Controlling a synchronized simulation

After starting the synchronized simulation, you are provided with different information about and track bars to interact with the simulation. The label at the top informs you about the total elapsed (wall clock) time since the start, the (wall clock) timestamp of the last update-cycle and the simulated time of this last update-cycle. Note that if you only simulate in real-time speed (timescale 1x), those last two timestamps will be identical. If you want a fast forward or slow motion simulation, the simulation timestamp will drift apart from the wall clock timestamp. The associated simulation speed can be changed using the timescale track bar.

To further define your simulation behavior, you can change the resolution by changing the (wall clock time) update / exchange interval. Larger intervals can improve the computing time because of the lower data-exchange-frequency with the associated simulation systems, but of course will impact the simulation as newly calculated values are transferred less often. Note that the update interval defines the wall clock time interval, regardless of the simulation speed. A higher simulation speed / timescale e.g. will result in a larger simulated timespan (for each system) per interval. If all simulations are faster than and defined update interval, the Automation Connect tool will pause the remaining time to abide the defined simulation speed.

If one or more systems can't keep up with the speed or the update intervals, the simulation will start to lag behind. In this case, the time necessary for a simulation step (displayed as the Measured update interval) is greater than the desired cycle-interval. The difference between the actual simulation time and the target interval (displayed as Buffer) will become negative and show the accumulated time gap. Accordingly, the relative ratio between those two (displayed as Load) will become greater than 100%. Furthermore the total label will turn red to visualize the lag. You can try to compensate this by either decreasing your update interval or simulation speed. If you reach a level, where the simulations are again fast enough (according to the track-bar specifications), the Automation Connect tool will use the free buffer time to catch up and therefore decrease the time gap. This state is displayed by a yellow color. If the simulations can stay inside the defined speed and exchange-interval specifications, the label will turn green:

Figure 54: Synchronization time management