, infantry, and whatever else all doing something, then there is def an impact.

So the question is this, based on that file or other lua scripts, is it possible to change the default /Temp folder path, and specify it somewhere else?! Mabe through some .lua mod that wouldn't affect IC?

If its not possible, then how would you go about in disabling the temp files from writing completely? By setting a ridiculously low size & time limits on them?

TacView ACMI export can cause micro-stuttering for sure. I'm confused though, I thought we were talking about LockOn tracks?

LockOn tracks don't cause a stuttering problem. Although, there is the problem that generating ACMI from a track is a hassle, slow, and inaccurate compared to the ACMI generated directly, since track replay has imperfect replay).

Changing the location of LockOn log files

Changes some of the log files. Some appear to be generated by LockOn itself and not controllable by LUA (although they don't cause stuttering).

In the file scripts\net\server.lua in the function on_net_start() creates the server network log:

function on_net_start()

log = io.open("Temp/net-server.log", "w")

for local games I think the on_start() function is used instead (at least, that is what ServMan uses).

where you could change the path to that file.

Changing the location that TacView ACMI files get written to:

If you want to change the location of the ACMI files that are written (ignoring the logs and tracks, as they don't seem to be the problem) then modify:

Config\Export\TacviewExportBlackShark.lua

find the function BeginLog=function(self), and change the line that starts with:

self.AcmiFile=io.open("./Temp/Tacview-" ....

so that it is something like:

self.AcmiFile=io.open("E:/acmi/Tacview-" ....

If that doesn't make a performance difference (since you are still doing I/O operations) then perhaps it's worth thinking of getting an SSD for LockOn.

Thanx Moa!

The tacview part I have done already ages ago, making it write to my C drive going straight to desktop. :)

As for the Temp log files, it looks interesting, and i will certainly try to see if i can move them to write somewhere else.

However, from your reply as i understand it it is not possible to move the Temp folder entirely... which would have been the best option obviously.

So it looks like there isnt really a solution in this case...

You should be able to point ./Temp directory in FC2/DCS to another drive using a directory symbolic link (a.k.a NTFS junctions).

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524 for some more info.

/KC

There is a utility from Sysinternals also that is easy to use. Read first section of first post in my thread.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=66557

(HJ)

Over five years after last post in this subject, I have to bump it and ask, do we still have no option to disable track recording?

Guess not..

Bumping up one year later to see if there is any progress on this :)

Bumping up one year later to see if there is any progress on this :)

I endorse this bump.

For sever operators too, being able to prevent track recording is important - it helps prevent people from revieing tracks to gain strategic or tactical information about a mission, and thus reduces replayability of missions (or follow-up missions).

Bumping up one year later to see if there is any progress on this :)

Is anyone "working" on this? Maybe we'll see it in DCS 3.0 :)

Is this that hard to do? I would like to see if there is a performance gain in VR.

Considering that tracks only record a data stream of control inputs, I sincerely doubt that modern machines would see any significant improvement, in end user performance, if it were disabled.

If you think people are using tracks to cheat, which is an entirely different matter, that has been addressed in other threads.

But why do the tracks... Every reply Ive done ends up with some my plane hitting the ground long before the track is at this end (and Ill did land at a airport in the end) ?