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Configuring the simulation

+ +Before you start running your own experiments there are few details to take into +account at the time of configuring your simulation. In this document we cover +the most important ones. + +For the full list of settings please see [CARLA Settings](carla_settings.md). + +Fixed time-step +--------------- + +The time-step is the _simulation-time_ elapsed between two steps of the +simulation. In video-games, this _simulation-time_ is almost always adjusted to +real time for better realism. This is achieved having a **variable time-step** +that adjusts the simulation to keep up with real-time. In simulations however, +it is better to detach the _simulation-time_ from real-time, and let the +simulation run as fast as possible using a **fixed time-step**. Doing so, we are +not only able to simulate longer periods in less time, but also gain +repeatability by reducing the float-point arithmetic errors that a variable +time-step introduces. + +CARLA can be run in both modes. + +

Variable time-step

+ +The simulation tries to keep up with real-time. To do so, the time-step is +slightly adjusted each update. Simulations are not repeatable. By default, the +simulator starts in this mode + +

Fixed time-step

+ +The simulation runs as fast as possible, simulating the same time increment on +each step. To run the simulator this way you need to pass two parameters in the +command-line, one to enable the fixed time-step mode, and the second to specify +the FPS of the simulation (i.e. the inverse of the time step). For instance, to +run the simulation at a fixed time-step of 0.2 seconds we execute + + $ ./CarlaUE4.sh -benchmark -fps=5 + +It is important to note that this mode can only be enabled when launching the +simulator since this is actually a feature of Unreal Engine. + +Synchronous vs Asynchronous mode +-------------------------------- + +> TODO