Pete Dowson

That must be a name invented by GoFlight, as there's no FS control by that name. The fuel cut-off for jets is the same control as the mixture adjustment on props -- usually, for all engines, assigned to CTL+SHFT+ F1 to F4 (full lean, decrease, increase, full rich). I'm pretty sure that FS's own Help covers jet engine starting and stopping? How have you done it before, or is this your first venture into jets? You enable the fuel by full rich, which for just Engine 1 would be MIXTURE1_RICH, and you cut the fuel by MIXTURE1_LEAN. Obviously you really need a toggle switch for this, just as on the real aircraft -- for a push button you will have to use an FSUIPC button flag to program it as a toggle, which means editing the FSUIPC.INI file. Regards, Pete

No, not as it is. It isn't a gauge. It is relatively easy to make gauge windows transparent. Gauges use FS's graphics systems. I suppose I could make Advdisplay into a gauge, but it would then need installing as a gauge not as a module. And it's a lot of work which I realy cannot undertake at present. I can actually make the current AdvDisplay transparent on some systems, depending upon the operating system and the video drivers and whether FS is in Windowed mode or full screen. Most things are easier in windowed mode assuming WinXP SP such-and-such, and decent recent video drivers. But it is a mess. If I had left in the facility I developed I would have been inundated by support requests, asking why it doesn't work on such-and-such a setup, and so on. And the demand for transparency in AdvDisplay really has been pretty much negligible over the years. Regards, Pete

The timeout settings should really be left to default. The current values have endured many years will good service. If you start dabbling in some of those numbers you'll find it a never-ending job trying to balance everything. The timeouts are not the cause of anything. They are merely a safety valve, to try to recover from lost connections. I hope you haven't changed anything unnecessarily in the WideFS INI file config settings? Generally only the protocol and (optionally, now, with WinXP systems) the ServerName is needed. Regards Pete

If I may clarify that a bit. Since version 3.0.4 of Squawkbox 3, it has included similar support for a separate PVT channel operation from FSUIPC/WideFS, using similar internal methods for my program to talk to it. Another button can be used which operates just like a normal PTT button, but instead it uses this PVT channel. In FSUIPC I call it PVT instead of PTT to avoid just the confusion we seem to be likely to get into. What I didn't understand about Daniel's original question was what he was trying to do with some, as yet anonymous, offset in FSUIPC, merely to have some way to select between PTT and PVT when he presumably presses the one button he wishes to use. I suspect there are better/easier ways to do what he wants to do, when I find out what that really is! ;-) Regards Pete

This phenomenon is clearly described in the WideFS documentation. The freezing (or slow running) of FS is likely to be the cause, not an effect. What happens is that WideServer isn't able to respond to your client(s) often enough, if at all, and they timeout and attempt to re-connect. The count increases because the Client's timeout is shorter than the Server's -- eventually the server will time each inactive connection out and the count will decrease, but for that to happen the FS freeze or whatever it is has to clear. You missed it in the documentation for WideFS. One possibility, if it occurs after a number of hours of running FS, is that you have a memory leak. Once the real memory gets used up through such problems, things get continually swapped out to disk. When this happens it also happens to the Winsock buffers used for the Network, and that clogs up too. It will gradually get worse until FS freezing is possible, if not an outright crash. The most common cause of memory leaks is related to LandClass files in sceneries. I had such problems for a while and had to move a load of landclass BGLs to their own Scenery folder with no Texture folder. I think there's a program which will help you do that automatically -- FlightSim Manager or similar. Also, if you are running the original FS2004 still, update now to FS9.1. That fixes a load of other possible memory leak problems (but not all, unfortunately). Regards, Pete

Aren't the IDs declared in the Panel.cfg file? In the line "ident= ..."? For the FS-supplied default panels FS seems to understand names for the IDs. like "MAIN_PANEL", but these must always translate into the same numbers. For additional panels numbers are used in that declaration -- I assume these are the IDs you need? [LATER] Just found the built-in panel ids (they are in the Panels SDK): // Panel identifiers #define IDENT_MAIN_PANEL 0 #define IDENT_THROTTLE_PANEL 10 #define IDENT_RADIO_STACK_PANEL 50 #define IDENT_COMPASS_PANEL 75 #define IDENT_MINI_CONTROLS_PANEL 100 #define IDENT_ANNUNCIATOR_PANEL 125 #define IDENT_ANNUNCIATOR2_PANEL 150 #define IDENT_IFR_MAIN_PANEL 175 #define IDENT_COLLECTIVE_PANEL 200 #define IDENT_GPS_PANEL 225 #define IDENT_OVERHEAD_PANEL 250 #define IDENT_USER 10000 #define IDENT_USER_MAX 19999 #define IDENT_AIRCRAFT_HUD_3D_PANEL 20000 #define IDENT_HELICOPTER_HUD_3D_PANEL 20001 #define IDENT_CONTROLS_HUD_3D_PANEL 20002 #define IDENT_TEXT_HUD_3D_PANEL 20003 #define IDENT_DAMAGE_HUD_3D_PANEL 20004 #define IDENT_SCORE_HUD_3D_PANEL 20005 #define IDENT_LSO_WINDOW 22000 Regards Pete

Sorry, I don't quite understand. You want one PTT button which lets you talk simultaneously to ATC and on the PVT channel? Does SB3 allow that? I'm also confused by the mention of an FSUIPC offset. Where does that come in? It sounds as if you have a genuine need for something and have devised a solution, but without knowing what the need actually is I don't seem to be able to understand your solution. If you could elaborate perhaps I could help better -- it may be a lot simpler than you are making it. I assume "COM1" is the normal SB3 PTT option? (Sorry if I appear ignorant here, I'm not an SB user). How and why is this (yet to be allocated?) offset set? If it is simply another button or switch, there are better ways without resorting to offsets. Regards, Pete

How odd. It sounds like the hook into FS to allow PFC.DLL to scan the inputs at regular intervals is being destroyed. Do you have any other complex add-ins? It might be worth your while trying the latest PFC driver, which has a whole raft of improvments -- 1.989 in the top Announcement above. It only hasn't got into a General Release state yet because I'm well behing with the documentation, and I'm still developing some of the 737NG cockpit parts of it. Have you tried doing a PFC.DLL restart instead? You can assign a Hot Key for that in FSUIPC's Hot Keys page (of course you need a user registration for that). Since you are still seeing the controls in the PFC calibration and (presumably) Test screens, it cannot be related to the lnikage to the controls or the serial ports. It must be something internal to FS which is destroying the frame-based scanning. I use PFC.DLL on two separate (complex) systems all the time and have never seen this problem, so there's something odd going on. Perhaps I will ned to know a little more about what you have installed in FS, please? And try the latest version. If it happens again and you are FSUIPC user-registered, see if the PFC restart hotkey helps. If it doesn't happen again then maybe some of the changes I've made over the last year or whatever have fixed it. Let me know. Regards, Pete

The problem is obvious from the log sections shown above. It seems that the ASV.EXE program is actually attempting to read offset 0020 before it has supplied its accredited Key! This is not an FSUIPC error. I suspect ASV has several threads and, for some reason, on your system one is getting ahead of the other. More synchronisation is needed between the threads if that is the case. You could easily verify this by enabling IPC read and write Logging (in the Logging page) before starting ASV, but beware the log will get quite large. Also the extra logging may change the timing and "lose" the problem. Please relay these details to HiFi Simulation so that they can rectify it. Meanwhile, if you register the application manually (on the first page in FSUIPC options), with the name ASV and Key CV8X CNJE RB7Y you should be good to go. (But it isn't the right solution). Regards, Pete

Well you have the "forward, left, right, back" view controls which are as fast as the graphics would allow, then the more gradual up/down incremental ones. But, yes, if you need to views at some pre-calculated angles before engaging them (or as soon as), I can see the difficulty. Sorry, but I have no answer to this. I really don't know where such values are stored. This is something I would endeavour to look for in future versions of FS, but I am afraid that I really don't have the sort of time needed to hack further into a two-year old version. Sorry. The author of ActiveCamera probably knows how to do these things. Maybe he would give you an interface to control things through his code? Regards, Pete

Ah, yes. When stopping Windows services you need to be pretty careful. I only ever did it one at a time, eventually settling on a set of disabled ones after weeks. Thanks for letting us know. Pete

Sorry, but I've never heard of it. Have you asked the authors? I'm really 100% tied up with doing things for FS without doing 'plug-ins' for other programs, certainly until February at least. Looking at their website, they say: ... though there's no sign of the SDK yet. When it is released, with that together with the FSUIPC SDK you should be good to go? Regards, Pete

I'm not sure. I will have to search the "material" in the SDK for youthe only "material" to search, BTW, is the one document, the programmer's guide. You just need to load it up and use word search for likely terms. First, though, let's be sure there isn't a simple control you can use. Is this the view of the outside world from the cockpit? If so don't the normal adjustment controls (e.g. those by default assigned to Shift+Enter and Shift+Backspace) do the job? If not those, what about the 'eyepoint' controls? If you can be more explicit so I can understand, maybe there's a much easier answer than you think? First try looking through the FS2004 controls list (included with the FSUIPC Zip). Any control can be sent through FSUIPC's interface at offset 3110 if you want to do it by program. Searching the Programmers guide, as promised, all I can see which is specifically to do with views is the byte at offset 3126, but that's really only for the main quadrant views, at best. The other view things are to do with tower position. Regards, Pete

What have you changed? The only information which is of any use is: 28859 Server = RALFY 28859Okay, IP Address = 192.168.2.100 29922 Error on client pre-Connection Select() [Error=10061] Connection refused This is from the Client. The Server never sees anything. It seems that you have something blocking the access. Possibly a firewall? Have you installed some protection recently, or changed some settings? The only other thing which is a little odd is that IP address. It is unusual to have a Subnet of 192.168.2.0 -- that third number is usually 0 or 1. Can you check that both PCs are on the same Subnet? i.e. that those three numbers are the same in both. Regards, Pete

It does, for weather injected into FS from external programs via FSUIPC's weather interface. Surely it would be wrong to mess with FS's weather if the option to do so is disabled? I don't understand your logic. Where do you set them if not in the FS weather menu? Sorry, you've lost me somewhere? It applies to ALL weather supplied by external programs because I can influence the values as they are being set. Very little of FSUIPC's weather functions can be applied to FS2004's own local weather because not enough is known of the grid structures used. It took many many hours of difficult hacking through complex code even to do what has been done. I nearly gave up. But that fiddles the visibility at the aircraft in a totally different way. It isn't really doing any weather manipulation. I can only apply an upper limit. Regards Pete

That only applies to weather set via FSUIPC's weather interface. No. Sorry. That sounds like an option you want to request of your favourite weather program. Regards, Pete

Well, that is something you really need to negotiate with the sellers, SimMarket. I don't actually sell it directly at all. If yours is a commercial enterprise (it looks like it wants to be) then I doubt if there would be much of a deal going. If it is intended to be non-profit making that maybe SimMarket will come to some arrangement for some publicity on your system. Best discuss it with them. Regards, Pete

Pin 9 on the 9-pin D shaped plug/socket is the "Ring Indicator". You don't need that. In fact GPSout only needs two wires -- the TXD data out from the FS PC (pin 3) connected to RXD data in to the receiving PC (pin 2), and a common earth or return line -- pin 5 to pin 5. Maybe the serial port on the receiving PC is configured not to accept input unless some of the control lines are valid too. The usual way to do that is by connecting DCD, DTR and DSR together at the receiving end (pins 1, 4 and 6) and also RTS and CTS at the same end (pins 7 and 8). A serial printer cable would do that (though serial-connecting printers are now very rare if they exist at all). The FS PC end needs no such fiddles as GPSout configures the COM port to do without all that stuff. Regards, Pete

Hmm. Then either the USB serial adapter isn't working, or the so-called "null modem" cable you have isn't right. See if you can verify it some other way. Regards, Pete

Ah, I misunderstood, then -- you are using a REAL COM port on the FS PC, so that doesn't need an adapter? Then you have a serial port adaptor on the other computer? If PortMon is showing activity on COM2 then it would appear to be working, at least from the internal view. So where and why were you trying that USB-type name if USB isn't being used on the main PC? When you installed the USB serial port driver on othe other PC, did it assign that COM5 name? I'm confused now as to how you have these thnigs hooked up. Regards, Pete

Only if COM2 is indeed the port to which the cable is connected, and it is indeed the correct cable, and you have the right port the other end. As it is a USB port I don't see how it could be, unless it has a Serial Port adapter on it and you are using a driver for it which makes it look like COM2. How did you arrive at COM2 in any case? How would you know if the latter should be WCEUSBSH001 or something else? Maybe there are several USB ports and they all have different names? I'm sorry, I really know nothing at all about USB. I gave up trying to link to my iPAQ long ago. I hope someone else will be able to help you. Regards, Pete

The very last page in the Joysticks section of the FSUIPC options provides calibration facilities for up to 4 reversers. However, I'm sorry, but I have not included facilities to map two reversers to 4 engines. No one has actually asked before, and it isn't a trivial job. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to implement such an option, but perhaps you should remind me in February next year (I am on holiday in January). To use those axes, because FS doesn't support separate reversers, you would have to assign your spare levers to some unused axes in FS (Joystick assignments), then look up the numeric equivalent of those axes (in the FS2004 controls list provided in the FSUIPC ZIP file), and edit Reverser assignment parameters in FSUIPC's INI file. Check the documentation, the parameters are listed there. You might find it easier (and maybe more flexible) to assign just one of your spare levers, only, as the reverser -- assign it in FS to the Engine Mixture. Then go to page 7 of FSUIPC's joysticks options and calibrate it. That will drive all the engine reversers. You could then use the other lever for a speedbrake/spoiler lever. I think this is the best arrangement. You really never need asymmetric reverse thrust in any case, so one lever for all engines is fine. Just calibrate the throttles, in FSUIPC, so that both the Centre and Reverse values (in the boxes underneath) are the same. i.e. Pull the throttles right back, to where idle should be, and click the Set buttons for both Reverse and Idle. Allow them forward a little for the other Idle value, so you always have a good stable idle. Make the Max value still the Max (full forward). Doing this will stop any reverse thrust being applied -- the minimum "OUT" value will be 0. Regards, Pete

Well, IPX/SPX was most definitely favourite on an all Win98 setup. But it became problematic with mixed Win98/Me/NT/2k/XP setups, so that's when I added TCP/IP support. As a programmer I prefer IPX/SPX just because it is so much simpler at the lower levels -- there is far less red tape. The actual data part of the transmissions is a much higher proportion -- there's too much red tape and multiple levels in TCP/IP, which are needed for Internet linkage all over the world but are a huge overkill on a small Network in your computer room upstairs! ;-) Of course when I first did WideFS, back in FS95 days, local networks tended to be those coax-connected affairs running at 10 mbps. The faster hardware was pricey back then. Now 1000 mbps connections with support on the motherboards are commonplace, and you can take 100 mbps for granted. Also Microsoft have put much more effort into making TCP/IP operate efficiently and smoothly, and it isn't so bad since WinXP SP1. Really unless you are really pushing a lot of stuff around I think you'd find it difficult to find any preformance differences between IPX/SPX and TCP/IP -- provided the PCs involved aren't overloaded. I still think IPX/SPX is cheaper in terms of processing, especially in the Server. Well if you are okay at installing IPX/SPX, and have either an all WinXP or all Win98 setup, then go for that. You can easily compare them then, as the only change would be in one little parameter in the client INI file -- WideServer supports both automatically (if both are installed). On my test systems I have a mix of Clients, some TCP/IP and some IPX/SPX, and there's no problems. I am all WinXP these days. If you use the latest version of WideFS (6.50 or the interim updates available above) then you don't even need to configure anything other than the IPX/SPX choice if all your machines are running XP. Version 6.51 will be released next week I hope. Not any big differences, just a consolidation of the small things. Regards, Pete

I don't know FSBuild at all. Does it use the FSUIPC interface for its dealings with FS? If it is only a flight planner then I wouldn't have thought it would link to FS at all, merely placing its generated PLN files into the appropriate folder for FS to pick up via the standard FS options. The FSBuild manual? You don't have to have any parameters in WideClient.INI at all if you just want to run a program. Have you tried just starting FSBuild as you normally would? All the Run parameters do for you is start programs to save you doing it. Get FSBuild running manually first, worry about automating things if you want to later. I have no idea what that would be. Nothing of mine makes any such files. It sounds like you need to ask FSBuild support for help. What FS related files? Now you are confusing me. Exactly what ARE you trying to do? Is FSBuild written to interface to FS via FSUIPC? If so it should run via WideFS as well, but it may need access to folders on the FS PC too, which would have to be done by file-sharing, not by WideFS. I really do think you need to ask FSBuild support for help in the first instance. That's correct. If it shows "connected" it is working. You can forget it and see about running your FS applications. WideClient will look like FS running FSUIPC to them. Normally you'd minimise the WideClient window, or even hide it. You'd only want to see the window if you were using the recently added ButtonScreen facility, or if you were using an FS application which liked to attach itself to FS's Window -- the WideClient Window "pretends" to be FS for just that purpose. There aren't many programs which do that -- EFIS98 (for FS98) is the only one I can remember. Regards, Pete

Version 3.44 is not supported. Please first update to the current supported version, which is 3.50, and then remember to do so again for 3.51 which should be released next week. I cannot and will not support old versions! This indicates that there is something seriously wrong with your registration. Where did you buy it? If it is not legitimate you will have problems. If you believe you have purchased registration legitimately then Zip up the FSUIPC.KEY file (from the FS Modules folder) and send it to me at petedowson@btconnect.com, along with details of your purchase such as the receipt from SimMarket. Pete