Pete Dowson

One of my PCs (actually the Notebook) is on a Wireless LAN -- I use USRobotics devices with "Turbo" mode (matching, theoretically, the 100 mbs wired LAN speed). I'm no expert either. It's all trial and error with me. But, certainly, I don't like letting anything assign IP addresses. I do that myself. You should be able to overrule the router and assign your own, fixed, IP addresses. Check the documentation and/or on-line help. I can't remember what I had to do with my router (its a Zoom) but I followed the instructions that came with it. If you don't do this it is likely that the IP address is different each time. However, that said, if you are using TCP/IP with WideFS, why not just refer to the Server by name (the ServerName parameter) and stop trying to tell it the IP address? That way, WideClient asks Windows for the IP address, so even if it changes it should still be okay. But, you also say: So I doubt if the ServerName will work either. Something is evidently blocking access. I doubt if it is anything to do with being wireless or not. I'm afraid I am not able to solve network problems like this as I don't understand them enough either. Your best bet is to ask Katy Pluta -- either via the Project Magenta support address or over in the FS2004 Forum. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I don't think that's possible as it stands. You'd need to resize the PM GC window slightly, to make rom for a small Wideclient window 9just the title bar showing, say, then click on that title bar. Most of the effort I've put into supporting cockpits has revolved arond getting away from keyboards altogether, so you can do whatever you want with buttons, for example. Isn't it possible for your hardware to produce button presses instead of keystrokes? Regards, Pete

If you want to use the Ch Mixture lever (the one with the red knob, probably?) as a reversing lever, and it already works as a Mixture axis in FS, then simply go to the FSUIPC page with the Reverser shown, and calibrate that axis following directions in the User Guide, the same as any other axis. If you haven't got that axis assigned to Mixture you need to do that first in FS Options-Controls-Assignments. Regards, Pete

Ah, right. Probably they have teething problems. I expect they will be able to help you much better than I, then. I thought you were implying that you were being bounced around and I was your last resort. There are many hundreds of programs, gauges and DLLs out there which use FSUIPC in some way or another, and I know very few of them. I cannot possibly offer support for them, I'm afraid. The correct way, especially for live programs like this, is for the authors or publishers to support their programs. Really only they can do it. If they need help with the interface they use to FSUIPC then they can get that from me. For me to try to help you sort out what is going on between their program and FSUIPC is really very inefficient and likely to be quite unproductive. Regards Pete

It has a button or microswitch on it which is repeating all the time? That's odd. Or is this something programmed in the driver for the throttle device? Regards, Pete

WideFS, yes, but you already said it was okay for FS AI traffic, didn't you? If WideFS is working enough to drive other things in your display it will certainly do the same for this stuff. It makes no distinction whasoever, all the data is just data, it doesn't know what it means. ... and they refuse to support their program? Has it ever worked? Do you know anyone else for whom it worked? Well, you can switch on FSUIPC "IPC Write" logging (Logging page in FSUIPC options), and do a VERY SHORT test in which you'd expect to see some aircraft, then ZIP up the FSUIPC LOG file and I can see if any correct traffic data has been written. This may provide fuel for your argument with the Ivap authors who won't otherwise support their product. But please keep it very short. Best not to enable the IPC Logging until you know you will see some soon, then close FS completely after you are sure you should have seen some. Email the ZIP to me at petedowson@btconnect.com. Really I would rather support the programmers who wrote it if they seem to need help, as any explanation I give you will only have to be repeated second-hand this way. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I cannot support AIBridge. I know absolutely nothing about either it or multiplayer. Possibly AIBridge doesn't work with your "Ivap" program or whatever it is. Why don't you ask them first? I am very sorry to be so brief on this, but it really is not my subject, I have never flown on-line and know nothing about it. The support you need must come from the programs you use. The only way FSUIPC comes into this is that it receives data from somrthing for others to read. Regards, Pete

No. FSUIPC cannot see the mutiplayer traffic, so that is fed into FSUIPC forcibly, by AIBridge or whoever wants to. All that happens in that case is that FSUIPC becomes a storage medium for the traffic data. Regards Pete

Oh, right. In that case they have something wrong. I assume you are a registered user of FSUIPC, or else the program would need an access Key to do this. What is the name of the program? Is it "ivap"? I did provide an access key way back in July 2003 for a program called Ivap: IVAP.exe Product name "IvAp 1.0" Company "International Virtual Aviation Organization" I assume they incorporated the Key into the program. Have you checked the FSUIPC.LOG to see what that says? Regards, Pete

FSUIPC's AI traffic facilities work fine, and I am using the latest PM builds and see all AI traffic well. Of course I don't fly on-line. It sounds like you need to contact Jose abut AIBridge. Are you using his latest version? I replaced the old ZIP on the Schiratti "Dowson" page with a link to Jose's AIBridge site. Meanwhile you have to think about what you have changed? What do you mean by "the new client" for instance? Is this a revised Squawkbox or something? Maybe you need other updates? Regards, Pete

Phew! What's OODEFRAG? Is that something doing things to your disk in the background? Anyway, I'm glad you got it sorted at last! Regards, Pete

FSUIPC is not checking anything at all. It doesn't even start doing anything much until FS is fully loaded. I really have no idea what could be happening on your system. I have no other similar reports. What does the FSUIPC log show? (Not much by that stage I should think). The reason I suggested starting with a newly generated FS9.CFG file was in case FS was initially loading a corrupt FLT+WX file, but you've already eliminated that as a possibility. A corrupt WX file may cause FS to hang when FSUIPC asks it for the weather, that's all. The only other Weather related file which may be in error is the WXStationList.BIN file, which would be in the same folder as your FS9.CFG file -- it does change as it gets updated from time to time when you download weather. Maybe that got corrupted? To install a completely virgin FS you would have had to delete the entire Fs9 folder in "Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft". Since you've re-installed FS you could try copying over the original WXstationList.BIN file into that FS9 folder -- you'll find it installed in the main FS folder in the "Weather" sub-folder. Also, as a last resort, you could try adding (or changing if it's there already) "InitDelay=3000" to the [General] section of the FSUIPC.INI file. This stops FSUIPC hooking into FS's message processing for that number of milliseconds. You could actually try something like 15000 initially (= 15 seconds) and if that works, work down. Really I am all out of ideas on this. The only other thing I would check are other processes/programs running. Try to close everything else down that you can, just in case one is interfering. Also, I know that fancy Windows add-ons like Window Blinds can sometimes cause problems. Regards, Pete

Glad you got it sorted out. Do you think you could upload a corrected package for Enrico? Send it to enrico@schiratti.com. Regards, Pete

Yes, provided WideClient has the keyboard focus. It's in the WideFS documentation -- see the SendKeyPresses parameter. Pete

Yes, with minimal facilities in CFS1 and more facilities in CFS2. Both were based on FS design and the similar architecture allows FSUIPC to operate, but just not as fully as those platforms for which it is designed (FS200X). No for CFS3 -- this sim is not at all like FS and there isn't even a way to add external modules like FSUIPC to it. No, only sims based on MSFS code since FS2000. Regards, Pete

Not sure what the "SU3" mod is. I use the PMDG 700 with PM, but I use no panel whatsoever. Have you tried the PM NewsGroup? It is full of folks who have experience of this. This really is a less likely place to get such help. Regards, Pete

I assume that you mean the joystick and button numbers are flickering, not the whole window? If this is the case you have at least two buttons which are constantly making and breaking contact. Assignments would not produce any such effect. The Buttons programmming window uses a routine which scans all connected joysticks and displays the last one with the last button to be seen changing from "not pressed" to "pressed". If only one button was doing so it would not flicker, but stay showing that value, but with two or more it will look to FSUIPC as if you are still selecting buttons and therefore it tries to show the last one you pushed. Note that is scanning not only applies to real joysticks connected to your FS PC, but also buttons on GoFlight units, and on other PCs if you use WideFS. It also applies to "virtual buttons", which need not be hardware at all but application programs writing to specific offsets in FSUIPC. Does the flickering stop if you unplug that? You will need to follow some process of elimination to ascertain what is causing the problem, whether add-on hardware or add-on applications. It isn't just a matter of not being able to use the Window for programming the buttons (you can always do it by direct editing in the INI file instead), you need to know what is causing it and which buttons are affected so you can either stop them or avoid using them at all -- they obviously aren't of any practical use if they a going on and off all the time. Any existing assignments in the INI file will be totally irrelevant in any case --- as I say, the window is trying to show you the lasst button pressed and that is evidently constantly changing. Again, those are not relevant at all to FSUIPC's button scanning. You deleted everything FSUIPC knows about when you deleted the INI file. This is nothing whatsoever to do with assignments -- it is buttons which are constantly making and breaking contact. Regards, Pete

Those locations are reserved by FSLCD. That's how they get reserved. I don't document them because I have no idea how they are used -- that's private to the software author, and it is up to him whether he publishes details. Regards, Pete

Might be quicker just to delete the FS9.CFG file first. Even if you re-install, you may still need to do that -- I've a feeling it leaves it intact, along with all your saved flights and (possibly corrupt) weather files in your 2My Documents" folder. Regards, Pete

FSUIPC doesn't really do much till FS is actually loaded and ready to fly. Did you check that your FS9.1 update did complete correctly? There's a list of the FS modules which have been updated in my announcement about 8.1 at the top of this Forum. If that's okay, try deleting your FS9.CFG file (make a safe copy of it first) so that FS starts up using default settings. The FS9.CFG file will be in your Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9 folder. If that gets you into FS, then you probably have a corrupt flight, or, more likely, a corrupt weather (WX) file. I think the latter can screw up FS after the FS9.1 update more easily than before. The only difference FSUIPC being there would be making is that it is reading the weather. Otherwise it sounds like you have some other add-on which is accessing FSUIPC and then going wrong. What does the FSUIPC.LOG file look like? Regards, Pete

Well, of course, certainly that's good news for me, but ... That's simply the result of the weather being cleared. You have weather logging enabled in FSUIPC, so it logs changes it sees at assorted levels. The FS98 interface is the original FS98-compatible weather interface. It is still maintained in FSUIPC for old programs. The ambient wind changes logged are the results on the wind at the aircraft of the Wind Smoothing option. I must admit, I've NEVER set that slider to "extreme". It sounds as if that is causing continuous activity in the Weather DLL and the result is the slow downs you see? Why not simply refrain from using "extreme", which seems rather unrealistic in any case? Just so you can use "extreme" changes? Seems rather excessive. Ah -- because it always happens with your weather program, is that it? Only 49MB used!? For FS2004? Are you sure you don't mean GB? Megabytes are hardly anything these days. I think the default full install of FS9 is about 2.8Gb (i.e. 2800 Mb). My FS2004 installation is about 30 Gb (30000 MB) at present, and growing! :wink: [LATER] I just tried the "EXTREME" change setting with the gray and rainy theme, and the frame rates seem to sustain well. I really cannot understand what is happening on your system. Could it possibly be something to do with Win2000 with video drivers really optimised these days for XP? Win2000 is getting long in the tooth, and I'm wondering if there may be some inefficiencies creeping in with the new DirectX and drivers with these ultra-fast video cards. Regards, Pete

Aha! In that case the problem is that the PMDG autopilot uses virtually none of the default FS autopilot, and does not co-operate with PM's MCP at all because PM has no way of controlling it. This actually applies to several of the advanced cockpit add-ons, but PMDG are most especially "different". You will need to modify the installed PMDG aircraft as specified in the PM downloads site. Look down the updates page, bottom right I think. Regards, Pete

Good, glad you got it sorted. Small world 9but i wouldn't want to paint it! :wink: I've lived around here for 40 years (since I got married in fact), but I'm actually from Middlesex, near London, and went to Bristol University. Incidentally, North Staffs Poly is now part of Staffordshire University! :) Regards, Pete

I don't know the CPFlight stuff at all, but there are plenty of users with this and PM over in the PM Newsgroup. I suggest that's the best place to get advice. I know PM's MCP program drives the MCP hardware directly -- Enrico knows the CPFlight stuff and is a fan I believe. I don't think you can use both together. Why would you want to? Also, if you are using the PMDG aircraft, for PM's MCP to be used with it you either have to fly PMDG with no part of their panel (which is what I do), or do some patching -- there are packages explaining all this on the PM downloads site. Go over to the PM Newsgroup. That's by far the best place. Loads of folks do what you want to do there. Regards, Pete

The only thing I can think of, then, is that the FS9.1 patch isn't installing correctly. Have you checked the changed FS Modules against the list I published in the FS9.1 announcent at the top of this forum? Are you flying with the menu on display all of the time? If so, try right-clicking in the main scenery view and checking "hide menu bar". That way FS re-builds the entire menu when you press ALT. Another thing to eliminate would be the PMDG panel, in case part of that isn't quite compatible with FS9.1, which seems unlikely. But try some flights with another aircraft just in case. My configuation is similar to yours, with the PMDG 737-700, but I don't actually use the panel for serious flights (PM instead). Alternatively, try just (temporarily) removing the PMDGoptions DLL from the Modules folder. I don't think that stops you using the panels, but it stops the DLL changing the Menu. Ah. There's another difference. I've not plucked up enough courage yet to try installing SP2, so my PCs are still SP1. But I can't imagine that would make any difference here. Regards, Pete