Pete Dowson

Does the PM A/P support that? Hmm. My 737NG cockpit has a facility for preventing the A/P disconnecting when you move the yoke, but that does the reverse, stopping you taking immediate control in an emergency, so it's a covered switch (on the back of the centre console) normally left alone. . The facility which, I thought, allowed you to use the yoke to make flight attitude, altitude or banking adjustements whilst still under A/P control is "CWS" (Control Wheel Steering). There are CWS buttons on the MCP, below the A/P buttons, and also on some aircraft the button to the rear of the trim button(s) on the Yoke engages CWS whilst pressed. As far as PM is concerned we are still waiting for CWS to be implemented I believe. I'm sure it is on Enrico's long long list. For PFC equipment I did implement a form of CWS in my PFC driver. I really don't know what "A/P Trim disconnect" facility you mean, but it doesn't sound right to me, as the A/P will be flying using the regular controls, and trimming as well, not just manoeuvering via trim tabs only, surely? Regards Pete

Phew .... and I thought Telewest, as was, had a good reputation? Best Regards Pete

There are two possibilities: 1. You still have a copy of FS running, despite not seeing any Windows relating to it. This happens when an add-in doesn't terminate correctly. Do CTRL_ALT_DEL and look through the Process list in the task manager. Forcible delete any still-existent FS process. 2. You also have a copy of FSUIPC in the main FS folder. Apparently some versions of FS will also load modules from that folder. The former is the most likely. If it happens repeatedly you should find out which add-in is hanging on termination, probably by trial and error. Something else in the Modules folder will be the most likely candidate. Regards Pete

Hmm, strange ... Yes, maybe. I don't profess to understand all of this stuff, though certainly I do sometimes have to power-cycle my ADSL modem. But not often: usually after something's gone wrong or been "maintained" at my ISP (or local exchange maybe). But I know I have to do this when I cannot even receive or send email. When it goes wrong it doesn't seem to be selective. Good! ;-) Best Regards Pete

Unless this is just the recent (current) problem, which may just be one of the regular service updates SimFlight do, you may be one of a very few whose ISP's don't seem to regularly cover the SimFlight servers. Everyone who has had this problem (and there aren't many) can get the downloads at some time of day or, sometimes, after so many retries. Currently, all of the Simflight system looks to be either down or very slow -- I had difficulty getting to this Forum for instance. I am about to go to bed in any case and will check again in the morning. I suggest you do the same. [JUST A BIT LATER ...] I just tried again after sending this message and it was okay. Regards Pete

A WideFS access Key, the package itself, FSUIPC, and of course your second PC linked to the FS PC by a local Network. Nothing extraordinary, as neither of those programs is either a processor or video hog. You need sound for Radar Contact of course, and an internet connection for Active Sky downloads. Or Windows98 or Win2000 or Vista. Not NT. Only if you have a Windows emulator which could run WideClient, ActiveSky and Radar Contact. Same for both, though if you move to ASX for FSX you'd not be using WideFS for that. Regards Pete

That's pretty good for FSX. FS2004 won't be using all of that, so it isn't terribly likely that the frame rates will change by moving stuff off. No, no way. The transactions between them are slight compared with the activity in FS. Regards Pete

I find it produces not only better frame rates but less stuttering, smoother results. but it really would depend on how heavily loaded your main PC gets. With modern fast multi-code processors and fast video cards FS2004 probably isn't really overloading the system. It cannot use the "spare" processor cores in any case, so other programs could run in those without too much affect on FS itself. Of course FSX is another matter. Regards Pete

Two bugs in two units, eh? Unusual these days, but glad they are getting sorted. Thanks for posting! Regards Pete

I don't know how it is getting departure and destination information for on-line flyers in the first place, as this is not something FSUIPC provides, itself. It only gets this information (from FS itself) for the AI traffic. There are facilities in FSUIPC for third party programs to inject information to be shown on TCAS/Radar screens, and this could conceivably include routing if that program is aware of such. Maybe you are using different software for that to the others? I think Squawkbox 3 has facilities built in. Earlier versions needed AIBridge. I don't know about FSInn or other packages, and I don't know which, if any of them, included routing. You'll need to ask the suppliers of the package you are using to connect you to the Server. That is where the data comes from. Regards Pete

None that I know of. Sorry. Pete

Okay. Two things: 1. From the log window shown behind the error it seems the Install process got as far as reading your existing DLL.XML file then crashed. Whilst that should not happen, it seems that there is some format of DLL.XML that my code cannot handle properly. I would like to find out what that is, URGENTLY, so I can fix it before my next release, which must go out on Tuesday next to coincide with Acceleration X's release. So, could you please either cut and paste the whole of that file into a message here, or ZIP it and send it to me at petedowson@btconnect.com? You will find it here: C:\Documents and Settings\Vicky\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX 2. Please note that blue "click here" part of the Error Report. Could you do that and either write down or capture a pic, please? This will help in case I cannot reproduce the problem. No thanks. What other SimConnect-using add-ins have you installed (apart from ASX on a remote PC, which won't use the DLL.XML file)? Are you using any of the add-ins from the FSX SDK? If you've nothing else you could try deleting (or just renaming) the DLL.XML file -- the FSUIPC4 Installer will create a new one. Anyway, the installer did get past the point where it had installed FSUIPC4 itself, you just won't have had the updated documentation also installed. So you can carry on -- but I'd like to fix the problem anyway, of course. Regards Pete

You've started a new thread, so it's a bit hard to keep track of what you are doing and what the problem is. It doesn't "load itself" -- you INSTALLED it! If you don't tell it to install someplace else, it will install there, but you had the option at install time! It is NOT a "file". Inside the main FS folder there's another FOLDER called "modules". It must be there as it contains most of Flight sim -- many DLLs. you just need to add FSUIPC.DLLL to that collection. Yes, that is 9.1, fine. It isn't at all relevant. How can you possibly have tried any version of FSUIPC if you can't even find the Modules folder to put it in? FSUIPC will not run unless it is installed and you cannot install it except by finding the Modules folder and putting it there! Nothing I know of produces lightning flashes except the thunderstorms in FS weather. Just go to the weather menu and clear the weather if you don't like them. Regards Pete

What "drop-down" menu are you referring to, please? You need to be in normal flight mode. Then see if there's an Add-On menu when you press the ALT key. If not, then either FSUIPC4 isn't actually installed, or your Simconnect installation (part of FSX) is either faulty or blocked by firewall or similar. Please show me the two log files from the FSX Modules folder -- there will be an Install log if you ran the installer, and an FSUIPC4 log if FSUIPC4 is actually being loaded. Regards Pete

Yes. Recall: I said "you can program specific axis input ranges (your detentes, with a little leeway each side) to send the appropriate "Axis Throttle Set" controls with the parameter required to select the correct position in the FS aircraft implementation. (New bold emphasis here). Haven't you even looked at this yet? As I also said, I probably wouldn't have implemented the more-complex flap detente system if I had done this more generalised method first! Regards Pete

Yes, because when the FS time is adjusted by more than one minute, FS reloads the traffic to account for any time-based changes -- the traffic runs to a schedule so it has to reload them for the new schedule. I'm surprised you don't also first get the message saying its reloading all the textures too, because they can change based on time. Phew, you must either have huge numbers of large traffic files, or a pretty slow file system. Mine takes a few seconds. Not intended by me, but unavoidable if your FS clock gets to be more than a minute out and you try to make FSUIPC force it. The same would occur with FSRealTime. It's always been the same, in FS2000, FS2002, FS2004 and FSX. Did you not see the big BUT in the documentation? That said, once the time is set correctly you shouldn't get these things happening very often. Once the adjustment is less than one minute (i.e. zeroing the seconds at the right time) it will only normally do it after some delay has occurred. like using the menus. Your specific problem sounds like it is caused by your reload time itself being more than a minute, which really makes any lasting adjustment for a greater difference impossible. Unless you can get those reload times down (Disk defragmentation? Better file arrangement on disk? Reduced traffic levels? Faster traffic files, like MyTrafficX perhaps?), then I can't really see any sort of full synchronisation working for you. However, if you set the "minutes" to 1 or even 0 and manage to get the hours and minutes set okay, the option should still maintain the seconds correctly, so, ignoring outages like menu access and so on, the time should stay in sync thereafter. Regards Pete

FS9 version 9.01.40901 is the 9.1 update. You are using a version of FSUIPC which pre-dates FS9.1, so it only understands version 9.0.30612. All you need to do is install the current supported version of FSUIPC for FS9, which is 3.75. Why didn't the download succeed? If you have problems downloading please check with your ISP. I've not heard of any other such problems. Alternatively you could see if you can download 3.764 from the "Other Downloads" Announcement above. If you really mean you did download it but don't know what to do next, please just unzip the FSUIPC.DLL from the download and put it into your FS Modules folder. That's all there is to it. With Vista, however, beware of "aliassed" folders. If you allowed FS2004 to install itself into C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games (not actually a good idea), then Vista does some very peculiar things to get around the fact that it protects all of the "Program Files" folders from being written. Because FS9 doesn't know about Vista and this problem, and Vista knows this too, it makes folders elsewhere which aren't protected, and the ones you see in Program Files are aliasses. The trouble then is that you may not be able to easily place any file in any FS folder directly. I'm not sure what the answer is -- you need help from a Vista expert -- but you could try running Explorer by right-clicking it and selecting "Run As Administrator", and then copying the FSUIPC.DLL over. I would hope that would allow you to access the real folders, not the fake ones. Regards Pete

Ken and Al, Glad it all works again. It wasn't as complicated and difficult as it seemed at first. A stupid typo in one of the many offset-mapping tables. Thanks for helping, Regards Pete

I think I've fixed this problem in version 3.764, now available in the Other Downloads announcement above. Please try it and let me know. Regards Pete

Ah .. have you got something running which is getting it first? You will either need to stop that whatever it is, or program your button for, say, F8, then edit the FSUIPC INI file to change it to F9 (the Keycodes and details for this are in the Advanced User's document). Then you can tell FSUIPC to relaod all the settings. However, bear in mind that FSUIPC sends the keypresses to FS, so if the program which is catching them is looking further down (nearer the hardware) it may not see it anyway. Regards Pete

I'm sending an email... Pete

It's just another key press isn't it? Same as any other? Why not? Pete

Hmm. I'm afraid I don't recollect the changes between those two, though I'm sure that 3.759 was the first with the "Traffic Zapper". But that's all new separate code, just called when you use the added FS control. I'm pretty sure, actually, that 3.757 and 3.758 were merely interim internal versions whilst I got the Zapper working correctly. 3.756 had the new brake interception facility in and fully working. The helo lateral trim facilities were in and released in 3.751. Yes, you can if you like. petedowson@btconnect.com. Are you a WideFS user, BTW? If so I may have another way to get some information. Regards Pete

That IS the FS menu. The other stuff you've been looking at is not a "Menu", but a selection dialogue. The menu bar in FS is similar to the Menu bar in most Windows programs. Have you never used Windows before? If not, sorry, I thought you'd understand the term "Menu". :-( Incidentally, please, next time, do look in the User Guide. This is actually supplied for a reason -- it explains these things. The very first line in the Entering Registration Details section reads thus: Regards Pete

I don't think PMDG come here. You'll need to post there too. That's really strange, then. It isn't anything to do with the fast timing on some of the FSUIPC offset values in that case, and there's been no other changes relating to engines. That confuses me. Why are you touching the throttles during start-up. You operate the start levers (moving them to idle) when the N2% (or whatever the measure is for a 747) reaches a certain value. You shouldn't be operating the throttles at all, surely? They should be in the parked idle position. I think you need to state all these things you've posted here clearly and concisely on the PMDG support site, saying exactly what steps you are following in trying to get these engines started. Maybe they can understand what is going wrong. I am sorry, but I can't. [LATER] On re-reading your statement, I think I may have, perhaps, misinterpreted you. Are you merely operating the throttles because you suspect the engines are actually running even though the gauges are stuck with incorrect values? [Later Still] I've run 3.759 with the default 747 and all of the engine values which should be there, from FSUIPC, are there. It sounded a bit as if the "combustion" flag was somehow not getting set, but that works fine. the default 747 engines can be started and shut down with no problems at all. Unless I can think of something else to try, I've run out of ideas now. I'm afraid we are completely dependent upon PMDG, but they cannot reproduce it at all. :-( So, as much information as you can to PMDG, unless you want to stick with FSUIPC 3.75 forever. (It was intended to be the last one, really, in any case ;-) Some hope!). Regards Pete