Pete Dowson

Correct. I'll be addressing the gusts (and variance) too, in the same sort of way as the turbulence. I didn't mention it, because in the two weeks or so of beta testing before 4.25 was released, no one had any such problems. In fact only the PMDG 747 was adversely affected in any case. But I am not surprised that, with large gusts the same sort of problems can arise. In FS9 and before, if you enabled wind smoothing in FSUIPC3, you got no gusts or turbulence in any case, so this really will be a new feature and one which obviously still needs development. I am anxious not to rush into it and do something which whilst accurate and realistic hits FSX frame rates noticeably. That is really the problem i have. The current implemenmtation is crude but costs nothing in terms of performance. Regards Pete

If you have enabled FSUIPC's wind smoothing, for the time being you will also need to disable wind turbulence in both the Winds and Clouds tabs. (It does actually say this in the User Guide). PMDG inform me that this is because the turbulence emulation performed by FSUIPC4 at present is not very realistic, and it is too violent for the well-balanced and accurately computed flight characteristics incorporated into their aircraft. Alternatively, you might get a good flight, with turbulence still enabled, by turning the effect down somewhat. This is done by editing the FSUIPC4.INI file and adjusting the "TurbulenceRate" value. Currently it defaults to 1.0. Try values like 0.5 or even 0.2. I am working with PMDG to develop a more realistic form of turbulence for FSUIPC4, but I don't know when I'll be able to provide this at present. Regards Pete

Yes, of course. It is a facility for remote buttons operated on a touch-sensitive screen. I have two such screens, 7" ones, in my cockpit, one for pilot, the other for co-pilot, and they are used for things like pushback, doors and jetway control, Radar Contact menu selection, and saving and loading flights (there's no keyboard, other than the ones on the CDUs, in the cockpit). You can run WideClient on the same PC as FS, but you first have to change the ClassName used for the WideClient window -- otherwise it uses the same one as FS (naturally, it is pretending to be FS). Look in the WideFS documentation, it tells you how to do this in the Advanced guide. Hang on, I'll just try it here: Yes. Set "ClassInstance=1" in the [Config] part of the client's INI file. If you leave all the parameters to default, it connects locally immediately. Actually, that's quite a useful trick. It never occurred to me -- it means i can do WideFS testing using a single PC! ;-) Regards Pete

This is new to FSX? I have no idea how that manifests itself inside FSX. The only engine failure values SimConnect offers are, on a per-engine basis, a GENERAL ENG DAMAGE PERCENT value and GENERAL ENG FAILED boolean indicator. There are of course cylinder head temperatures, again per engine. Oil pressures and fuel pressures. I can get or have already got all these. Regards Pete

There's not actually an error saying that. Please be more precise when reporting the wording, or, better, show the Install Log. That's a bit drastic without consultation and checking what error you were getting. You could do more damage than good. And there are no "files" you should delete -- the three things listed are actually FOLDERS! If you deleted all three SimConnects, you would also first need to run the main FSX repair, from the original FSX DVD. That confirms it. You have no base (RTM) SimConnect installed, only the two installed by Acceleration. You need to do it all again but repir FSX before Acceleration! Pete

What's a "cylinder failure" and why would there be any offset for it? Can you explain anything in more detail at all? Pete

Sorry, no. Looks like you may need to get a SimConnect log (see the FSX Help announcement above) to see what is happening. The last beta (4.241) is actually identical in almost every way to 4.25. I just removed the wind smoothing thread which everyone was testing without in any case. Regards Pete

Yes, I know. But why are you getting a SimConnect log in the first place? Even without the console output it is still doing a lot of logging, and that won't be helping your frame rates. I tend to use SimConnect logging a lot when developing software. But if you are only interested in using FSX, you should really remove or rename that INI file. Only use it when you are trying to sort a problem out. Regards Pete

Ah. glad it got explained! ;-) Pete

That does make it extra hard to make it all operate as if it is one aircraft. FSX's shared cockpit facility is for this exact application, though of course I think it doesn't work at present with the LevelD aircraft. any place of the world, each one with your own FS, and this two programs to syncronize the aircrafts (like FSNet) Right, so very much like FSX's facilities indeed. I think, by choosing to make it work with an add-on as complex as the Level D you have made it very tough for yourself. And synchronization across an indeterminate delay (latency) over the Internet makes it even worse. Good luck! I hope you manage to solve the problems. Regards Pete

It's usually the METAR data getting corrupted at source. There were several incidents of temperatures like 60-65 C (this is OATs) in Scandinavia a couple of weeks ago. FSUIPC4 now provides temperature smoothing (OAT, not TAT), but that is optional and defaulted off. Otherwise it doesn't go near any temperature values. Can you tell me how the TAT affects the altimeter? I don't really understand that part. If the ambient air pressure is being affected, that would affect the altimeter, of course. Regards Pete

It isn't anything to do with my software. Nowhere do I use any form of DOS window. You have something else doing that. The FSUIPC4 Installer displays an ordinary text window (not DOS) showing the Install Log, but it only does that whilst it is installing. Once it has finished the text is available for you to see in the FSX Modules folder, as the Installer Log file. Pete

a server with same protocol to manage the connections the command program uses it, client/server/client, but the position now is direct client/client Hmm. Not sure why you'd want a third part involvement anyway, but never mind. But surely the copilot is controlling the server simulation, not his own. His own copy of FS is being controlled by your software. You can really only have one plane being simulated. The other is just a dummy following the controlling plane's actions. No. I'm starting to think that what you want to do would be better done by simply having a single PC running FS and two monitors and two sets of flight controls! How far away is your copilot from your pilot? Regards, Pete

Yes, those are documented and unavoidable. They are the results of FSUIPC doing manifest probes for versions of SimConnect. There appears no other way of having a single program work with the latest SimConnect library whilst still also working with the older ones for those who have not upgraded. There are exactly three such errors logged for each "probe" attempt. The Installer also produces them because it probes as well. The errors will occur as soon as FSUIPC4 is loaded (by the RTM SimConnect) so that it can then determine which SimConnect to actually connect to. If the connection with SimConnect is lost subsequently, they may re-occur when it goes through the same process before reconnecting. If the latter is occurring it will be clearly Logged in the FSUIPC4.LOG file, so look there. If you have installed FSUIPC 4.25 look in the User Guide. It was also in the 4.20 User Guide. For 4.25 it is described in a section entitled "SideBySide Errors in the System Event Log", on page 47. They do no harm. It is part of the natural and correct process documented by Microsoft. Regards Pete

What Server did it go via before? With all my TCP/IP programs the route taken by the data is the same whether I use TCP, UDP or SPX protocols. You should really not have both autopilots operating. Can't you make your program on the copilot side stop the A/P switching on? No, it reads whatever is asked of it. The client sends the request to the server, just the once. The server remembers each client's data needs and watches the data in FS for changes. It then only sends changes. The data is compressed and sum-checked. It is very efficient -- it has to be as it is used on cockpit networks with as many as 10 client PCs (my own has 6 just to run the instrumentation, then the one running FS for the projected scenery display, and up to 3 others runing ancillary programs for stuff like weather, ATC, moving map and instructor station. WideServer has to serve them all at the FS frame rate without slowing FS down! WideClient keeps all the data it receives in memory and supplies it to its client programs on request. This is actually described in the documentation. Yes, that sounds about right. Sorry, I've no idea why that would be. You'd need to talk to the guys in LevelD. Does the start-up work okay with other aircraft? Regards Pete

Does that include the entire folder where the FSX.CFG file is situated? That's important. Also the My Documents\Flight Simulator X Files folder? Why are you having to click ANY questions at all about FSUIPC? Those should NEVER occur again if you have told the system that you trust me as a Publisher, as described in the FSUIPC4 User Guide? Once you have said "yes", you trust me, you will never be asked again. It really does sound as if you have something badly screwed up in Windows. I'm sorry, but I've no idea what it could be. I've never heard of anything like it before. I can only refer you to Microsoft support. Sorry. Regards Pete

No, although it makes for really bad third party add-on problems if you install it into the default (Program Files) on Vista, because Vista stops programs without elevated Administrator privileges writing to any Program Files folder. FSUIPC4's installer gets around that for itself by making the Modules folder read/write accessible to all. That's a much better path than "C:\Program Files\ .....". All my FS installations are even more nicely installed, in folders like E:\FSX, D:\FS9 and so on. nice and short! Much easier to deal with. Regards Pete

Could you explain what it is you are trying to test, please? Maybe I can answer it for you without such hassle? Regards Pete

Good. Thanks for letting me know. This does indicate that your previous efforts were not actually ever giving FSX the "elevated administrator" privileges that they ought to have done, and as worked for all other Vista users I know about (including myself). So that remains a puzzle. The code used to register from the Installer is, in fact, the exact code that failed before --the Installer calls FSUIPC4.DLL to execute it, in situ (FSX Modules) after the installation. So the only difference is that the Installer has elevated administrator privileges and FSX never did. Probably, therefore, my other suggestion, of temporarily renaming FSX.EXE as "Install_FSX.EXE" and running that when wanting to register, would have worked fine. Regards Pete

Since FSUIPC doesn't do anything at all with any switch, your symptom must certainly be due to parameters in your INI file, which could only have got there through something you have done. There is no other way! Just delete the FSUIPC4.INI file before loading FSX, and FSUIPC4 will revert to all its default settings -- which is to do nothing at all. Pete

sorry, what do you mean "Perhaps I could use the CloseReady as well"? As well as what? You can either do CloseReadyN=Yes, or CloseReadyN=Kill. If you put two parameters in with the same name Windows only sees one. Not even sure which! And there's no good my program sending a "Close" message if I'm immediately going to murder it, as it will never see the Close message then in the first place. Pete

Yes. Unfortunately, re-installation does not re-install SimConnect unless you first delete those three folders. So if there is some sort of SimConnect problem, it won't be fixed unless you do that. Regards Pete

That is the original release. There would be another similar folder for SP1, and yest another for SP2/Acceleration. If you only have the original release of FSX, no updates, then there is a problem in SimConnect which can cause a crash on start up when there are two or more modules to be loaded. Best to move to SP1 at least. Regards Pete

Good! Well done! Pete

You shouldn't be getting a prompt to trust FSUIPC every time! No. I Beta tested with FSX acceleration so i had it installed before release, and it has worked fine ever since. I think you have a bad installation of SimConnect. Please see the FSX Help announcement above. Pete