Pete Dowson

It may be using a variable which is not yet working properly in FS2004. I am only about half-way through checking them all, and mostly have to respond to requests from developers so that I make work the things they need first. Certainly the author of Arrestor Cables has confirmed that it does work in FS2004, so there must be something different in the earlier, freeware, version. For me to look at this could you produce a Log file please. In FSUIPC Logging, enable IPC reads and writes, and run the program both in FS2002 and FS2004 and Zip up and send me both Log files -- send to petedowson@btconnect.com. I will try to spot whatever the difference is that it doesn't like. Regards, Pete

I don't know, sorry. There are plenty of add-ons which will work through WideFS though. Check the list of FSUIPC applications on the Schiratti page. It isn't complete, but it's a start. Pete

Hmmm. I'd not noticed that. You are right. You can of course select a theme, get the weather for it, then save a new default flight. Then that weather will load up next time, but even so, the "theme" is back then to "user defined". This is happening because FSUIPC is adjusting some weather details for you, though only the "global" settings (those used for weather stations which don't have their own weather). Any change, even a small one, made by FSUIPC or manually by you is effectively setting "user defined weather". If you don't want this to happen, just select "normal defaults" or "minimum weather defaults" in FSUIPC, or turn off all the weather filters. I may make a new option to allow the weather filters to be applied only to external weather sources, avoiding touching the FS built-in weather at all. Regards, Pete

I think some help from SB folks is needed there -- the position read from FS is not in degrees and minutes format in any case, but in special FS units, and it isn't touched by FSUIPC. The aircraft position is one of the few things which have been the same right through since FS98 and before. Pete

You have "ServerIPAddr=192.168.0.1" in the Client INI file. Have you tried giving the Server name instead ("NEW")? Pete

I'm sorry, but I did actually point out in the 'blurb' that the weather filters were probably not such an important part of FSUIPC for FS2004, at least not at present. You can of course apply visibility limits. Virtually none of the FSUIPC weather facilities for FS2000/2002 applied to local weather in any case, it was for global weather and for weather set from external programs. The same applies to FS2004. The limits will achieve your objective, and the upper cut off can be set "to taste". It's only the graduation part which is then missing -- I think the vision of the murky ground below when you are above the limit is more satisfying than the clearing of vision right down to the ground as you climb, which was the case. Neither. In fact most of the omissions are really due to the fact that I couldn't make ANY of the weather access into FS2004 work in any of the Betas. It only started to come good after I got the Gold, which was three or so weeks before FS2004 was released. I am still working 100% on FSUIPC, so thing will gradually change, and probably according to suggestions and requests. I'm currently trying to work out a way of introducing taxi winds again. There are big technical problems too. If nobody wanted to use FS's own downloaded weather, and only either manually set global weathr, or 100% externally controlled weather, then everything would be quite easy for me. But I think the improvements are so big in FS's own weather that a lot of users will stick with it. I have never been able to provide many facilities for that, and FS2004 is even more difficult. I am looking at it still. Sorry, I haven't seen that and really have no time to chase other threads. If you want to precis it here I can read it then. Regards, Pete

Last question first: no, if version 2.97 is installed Active Sky should be okay. But I think 1.6 is quite old. Haven't there been lots of fixes since then? You might want to check for updates. On the installation question, if when FS loads up and you go to the Modules folder, FSUIPC shows as version 2.97, then that is what is installed in the FS Modules folder. There's no two ways about it. It sounds like you've actually put the newer FSUIPC in another folder instead. This has been known before. In fact one user had another install of FS which he'd forgotten all about and he was actually loading FS from there even though he was updating the one he thought he was loading from! There's nothing I can really do from here. Just do a file search using Windows Explorer and see how many FSUIPC.DLLs you have installed and where they all are. That should show the error. Regards, Pete

Just default INI files should be fine for TCP/IP, but with the ServerName parameter provided in the Client INIs. Regards, Pete

That's an incorrect assumption I'm afraid. "Accredited" means it has an access key to enable it to use FSUIPC version 3. It evidently hasn't. You should really get in touch with the author and see if he has a Key, and if not whether he will be getting one. If it is Freeware I will give him one on request immediately. If it is showing AI aircraft positions using FSUIPC's facilities, yes -- all that is compatible across FS2002/FS2004. But programs need keys to access unregistered copies of FSUIPC. If the aircraft works in all other respects and doesn't crash FS then it probably only needs access to FSUIPC. It can be registered manually if Eric does not want to update it, and it should work in any case on a registered copy of FSUIPC. Regards, Pete

There's no difference in the way WideFs works on FS2004 compared to FS2002, so it must be related somehow to processor usage. I need to see both the Server and Client LOG files. Also it would be useful to know what other things you have running on the FS PC -- I am using a P4 2.4GHz PC too for FS2004 with the frame rate limiter set to 20 and have no similar problem. Normally WideServer assumes that if it cannot access FS's "SIM1" variables this is because you are in a menu, or loading a flight or similar. To avoid crashing FS during such times, it holds off from updating things then, but if this goes on for too long it does cause a disconnect-reconnect sequence to ensure everything is restored. I do have a test version of WideServer with which you can stop the disconnect-reconnect part. I put this in as an experiment but at present I'm not happy about it being the default mode -- there were good reasons for this behaviour, and I don't want to get reports of FS lock ups and crashes which were happening on some folks systems before I made those changes back in version 4. So, if you'd zip up the Logs showing the problem and send them to petedowson@btconnect.com, with a covering not describing what you have running where, I'll take a look. I may send a test version of WideServer with which you can change the behaviour, but I'd want feedback on that for a while before I decided to release it. Thanks, Pete

At present, not with localised weather downloads, no. The weather filtering only operates with weather provided by external programs such as those you mention, or global weather which you can set up by clearing all weather then setting your own. I am currently investigating a method of re-allowing taxi winds and perhaps smoothing winds too, no matter where they come from, and if that is successful I may look at applying visibility limits across the board too, but I don't know if any of this will work yet, so I cannot promise anything. Regards, Pete

From what I've seen and heard, it isn't between layers, there seems to be quite good smoothing by FS thenm it is something going very odd within the layers themselves. If it works and has no bad side effects, yes, but the problem is the weather indications such as Shift+Z will not then show that actual wind affecting the aircraft. I still need to do experiments and tests to see what can be done. Regards, Pete

Please have a little look at the WideFS DOC inside the ZIP. I have tried to keep that simple, especially the first parts, describing what it is. Then, by all means, ask questions. Okay? Pete

The error only sounds if you are trying to set values which are out of order. The numbers must increase from left to right. Correct the ones which are out of order first. If necessary, start on the right instead of left, and so on. There is no difference inside FSUIPC which axis you are setting, the code is identical and all axes with centres have 4 numbers, which have to be in order. If you want to start again from defaults, just edit the FSUIPC.INI file (in the FS modules folder). You'll see the section there for Joystick Calibration and you can delete it all, or just the aileron entry, as you like. Do this when FS isn't running. Regards, Pete

Just delete the FSUIPC.KEY file from your FS Modules folder if you want to start again. Then when you enter the details, enter EXACTLY what you have been given by SimMarket, even if this is not how you like your name to be. They have derived this from your details when you purchased it and the Key is tied to those details exactly. Regards, Pete

The Schiratti site has not had the 2.97 version up since FSUIPC 3 was released two weeks ago today. Since then it has only had FSUIPC 3, and currently it is showing version 3.04. If your browser is showing differently you are probably looking at a cached page in your PC or on your server. Try refreshing it (Refresh button), or clearing your caches, or else complain to your ISP. Thousands of people have already downloaded version 3 in the two weeks it has been there. Regards, Pete

Sorry, but no way! 2.98 was a Beta for FS2004 and has never been released publicly, and the previous public version is not available nor supported now. Version 3 is the only current version and this applies to FS2000, FS2002 and FS2004. It is not just "the FS2004 version". That is a complete misconception. I have to take the position of only supporting registered copies of FSUIPC, and registered copies need FSUIPC 3 or later. If you register then all your programs will work in FS2002 and you get full support. If you have registered FSUIPC and WideFS in FS2004 then simply copy over your FSUIPC.KEY file from your FS2004 Modules folder to your FS2002 Modules folder. This saves having to re-enter the details. But this only works if you are running them both on the same PC -- if not you will need to re-enter the details. Regards, Pete

I'm not really doing anything with the "Run" facilities in WideServer these days. All those facilities are now in FSUIPC -- more folks benefit that way. Check the section "Programs: facilities to load and run additional programs" in the FSUIPC Advanced Users guide. They've been there for some time now (Septemeber 2002). There's also a nice little freeware program called "Run Options" by Jose Oliveira, on the Schiratti site. This edits the relevant section of FSUIPC.INI for you. Regards, Pete

Phew, I wrote that years ago. Let me see. It gets the heading, and the wind direction, both in degrees TRUE, reverses the wind direction so you get the direction it's blowing you. Then you need the true air speed (or maybe the ground speed?) and the wind speed, and the rest is vector trig. I think I looked it up in a book. If you search the 'net there are places with whole collections of aviation and navigational formulae. I just looked at my code and I don't understand any of it, and it looks a complete mess, so I'm not sharing it here. Sorry. Regards, Pete

This is the FMC and the Overhead of PSS's A320? Can it be split across more than one PC? I understood it to be an integrated peice of software, I would very much doubt that you can do that. In any case, it is a question for PSS I think. I don't know who told you to use WideFS for this. As it says quite clearly (in big letters possibly), wideFS is for external applications for FS, It extends the FSUIPC interface to client PCs which are NOT running FS at all. The PSS A320 will be an add-in aircraft for FS. none of it will run without FS, and it will all need to run together in one copy of FS. I think you need to investigate Project Magenta or something similar. Regards, Pete

The sole purpose of Wideclient is to talk to WideServer on the FS PC and present a remote copy of the FSUIPC interface. The interface is not a visible entity to humans, it is used by application programs. If you are not running any application programs on WideClient you do not need it nor WideServer. Pete

Sounds like it was reading a different file to the one you thought it was! Never mind, glad it's okay now. Pete

I hope you can get it sorted out quickly. The last time I heard of anyone with jittery axes was in Myanmar I think, and it was the power supply. Do also check that there are no joystick assignments in FS (check joysticks are disabled) as even if there are no USB or Game Port ones connected, this can still play havoc. Other things that can cause small jitters (not big deviations) are bad cables, dirty connections, dirty pots, temperature and humidity variations, and so on, but I do try to smooth some of those out. Regards, Pete

Hi again, A couple of points of clarification I've just thought of: On this: The update rate managed by FSUIPC is really constrained by the FS Frame Rate. I cannot allow it to try to make these calls into WEATHER.DLL aynchromously. They have to be done in synch with the rest of FS, on the frame rate. Otherwise the system can get very unstable. So if, for example, your FS is running at 20 fps it would take at least 30 seconds to update 600 stations -- probably half that as by the time you've seen the signal to allow you to change the data, you will have missed the next frame tick. I don't think there's any way around that, even by leaving out the FS populate call as I suggested I might be able to in my last message. The only speed up would be by batching the weather stations, as FS does by loading a WX file. This brings me to this: Now here I think you are possibly mis-reading this: "I suppose you could have a routine which did this in a loop, working from a file, rather than using the IPC interface to pass the data, as it obviously is not suited to such large amounts of data. I'm not sure why this would be any advantage over creating a WX file and loading that with a FLT. " All that was suggesting was that possibly the IPC interface could be used to supply a filename for a set of weather stations, which would then be loaded into FS en bloc. Exactly the same in fact as available already for loading FLT + WX files. I don't know a way of injecting them into FS as a batch, so FSUIPC would have to loop reading the file and sending each WX station to FS. If this is done in one frame then it would be a stutter, certainly, maybe a long one -- though I could of course leave the "populate" call till the end. Regards, Pete

Since this is still a live program, no, I cannot without his permission. Has he said this would be okay? Surely you haven't asked him already and got such a reply. Ask him to confirm it with me, I need some details in any case. I really would far prefer it for the authors themselves to contact me, as most do. Then they can incorporate the keys in their programs or publish them in a read.me or FAQ on their websites. They are also in the best position to supply the information I need to make the key. Otherwise, it would not be appropriate of me to bypass authors in the manner you suggest. I understand that this will be needed for defunct or unmaintained products in which the author has lost interest, but this is not the case here. Regards, Pete