Agrajag

Wow, thanks a bunch. These are the CH Products Pro Pedals. I believe that makes them analog pedals? However as they're USB maybe that makes them digital? That one I really don't know. I also don't use their CH Manager software. Previously it's just gotten in the way. Have I finally found a reason to force me to use it?

Pete, this isn't an FSUIPC issue (or at least I don't think it is) but I figured I'd ask you about this since you have so much interaction with sticks, rudders and the like: I've started needing to pay attention to the state of the parking brake and, for the first time, I realize that the rudder pedals disengage the parking brake if I move them at all. Is anyone aware of a way to keep that from happening? Is there a setting for the Parking Brake to have it stick until I release it or is there an FSUIPC setting for that? I'm tired of finding my plane in the side of a building when I get back from a quick drink run simply because I tapped a pedal while heading out. I really don't understand this behavior and others have posted back on another forum that they too are having this problem. Any ideas?

Thanks Pete. Seemed like a goof fit for SB3 and that just made me think of AdvDisp so I figured I'd make you aware of it in case it sparked some great new idea with you. And welcome back. Glad to see you posting again.

Here's a link to one of the keyboards, the G15 from Logitech: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/produNTID=10717 They now have others with it. I'm not seeing any specs on the LCD resolution but it holds a good amount of data for my uses now. In IM message displays I get 4 full lines of text plus a line made up of a title bar with buttons assignments on them (there are buttons below the display and this text lets you know their current dynamic function.) It supports variably sized fonts so number of lines is a bit up to the author and the font size they can live with.

Pete, Logitech has been producing keyboards with LCD displays of late and the idea is starting to catch on. Now they have a few keyboards with the displays and an API for interfacing with it. Until recently the apps available for it were pretty limited. Now they're starting to show up and some are quite helpful. For example, one of them adds a plugin to Trillian (the IM program) that outputs the data to the display. Thus, if you IM me and I'm in FS flying, I can now see your message on my keyboard display without having to ALT-TAB out to the desktop just to see if it's worth dealing with. Furthermore I can actually respond to the messages right from there. There are 4 programmable buttons on the display and the plugin has one set up for Reply. Very slick and very useful. That got me thinking about AdvDisp. It'd be nice if AdvDisp could output its textual data, among other things, to this display instead of to the screen itself. That way it's out of the way and yet very convenient. Thoughts?

Here's the odd part. I went and hid all my flights in the My Documents/Flight Simulator Files folder. In fact, I hid the whole folder. When I do that, FS9 (with weather addon in background) creates a Previous flight.FX and Previous flight.WZ file seemingly from nowhere and then weather data is put into the Weather tab again. Gotcha. Ah hah! Okay. MUCH appreciated. So the fact that the weather seems accurate is because I'm checking it minutes to hours after a previous flight. If I waited days or more it'd likely be completely screwy. The reason for all this is my continued desire to have accurate weather on initial load without the need to do that silly AI toggle thing. I'm wondering now what would happen if the weather products essentially faked FS9 by providing an updated "Previous flight" file that has the current weather. Thanks. Great info.

Peter, Ran into something odd that a weather developer said involved the way you handle things. I have FS9 set to a default of clear weather. Since I use weather programs, I never see that clear weather except during testing. If I start FS9 and go into Create a Flight (a screen you don't use if memory serves) and change the departure airport, when I return back to the main Create a Flight menu, the Weather tab doesn't change. It still says "CLEAR". HOWEVER, if I launch FS9 and also start up any weather product (like ActiveSky, FS Metar, etc.), there's a distinct difference in what happens. Now when I go in and pick a new departure airport, when I return back to the Create a Flight menu, the Weather tab now says, "User Defined". If I go into that tab, there's a whole bunch of weather set up that appears to be accurate. The odd part is that the weather developers (I'm 3 for 3 so far) tell me that they are not able to set up weather at that point yet so this info isn't coming from them. One said FSUIPC sees the weather program and sets the weather based on previous weather. This is just a curious element I'd like to understand. I don't understand why simply having a weather product running (but suposedly not able to set weather at this stage) makes the weather tab change while not having it there keeps the weather "CLEAR". Further, the weather that does show up there can't just be based on the last flight as I get different weather with every change of departure. I can go to LAX and get one result and then change my mind and go to Heathrow and get something entirely different. Any idea where this information is coming from and if you have anything to do with this cycle?

Found it. Sort of. FS9.CFG had a few errant entries. Still need to find out which ones as it was pretty vanilla. I wiped it and stutter vanished. First pass over the file looks fine. Have to dig when I get more time. Now back to trying to cure my SB3 woes.

Thanks Pete, I'll try that. At this point I'm just hoping to help PSS along and give them enough info to pinpoint the problem so that hopefully they will fix it. Certainly I shouldn't have to fix it. What setting do I change in the .INI to get IPC logging enabled? That way I can change it and have it trap on the first run.

Get this Pete. I tried that. I took the panel.cfg and remarked every single gauge line in it. Picture my problem (stutter) and then picture what happened after I did this and then flew the plane. I get in the plane and the panels are there but they're empty just as you would assume right? I then go outside the plane in Spot view and spin around the plane. NO stutter, just as you'd expect. Excellent right? Now I have a process. I can go down and turn on one gauge at a time until I find the gauge or gauges that cause the problem. Fantastic! So I go to the first gauge and unremark it. I reload, hop in the plane, go to spot view and the plane is stuttering. Holy smokes! The first gauge is the problem. So I remark it and unmark the 2nd gauge and repeat. It stutters too! I then do this for the next 8-10 gauges and with every single gauge (only one active at a time) the plane stutters. ANY gauge is causing this? Some of these were the most basic gauges you've encountered. That's why I'm pulling my hair out. It makes no sense. Meanwhile every other plane is just fine from the default planes to the complex add-ons. It makes no sense!

Yep, had the problem well before I re-installed SB3. The PSS-Dash8.gau is a problem. It's not a gauge. It's EVERY gauge. I had a friend look at it in FS Panel Studio and he said there's something like 1,000 different pieces in there. Very annoying little problem. I even tried my outdated FSUIPC just in case and it still stuttered so as we both knew, it's not you. Thanks for giving it a moment though. Much appreciated.

Did you see my note at the bottom of the log? "I'm also curious about why hiding the DLL appears to fix the problem. I just did a partial flight with FSUIPC.DLL renamed to hide it and most everything appeared to work with regard to gauges except for the autopilot. It basically worked but would not handle altitude settings correctly. Does this suggest that this might be the "gauge" that is having trouble? In other words, do I gain any useful knowledge by finding out that the stutter goes away when I hide the DLL?"

Here's the log in case it helps. I started a session after removing the key and INI and re-registered manually, just in case. I then quit, reloaded and chose the Dash 8. Still stuttered and then shut down. The log is as follows: ********* FSUIPC, Version 3.47 by Pete Dowson ********* Running inside FS2004 (FS9.1 CONTROLS.DLL, FS9.1 WEATHER.DLL) User Name="Rich Heimlich" User Addr="agrajag@comcast.net" FSUIPC Key is provided WIDEFS not user registered, or expired Module base=61000000 ClassOptions: UIPCMAIN=FF7F, FS98MAIN=FF7F, FS2KMAIN=FF5E WeatherOptions(Orig)=40003605[40003605] InitDelay: 0 seconds WeatherReadInterval=4 LogOptions=00000001 DebugStatus=15 8891 System time = 10:43:48 8891 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\ 8906 System time = 10:43:48, FS2004 time = 12:00:00 (00:00Z) 17641 FLIGHTS\OTHER\FLTSIM.flt 17656 AIRCRAFT\c172\Cessna172SP.air 18891 Aircraft="Cessna Skyhawk 172SP" 21844 Module [M1] identified = "sbmpjoin9.dll" 21844 Module [M1] "sbmpjoin9.dll" access registration is okay 23875 Module [M2] identified = "sbmod9.dll" 23875 Module [M2] "sbmod9.dll" access registration is okay 23875 Module [M3] identified = "sbtrans9.dll" 23875 Module [M3] "sbtrans9.dll" access registration is okay 24344 Advanced Weather Interface Enabled 49703 AIRCRAFT\PSS Dash8\Dash8-300.air 50938 Aircraft="PSS Dash 8 300 US Airways Express" 54266 Module [M4] identified = "PSS-Dash8.GAU" 54266 Module [M4] "PSS-DASH8.GAU" access registration is okay 65610 C:\Documents and Settings\Rich\My Documents\Flight Simulator Files\UI generated flight.flt 69360 Clear All Weather requested: external weather discarded 115188 System time = 10:45:34, FS2004 time = 10:44:28 (18:44Z) 115188 *** FSUIPC log file being closed Memory managed: 2 Allocs, 114 Freed ********* FSUIPC Log file closed **** I'm also curious about why hiding the DLL appears to fix the problem. I just did a partial flight with FSUIPC.DLL renamed to hide it and most everything appeared to work with regard to gauges except for the autopilot. It basically worked but would not handle altitude settings correctly. Does this suggest that this might be the "gauge" that is having trouble? In other words, do I gain any useful knowledge by finding out that the stutter goes away when I hide the DLL?

You know how that goes. Maybe it was there and I just didn't notice or the load was so heavy that it blended in, but I don't think it was there. THIS is obvious. Didn't think of that one. I don't expect much there but I'll look. And of course I've registered the most important piece of add-on software out there! Rats, that sound great right up until that part. The way I've been re-registering is to keep copying my FSUIPC.INI over. Maybe that's the issue? Perhaps I should remove it and register the manual way? It seems this plane is different for them. I have had a VERY hard time getting them to answer questions about it. It was only $15 as they reduced the price when they moved it from FS2002 to FS2004 so I SUSPECT they're not real keen to support it fully now. No other add-on plane is doing this, or the default planes. I added the PMDG 1900C, the Flight1 ATR 72-500 and a Milton Shupe plane, the Aero Commander 680 "Super". John, the support guy, keeps saying "re-install the plane. I'm on my 6th re-install. Since I'm the only one seemingly having trouble I have this feeling they're done with it. I hope not, but I don't have a good feeling about it. Searching "PSS Dash 8 problems" on Google gets you quiet a long list.

Pete, (welcome back!) Due to my SB3 troubles I had to re-install FS9. Since re-installing, my favorite plane, a PSS Dash-8 that was originally built for FS2002 and quickly migrated to FS2004, now stutters terribly (every 2 seconds) whenever I load it. I went to the PSS AVSIM support forum and asked how to fix this and their reply was that FSUIPC is the culprit. I don't think it is but thought I'd mention this to you and see if you had any input that might help. I basically found, through lots of trial and error, that if I hide panel.cfg (by renaming it) the stutter stops. I also can get the stutter to stop by remarking all the gauges in the panel.cfg. Further, I can get the stutter to stop if I remove FSUIPC.DLL (sort of like removing an arm for a hang nail problem). In the case where I remarked all the gauges in the panel.cfg, unremarking ANY of them causes the stutter to show up again. PSS is saying that's why they think FSUIPC is the problem. I don't believe them. Thoughts?

Pete, Been a while since I messed with VATSIM but now that SB3 is out I'd like to give it a shot (right now it's about as stable as Robert Blake.) What I did before was to have my ATC key set to the ` key (below the tilde which I believe is the default) and then in FSUIPC set the button up for that as well. That way when I'm in single player with traffic, hitting the button on the yoke (the right trigger button) brings up the ATC window. In VATSIM/SB3 the same button should allow me to talk to real controllers (since once multiplayer mode starts, ATC gets disabled) thus the key can serve two purposes. For some reason it's not working that way and it did flawlessly before. Right now in FSUIPC the button is set to ATC and I suspect that's wrong. For this to work wouldn't I want it set to send the ` key as well?

Ah! You're totally right. I misunderstood that. So how does the CTRL-ALT-A get out from the dialogue processing procedure to be interpreted by Windows to trigger the load? Just a friendly pass-through from FS9? I agree entirely. Now it just comes down to ActiveSky and if they'd be open to looking for a trigger key like this to kick into gear and, hopefully, find a way to yell back when done.

I don't disagree with that. I figured that since you were already in at a low level and if all the BIG assumptions panned out about potential access in a dialogue, then you might be able to do something that would benefit a large number of apps but that didn't really work out. Well, I just now did a check. I set ActiveSky's Properties (in Windows) to have a shortcut of CTRL+ALT+A and went into FS9's dialog. I then hit the key combination and ActiveSky immediately launched so apparently Microsoft is not trapping everything there. Also that means I now have a large portion of what I wanted now done. I can start ActiveSky on my own right before clicking "Fly Now!" I'd made the assumption previously that they were trapping keys so maybe only you'd be able to sneak in there. Granted it did grab focus this way so I have to talk with the AS guys to deal with that. Plus you hit the nail on the head. Now that we know a hot key can work. Why not have them provide hot key support to trigger the critical actions? Thanks for working through the iterations with me. It should be clear now that I do like challenges and tinkering as much as the hobby itself so I enjoy a good lively discussion with informed people even if nothing comes of it.

Ronzie, I hadn't thought of being offline.... Once you go broadband you forget that others aren't! I'm online 100% of the time so ActiveSky is always out getting the weather. Pete, RUNONREQUEST was the idea. With the current Keys setup, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would work. I wouldn't be surprised if hotkeys sneak by. I've seen that happen in other apps, but I've also seen them end up entirely shut out too. I'll give this some thought. You'll also have to trust me a bit on the reasoning for all this. If I got it to go as intended, all I'd have to do is start FS9 and everything else would happen seamlessly, which is never a bad idea in my books. I do understand your thinking of it being odd. You launch FS9 in a different way and use a different tool. Active Sky, even with the toggle, might still result in incorrect runways and such IF you toggle before it's done and there's currently no way to know it's done IF you're in the dialog. Thanks for being open minded about it. Odds are there'll be no need to even do anything. Just thinking aloud right now and asking about for possibilities, not guarantees.

It's a pain in the butt, is the problem. It's this big long delay process. I have to ALT-TAB out and sit there staring at ActiveSky to make sure it's done before I go into the sim. What I was hoping is that since it's now clear that FSUIPC is, at least in part, active during this process, I was hoping there'd be enough of a hole that would allow a hotkey through to trigger loading ActiveSky ONLY after I've gotten the environment right. That way, when it does load, it only sees the right variables and doesn't waste a LOT of time populating based on the previous (and possibly incorrect) information. By the way, Traffic Density Toggle isn't a cure-all either. Even with it, you MUST be sure the ATIS info is correct before doing it or else you're likely to do it before ActiveSky is finished which then defeats the whole purpose of doing it. This is why I nearly held off on buying ActiveSky. Many similar utilities, like Radar Contact, for example, often require all these extra steps in order to get them all operating effectively and that, for me, often keeps me from continuing use of them past the initial interest stage. Oh well.

Apparently the concensus is that it does the same thing as Traffic Density Toggle but perhaps not everyone has access to that? I don't recall if Keys are and that toggle are available in the unregistered version and, as you know, some people aren't comfortable making changes to FSUIPC so this approach acheives the same objective as Traffic Density Toggle, though not as efficiently. From what I'm seeing, he populates the weather immediately upon getting the departure airport. Pete, that's not accurate according to the results I'm seeing. Before I click "Fly Now!", ActiveSky, given the right amount of time to set up, has populated the correct information into FS9. So, when I click, "Fly Now!" if your theory were correct, I would enter the sim and have incorrect information, but I do not. What I have is up-to-date, correct ActiveSky-populated weather from the instant I arrive. The clouds are all in perfect place. The altimeter is set as it should be. The runways are all assigned correctly. This is because I allowed ActiveSky the time to see the change in my depature airport and re-populate before going into the sim itself. This doesn't happen for you because you don't go into the User Interface. You head right out into the sim from your Desktop. Thus, the information FS9 has at that moment is incorrect and AI starts going the wrong way and ATIS is off. If you would try the steps I laid out you'll see that what I'm saying is accurate and then it begs for some automation. On that count you couldn't be more right. I defer to you on any such issue as I am definitely not that tuned into FS terminology. In my world it's a menu or user interface so I'll switch over to Dialogue from here on in. Okay, that makes sense. Understand that it is clear that some things are going on and that data IS being passed and, likely, through you as during this time in the dialogue (hey, that flowed right out! ) ActiveSky is getting updates (I assume from you) about the changes I'm making to the departure airport. I'm guessing on that as I'm not sure where ActiveSky is getting its "current location" data from. If it gets it from you, then you are, at that point feeding live changes to it. Do you understand why I don't need Traffic Density Toggle under my conditions? I don't need to toggle my AI off and on to see "corrected" information because, following my detailed process, my FS9 enters the sim (after the dialogue) with 100% accurate information. Toggling the AI off and on would just have it all reset on the same exact information. I'm now just trying to find a way to get ActiveSky to make that detailed process a bit less manual. I thought there might be a sneaky hole in the dialogue that you might be able to exploit but it's sounding more like ActiveSky has the better shot at this.

ActiveSky support is telling me that the other approaches are hit and miss and that I really should be adjusting the Time forward 1 minute. To that I say, "Huh?" Sounds pretty goofy. Anyway, do read on as ActiveSky has also contacted me to tell me that we have indeed tripped over something here that has them looking into potential solutions. From what I'm learning, quite a bit. For example, right now I use FSUIPC to start ActiveSky so it essentially loads before FS9. So there it is sitting there doing nothing but waiting. Nothing really wrong with that. However, as SOON as FS9 sends it data, what it sends is potentially incorrect data as you're likely to change your departure airport and thus, all the looking up it's doing at that moment is a waste of time. If you wait until after you pick your departure airport and then start it, it gets that right on the first shot so there's no delay. I don't need the Traffic Density Toggle because my AI isn't loaded when ActiveSky sets the weather to the correct settings. You need it becuse you're already in the sim on the ground and the AI is already out and about under false information. Correct, but what I'm suggesting is that it won't "change" the wind direction. If it's loaded just after departure airport is selected but before "Fly Now!" is selected then the only wind FS9 sees is the correct wind and that's what it passes to the AI. We're talking about two different menus. You're talking about the standard menu that you get to with the ALT key (assuming you fly full screen). I'm talking about the User Interface and I always go to it because I'm constantly changing where I fly out of, what time I'm flying and what plane I'm flying. I never saw much reason to go hopping into the sim only to go about changing all that once in. The reality for me was that I could make it work flawlessly every single time, without the need to resort to work-arounds, by simply doing things in a very predictable manner. Start FS9. Go to the user interface menu. Select your flight plan and say yes when FS asks to move your plane to the new destination (that's the trigger point). Start ActiveSky. Wait for it to finish. Then click "Fly Now!". Done this way, the weather is always perfect on load as are the runway assignments. I'm just trying to now automate it a a bit. Following the procedure above, there is no wind direction change. It's correct on load. Follow?

Pete, In working on this ActiveSky issue, we've worked out a few things and I'm wondering if you might be the perfect answer (well, FSUIPC) for it. Apparently all the goofy work-arounds can be avoided if you first load FS9, set your intended departure flight and THEN load ActiveSky. Active Sky would then trigger, sense the correct departure airport, get the weather for it and you'd be ready to fly. In fact, it'd be great if, under this condition, ActiveSky could trigger playing of the ATIS info so that you'd know it finished its job and that it's safe to click "Fly Now!" This got me wondering about FSUIPC. Clearly you're in memory early on in the FS9 load process because you can trigger the launching of other programs while FS9 is still early in its own loading. First, are you able to sense ANY activity within the menu system of FS9 before anyone actually hits "Fly Now!"? In other words, can you potentially monitor changes going on to say, departure flight data, etc? Second, could you allow Keys to work from there? I could set up say, TAB-A to launch ActiveSky and launch it right from the FS9 menu or are you unable to trap keystrokes at this stage? The goofy step of loading AFTER FS9 is setup and then having to either a) check and wait for it to complete its download process or b) toggle the AI on and off, just clearly isn't very optimal or realistic. I keep thinking there has to be a more elegant approach to this. It'd be really swell of Microsoft if they'd allow for third-party control of the weather right from the Weather section of the main menu, perhaps as part of the User-Defined category but that's some pretty healthy wishing on my part.

I too start where I can see several AI planes but none move, however, it appears ATIS information does change. I come in and it's "altimeter 2992" and then after the toggle it's something else so clearly I've managed to update the weather, or so it would seem. I also use CTRL-S to get a top-down view of the airport and see no planes go away. BTW, are you using any setting for the Parameter field in FSUIPC? I had it set to nothing initially and now it's set to 40 but I suspect as a toggle, it may not look at that. Hey, I just had a thought. Are you running AI at 100% also? Perhaps my running at 40% is the reason I'm not seeing anything. I would think this toggle would remove ALL AI from the screen (does it?) but perhaps it's only removing those aircraft that I never loaded in the first place. If you get a chance, could you try 40% and see what happens when you hit the toggle?

No. Any add-on that would require what you initially laid out before the Toggle Traffic Density option. But you raise a good point. The weather changed. FS9 should be aware of that, period. Hmm, great point. Gotcha. heheh. No problem. I'll take all the help I can get at this point. Currently I've gone into Keys, set CTRL-A to Toggle Traffic Density and set it. The only issue I have right now is that I'm not seeing any visual indication of the toggle doing anything. The AI aircraft all stay perfectly in place but I do notice that the ATIS is reading off correct weather information. I'll have to go back and read the docs to make sure I'm invoking the key right. I don't set any parameter and don't set any "on release" state. Same here, plus GA-Traffic. If FS10 or beyond actually fixes the darned AI so that they get lined up properly and taxi properly, it'll be amazing to just watch! Hahahaha. The more we spread the word on this, the better. I just got fairly lucky. I found out that if I click on the FS9 screen just after it grabs focus and gets to the first menu, it keeps the focus. Now I'm off to go resolve a Time issue which has cropped up. Not sure, but since ActiveSky got installed I've noticed that much of the time my local time and Zulu time (thanks for the lesson on Zulu time with regard to aircraft clocks) on the FS9 time menu are exactly the same instead of being sync'ed 5 hours apart. Zulu time is actually, in that event, local time but all the settings for things like "Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night" are all wrong. For example, if I click Day, it's actually dark out. Should be a fun one to figure out.