Pete Dowson

Not I, that was "krzcooter". I don't know the program. Well I'd guess that of those functions you'd want the "pair" option, wouldn't you? You want two virtual ports linked together, one connected to WideClient and the other to your FliteDeck program. Right? Is that what it means by "pair"? However, if MixW worked with FliteMap but doesn't with FliteDeck I doubt if any other solution will either. Maybe one of the other users can help? I thought Eterlogic was the solution for Vista and there was no problem with MixW on WinXP? Regards Pete

So this is nothing to do with the joystick, then? This is what is confusing. You talk about assigning axes and buttons and keypresses -- but now the ESCape key, which is on the keybard, not the joystick, right? The Escape key is, by default assigned in FS to bring up the question about end of flight. What actual FS control do you want to change it to? I'm sorry, but I do not know one called "end of flight". And why would you want to change it to do such a thing when it does it already? Anyway, the ESCape key is a reserved windows key which, if pressed when within a dialogue, will exit that dialogue. You cannot really program it in FSUIPC for that reason. What's the "ctrl-alt-del page"? Do you mean the Windows Task Manager? If so, I don't know how you have your Windows set up, but the ESCape key is not handled by FSUIPC at all. Whatever you did will be something handling it in Windows or some other program. The keyboard and the joystick are entirely separate things and do not in any way interfere with each other or have any relationship whatsoever. In FSUIPC as in FS they are entirely separate facilities. I really have no idea how you are getting them mixed up. Sorry. [LATER] It occurred to me later that you may actually not be meaning "key board assignments" but trying to assign keystrokes to joystick buttons? Your words don't say that, but they seem so confusing I'm struggling to extract your intentions when writing them. If so, then I'm not sure why you'd want to do such a thing for standard FS functions, because all FS will do with them is look them up in its assignments table and convert them to an FS control. It would be much much more efficient, therefore, to assign the control itself to the button directly -- a facility both FS and FSUIPC offers. The main purpose of providing facilities to produce keypresses from joystick buttons is for communicating with add-on panels and other programs which do not react to FS controls like FS does. Your last comment, about deleting axis assignments in FSX, seems to indicate that you actually had both FSX and FSUIPC both processing the same axes, which obviously isn't a good idea. Maybe you also had FSX and FSUIPC processing the same joystick buttons? Whilst you can of course legitimately and possibly usefully mix button assignments in FS and FSUIPC, you shouldn't really do that for the same buttons unless you do clearly want both sets of actions to be executed together. It does tell you these things in the User Guide, by the way. It should really never have to be a matter for trial and error. Regards Pete

Erdownloaded "from Peters site the FSUIPC link"? What does that mean, please? You need to slow down and make a little sense please. You have not answered the question I asked before, i.e. "When you say "Have fixed FSX", what exactly do you mean?". There is absolutely no way I or anyone can help you unless you can find a way to explain yourself a little better. Sorry. Other suggestions that the one I gave which you apparently ignored? First, did you not read where I said "Show me the FSUIPC Installation log -- you'll find it in the FSX Modules folder."? Did you also not read "See also the FSX Help announcement above for assistance in repairing the original SimConnect installation."? And what does that mean? You can make your installation of FSX into such a mess that eventually your only solution will be to re-format your hard disk and reinstall Windows first! You should not mess about without knowing what you are doing! Regards Pete

Yes, not a problem. Just add a suitable credit, please. Regards Pete

Where exactly, in relation to the aircraft, is ASX saying that wind layer should be so? As far as I'm aware weather control programs can only set weather at weather stations. Everywhere else the weather is determined by FSX by a type of interpolation which, unfortunately, is pretty buggy. Furthermore, even at the weather stations new weather being set can take 30-40 seconds to "morph" into reality, by which time the dynamics may have changed it in any case. That will also, of course, make readings different, though hopefully only temporarily. I'm not all that sure you need that option if you have the ASX options set correctly, or maybe it's a case of one or the other but not both. There are no weather stations in the Oceans, at least not in FSX, so the weather you get there is normally not controlled and is often defaulted. I think ASX has an option to use an FSX feature for creating temporary weather stations in advance of your cross-Ocean routing. I have never used that so I don't know how well it works, but maybe you need to check whether you have enabled it? Sorry, I've no idea what that ASX option does, but it sound like it doesn't work. Possibly interaction with FSUIPC facilities? With the bugs in FSX's weather setting facilities it isn't always possible, though I do believe ASX does its best to overcome them. You'll need advice from HiFi simulations though, by the sound of it. Not sure why FSUIPC too? You do realise that ASX doesn't use FSUIPC, don't you, that FSUIPC doesn't control FSX weather? It does provide weather facilities, and in fact even Active Sky 6.5 works with FSX using FSUIPC, but the main advantage of ASX was direct control through SimConnect, with Hi-F Simulation's wealth of weather experience and dedicated testing on just that one aspect of FSX making it so good. I'm afraid that, from my perspective, in FSUIPC, trying to provide 100% control facilities for FSX weather turned out to be a doomed objective and I'm simply eagerly hoping that Microsoft have got this sorted by FS-next's release in a couple of years or so. It worries me rather that they managed to carry over the exact same near-180 degree wind shift problems they had in FS2004 into FSX, as well as the often buggy interpolation algorithms. Along with the loss of clouds, that does, indeed, sound like you've run well clear of any weather stations over the Ocean and so FSX doesn't produce any weather. I wouldn't be at all surprised either to hear that the QNH was 1013 and the temperature at sea level was 15C! Seems that the first thing you need to check is whether you enabled the option in ASX to create Ocean weather stations. I don't know if that's defaulted or not. Regards Pete

What do you mean, please, "fatal error"? What actually happens when you do what? I need information. I also need to know the VERSION number of FSUIPC -- that is crucial. If it is not at least 4.30 please update and try again. If you want to do such a strange thing, just do it. There's nothing stopping you doing what you want to in FSX, and FSUIPC only ever does what you ask it to do. So where's the conflict? Where's the problem? Why even ask this question? I don't understand why you'd even consider there'd be a difficulty! Anyway, it is far, far easier to assign buttons in FSUIPC than it is to mess with axis assignments, so why are you doing the assignments in FSUIPC is you understand sol ittle? You do not have to assign axes in FSUIPC in order to calibrate in FSUIPC -- you can calibrate FSX axes in FSUIPC too. You don't even need to use FSUIPC at all as FSX professes to be able to use joysticks "out of the box"! Whatever you end up doing, please explain what you mean by "fatal error" and how you achieve it, and what version you are using. Otherwise it really is a waste of both our times you coming here. Regards Pete

Show me the FSUIPC Installation log -- you'll find it in the FSX Modules folder. When you say "Have fixed FSX", what exactly do you mean? This error is normally due to a bad original SimConnect installation, often apparently resulting from attempting to un-install and re-install FSX with one of the steps being incomplete. See also the FSX Help announcement above for assistance in repairing the original SimConnect installation. Regards Pete

Sorry, I am not visualising what you are talking about. And anyway I don't know much about the hardware. However, surely you can trace the wiring from the from the avionics cable socket to the control board? Regards Pete

Sounds like the cable you tried to use was a null-modem cable (ones where the wires cross, i.e. 2-3, 3-2 and so on, instead of 2-2, 3-3 and so on -- for PC to PC connections rather than Pc to peripheral). Either that, or it was a straight cable and you actually need a crossed-over one, but I think that is slightly less likely. If you have a simple circuit tester or meter you could check whether pin 2 at one end is connected to pin 2 or pin 3 at the other. That's not normally a problem as little gender-bender adapters should be easy to get in both 9 and 25 pin sizes. I've got both male-male ones and female-female ones. Pete

3.81 was released in April. Version 3.82 was released back in July. You are using an out of date unsupported version. Regards Pete

Except for the Baro setting, which is a standard FS control, the default 737 EFIS is entirely internal to the panel and doesn't use any FS controls or keystrokes. Furthermore Microsoft used non-standard structures for the mouse rectangles, which defeats the use of FSUIPC's "mouse macro" facilities. You have two possibilities. Either use Luciano Napolitano's "Key2Mouse" program to convert keypresses into mouse actions (which entails having the panel always displayed of course), or consider changing to an add-on aircraft which provides some sort of control over its switches than just mouse. Regards Pete

Sorry, I've been so busy recently I've not had a chance to look till now. You really do need to read things a little more carefully when purchasing things on the Internet. It does say quite clearly which version each is for, and it also clearly states "no refunds". I will see what I can do, but it won't be till next week (Monday perhaps) now as I'm tied up till then. Please re-submit your original PM and details to my email address, petedowson@btconnect.com, as it makes it easier there for me to do the necessary changes. Regards Pete

Yes, that makes the problem and solution obvious. You have not only configured the axis to send Gear Down and Gear Up commands when it passes through certain ranges, but you have also assigned the axis, as an analogue axis, to "Gear Set" -- FSUIPC will be not only sending gear Down and Gear Up requests when it should, but also continually sending values from the axis, almost all of which will most certainly be non-zero and therefore seen as "gear down" by FS. Do one thing or the other - Down and Up controls, or a "gear set" axis, NOT both! If you choose to use Gear Set you will have to be sure your axis sends only zero (0) when you move it to the "gear up" position! Most unlikely except by program or specific exlectric circuit. You can do, though unless you are still using Windows Me, 98 or 95, there's no real advantage -- TCP or UDP are just as efficient these days with MS not really developing IPX any more. The fastest is undoubtedly UDP, but that's because there's no checking on that. Use it if you get no errors reported in the logs. The instructions for selecting the protocol are clearly described in the WideFS documentation. Can't you find it? Look in the Zip. There's only one parameter involved, in the WideClient.INI file!! Pete

Well, yes, it could be the cable, or it could be the inner part of the Cirrus which handles the connection and merging of the Avionics data with its own. Certainly the easiest thing to try first would be a new cable. Do you mean a D25 to a D9? They will both be COM serial port plugs. Some cables actually have both a D9 and D25 at each end -- I have several like that. They date from the days when a PC tended to have one D9 for COM1 and one D25 for COM2 (or maybe vice versa). You can get D9-D25 and D25-D9 adapters quite easiely still, I think. Of course non-serial old-style printer ports were often the IEEE parallel type with a different connector altogether -- a much more expensive affair in fact. Regards Pete

Ah, good. It must have been some software issue then, as I thought. Well, yes -- one way at least. But I thought you said COM1 didn't display? Aren't they waiting for you to get back to them about what happens when you connect only the Avionics stack, directly? If that is possible it at least will determine which part in at fault. Regards Pete

Of course. Please refer to the Appendix to the Advanced User's guide. The one entitled "About the Aircraft Specific option and ShortAircraftNameOK". Regards Pete

And what version is that? Just saying "latest" is meaningless -- it means the latest you have seen or noticed. I've had folks say that who've been using a year old version, not even realising there'd been ten more releases since then! All my software has easy to find and clear version numbers. Please always quite them. Just the FSUIPC.INI file and any macro files you've created (they are all the files with filetype .MCRO). They are all in the FS Modules folder. FSUIPC doesn't hide any files anywhere else! Regards Pete

FS's gear control is just a toggle -- UP or DOWN, it isn't an axis. Ah, you mean using the axis range section? I can't actually see what you have done from here, sorry. You'll have to explain exactly what you have done if you want me to assist. The documentation does explain everything -- it even includes pictures! Regards Pete

Okay. This facility is now available -- see the Announcements above. It is in FSUIPC 4.324 and 3.844. Regards Pete

I had rather a job finding YOUR bits of your last message. I don't think you've got the hang of the quoting facility yet, have you? Anyway, please check if I've missed anything important: If that's possible, yes, it might. Oh, that's not mine! In fact it clearly says so -- it is by Enrico Schiratti. He hosts all the main releases, and has done for many years. Others used to host some of them, but only Enrico Schiratti has always put them all up, which is why it is referenced quite a lot. I cannot update that page directly. I release main user packages to around 50 website managers and developers, and they put up what they like. For the many many interim updates and other useful files I only have the space afforded by this Forum's download system, and those are accessed via the links in the Announcements. The Announcements here are my main way of keeping folks abreast of things. I don't know how folks arrive with posts here without seeing them first. Whenever I come here they are all right at the top, staring me in the face! Maybe other browsers hide them?? Pete

Maybe, but I guess it could also be a malfunction in the cirrus controller board. That has to mesh / unmesh the stack data to and from the PC along with its own. I think this is why PFC wanted you to try connecting just the stack directly to the PC -- assuming this is possible, which is something I didn't know. Assuming it is possible, this would be one way of determining, first, whether it's the Cirrus or the Avioincs stack needing repair. I suspect PFC are waiting for your result on this. Well, assuming they aren't awaiting the results of the check they asked you to do, the other reason, generally, is that they are a relatively small company with a large range of products, and often the skilled support folks are out on user sites and exhibitions etc. Even I have to wait a long time for tech responses, and they treat me as "one of them"! ;-) No, that shouldn't be the case because when you are in those PFC options the hardware is not being read. I don't like the sound of that -- it sounds more like either a bug in PFC.DLL or some interaction with other software, lke a mouse driver. There's definitely something else going on there. Can you tell me what other software you have running. Version of Windows, mouse driver, etc? What page? I don't have any pages other than this Forum, and all the Announcements and update downloads are at the top of the forum, as in any Forum. Don't you ever look there? :-( Regards Pete

Ah, autorudder. yes, I'd forgotten about that one. Thanks for reminding me! Please do update your FSUIPC though. There is no reason to stay with such an old version. Regards Pete

FSUIPC 3.72 is very old and completely unsupported. First update to at least 3.82. Read the announcements above, especially the one about supported versions. A rudder control which works on the ground but not in the air is called a "steering tiller". It sounds like you have assigned your pedals incorrectly. Regards Pete

You enabled Button and Key logging? I didn't want that! Anyway, it shows you pressed the "P" key. If that does the job, why not program your button to press the P key? [The default action for P is "PAUSE TOGGLE". The fact that you got not "PAUSE TOGGLE" event logged means you either failed to enable Event logging, or that you've re-assigned the P key to something else!] Did you not enable the Event logging as I suggested? Oh, on the G1000 gauge? Never used that. There are a large number (about 50) of G1000 controls listed -- those named "G1000 MFD ..." and "G100 PFD ...". I don't see one specifically for the operation you want to do, and certainly there isn't one being passed through from the gauge to FSX's code -- so, like many of the default gauges, I'm afraid this function is purely local to the gauge and not controllable except by mouse. [LATER] I've just tried it, and it is most certainly purely a local gauge function. Since it appears only to be usable by mouse, and since it seems that, as usual, Microsoft have not constructed the gauge in the standard manner of their SDK, so defeating anything my mouse macro facility can do, I'm afraid your only options are either to continue using the Mouse, or use Luciano Napolitano's "Key2Mouse" program. Regards Pete

I'm afraid you are right, it has to be a hardware or connection issue. The software in the PC (my PFC.DLL or PFCFSX.DLL) doesn't distinguish between codes arriving from or sent to the Avionics stack, as it merely appears as part of the provisions on the main controller board and firmware in the Cirrus. If things were going wrong at the PC end it would affect the Cirrus too. I've been using those USB - serial adapters for years, even on the PCs which have got serial ports, because they are faster and more efficient in how they operate in the PC. For my Vista64 PC, though, I had to get a PCI serial card because there were no 64-bit drivers for the USB adapters. Right. confirmation then that something's gone awry in the unit. Will that work? I've never tried that. I always thought it depended upon the controlller card in the main unit. sorry, I'm not understanding something there. What does "use FSX keyboard consoles" mean? No matter how badly behaved the stack might be, you shouldn't be able to lock up FSX by using anything. That's a bit worrying. Can you explain in more detail exactly what you are doing? Maybe enabling the serial port logging (the top two checkboxes on the left-hand side of the "Test" tab in the PFC options) would show what it is doing when "locking up"? Maybe it is sending data so fast, possibly repeating things, that the PC doesn't get to do much else? There are later versions of both available in the FSX Downloads announcement above, and you could try those, but I don't think it will make any difference. Regards Pete