Pete Dowson

Have you information about what the map program needs? The standard NMEA speed is 4800 by the way, not 9600, but most programs allow you to set higher. I use something very high with FliteMap (115200 nowadays I think). No, is is a version of Jeppesen's FliteStar planner. I don't think they sell it as "FliteMap" any more. I started using it when it was a MentorPlus product some 10 or more years ago. I've updated through versions 6, 7, 8, and currently 9.3, but it is very expensive, especially for the world-wide corporate edition I have. Of course not!!! You still misunderstand, or you didn't read my last reply properly! You gave COM11 to WideClient, you just stated that. Two programs can't own the same port. You said the virtual serial port program was linking COM11 to COM12, so your map should be reading the results on COM12 ! Why do you think you have two ports? That MixW program emulated two ports with a piece of wire. It saves you having REAL ports and a REAL piece of wire! Pete

Well, you don't need to be either a programmer or a comms "expert", just think about where to look in Windows. I only find out what is free by going to the Windows Settings-Control Panel-System-Hardware-Device Manager display, opening up the Ports(COM & LPT) item and seeing what the next unused port number is. Generally COM1 and COM2 are taken by motherboards, reserved for real "heritage" hardware ports, even if they are not listed there. On my Notebook I see others reserved for one thing or another all the way up to about COM12. Pete

I am very surprised you can use such port numbers as virtual ports on any PC, let alone a laptop. Most I know of have pre-assigned ports right up to 6 or 7 or more, for built-in modems, IR devices and the like. How do you know? Have you used a port monitor to check? (You can get one from http://www.sysinternals.com). Also, check the WideClient log file -- maybe it can't open COM2 because it is reserved anyway. Also check the WideServer.log file in the FS Modules folder, see if it is registering the client as a GPS capable one. Of course it cannot open COM2 if you've told WideClient to use that port!! If the virtual port program is truly linking COM2 to COM3 the map program should find COM3! Sounds like FSUIPC is not running then. After such a test (but with 3.75 or later, not 3.50) close FS down then show me the complete FSUIPC.LOG, from the FS Modules folder. Pete

How big were the airspeed jumps? If there are turbulence, gusts or variance settings, then you'd expect to see the airspeed jumping about a little, in proportion (something like +/-2 knots per unit of turbulence). For turbulence I also try to make the ride feel "bumpy" by variations in the vertical speed, but I suppose without a motion base you wouldn't feel that! ;-) (but you should see it from outside the aircraft!) The "suppress turbulence" and "suppress gusts" options on the Winds and Cloud pages should now work though. If you don't like the disturbance simulation, try turning it all off. No, not at all. If it was the same with wind smoothing off then it was FSX's very own simulation doing it all. They have implemented it, you know. The only reason for my efforts is that it seems it doesn't always work -- that's what folks have been complaining about! The only reason I simulate disturbances when smoothing is enabled is that otherwise the smoothing action cuts out any disturbances which FSX is putting on which should really be there. I'm only trying to put back that which I'm removing, when it should be so! I should have done that really in FSUIPC3 -- the wind smoothing there did smooth out all those types of features, incorrectly IMHO. Regards Pete

Yes, the problem with my new Wind Smoothing on SP1 and before is that it can't stop the "ratcheting" action on the ASI, which does become rather annoying. I found a way of dealing with that too in the SP2/Acceleration updates, via an actual coding hack ("patch"), but although I've spent hours looking I cannot find the same routines in SP1 or before. I think MS must have changed quite a bit in this area. Note that version 4.222 is now up, with some minor corrections to some problems with the option settings. Regards Pete

This tends to happen because of two things, probably together: 1. A non-standard version of "comctl32.dll has been installed, probably by a video driver, which is, in fact, not really compatible with your version of Windows. Restoring the correct one from the Windows install disks might help, but you have to do this after a fresh boot before any program starts using the library, which is a bit tricky. I think there's a method of doing it using Wndows facilities but I can't find it at present. 2. A non-standard larger font has been selected in your screen properties. Right-click on some empty part of the screen, select Properties--Appearance. Set the "Font Size" to "Normal". In actual fact, because FSUIPC uses 100% standard Windows dialogue facilities, and doesn't set any of its window sizes or fonts explicitly, the Windows libraries are supposed to scale the Window to match the fonts, every time, 100%. That's why I believe you have an incorrect, mismatched standard library installed. Regards Pete

Eremphatically no! Did I say that somewhere? If so it is a typo and I will correct it. Always please use the latest if possible -- updates here are a little experimental, so sometimes it might be necessary to revert to the "official" versions from the Schiratti site, but hopefully only after telling me about the problem so I can fix it. I don't want to ever "revert" to older versions. Always onwards! ;-) [LATER] Ah, I see the confusion. Where it says "It can be used with WideServer 6.72 in FS9 or earlier" that is supposed to be read as "It can be used with WideServer 6.72 in (FS9 or earlier) ...." as it then goes on to explain about "FSX or later". All it really means is that 6.72 is the earliest you should be using, not that you should go backwards. I'll re-word it. Pete

Well, knock me down with a feather! I would never have thought thathow weird. It was creating symptoms exactly like SimConnect being screwed up. Thanks for letting us know. I shall certainly have to remember that. I wonder how it got corrupted in the first place? Presumably one of those crashes you had after installing Acceleration? Regards Pete

If all the switches are readable, yes, of course. If you want to get into conditional programming you need to study the Advanced User's documentation. There IS a thread here, quite recent (a week or three) about this with one user's solution at least. Use the Search and review all the threads with "Saitek" in them. Pete

Not in FS there isn't. It doesn't simulate the transponder so well, at least in its simulation engine. Some add-on aircraft have fully implemented transponder switches, but you'd have to check what controls they provide, other than mouse, if any. Regards Pete

Okay, you wrote to me by Email. I've moved your report back here to keep the thread complete. You sent the DIR.TXT, that's fine. Nothing wrong there. The other directory listings weren't needed and were empty in any case. And the log of course was the same as the one you posted here. Right. That is weird. It isn't something in FS, then, so it must be something else in your Windows system. I'm sorry, but apart from a complete reinstall of Windows I really can't think of anything to suggest now. That's the copy protection routine FS runs when you start it, to stop folks hacking it so you can't load or run it without the CD. Of course that protection didn't last long, they never do. Regards Pete

So, they MUST be assigned someplace, unless you have a joystick driver which is converting them into FS commands directly (unlikely). Have you assigned them in FSUIPC? I assume not or you'd surely say so? In the FSX control assignments dropdown, did you scroll through all the attached joysticks. Each has its own list of assignments, and its own enable/disable button. not like FS9. That seems to indicate even more that you are looking at the wrong list for that joystick. FSUIPC4 doesn't do anything about wonky assignments in FS. You have to sort that out yourself, or simply stop FSX reading anything and do it all in FSUIPC. Regards Pete

Sorry, what is that? No, I just fixed the options muck-ups (not reloading the smoothwhenairborne option when off, and the Miscellaneous options deleting the wind smoothing). Well sudden little wind changes would certainly affect the measured airspeed, of course, as the pressure in the pitot probes is varying. There'd be surely something wrong if it didn't! Regards Pete

BCD is merely the use a a few bits in binary for each digit, so all you have to do is separate the bits. For example, the frequency 123.45 is represented in BCD as hexadecimal 0x2345, probably $2345 in Basic. Right? Of those 4 digits, the lowest, the 5, is in the lowest 4 bits. the next is in the next 4 bits and so on. It is almost ALREADY in character format, you just need to split the bits up. There's no clever computation ever needed! All you need are SHIFTS, logical AND, and OR. I don't know VB so I'll show it in ordinary 'English': Take $2345 First store the character '1', as this is assumed first. Result so far = "1". Take the $2345, SHIFT it right by 12 bits. Result is 2. OR the character '0' with it. This gives character '2'. Store it in the reslut which is now "12". Take the $2345 again, SHIFT it right by 8 bits, then AND it with 15 ($000F). Result is 3. OR the character '0' with it. This gives character '3'. Store it in the reslut which is now "123". Add the decimal '.' here to give "123." Take the $2345 again, SHIFT it right by 4 bits, then AND it with 15 ($000F). Result is 4. OR the character '0' with it. This gives character '4'. Store it in the reslut which is now "123.4" Take the $2345 again, AND it with 15 ($000F). Result is 5. OR the character '0' with it. This gives character '5'. Store it in the reslut which is now "123.45" Okay? Another way is to simply print it in hexadecimal, if your VB library "print" functions support this. You'll immediately get the string "2345" which you can massage into "123.45" quite easily. Pete

Ah, I see. Yes, WideServer tends to be tied to the FS frame rate, because that's when the data it is sending gets updated. There's not a lot of point in going faster. The prime reason for limiting the FS frame rate is to keep it regular, not going up and down like a yo-yo. It would have to be quite a poorly performing system these days to need limiting just so WideServer could keep up, though you might need to limit it if any of your client can't keep up -- not too likely unless, like me on my test system, you run three copies of Project Magenta's PFD glass cockpit programs on one poor machine wth a Parhelia card driving three monitors! ;-) Regards Pete

That can only be because the Direct Input driver for your joystick classifies them differently from the old Windows "joy" API part of the same driver. FSUIPC3 uses the old methods (as FS98 and before used to), whereas FSUIPC4 uses Direct Input (but only for Axes, not for buttons). Hopefully this never affects the basic axes, X and Y. The joystick / gamepad devices I have here all seem to give the same axis mappings, but I can see that this could be different depending on the supplier's programming. Regards Pete

See the FSX downloads announcement now. 4.222. Pete

Not without the FSUIPC4 log file, from the modules folder, please. You only showed me the Installer log. Pete

Okay. Here they are: http://fsuipc.simflight.com/beta/FSUIPC4222.zip http://fsuipc.simflight.com/beta/FSUIPC3782.zip Regards Pete

Of course I am very interested in a discussion about this Well, for now I've gone with my first inclination -- if and only if one of those 4 axes are intercepted via 341A, I put the value which would have gone to FS after calibration into the relevant 34xx offset, and don't forward it at all. This means I still go through the calibration, slope and notch calculation just as if it hadn't been intercepted. The only side effect of this, changing things from what they were before, is that the 34xx offsets are NOT updated if the axes aren't intercepted. To do that I'd either have to do quite a big re-write, or I'd have to compute the values twice, and I don't want that overhead. I don't think this matters, though? I shall note in the documents that the 34xx intercepted values are only valid when the intercept is enabled. These changes will be in version 3.782 and 4.222. I'll upload them and supply links later today. Regards Pete

Hmm. That's odd. I'm pretty sure I had that working okay. I'll re-check it. [LATER] Ah .. it IS saved, but not restored to off on reloading. It's because I changed the default to "Yes" and forgot to change the initialisation check to react to "No" instead of "Yes"! Yes, that was reported this morning in another thread very close to this one. It is a silly omission from when I moved the options around. Easy to fix, meanwhile if you go to the Miscellaneous tab, re-check the Winds one before OKaying. Regards Pete

Sorry, let me get this clear. Your flight bsimulator will not load ANY flights at all? Or is it selective? Surely it must be loading a flight to start with, else what is it starting out doing? If you create a new flight, does it reload that okay? If you save a flight using ";" does it save one which reloads okay? That is all AutoSave is doing, using the ";" facility. You need to try to narrow it down by trial and error. What flights does it like, what flights doesn't it like? If it likes none, what is it doing when you first start it up? Pete

Hmm. I'm not seen them with either FSX downloaded weather or with ASX. You have updated ASX to the very latest version, haven't you? It seems pretty good. I wonder if your problems are related to the on-line operations. There's a lot going on with AI traffic creation, to emulate multiplayer, with those programs. Anyway, I'll experiment here with pressure control, to see if I can change that without messing other things up. Not easy -- aircraft systems like those in the PMDG range are very sophisticated and use values like air density and temperature correlated with pressure in the flight and A/P computations, so I have to find a way of manipulating one aspect and hoping FSX will adjust the others accordingly. :-( Now you are going to tell me you get temperature jumps as well, aren't you? ;-) Regards Pete

Generally the displayed frame rate in WideClient (that IS what you are reading, I assume?) more or less closely matches the displayed frame rate in FS. It will only tend to dip if you are asking for massive amounts of data - like using FSInterrogate for a whole raft of stuff. Anyway, you provide no information for me to tell you any more.You don't even say what version of FS it is. FS9 or FSX? What aplications are you using on the clients? What is the effect if you only have one client not "several"? Please show WideClient and WideServer log files -- complete ones, from after they close down. This is important because all of the performance and error recovery information is tallied at the end of the log, when closing. Pete

I've just had a thought though. At present my "simulated" turbulence etc operates whenever there a such effects present in the local weather as told to me by SimConnect. The suppression of these items doesn't directly affect my simulation of them, they operate by trying to change the weather in all of the surrounding weather stations (FSX doesn't provide a "change weather here" facility, only at WX stations). Changing the weather all around can take many seconds, and then there's a delay in any case as the FSX weather system gradually phases in the changes (as of course it is supposed to do with wind). I think, perhaps, I will change my code to suppress MY simulation of the effects when MY options are set so, no matter what FSX decides to do. ;-) Regards Pete