Pete Dowson

The whole point of FSUIPC is to try to provide compatibility through from FS98 through FS2000 and FS2002 to and including FS2004. As far as the IPC interface is concerned, if the program works on any it works on all -- provided of course it doesn't take advantage of NEW things offered in later versions. Some packages, however, also need access to other aspects of FS -- things like Airport Data formats, scenery, aircraft files, Multiplayer. These things are outside of FSUIPC and may or may not be compatible from FS version to FS version. The other thing then is whether you register FSUIPC or not. If you don't, then the FS2002 add-ons which use it won't get any joy unless and until they have an access key. Regards, Pete

Last time I looked, it was. Slap bang at the top. Pete

Developers who want to supply FSUIPC with their product and have it work out of the box, as it were, without the user having to register FSUIPC, merely need to reach an agreement with me as to licensing fees for that. Freeware get free licenses, for others it varies according to circumstances. As described in one of my other announcements, which is *still* on the forum, I have been offering to send full details to any developer who asks for several weeks now. You need to write to the email address it mentions, please check the Announcements. I'll be updating the SDK next week and including all the details inside that too. Regards, Pete

Please check the announcement at the top of the forum about supported versions, and also visit http://www.schiratti.com/dowson. Most of my modules were updated ready for FS2004 a while ago -- the GPSout update was released on July 8th I think. Pete

I think that will most certainly hapen if you go to each page in turn and order them separately, yes. The combined offer is selected via a drop-down at the top of the page, from either one. You don't need to visit the other page. I know that works because most of the combined receipts I've been getting are for the special both-together offer at 30 Euros. I wish you luck with SimMarket trying to sort it out, but I can understand it. I shouldn't think their software is sophisticated enough to compare all items in a shoping basket to hunt out your special offers, as in real shops it is up to you to select them. Regards, Pete

Sorry, but there are so many things like that which were not known in FS98. FSUIPC really does almost nothing at all in that version, it is just a window to the GLOBALS.DLL module, like FS6IPC was before it. There's no way of getting information which may not be accessible, and no one is going to spend a lot of time investigating a 6 year old version. I'm very sorry, Pete

Well of course most all of the changes have been to get FSUIPC working on FS2004 as well as it was working on FS2002, so, no, for FS2002 you won't notice much difference at all. Some things will have been improved, but not noticeably, and there may have been a bug fix or two, but nothing really important. Now that the main work, in porting it to FS2004, is done, of course new facilities may start to get added, again. No doubt some of these will be for FS2004 only, but not all. If I were you I'd simply review the changes listed in the History documentation for each release as it happens. You can still download them and look, of course. However, if you ask for help or support and say it is version 2.975 or earlier I may ask you to upgrade first! Isn't that fair? Regards, Pete

I sent the files to all the sites at 1200Z today. Unfortunately the usual site, which is run by Enrico Schiratti, was not updated immediately because Enrico was out. He has just been trying to upload the file, but called me a moment ago to say that he is having Internet problems. I think it will be sorted out soon. Sorry. I don't have any control at all over any websites, this Forum is my only outlet! Regards, Pete

You can run as many copies of WideClient, one on each Client PC, as you like. The licensing covers the use of WideServer, the part which goes into the FS installation. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I really have no idea what these are, let alone where to find them inside FS. It has taken me many months to find enough things to allow FSUIPC to provide as much compatibility as it does, and I probably haven't covered all of the listed values yet in any case. When I get time, in a few weeks maybe, I'll perhaps start looking for new data on request, but you'll have to help me. I'd need to know exactly what this is and how to use it. Please ask me again in September. Meanwhile, if all you want to do is control this from outside FS, use the control values which those equate to and send them through the FS controls facility at offset 3110. Regards, Pete

Yes. But you have to use WideFS -- usually you would then also run the FS appplication (e.g. Squawkbox) on that other PC too. Under WideFS you assign KeySends to "RWon" and "RWoff" (in the wideclient.ini file on the RW PC), and then program your buttons in FSUIPC ot use the KeySend controls, not the RW controls. There's stuff about this in the FSUIPC Advanced User's Guide as well as in the WideFS documentation. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I never actually produced random wind (perhaps you mean turbulence?), and, for the time being, at least, I've not implemented the random rain or storm functions. I have a strong feeling that most of my weather features will not get used very much when folks get to experience the FS2004 weather engine. It is far better than anything before, and I don't think I can do much to improve it. As in previous releases, I can really only influence "global" weather, and really you wouldn't particularly want to use FS2004 with a single global weather setting, the local differences are far too attractive now. If feedback indicates that people would still prefer FS2002/FS2000-like weather effects, albeit with better graphics, I'll consider adding some of the facilities back, but I would be very surprised. I actually felt a bit daft putting in the facilities for global weather which I have done. Regards, Pete

Rightyes, that test hot key was enabled in that. Sorry if it confused you, but there's no harm done. Just delete those files, and go into the FSUIPC Hot Keys page and reset the assignment for the bottom left entry (which probably says "reserved"). In the Betas for version 3.00 I used the same system to produce binary dump files for other things, not aircraft specific data, but your message has reminded me to remove this before I issue it, this time! :) Thanks, Pete

I thought UK release date was at least another week off. Normal release dates here are Fridays, so I'm guessing 1st August at the earliest. Do you know different? Pete

No, FS2004 gauges are part of FS2004, just like FS2002 ones are part of FS2002. They are not separate applications, they cannot run on a separate PC using WideFS. They don't interface to FS through the FSUIPC interface even if they were separate programs. Nothing in FS2004 is dependent on FSUIPC. If you have an existing program which runs okay on WideFS with FS2002 then it will with WideFS version 6 once you have registered WideFS so it works. The only doubt I have is on the database front. I think FlightMax generates its database from scanning FS AFD files. These are not the same in FS2004. You might have to make do with FS2002 data. Regards, Pete

I think that means the the value the FS tells you about the position may not always be the value you tell it. I think it can depend on something else, maybe something in the AIR file. I don't know. I'd have to take a specific aircraft and see what outputs I got for different imputs. I remember seeing one case (long ago -- when I added that comment, whenever that was) where the output was about twice as high as the input. Why? I've no idea. Maybe it was a mismatch, an FS98 aircraft in FS2002 or something. Sorry. The note I put in there was merely a warning, a result of such an observation. Writing to one will cause FSUIPC to actually send the appropriate control to FS. Writing to the other will do nothing at all. That sounds eminently reasonable. No, I don't think so. I hope they do always match. I have just seen occasions when they don't. Ignore my warning notes if you like. They may mean nothing with modern well-behaved aircraft. Regards, Pete

As it says in the announcement at the top of this forum. I am on-time still to meet the release date I promised, or a bit early in fact -- expect to see it at the usual places this weekend. Regards Pete

Please check the announcement at the top of this forum. Thanks, Pete

On your own system, using a private program? It depends on the version of FSUIPC you are using. More and more of the "unused" areas are being used. 8000-810D are used in FSUIPC 3, as are areas above C000. The areas below 8000 are fast being allocated for specific applications, and I'll be starting to allocate above 810D in a few months I expect. In some versions of FSUIPC I used areas 9000-BFFF for exploring other data parts of FS, as a sort of Window, and though I usually turned that off before release, I didn't always. So, if you are designing something for others to use, I'd say not. If it is for your own private use and you can control whatever else you run, then 810C - BFFF could be used at a pinch. But WideFS/IPC is not an efficient way of transferring large lumps of data. I would have thought you'd be better off making your own arrangements outside of FSUIPC. You could write a file, for instance, and simply pass the notification and location via FSUIPC. Or you can use pipes, or your own Ethernet links. Regards, Pete

Well, I didn't know about if before now. It is a tiny bug in the tables. You just reported it in time for me to fix it in Version 3.00, due out this weekend. Thank you! Regards, Pete

Okay, good. It was maybe worth all this hasle in the end, then? Regards, Pete

Some good news for you. I experimented a bit with the function I am already calling in FS to display messages, and I found a way to get white-on-green rather than red-on-green, but only for static (non-scrolling) messages. I'll make this an option in FSUIPC's Technical page. I cannot make it programmable at present -- too close to release to make drastic changes. I've had to modify AdvDisplay.DLL as well, in case it is installed. FSUIPC sends things direct to FS if AdvDisplay isn't installed, but else they are routed through it. These facilities will be in FSUIPC 3.00 and AdvDisplay 2.11. Regards, Pete

Very likely you can, and I was trying very hard not to sound like I was talking to a complete beginner, but it was very difficult. After all I had already given you all the information. Even the original documentation in the SDK does have an explicit structure. The TCAS facilities were originally publish nearly two years ago and I've not had to go to anything like these lengths before to explain them. The SDK is actually aimed at programmers so does make assumptions about basic knowledge. If it was the structure business you didn't understand you would have asked, surely? Then the fact that you thought that two different 32 bit values could occupy the same or overlapping offsets seemed very strange and I though must indicate some very basic misunderstandings of how computers work. Maybe there were other reasons for this, and if so I'm sorry to have made incorrect assumptions. Pete

Hi again, Just reviewing this thread, I see I already replied to you before and I actually already gave you explicit offsets within each slot, so even if you didn't understand the C format structure you should still have worked out your error. In case you missed it, here's the relevant part again: Now do you see how, if the first byte above is at offset F080 (i.e the first slot), the Latitude cannot possible be at F080 or F082? You see it says the Latitude is at bytes 4-7? F080 + 4 = F084. Not F080 nor F082! Both those offsets are part of the ID because they lie in the range F080-F083 as occupied by the ID, which is in the first 4 bytes of each 40 byte slot. Okay? What is not clear about this? I really am running out of ways to make this as simple as possible. Regards, Pete

Hmmm. Unfortunately, FSInterrogate is missing the numeric format used for much of the data in the AI Traffic tables -- the 32 bit floating point values, type "float". It does have a "double" floating point format which is 64 bits, but I couldn't use up that much space for each aircraft or there'd only be room for half the number. Pelle was working on an update to FSInterrogate, but I fear work commitments have got in the way. Certainly that is possible -- the ID is a mere 32-bit unsigned integer ("DWORD"). Hwever, this is the ID only of the first slot, not necessarily populated by an aircraft. There are 96 such slots, the next starting another 40 bytes further up, at F0A8. Since the offset F080 is pointing to the 32 bit (= 4 bytes) of the ID, the whole of the offsets from F080 to F083 inclusive are occupied by that ID. A DWORD is 32 bits = 4 bytes = 4 address values. See? There is no possibility of the same 32 bits being simultaneously used for two different values. Things can't work that way, it is not possible. So neither F080 nor F082 will ever contain the Latitude. As shown by the structure, the Latitude is a float and follows the Id, so will be 4 bytes further on, at F084 (assuming that slot is actually populated). PLEASE PLEASE see the Documentation I provide in the SDK. Surely the structure shown there, albeit in C format, is perfectly clear? The structure shows a number of values occupying fixed positions inside each 40 byte slot. The 40 bytes is made up of 4 for the ID, 4 for each "float" value, 2 for each word, and so on. The types are standard C or Windows types and the structure can be used exactly as provided there to define those positions and types in a C or C++ Windows program. Just cut and paste. I'm sure conversion to whatever language you wish to use shouldn't be so hard. What is really the problem? You are talking rather as if you are new to computers. If so, then I'm afraid I am the wrong person to try to teach you. If not, then I'm sorry for continuing to misunderstand you. Regards, Pete