Pete Dowson

The wireless network has absolutely nothing to do with the MixW virtual serial port solution I provided. Just get WideFS working okay on your Network first. It is totally irrelevant whether it is wireless, wired, parallel, serial, Ethernet or firewire. The network is a network. That's all, WideFS doesn't know how the signals travel and doesn't need to know. MixW is only used to create and link two "virtual" COM ports on the client. Just install it, find out what ports it is assigning (in the System hardware manager list) and tell WideClient one of them and your map program the other. I don't recall there being any way to "control" what MixW actually does, but maybe you can. I simply installed it and used the virtual ports it created. There's nothing else to it. Look in the Control Panel (Settings) -- System -- Hardware -- Device Manager -- Ports (COM & LPT). Regards, Pete

In FSUIPC's Logging options you will find checkboxes to log Button actions, and Events (two separate checkboxes). Enable both of those then look in the FSUIPC.LOG file to see what is going on. If they only go "on2 once, and aren't held on for repeated "Throttle dec" controls to FS, then I don't know how you are getting full reverse thrust -- there's no FS Control to sent full reverse in one operation. Pleay with the F1-F4 keys on your keyboard. notice how they make the throttle change when you press them, but do nothing when you don't. It is the same with buttons. Nothing happens if you don't make it happen. Of course. Haven't you even looked? I call it "press" and "release" though, not "closing" and "opening". New builds and "things" of what? Nothing of this is different in FSUIPC -- there are lots of new facilities, but you aren't using any of them. Why not wire up proper reverer levers then? Mixing buttons and levers doesn't seem to be good when they all address the one axis control in FS. Regards, Pete

Okay. So these "reverse levers" are not really reverser levers. They simply press a button? You have no control of the amount of reverse? It isn't that GoFlight quadrant is it? I had one for a while, but removed the non-lever reverser levers and programmed a reverse range on the throttles instead. By "lowering" the reverse levers, you presumably mean pushing them forward, away from the microswitch? Surely, all that is happening is that, whilst the reverser lever is against the switch, it is pushing it on and presumably generating a repeating F2 to decrement the throttle. When you push the levers away from the switch, that stops happening, that's all. Then, your throttles, in FS, are left where that sequence of F2 pushes left them. Without any other input, FS won't know that you want the throttles to go to idle! You need something else to tell it -- another button, or an axis change. Axis changes send messages to FS, but if you don't move an axis it isn't sending anything. So you either need to move the throttles a tad, as you say, or program another button event to set the throttles back to idle. Possibly you can program the microswitch to send a "Throttle Cut" control when it is released? In FSUIPC Buttons this would mean programming it to do "Throttle Decr" (with repeat enabled) on "press" and "Throttle Cut" on release. Isn't it as simple as that? Where does GoFlight come into this, by the way? If it is a GoFlight device you should contact them for support. If it isn't, why are you using their drivers? Regards, Pete

The indicator should be used as an indicator, the control to actually control it. Naturally the one reflects the other. Regards, Pete

No need to be sorryI was just puzzled as to why you'd think of FSUIPC in this context. ;-) Pete

Why would you think FSUIPC had anything whatsoever to do with it? FSUIPC has nothing to do with normal FS gauges at all -- Gauges are supported by FS directly, they do not need FSUIPC. After all, you do realise that FS is sold with gauges for all of its aircraft already! Sounds like you have an aircraft with a bad panel. Write to the supplier or maker. Regards, Pete

So, are you calibrating the reverse thrust though FSUIPC's reversers? If you don't need to use FSUIPC's reverse zone facilities, you can simply press "reset" on the FSUIPC calibrations, so FSUIPC doesn't touch them, and simply use FS's throttle assignments -- there is no reverse section on the default throttles at all! The whole advantage of the FSUIPC system was to provide a reverse zone on throttle levers. If you have enough levers to assign separate reversers then why the bother in the first place? Something is making no sense at all here! :-( I must admit to be totally confused with what you say about buttons operating your reverse -- perhaps you'd like to clarify that? There you go again. What is this "button function"? Why not forget the button? How are you calibrating the reverser levers? Surely all you want is for your throttle levers to behave like normal FS throttle levers, which only have idle to forward thrust on in any case! Pete

Well, Windows in the client cannot translate the server name into an IP address. This is all the error on "gethostbyname" means -- in this case the computer named "Main" is not known to your Client. I guess that means that the service which provides this in one or other of your systems is not running. This in turn would mean paths like \\Main\c .... would not work either, and I'm reasonably sure this means "Main" would not be seen in Windows Explorer. I really don't know what you are seeing in Windows Explorer as if it can see the name "Main" then so should any other program running on the same PC. You could try setting the "ServerIPaddr" in the Client INI instead. This assumes you have a fixed assigned IP address for your Server. Regards, Pete

Please, after starting a thread on a subject, could you please keep subsequent exchanges relevant to that thread in the same one, not keep starting new threads? It makes intelligent conversation quite difficult and rather nullifies the whole point of this neat Forum structure! That sounds fine. Isn't that what you want to happen? About what? Regards, Pete

Yes. You should really have pointed this out to SimMarket when you ordered it. However, if you send all the details of both registrations to me at petedowson@btconnect.com I can change the older one for you. Regards, Pete

Okay. Thanks for letting me know. No doubt they will have it fixed in due course. Pete

The part relevant here is in the sections headed Joysticks. You'll find a series of numbered steps towards proper calibration. The step you obviously missed is #6. Here it is. I have highlighted the parts you needed to notice: That "dead zone" around the centre is the extent of the "Arm" zone on the spoiler, it is the "idle" zone" on throttles with reverse, and it is the "hands-off" zone on flight controls. It is quite important, and 'central' to the whole method FSUIPC provides for accurate calibration! Regards, Pete

No! The middle set has two values. You are not following the steps. The centre sets in all cases have two values, to delineate the zone. Please read the instructions, it should be clear. it should even be reasonably clear from the screen where you can surely see boxes for two values in the centre? The same applies equally to aileron, elevator and rudder settings, and of course also to the individual throttle calibrations where the centre declares the idle range. Please please please read the documentation. That part at least is in simple numbered steps :-( Regards, Pete

You don't need to buy WideFS to download it!! I'm surprised you did it that way around -- you should download it and read the documentation first, to make sure you really want it! Many folks get mixed up with WidevieW. ALL my software for FS is downloadable from http://www.schiratti.com/dowson, as it always has been. All the links lead there! How could you miss it? Don't forget to pick up the current FSUIPC too while you are there. Pete

I don't think changing names will help when the computer is invisible in any case. Sorry, I don't know what you have wrong, all I can see is the Windows cannot see your Server PC from your Host PC. It just is not connected as far as it is concerned. This is nothing to do with WideFS, or anything I know about. It simply means you do not have a working network as far as I can see. You never answered that you checked Windows Explorer could see the Server from the client, only the other way around. You need Windows network help, sorry this is not my subject. Regards, Pete

If you are talking about the interim release facilities for spoilers, the "arm" zone is as long as you calibrate it to be, no longer, no shorter. Please attend to rather more careful calibration. If you cannot get any resolution on the joystick lever between places sufficiently far apert to know where the "Arm" detente is, then there is either something very wrong with your joystick calibration in the first place, or, just possibly, you've set a slope in FSUIPC with steep endpoints? Set the slope to zero (flat) for spoilers. If you are using FS's assignments, not FSUIPC's new axis assignment facilities, you need to make sure your Windows calibration is very good, AND that the sensitivities and null zone sliders in FS are set correctly. For best use of any axis the FS sensitivity needs to be maxed (full right) and the null zone off (full left). Anything esle will waste large portions of your lever sensitivity. Regards Pete

Sounds like the so-called "reverse" buttons merely do the same as pressing F2 -- i.e. throttle decrement. Without using a reversing type of throttle axis this would be the only way. If you play with FS's keyboard controls you will find that there is also a "Throttle inc". Also "0" on the main keyboard is "throttle idle". If reverse "comes on" when you set the throttles to idle, you most certainly are not setting the throttles to idle, but are pulling them back too far. If you can't help doing that, make the idle zone larger and a little more forward. If the reverse won't engage is sounds like there is too much jitter on the joysticks and so their input is overriding the reverse setting from your "F2" pressing. Sorry, that makes no sense against what you have already said. You are using a BUTTON for reversing, not the throttle levers, aren't you? If you are using levers, don't program the button, just program a reverse zone on the throttles. It sounds like you are mixing button and axis operations. If you want button settings to override axis settings you must make sure the axis inputs never change -- this either means having a perfectly stable throttle, or big enough idle or null zones to nullify any jitter -- and to make sure you engage the idle or null zone correctly to start with! Regards, Pete

All angular and linear accelerations and velocities are available for you to read, and you can intercept the joystick inputs and change them en route to FS, as you like ("fly by wire" is programmed like that). Please, just download the FSUIPC SDK from http://www.schiratti.com/dowson and study what is available. I am sure it would be sufficient for your needs. Regards Pete

Ah, it was never designed for VC (VC is recent compared with AdvDisplay, which dates from FS98 days). Additionally, I have never ever used VC mode. Regards, Pete

Hmm. I don't think you are reading the documentation thoroughly enough. The value at 2EC0 is a floating point 64-bit value (a "double") with a range of -0.2 to +0.2 (radians). Can your "Phidgets" driver drive that? The offset most certainly works correctly. BTW if you look inside the FSUIPC SDK you will find a program called "FSInterrogate" which you will find very very useful when trying to do things like this. Also, you could check out the FSUIPC monitoring facilities in the FSUIPC logging page -- you can get real-time values displayed as you experiment. Regards, Pete

MS Visual Studio? I use 2003 .Net, not got around to upgrading to 2005 yet. Of course I only use the C and ASM compiler parts of it. I supply all the source for the interface to FSUIPC. That's all free public domain stuff. I only deal with the inside of the interface, FSUIPC itself. If anyone wants to make an interface DLL they are quite welcome, and I'll add it to the SDK if they like -- most of it is from contributions already. But the code is so small it always seemed to me more efficient to build it directly into the object program. Regards Pete

Good. Glad you like it, but I find it strange that folks notice any performance difference with AdvDisplay. I don't really understand why that can be, unless it is related to video drivers (with a 2D window on a 3D display). Even then I can't measure any difference here. The only reason I eventually did it this way was that I couldn't make translucent windows work consistently in Advdisplay using a separate window from those FS uses -- the effect varied from hardware to hardware. The FSUIPC window solution is actually one using FS's facilities instead of my own! I incorporated it into FSUIPC because I don't really want to maintain so many separate modules in future. I will probably absorb things like GPSout and AutoSave into FSUIPC too, eventually. ;-) Regards, Pete

The answer is the wrong way around. It is the server which needs to be accessed from the client. Can you do everything on your server computer from your client? This most certainly means that the Server named "HAMMER" is not known to the Client PC. This failure reported by Windows means that it cannot even translate the server name into an IP address! There is nothing WideFS can do if the computers cannot see each other. Regards, Pete

You found them, they are one and the same -- 2EC0, as documented. You can write and read it. Pete

There is no connection being made at all. Either your computers are not seeing each other or one is not running Windows XP, or for some reason the broadcasts made by the Server are not working. To eliminate the latter put ServerName=HAMMER into the [Config] section of the WideClient.ini file, and try again. Are you able to see each computer from the other in, for example, Windows explorer? Can you read and write files over the Network? All the logs show is that the Client is not connected to the Server, there is no visibility of one computer from the other. Regards, Pete