Pete Dowson

Okay, I've found it. It's a problem which has always been there, since Save Flight was first intercepted about 4 or 5 years ago. Odd that no one has reported it before. But the fix was easy. Please see the interim releases announcement at the top of this forum. Regards, Pete

I don't really know. As far as I know it still works okay in FSUIPC. I've never noticed any such problem, and I've been using ASV ever since it came out. Have you checked its option settings? It is certainly one of the FSUIPC facilities it can override. Next time you have ASV running, go to FSUIPC's Technical tab and see if it unchecked and greyed-out. If there is any FSUIPC problem I'm afraid I won't be able to look at it for a while. I might be able to aqueeze something in after Christmas, or early January, but otherwise it will be February. Regards, Pete

Yes. It is strange. I will certainly investigate it, but it may be a while. If you haven't seen any result or answer by mid-February, remind me, but if I get time I'll try to look at it after Christmas guests have departed, maybe the end of next week. Regards, Pete

Er, the range of a byte is -128 to +127. The range of a float exceeds than by trillions in both the itegral and fractional directions. There's really no way unless you know the float's value is within that very very small range. It can't be done that easily. A Float64 has a number of bits as an exponent and the rest of the bits as mantissa, normalised so that there's one integral digit (i.e. 1). The bit assignments are documented in Intel technical specs. I can fish them out if you like, but there's no easy conversion. If you write in a decent language like C/C++ then the compiler will convert for you using the appropriate floating point register to fixed posint register transfer instructions. Regards, Pete

You will certainly need to get the Yoke repaired. There's really nothing I can do on the reception end if a button is contantly flickering on and off. If you don't want to use that particular button for anything (assuming it is down to one button, which of course it may not be) then you could program the others by editing the FSUIPC.INI file directly -- all the details are in the Advanced User's document. But it isn't very easy without knowing which button is which. One other thought -- maybe the power isn't right to the yoke. Is it powered separately or via the USB connection? If the latter, are you connecting it via a hub? If so is that hub powered? If not, try re-connecting the yoke directly to a PC USB socket. Regards, Pete

I have to leave computers switched off for several days, from when guests/relatives start arriving till most are gone, else I'm in really BIG trouble! However. I am hoping to get some flying for fun in (as opposed to most of my flights which are testing testing, looking for the little details that are wrong, and so on). My main 737NG and Piper Arrow III sim setups are in a separate room upstairs, away from my development, testing and Internet/support systems, so I think I can safely partition the two. To alleviate the "ignoring guests" complaints which may arise, I can take a copilot and jump seat passnger on the 737 trips whilst letting another guest crash the Piper, as they inevitably do! ;-) Pete

Ah, thanks very much for the clarification, Dave. This customer must have got some old stock! ;-) Best wishes for Christmas! Pete

You need the FSUIPC SDK from http://www.schiratti.com/dowson. Check offsets 3380 and 32FA in the programmer documentation. Regards, Pete

Yes, you can do that. you shut down engines by cutting the fuel. Well it might do if I knew the reason they do that -- have you a clue about it? I fly jets, What has the engine type got to do with it? In any aircraft there are times when you need asymmetric thrust. Maybe not if nothing ever goes wrong, but I assure you that the case for having asymmetric thrust capabilities is far more important than some, presumably fuel-saving (?), operation balancing inner and outer engine settings separately. Regards Pete

I've never heard of that. I can save flights fine here. There's nothing in FSUIPC which can stop it. And all that making one "default" does is change a parameter in the FS9.CFG file. Nothing of mine protects any files at all. Are you sure it isn't something else? Maybe you have something installed which uses FSUIPC and therefore isn't actually doing the same things when FSUIPC isn't in place? What are the symptoms? You save a Flight and mark it as default, but it still loads some other one next time? Have you checked the FS9.CFG file? Note that I don't think FS actually re-writes the FS9.CFG file until it is closed -- i.e. check the FS9.CFG file after shutting down FS9. Maybe you have something which is preventing FS9 closing correctly, and in fact it is either still running (do CTL_ALT_DEL and scan the process list for FS9.EXE) or it is crashing silently when you terminate it. Try changing some other, more obvious, option in FS and see if it changes the CFG on closing and reloads it next time. Regards, Pete

Ah, the Windows built-in version of printf obviously doesn't support all the formats. Sorry. Pete

First, could you find the "Caps Lock" key on your keyboard and turn it off, please. Messages all in capitals are very difficult to read and also come over as "SHOUTING". You need to get a later version of FSUIPC -- go to http://www.schiratti.com/dowson. The version you have is suitable for the original release of FS2004 and cannot work with the FS9.1 update. It certainly should do. It doesn't because they have not re-packaged it with a later FSUIPC since the FS2004 update came out. There's no way I can make software compatible with releases before I know about them. You should really complain to your FDC supplier. Regards, Pete

Well, there are several things wrong here. First, offset 0x0840 is a 2-byte "Crashed" flag, not any altitude at all. Where are you looking for your offset values? The aircraft altitude is a 64 bit signed integer at offset 0x0570. Second, you are reading it as if it is an 8 character string!? why? It is a signed 64-bit integer. If your compiler supports it, define it as an __int64. In this line: wsprintf(alting, "%d", alt[0]); you appear to be converting the value in the first 8 bits (for "alt[0]" is a character, which is 8 bits) into character form, so evidently you did realise, somewhere, that you weren't reading a string. However, the first 8 bits of a 64-bit number won't be very useful. Then in these lines: altint=altint*3.28084/(65536*65536); wsprintf(alting, "%d", altint); you do the accurate conversion from metres and fractional metres to feet, but store the result back into an integer. If you want the altitude to the whole number of feet blow, I suppose that's okay, but if you want more accuracy consider using floating point. Try: __int64 alt; double dAlt; char alting[8]; ...... if (!FSUIPC_Read(0x0570, 8, &alt, &dwResult) || !FSUIPC_Process(&dwResult)) fTimeOk = FALSE; dAlt=alt*3.28084/(65536.0*65536.0); wsprintf(alting, "%.2f", dAlt); If your compiler doesn't support 64-bit integers then it gets a bit more complicated. You'd have to read it into two 32-bit values and treat them separately, as integral and fractional parts. You'd need to search an airport database, having obtained the aircraft's Latitude and Longitude. There *should* be a way to find it inside FS, but I don't know how. Regards, Pete

Erthe short answer is no. Sorry. I don't understand why you'd want to do what you say. The whole point of two throttles, one for all the left engines and one for all the right, is for asymmetric thrust when needed -- for instance, to help tight corners when taxiing (though that's an unusual one) and when one or other engine is out and you need to re-balance the aircraft with both throttles and rudder trim. I can see no use for driving inboard engines with one lever and outboard with another lever. That DOES seem entirely pointless, and in the six or so years of FSUIPC it has never been requested once. Can you explain what you think it would be useful for, and why you think the only useful arrangement is "pointless"? Regards, Pete

Ah, must be all that grunt that helps! No good on my fastest, an Athlon 4000+. Really? I thought the SLI operation was invisible to Windows and applications? It surely simply doubles the power of the video system by splitting the work on the graphics, and is all handled in the drivers/hardware. All the reviews I have read of systems with SLI seem to prove it has a dramatic effect! I'd certainly go for it on my next system. Well, thanks, but that's mostly done by my PFC.DLL module rather than FSUIPC. ;-) Regards, Pete

But, as I said, if you have more than one outside view open in FS your frame rates will be dreadful. That's why i suggested the three alternatives. You must have missed that important point? I think that's all to do with drivers. I'm afraid I can't help there. You will have to experimant with all the settings. Some drivers won't handle all the settings on more than one window. Unless you are using WinXP I don't think you even get acceleration on more than one window at a time with most drivers. Well, you wouldn't if all FS had to do was maintain one window and the other was kept blank. Regards Pete

No outside view? Ahthat implies you have the forward view already on one of the above. If you try multiple separate views on one PC, FS's frame rates will be awful. Try it on the monitors you already have connected. Just open up another outside view and watch your frame rates plummet. The only solution I know of on a single PC is to be sure to have the video driver set to the mode where the monitors can be regarded together as one large screen. nVidia drivers can do that, as also can the Matrox Parhelia drivers. I don't think the ATI drivers can, but I may be wrong. If the monitors are on one video card and treated as one large screen then you can stretch the FS outside view window across them both. With the Parhelia the FS window can be stretched across three monitors, which is better because then the centre is not "obstructed" by the monitor divide. I can run the outside view at resolutions up to 3840 x 1024 across my three 18" TFTs, though I use lower resolutions for higher frame rates. An alternative, of course, is to get one huge widescreen monitor, or better a projector and screen, and have such a large outside view that you can actually reduce the Zoom level to real widescreen -- so you effectively have the forward and 45 degree views (well, partly complete) in one view. The projector would be driven as one monitor and you use the other, on the same video card, for your panels. With the tumbling prices and improving quality of projectors these days this is becoming a sensible choice. The only other way would be to use one or two other computers (if you want left and right views I think you'd need two others), both equally as capable as your first, both running FS and linked by Luciano Napolitano's WidevieW program. Nothing of mine can help. I don't have anything dealing with graphics at all. Sorry. For other ideas you might want to try a more general forum, like the FS2004 Forum here. Regards, Pete

Good news! On examining my code I find that I need not actually make any further changes to FSUIPC -- the version I sent to _AK earlier for his testing should suffice. I don't actually calibrate the older FS98-type surface controls in any case, only throttles, mixtures and prop pitches. If you use the 4 throttles page for calibration (page 3), then you will need to check that option at the bottom to prevent FSUIPC applying calibrations to the FT aircraft's throttle control. Otherwise, the other change I've already done, plus the modification to the aircraft, should fix the rest. Regards, Pete

I won't have a version till tomorrow (Tuesday) and I need to close 3.52 on Wednesday, and since you would also need an update for the aircraft -- my changes are only options for aircraft to use at present -- you'd need to ask FT. I'll send _AK a version to test with his changes to the aircraft, either in the wee hours tonight or in the morning. It's then up to them on their update release strategy. I have to get FSUIPC 3.52 out on Wednesday, Thursday latest, whether it fixes things or not. If I were to make these changes user-selectable options I'm afraid it may take a lot longer (it involves changes to several modules then), and there is no way I'm going to do that a day or two before a release. Sorry. Regards Pete

Aha! The light dawns. Yes, Mr. _AK is the originator of another recent thread, resolved today -- see http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=47074. There was nothing in any of that exchange which linked me to an FT PIC 737 nor even VNAV. Sorry. If you read that thread you will understand that he wanted an extra feature adding to FSUIPC to suppress the newer joystick connections whilst allowing the older FS98-compatible ones to go through. Seem that they use the latter instead of direct control to FS for their A/P. If that is the "fix" then, yes, it needs FSUIPC 3.52 (hopefuly Wednesday), but also a modification to the aircraft as well. NOTE (added later) However, if this is related to FSUIPC joystick calibrations too, I would have thought that he might need another facility -- for FSUIPC to avoid calibration of the old controls too, as I had to add for the ERJ145 throttles some months ago. Regards, Pete

Right. I've managed to reproduce what I assume you are seeing -- actually a crash attributed to the visualfx.dll if you click for the "details". It is something to do with the attempts by FS to redraw the screen and remove the Menu when it is supposed to be hidden. I have tried all sorts of things, but the crash is occurring so deep in FS that I'm not getting very far. If I can fix it, I will, but meanwhile there is a workaround which seems to be okay: When you want to access FSUIPC's options, first un-hide the menu bar (right click on the outside view and uncheck Hide Menu). Then do the ALT M F or use the mouse to select the FSUIPC options. Don't try to move the options window around -- FS seems a little fragile if you do. After setting options, etc, close the options window, and, if you wish, re-hide the menu bar. Sorry about this. It's a real puzzler here and I'm trying to think of ways to zero in on the actual problem. Regards, Pete

Well, sorry, but I'm completely lost. How can I have fixed something I know nothing about? In one place the chap called Victor firmly blames FSUIPC ("If you search the forum you'll see most errors are coming from FSUIPC and noisy joysticks"), and later he says what you say above? That I've fixed it in a version due this week? I really don't understand what is being referred to here, nor why anyone is blaming FSUIPC, nor what I may or may not have done to "fix" it. Perhaps if someone who knows some of these things might actually talk to me sometimes things might make more sense? I don't mind trying to help fix things, and certainly if I'm to blame, but I cannot do anything about something I know nothing about. Very sorry. Regards, Pete

But all of the things you describe sound like it is a really bad model. Have you simply tried using the default 737 AIR and CFG files instead, just to see if the modelling is in bad need of adjustment? Does it use FSUIPC at all? If so, what for? If you think FSUIPC is involved why not simply try without it -- it isn't going to lose any settings as an experiment. Most panels only use FSUIPc for the TCAS displays in any case, and even that can be done directly with FS quite easily since MS published the traffic tools. That's a quite a bit of an exaggeration. The problem here is that I know nothing about making and tunung aircraft. Most of the parameters used for modelling an aircraft are just numbers to me, if that. You want an aircraft designer to sort your modelling out really. Regards, Pete

Okay. ThanksI've just found my old FS2000 Pro edition, and the main "patch 2" which Microsoft issued for it, and even the no-CD replacement EXE, so I'll do some testing tonight/tomorrow. I'll get back as soon as I've got anything. Pete

No. I've made no changes to anything relating to establishing an entry in the Menu nor even to the way the options window opens, so that is very odd. Can you tell me, please, what version of FSUIPC you were successfully using before? Also, when you say "latest" version, do you mean 3.51 or one of the interim versions released here since? I'll see if I can find FS2000 here to try it on. But please also tell me what operating system you are using -- Win98, WinMe, WinXP? Are you runinng anything which messaes about with Windows' appearance, like Window Blinds? Regards, Pete