Pete Dowson

Registered and enabled, I assume? Sounds like you have something seriously wrong with your Network adapter or its driver software as that is the only extra activity going on when you have an active WideServer. Try removing the Network hardware in the Windows device manager,, then re-installing so that it restores the drivers. Regards Pete

It is a daft system -- it was like this in FS98 when the FSUIPC offsets were effectively "fixed" for onward compatibility. I think what happened was that earlier versions of FS only supported a 3 digit ADF frequency, xxx. When they realised you could get decimal parts (there are a lot of xxx.5 ones in the UK) and that South America, in particular, used 1xxx values, they added the Extended value separately rather than change it and presumably have to change a lot of other things. Whilst FS no longer uses this format, FSUIPC kept to it throughout FS2000, FS2002, FS2004, FSX -- and even CFS1, CFS2 where applicable -- just for compatibility, so add-ons can be carried forward from version to version. This was the main reason I wrote FSUIPC in the first place. ;-) Regards Pete

That must be the turbulence simulation. You can turn that off if you don't like it. I didn't do that in FS9 -- the wind smothing there removed all such wind effects, which I didn't feel was right. That is exactly what folks told me happened weeks ago and why I also eventually found a way to smooth it. I've never seen it happen here, so I was skeptical. It certainly has nothing to do with anything I'm doing at all. I think it is related to faulty / incorrect METAR data being downloaded occasionally, just like the couple of reports of temperatures of >60C in parts of Scandinavia! Well, that's why it, and the temperature smoothing, were added. Regards Pete

I think there's an option you can enable to get it to generate stations for you, but whether it gets "real weather" for those or makes it up itself I don't know. Oh, you did have that enabled! Sorry, I don't know what happened there then. To set such whether ASX has to use special calls to SimConnect to create those temporary stations. I've never used that, and I don't know how well it works. I should think the stations need creating well in advance as the weather takes time to be "merged in" and interpolated. Maybe you were going so fast the changes were too late. Maybe HiFi Simulations support can advise us on this. (Jim, are you there?) Regards Pete

Okay. If it is stopping there, and not logging anything else, then it is not reading the DLL.XML file, or that file is wrong in some way. The only thing I can think of doing now is to delete the DLL.XML file, rerun the FSUIPC4 Installer, and see if that gets it loaded. If not, I'm afraid it's over to Microsoft Support because it is beyond me. SimConnect should be reading that DLL file for sure. You are logging in on Windows as the same user you installed FSX as, I hope? Otherwise maybe SimConnect is looking in the wrong place, the wrong Documents & Settings folder. Regards Pete

You are not reading enough! It says "see also offset 0356". And it says not only 1234.5 will have 0x0234 here but also 0x0105 in offset 0356. Please don't quote little bits and ignore the other bits which in this case explain exactly the answer to your question! Pete

No, neither FSUIPC nor WideFS have anything to do with displaying anything at all. What you want to do can be done in FSX just by itself, with no extra software whatsoever. Just set FSX into Windowed mode (the mode with the title bar showing) -- press ALT + ENTER if you are in full screen mode. Then you can size the window the same as any other Windows program, and even undock and move any panels around to where you want them. Best ask further general questions about FSX over in the FSX forum, or check its own Help. Regards Pete

It doesn't sound right at all, especially considering that whilst the winds are varying, they are only oscillating furiously about a central value (the normal "smoothed" value, which may of course also be changing at your set smoothing rate). The oscillations will be no more than 1 degree and 1 knot per unit of turbulence, either side of the mean. Possibly. But it does suggest that we should find out what the effect of the turbulence on other aircraft, for example the default 737 or 747, is like. I might try that tomorrow ... Thanks! Pete

Earlier, before I discovered the extra wind vector values inside FSX, there were a lot of cases where FSUIPC was temporarily losing the fight with FSX over what the prevailing winds at the aircraft should be. This resulted in unwanted wind shifts still "leaking" through. I made a separate thread which had, as its sole job, re-writing the last values FSUIPC wanted -- at a rate of some 200 times per second. This was in the hope that it would prevent the unwanted values seeping through. It helped sometimes, but didn't fix it fully. I was still missing something -- and that "something" was the extra set of vectors I found yesterday. So, having found them I was curious to know if there were any more leaks, and if, in fact, the extra thread trying to block them all was now needed at all. Tests seem to have shown that I have all the bases covered, and that the thread is not needed. So I shall remove it before release. Makes sense for you? Regards Pete

Hmm. The FSUIPC4 log looks perfect too. I really cannot see a single reason why your KEY is accepted but fails to work. It makes no sense. The only time that has happened is when the Registration routine can't write to the Registry, but if you ran FSX "as Administrator" it must be able to. Sorry, this case is unique. No other report of anything like this at all. I don't know how else to help at present, unless you'd like to just try that trick of renaming FSX.EXE as I suggested? The next main user release, with the Registration option in the Installer, should be ready by the end of this coming week. I'll send you a pre-release version to try, maybe before then (but possibly partly with the old documentation still). Regards Pete

FSUIPC's temp smoothing tries to control the OAT. The other factors involved in computing TAT might be the ones actually doing the jumping anout. How many degrees per second do you call a "significant chunk" by the way? I have OAT displayed on my PM gauges, but I suspect that's missing on most. Regards Pete

PMDG implements their own systems virtually throughout. Hardly any of the built-in FS controls will be of use. Please check the PMDG documentation. Starting their aircraft is similar to real ones, nothing like anything in FS. The PMDG software may allow you to assign keystrokes, but possibly not to all of the functions and steps needed to start an airliner from "cold and dark". I think they had an arrangement with GoFlight to get their hardware to driver some of the things. Maybe they've done this with other ready-made hardware units. But I don't think they provide the information to end users, as least not without a hefty charge and licensing agreement! Regards Pete

No, SP2 wouldn't have installed them there. I don't know what FSPassengers does -- is it an FSX-specific product? Anyway, the next step is to find out why SimConnect isn't loading FSUIPC4. For that we need a SimConnect log file. If you look in the Announcements at the top of this Forum you will find one there called "FSX Help ...". In there it tells you how to get a SimConnect log file. Do that and show it to me please. It is looking like you may need to do a SimConnect repair, but let's just do that check first. Regards Pete

Thanks. Got them. Not so much needed unless there are smoothing problems, but I'll take a look. Er, sorry, I'm not sure about this. Does it relate to the weather smoothing or anything FSUIPC is doing? I'm puzzled. It sounds like some sort of VNAV bug which should probably be reported to PMDG? That is the turbulence simulation applied by FSUIPC, unless you disable it. That is why I am involving PMDG, to find out why minor wind speed and direction changes affect their A/P so much. It doesn't affect Project Magenta's A/P (though you can see it acting to keep to the path), nor does it affect FS's default A/P. I've also got earlier reports that it is okay with the LevelD 767 A/P. So, it is something in PMDG's algorithms I think. It looks like they have a sign wrong and instead of tending towards a value they veer away from it. If you review the other threads here on the smoothing you will see that this PMDG heading problem is now the only major problem outstanding, and if it cannot be resolved (probably by PMDG) I will have to simply recommend PMDG users disable turbulence (both cloud and wind). BTW no need now to test WITH the smoothing thread. If it is okay without I'd rather do without! ;-) Thanks & Regards Pete

Good. After having it run all night with no crash (but no logging), I started again with Kyle's flight but with full logging. However I'm now in a 737-700 with full Project Magenta instrumentation and it's autopilot. 2 hours into the flight and no problems so far. Looks good. It looks more and more as if Kyle's crashes are indded more likely to be related to scenery or similar. Best Regards Pete

Interesting that you are not getting the ratcheting and other symptoms of the SIM1.DLL "hack" not being applied. Can you please look in any of your FSUIPC4 Log files and see if it says the Wind Smoothing is "fully" or "partially" applied? It'll be a line near the beginning. WeatherSet shows the weather last reported to it by SimConnect. Sometimes there's a bit of a gap between those reports, so it could have been a time lag. Also remember that WeatherSet is showing degrees True whereas the Shift+Z and ND displays Magnetic. I uploaded version 4.241 in the wee hours this morning. That should give you the full smoothing no matter what version of FSX you have! ;-) So, go ahead, please try and break it for me! ;-) Thanks & Regards Pete

That's strange, Peter, because it seems to be working wonders on my beastie and I'm not using Acceleration! Without the extra "hack" in place, which prior to version 4.241 was only in place on Acceleration's SIM1.DLL, the smoothing is still operating but when the wind is changing the simulation engine is fighting my smoothing control. The main symptom of this is a "ratcheting" or little annoying jumping effect on the ASI. The same can occur, though much less often, on the altimeter when the QNH is changing with QNH smoothing enabled, and engine spooling effects have been reported too from the exact same symptom in the temperature smoothing. Worse, is very special rather peculiar wind layer circumstances, the smoothing was not actually managing to stop 50-90 degree wind swings. All that was because it couldn't actually trap the values at the point of change, only later, after they've been actively used elsewhere. In 4.241 I've managed to apply the same "hack" to all possible (non-Beta) versions of the SIM1.DLL -- RTM, SP1, SP2 and Acceleration. Regards Pete

Okay, so either it's realted to the Logging, or it is something related to your scenery or terain or landclass in Idaho somewhere. I left the flight running last night and it was still going this morning. Many hours, no problem. I will try the same with full logging enabled, just to double check. (The hard disk is big enough for the HUGE log that will generate! ;-) I'm in PMDG's hands on that one. I can't figure it out. Unfortunately the chap who is helping has his hands full at present. I'll be changing the Wind Smoothing Thread option to "No" by default in the next version, and maybe remove it altogether for general release. Thanks & Regards Pete

Thanks! I'm off to bed now. I've left that flight running... Regards Pete

Correct. That is because the Axes and Calibrations are always aircraft specific if the aircraft for which they are intended is the one currently loaded. There's no mixing of "generic" and "specific" settings. It gets too cnofusing with axes. Button and keypresses are different. You can have a generic set of buttons/keys for all aircraft and others specific. The specific ones are ADDITIONAL. So, in those dialogues you can elect to view and change the aircraft specific settings or the generic ones. After all, many uses for those switches and buttons and so on are common to all aircraft. You only need to make the differences aircraft-specific. No, because that would destroy this much-used and valuable facility. And in general it is the generic switches which are the greater part. Also, it is made pretty clear whether you are in specific mode or not -- the title bar of the dialogue shows the aircraft name. Regards Pete

Ah, good! Kyle, there's one thing about ALL of the Logs which end in an FSX crash, they ALL crash with the aircraft almost at the same place, every time. Here is the last line from each log, preceded by the last Weather Report request before that: 2723466 Weather Read request (At Aircrft) to area 4: Lat=44.62, Lon=-117.31, Alt=11750.5, Req=2 2728146 WX Received in 0 mSecs, WX request type 1, ICAO=GLOB 2303542 Weather Read request (At Aircrft) to area 4: Lat=45.16, Lon=-118.53, Alt=11770.3, Req=2 2308207 WX Received in 0 mSecs, WX request type 1, ICAO=GLOB 2665948 Weather Read request (At Aircrft) to area 4: Lat=44.67, Lon=-117.43, Alt=11756.0, Req=2 2670613 WX Received in 0 mSecs, WX request type 1, ICAO=GLOB 3541332 Weather Read request (At Aircrft) to area 4: Lat=43.55, Lon=-115.07, Alt=11715.4, Req=2 3542736 Ambient wind: 279/32 (Act 279/32) OKAY 2690986 Weather Read request (At Aircrft) to area 4: Lat=44.67, Lon=-117.43, Alt=11755.8, Req=2 2695510 WX Received in 15 mSecs, WX request type 1, ICAO=GLOB I included the very last line so you can see there's only a few seconds separating that position and the crash. (The altitudes are in metres by the way, in case you were wondering). I am really wondering if there's something up with the scenery in that area that is responsible, so please do any further flights far away if possible just in case. Thanks. I have had a flight continuing from your saved FLT now for 90 minutes. It's still cruising happily at 39000. This is on the PC I just installed SP2 on. No add-on scenery or similar files. I'll do some more such tests tomorrow. There's one other noticeable thing in those logs, as you can see above. The last line in the log in every case is a Received GLOB weather -- except one: that was the time the crash was in WEATHER.DLL instead of NTDLL. Hmm. Suspcious. I am still pretty worried that it is in FSUIPC. Oh, one other possibility -- that it is to do with the Logging itself. On the test I have running at present (which I might leace running all night) I've only got Weather logging and LogExtras=1, not 67. I think you could do the same now. I don't think I'll be needing the complex Smoothing logging any more. You don't even need the weather logging. Maybe if you have success in other areas you could try that on the crash-prone route? Thanks & Regards Pete

Okay. Solved it, I think. And the good thing is that solving it for SP2 enabled me to implement it all for SP1 and RTM too -- the SP2 SIM1.DLL is very similar to the SP1 and RTM versions. So, please try version 4.241, now available. Things to watch out for: 1. Check the start of the Log file, make sure it says the wind smoothing is FULLY installed. 2. The only tester so far doing lots of tests with full smoothing (because of the only-just-discovered differences with SP2) is getting FSX crashes in pretty much every flight, but we currently don't know if this is down to FSUIPC or not. It happens anything from 20 to 60 minutes into a flight, and so far I don't have a clue. I'm about 35 minutes into such a flight with his FLT + WX files, and it's okay so far ... 3. Still getting sudden wind shifts? Does the PMDG 747X heading still drift in turbulence? 4. I don't think the Wind Smoothing thread is doing anything useful now, so I might remove it, but please test with and without. Thanks, Best Regards Pete

But the winds were changing, I hope. Not fixed, the same for the whole flight? That would be a tad too smooth! ;-) Pete

No, it's a separate log which is always produced when FSUIPC is actually running. The fact that it isn't there means that FSUIPC has never actually been loaded by SimConnect. You really do not have to post those huge pictures here. I believe your words, I don't need pictures. It is just that previously you contradicted yourself and said there was no log file, when in fact there is one. Just not the one indicating that FSUIPC has ever run. However, having posted a big picture of your C:\Documents and Settings\Haleem\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\ folder, I see you have something very wrong there, indeed. How on Earth did those SimConnect files get in there! They are likely to mess things up! Did you copy them there from somewhere, or installed something else that did that? The ONLY place those files should be is in the Windows WinSxS folders, so that the side-by-side library system works properly! What is the file obscurely called "SimConnect Security Catalog"? What is it's actual filename? I think you should delete all three of those SimConnect files and try again. You ought to try and work out what put them there, because it is wrong. Regards Pete

I think you might find the LevelD 767 does its own thing with the DH, as it does with the A/P and many other functions. You need to check out what you want to do with a default aircraft as only those are guaranteed to only use internal FS features. Regards Pete