Pete Dowson

Isn't there a separate menu option for disabling crash detection with objects but still allowing "normal" user aircraft crashes? Surely that is the one you want to switch on, and you could leave it on all the time. Why switch it off in the air? Anyway, for FS2004 (not FSX) there is an FSUIPC offset which certainly reads the crash detection action. I don't know if writing to it does anything useful, but you could try it. Offset is 0830 (1 byte will do). It is 0=Ignore, 1=Reset, 2=Graph (?). You'd program your key or button to use the FSUIPC control "Offset Byte ToggleBits" with a parameter of 1. Try it. I don't hold out much hope that it will change anything though. Regards Pete

The Goflight rotaries are actually mentioned spcifically in the FSUIPC documentation 9user Guide, Buttons section), where it explains that each such switch provides 4 distinct "button" numbers in FSUIPC -- fast right, slow right, slow left, fast left. You can program these for incs and decs as you like. Each click is either a press or release -- they alternate -- so if you want every click to count you program both press and release for the same INC or DEC. GF rotaries will work fine. BARO is by Kohlsman Inc and Kohlsman Dec controls, Decision height is Decrease Decision Height and Increase Decision Height. Pete

Don't do that. The only time you need to "Run Asadministrator" is when registering FSUIPC in FSX. The installer does not need it, and FSX does not either. I'm afraid this must be some bug in FSX SimConnect under Vista 64 as I cannot see any other cause for the problems. Please submit all the details to tell_fs@microsoft.com. I suspect not very many folks are using 64-bit Vista (too many other problems with it I fear), and it may not have had all the testing it needed. Regards Pete

There is something external to FS interfering with its windowing facilities. Do you use "Window Blinds" or any other such window tailoring options? The only other thing I know of which can make the dialogues do such things occasionally is a rogue mouse driver, from Kensington I think. See if you can find it and uninstall it. your mouse should be fine with the normal Microsoft default mouse driver. Regards Pete

Sorry, I'm not much help there. I've never used those controls. However, one FSUIPC user did sort it all out and supplied all the details, which I included as an example in the FSUIPC User Guide -- look for the boxed section entitled Example of assignments for HAT programming for smooth panning. Regards Pete

Why "direct"? I would really not advise that unless you explicitly want to use the actual values, with no calibration, scaling and so on. That hardly ever applies -- it is intended for "soft" axes (ones controlled by software) such as those programmable with an EPIC card. I would very strongly advise disabling Direct mode on every axis. Please do that then re-check your items A - C. The oldest original list "FS2000Ctls" (for FS2000) had some help, but it became impossible to maintain. Check that if you like -- it is still available on http://www.schiratti.com/dowson. Otherwise mostly it is a matter of trial and error I'm afraid, but if you have any difficulty ask regarding particular controls and if i know I'll tell you. Or use FSUIPC's logging -- you can log all events from controls and from axes, then use the controls on the panels in FS and see what was sent -- control value and parameter are logged. Regards Pete

AdvDisp folder? Wassat? Do you mean "ShowText"? Sorry, I'm completely lost. I have never made any programs playing sound since Esound.DLL, many years ago. Are you mixing something of mine up with something else? Regards Pete

Unfortunately it isn't that simple. They know it isn't working properly. The whole of the weather module needs a good sort out. It would not be a simple fix, but a major change and nothing they would dare risk as an "update". It would have to wait for FSXI -- and that's where a good level of complaints will help raise the priority. Direct all of your anger and frustration about this (but politely, of course), along with all the evidence you like, to tell_fs@microsoft.com. They do read them all. The more the better on this subject. I think I'm partly to blame for it being like it is. It isn't a new problem in FSX, it was the same in FS9. Exactly. But the fiddles I did in FSUIPC hid them too well and perhaps, as a result, not enough fuss was made by usersDuh! I am pressing hard for either SimConnect facilities to allow me to do the fiddles more, er, "properly", and "fix" it that way, or possibly for a little less-official help in hacking into the horribly complex code which is Weather.DLL in order to do the overrides. But no one is able to promise anything. Regards Pete

Didn't one come with it? You'd certainly need to get it recognised and calibrated in Windows' Game Controllers before using it in FS or FSUIPC. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. First is enough, you needn't say any more. There is an FSX installation SimConnect problem. Take these steps: 1. See if there is a file called FSUIPC4.LOG in the FSX modules folder. If so, then at least FSUIPC is being loaded. Show me the FSUIPC4.LOG file. 2. If there is no such file then SimConnect is not even loading FSUIPC4. The error could be in a number of places. Show me the Install log file from the FSX modules folder and we'll go from there. What version of FSUIPC4, by the way? Have you installed FSX SP1 update or the Acceleration pack? If not please do one or the other. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. The usual reason is that you have another copy of FS still running, but without any windows. That happens if you have some add-on (a gauge, aircraft, or DLL) which is not terminating all of its threads when FS is told to end. To fix it, use the task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) to find the FS EXE process (e.g. FS9.EXE) and forcibly kill it. To stop it happening again you'd need to find the culprit, by a process of elimination. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. The control for that is "HEADING BUG SET", with the parameter giving the heading (in degrees, 0359). The problem you have there is to get the axis calibrated to give exactly 360 increments 0-359, somehow wrapping around at 360 to 0 (and back). I don't think that is feasible. I don't even know of any axes which could provide such a fine resolution, and even if there was it couldn't be easily controlled unless it was very large! Please describe how the axis would actually be used to set specific values, remembering there's no maximum and minimum or centre, it is continuous 0... 3590 ... The control is AP ALT VAR SET ENGLISH, which has the altitude in feet as a parameter (0-65500). The same problem applies here, with an axis. For a range of say 0 to 40000 in 100's you'd need 401 discrete values at intervals of 100. Exact mind, no approximations. Most hardware implementations of these setting knobs use not axes but rotary encoders, which just send an indication of "I've been turned right" or "I've been turned left", on each click. These are then programmed just like centre-biassed double throw switches: using the normal INC and DEC controls. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Have you ever used EPIC and have an EPIC driver loaded with no EPIC device connected? If so try adding "PollEpicButtons=No" to the FSUIPC4 INI file's main [buttons] section. Otherwise it will be due to some constantly flickering button input or a rogue joystick driver. Try the attached JoyView to see what devices/actions it may find. You will have to open each of the 16 devices in turn to see if any are used. Joyview uses the same interface as FSUIPC4 does for buttons. Regards Pete joyview.zip

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Can you supply any more information at all, as there's not much to go on here? What function where? A PFC Cirrus 2 uses my PFCFSX.DLL (at least the ones I've seen do). Hasn't that got a version number? Have you tried the latest? What buttons are you talking about and where are you looking? Have you tried PFC support at all, BTW? Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. If you are calling FSUIPC from a Gauge or DLL within FS, you should NOT be using the external interface with memory mapped files and SendMessageTimeOut, but the special internal interface which is far far more efficient. That uses SendMessage (no timeout), which from a separate thread is treated a bit like PostMessage but making your thread wait for the WndProc exit. So it should still be okay. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Could you please explain a little more about how such offsets (which aren't normal FS functions) are used? Are you simply wanting to use the memory for communication between separate programs, modules, or PCs? And is this for a general product or a specific one-site implementation? Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. This is normally done for you by FS itself. You shouldn't need to do it yourself. "Ticks" being ...? For FS9 and before that will intercept and disconnect the generic single axis and most of the controls used for the individual ones. I think that on FSX it may only work for axes processed by FSUIPC. Are you calibrating through FSUIPC? No idea. Log axes in FSUIPC and see what the joystick throttle is sending. Please also make sure you are using the latest FSUIPC version. There have been some changes in this area. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Assign them the other way around in the "press" and "release" parts. Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Well, that depends of what you mean by "sensitivity". Do you mean you tend to overcontrol, or that you need to move the axis too far? The latter gives more precision, more sensitivity for small changes. The word is rather ambiguous. I would recommend ALWAYS setting FS's "sensitivity" slider to max, i.e, far right. Otherwise you are simply lose most of the range and precision you paid for in getting a decent device. Then calibrate to get the full range used -- you should always be able to produce maximum deflection in both directions. The "S" slopes in FSUIPC enable you to achieve this whilst still having that precision you need near the centre. You should be able to find an ideal setting to suit your device. Then the aircraft sensitivity comes into play -- an Extra will be more sensitive to changes than a 747, for example. Another change which suits most folk is in the stick_sensitivity_mode -- see the FSUIPC user guide about that. "Shoot up in the middle of the axis"??? Pardon? There's nothing in FSUIPC which does that. Why on Earth would you want it to do that? Or am I misunderstand something? In general the only way to reduce sensitivity completely is to limit the entire range so you can't actuall reach the extremes (this is basically what FS's slider does if you drag it leftwards), That really is not good. The whole point of the S shape is to give ideal (i.e. slow) sensitivity where it is normally needed but allow the extremes to still be reached. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. No. It is (or rather was) a bug in SimConnect. It sounds like you've not yet installed FSX SP1, as that pretty well fixed it (using a work-around). If you have problems like this you really need to use the SimConnect logging facilities to see what is going on. SP2 / Acceleration fixes it good and proper, I believe. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. I doesn't matter what you current Email is. you need to register FSUIPC with the original details, exactly as first notified to you -- same name, email and key. If you don't remember any of this you can read them in your FSUIPC.KEY file. Regards Pete

No, the installer will work without that. It is FSX you have to "Run Asadministrator", but only when you want to Register. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Yes. It is freeware and only needs the free access facilities in FSUIPC. Does this Lowrance device accept positional data, replacing its own GPS receiver data? I don't know many that do. Often the NMEA input feature is merely for routing and other information. I have three GPSs and none accept positional data, they all use their own aerial inputs with no override. Incidentally, with all of those sentences enabled (GLL, RMC, RMB, GGA, GSA and GSV) you are trying to send around 500 bytes at every interval, which at the usual default speed of 4800 bps will take well over a second, so you would need to set the interval to at least 2 seconds, or better delete some of that superfluous data (much of that is repetition). Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Sorry, the 5 seconds must be in your program somewhere. I cannot debug your program. Add some code to find where the time is going. I'm afraid I cannot really help with VB (.NET or otherwise), but if you present your code examples I am sure others here will be able to help. Regards Pete

Sorry for the delay in replying -- as mentioned in the Announcements above, my wife and I were off touring Argentina & Chile (by steam trains where possible) immediately after I returned to the UK from the AVSIM FanCon in Seattle. Each "FSUIPC_Process" call requires Windows to change from your process to FS, then back again when the response is ready. Therefore you only do one FSUIPC_Process call per update cycle, accumulating all of your different reads and writes before hand. No, sorry, that's actually pretty awful. To start with, what is setting "running" to FALSE to get the loop stopped? Second, why add millions of reads of the same value to the one process call? Third, there is no point at all in using the value you think you are reading with the FSUIPC_Read until the Process call has been done -- all the read and Write calls to is list the request. Nothing more. More to the point, all of your "FSUIPC_Read" calss (for all the values you want) should be grouped before one FSUIPC_Process call. It is the latter which actually does it. "Very" slow? 5 updates per second is too slow for your needs? Why exactly? The requests to FS for data are prioritorised. Some things are requested more often than others in order to even the loading and prevent performance degradation and jerking. However, that said, I'm pretty sure this one is one of those which was changed recently. What version of FSUIPC are you using? If not the latest, try updating. Note that new versions are often provided in the downloads Announcements above. Regards Pete