Pete Dowson
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Posts posted by Pete Dowson
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Is there a way at all to prevent the MS A/P from affecting the controls while stwitched on (incl. when fiddling various flightmodes)? Maybe as a future FSUIPC-feature?
No, I'm sorry, I don't think that is possible at all -- it is all wrapped into the simulation engine. The only thing that could possibly be done would be to prevent the A/P switches from reaching FS so that it never gets switched on. This could be done for external programs (simply discarding the AP ENG control), but not from keyboard and possibly not from some gauges. I really don't think that would be worthwhile.
Regards,
Pete
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Keysend1=33 ;send press joystick 2, key 2
Keysend2=33,1 ;release joystick 2 key 2
You might find it easier to do the programming of KeySends in FSUIPC these days, as pointed out in the WideFS documentation.
Now in order to make different assignments for other controls I have installed CH control manager. The CH control manager translates controls of the yoke into keyboard keystrokes. This means that WideServer now should be able to pick up a keystroke on the server and translate it into a WideClient RW command. I haven't found out how to do thisThere is no way for WideServer to do this. It isn't a facility in WideServer -- the only KeySend facility is to translate BUTTTON pressings into signals across the Network, with WideClient converting them to Keystrokes at that end. Please read the documentation!
If you want to user KeyStrokes on the FS PC, refer to the FSUIPC "Keys" page and program the keystrokes to send the KeySends instead.
Regards,
Pete
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Sorry I should have said in the text body that I used FSUIPC to program the joystick and it was FSUIPC 'Flaps incr' command which was causing the problem.
Since FSUIPC is only sending the same Flaps Increment control that you can assign directly in the FS joystick Assignments dialogue, I don't see any point in doing that. Did you try to sort out the button assignments in FS first?
If you haven't actually DELETED the assignments there, before uing the FS facilities, your buttons will be interpreted by both FS and by FSUIPC, and you will very likely get just the sort of results you are seeing. That's what it sounds like to me.
Really there's no point in using the FSUIPC facilities for any of the straight-forward controls that are either assigned automatically by FS anyway, or that are easily assignable in its dialogues. The drop-down list in FSUIPC only includes them because they are part of the total list in FS, not just those selected for the dialogues. And if you do assign any buttons in FSUIPC you must certainly make sure they are NOT assigned in FS -- there is no way FSUIPC can stop FS looking at them too!
Regards,
Pete
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Using some offsets the controls can be decoupled from the joystick (310A,
3328-3337).
1) When doing this, is the autopilot also decoupled? (Can I have an activated autopilot that is prevented from making interactions by this decoupling?)
No, the de-coupling of the joystick inputs is precisely there to allow you to provide your own control. It is nothing to do with the autopilot -- joystick inputs are normally ignored in any case when the appropriate autopilot modes are engaged (though this is not necessarily particularly realistic -- significant movements of the yoke should auto-decouple the A/P in many aircraft).
It you want the A/P to be deactivated, just switch it off. It is that easy.
2) If no: Is it possible to provide such a decoupling? I would like to apply own autopilot control functionality thus requiring that the default autopilot stops interaction (while still being able to activate its modes).No, it is not possible to use the FS A/P without the FS A/P doing anything. What do you think switching it and its modes on and off would do -- if they did nothing, why switch them? It makes no sense. If you want to implement your own A/P (as many have done) then you ignore the FS switches (leave them off) and implement your own, for your own A/P. You can decouple the joystick inputs and feed in your own values according to your own A/P switches. For safety you probably would specify that the aircraft has no autopilot (in the Aircraft.CFG file).
Regards,
Pete
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With a dual card, will the outside view still be jerky if its docked versus the panel? I may have no choice.
It's all to do with hardware acceleration. I expect it will not be such a problem with the more recent cards, especially dual headed. Provided the undocked view is still properly accelerated it should be okay.
Would I notice a significant improvement if I get a 2GHz processor?A faster processor gives you more frames per second. It may or may not reduce stutters/jerks, depending on what was causing those. I think it is always worthwhile getting the fastest processor you can afford!
By the way, when starting FS, the views do not come up when put on two displays. You have to go to the application bar below and click on restore.Realy, even when you've saved the set up as your start-up flight? Everything should come up the way you saved it.
Pete
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I have recently placed the outside forward view on a separate monitor by docking it, leaving the instrument panel on the main screen. Since doing that, the outside vision works very poorly, jerking every one second.
That is probably because you did it the wrong way round, I think. You'd be better off undocking the panel and moving that, leaving a full screen outside 3D view accelerated properly on your primary display.
The video cards have 8MB (Both ATI cards but one is a Rage card), the PC is a 1GHz AMD, 512MB.The Rage cards are known to be very poor for FS -- is that the one you moved the outside view to? Try it the other way.
If I had to select one, which should I do, upgrade to 128MB video cards, expand system memory or go up to 2Ghz processor. Or there is there something else that I'm overlooking?128Mb of video memory isn't a necessity, though a faster modern card (not a Rage) would be better. You can get good dual headed cards by Matrox and by nVidia as well as the newer ATIs (Radeons). You don't need two video cards for two displays any more, and you don't even need to pay for the top cards for good dual monitor performance.
Unless you have less than 256 Mb of memory, the most needed thing is always going to be faster processors, so, apart from moving your 3D display off a slow video card that would be your best move.
I'm not sure you should take my word for all this, though. You might be better asking these sorts of questions on a general FS or hardware oriented forum.
Regards,
Pete
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My thanks to you for your dedication, time and helpfulness when I've needed it Pete.
I've just sent a token of my appreciation.
Thank you very much!
Pete
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well, I always run FS2k2 in window mode. I see that the text within the ADVDisplay flickers and as soon I click into this display the flipping-flicker problem gets wourse.
In windowed mode? Wow! I have no idea what could do that -- Do other programs flicker too? When superimposing itself in Windowed mode, AdvDisplay's window is just another window, it isn't a child of FS, nor owned by FS, so it just behaves like any other program. When docked I just have to monitor the docked component (whatever that is -- you can check it in the PANEL.CFG as mentioned in the Doc) so I know when to hide it.
Does it do the same in "Locked" mode? That's exactly the same as Docked except I don't have to monitor the panel component, as it doesn't go away with the panel (you can use an FSUIPC hot key instead).
I have a Version 2.02 almost ready to go -- I'll probably release it tomorrow (Monday). It has some diagnostic code removed, and will auto-undock when disabled, but apart from that there's no change.
I run it here on Win2000Pro with DX9, Win98SE with DX9 and WinXP with DX9, and I cannot reproduce anything like the problems you have. I use a mixture of nVidia cards and Matrox.
Sorry I'm not much help. You could try running the "ShowText" utility instead (set "hide always" in the AdvDisplay popup options). ShowText IS a separate program, so it isn't even running in the same process as FS. If its window cannot be seen stable on top of FS's Window then I don't think there's anything anyone can do.
Regards,
Pete
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I have installed the latest of your ADVDisplay. Whenever I activate it and dock it somehwere within my 2D panel of any plane, I get a realy nice problem!Do you need more info about my system?
No, sorry, it won't help me I'm afraid. AdvDisplay uses just standard Windows routines to open a completely and utterly standard Window. I have no idea why your are getting such odd results, but I'm afraid there's really nothing I can do. I think you may be okay if you run in Windowed mode instead of full screen (press ALT+ENTER). I think all future versions of FS will be like this. I may have to abandon Advdisplay as it is and think of an alternative, if one is possible.
So, can you tell me what is going on? Can it be that it has something to do with latest windows update of Directx9Possibly it is DX9. But if so it won't be the AdvDisplay code which is plain standard window code, but probably the attempt to superimpose an ordinary window on top of FS's Direct3D window. Try using Windowed mode. I think this will become mandatory, as I say. I cannot solve it for the forthcoming FS9 and Microsoft say it is impossible. :-(
Regards,
Pete
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The chair is jerky and feels as though it moves in 5 or 10 degree increments, rather than a smooth operation
Are you running the chair driving program on the same PC as FS? If it is a heavy user of the processor it may have a tough time multiprocessing with FS as the latter wants as much as it can get. You could try limiting the frame rate in FS (Options-Settings-Display). For a fast PC (>2GHz) try something like 25-35 fps as a limit. For a slower PC, use something correspondingly slower -- down to 15 fps at the most on a 1GHz. This may give the other program more time.
You could also try giving it a higher priority. Not sure how to do this easily -- perhaps someone else will jump in. Maybe, if you are using Win98 an upgrade to XP would help -- I think it is rather better at multiprocessing applications, and it can certainly allow you to set different pririties.
Finally, it may be some limit on polling rate built into the driver -- possibly there's some parameter you can change to speed it up? Certainly FSUIPC is able to match the FS frame rate with updates -- it can do this even across a LAN using WideFS, so it can certainly do it locally. Ideally, if the FS frame rate is, say, 25 fps you want the polling rate to match (i.e. in this case at 40 millisecond intervals).
If, in the end, the driver just won't happily share the one PC with FS (and this is certainly a possibility) you could try using a separate, possibly lesser, PC, linked by a LAN and WideFS.
Regards,
Pete
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Using this joystick with FS2002 Pro I have assigned one button to Flaps Incr pulsed and no repeats. The problem is that on the first press the flaps increment to the first position but further presses result in random movement of the flaps sometimes up and sometimes down. In other words it seems to be unreliable. I would appreciate any suggestions for cure.
Not sure why you are asking this here -- this is a support forum for my FS add-in Modules, not for FS generally or for joystick drivers -- but it sounds rather like something in the Saitek driver is changing the button behaviour. Try restoring FS defaults (Options-Controls-Assignments) and re-testing. Maybe FS has its assignments in a mess. Maybe you have somehow got multiple assignments
If you have FSUIPC installed you could try de-assigning the button in the FS Assignments and using FSUIPC's Button facilities instead. But try getting it sorted in FS first. After all, virtually all of the recognised joysticks have flap buttons already pre-assigned by FS and they should work fine. There's no need to use anything in FSUIPC really, it isn't accomplishing anything better or different for the standard assignable controls.
Regards,
Pete
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Sorry Pete PIC 757 is wrong. PIC 767 is right.
Anyway I tried all you suggested, but no change also without PM. APS.DLL I have is the same you report.
It does't matter.
Well, it does matter really. It's a bit odd -- it works for everyone else I know using this combination. There must be something different in your system -- maybe some corruption in the 767PIC code or in PFC.DLL? The way the facility works is quite simple -- if it finds the correct interface for programmatic control of the 767PIC A/P, it uses it. If it doesn't (as in pre- 1.3 versions) it uses the keyboard assignments. Either way, the dials on the PFC device still do control the A/P. it is just that the 1.3 method is more efficient, smoother, that is all.
Pete
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I use your fantastic FSUIPC interface program. After installing (that means copieng it to the FS2002 modules directory) everytime I start my FS 2002 simulator I get the Adventure Text Display.
This seems rather confused. FSUIPC does not provide an Adventure Text display. It actually has nothing at all to do with it. There's another module, called "AdvDisplay.dll" which provides that option.
Since version 2 (current is 2.01), when AdvDisplay is first installed it does nothing till enabled. Once you dock it to a panel part it will always be remembered for that panel and re-enable whenever you use the same panel. To remove it from a panel, undock it. If it is undocked and disabled it won't appear.
If you don't want or need to use Advdisplay.dll, just remove it from the Modules folder.
The next version of Advdisplay (2.02) will automatically undock when you disable it in the menu. Maybe that will make it easier for you -- but for the moment, simply undock it and disable it if you don't want it coming back for the panel it is docked to each time you load it. (The whole point of docking it to create that relationship between the display size and position and that particular panel).
Please refer to the AdvDisplay documentation which does explain all these things. If you are not using the current version of AdvDisplay, please upgeade first. See the announcement about current supported versions.
Regards,
Pete
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That problem had been reported to me with the Parhelia, that is why I asked you to test. It is a problem with the drivers, what it needs is the attention of Matrox, and they did not answer to the other persons having this trouble.
How can the lack of drawing of part of the image be a driver problem? I don't understand? Everything else is working.
but it is a shame, it sure doesn't look good without the smoothing options, I guess I will again stay clear from the cardI've NEVER been able to use the smoothing options in any case. On my Athlon 700 (the one I'm using now), but with the GeForce II Ultra I had on there before, those options cut the graphics frame rate from around 80 down to 10 or so and everything ran very jerky. On the other PC (now disused thanks to the Parhelia) which was an AMD 450 MHz PC using an nVidia MX card, switching those options on consistently caused the PFD display to hang or crash. I tried to sort all this out with Enrico a number of times, but it never got resolved so I ALWAYS ran without smoothing.
To me, the new fonts looks horribly thick and too bold with smothing enabled in any case. Without the smoothing some characters are badly formed, but at least everything runs smoothly and is very readable.
Regards,
Pete
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OK Im going to try Wide FS finally and have an extremely simple question.
Does Flight Sim 2k2 need to be installed on the remote PC?
No way. You may be confusing WideFS with WidevieW which is entirely different. You may have missed the entire point of WideFS. It is explicitly designed to link FS applications on a Network to FS running on one PC. This is an alternative to running the applications on the same PC as FS. There is only ever one copy of FS as far as WideFS is concerned.
All WideFS is providing is a Network-wide FSUIPC interface for applications. Please read the documentation which explains it all at length.
Regards,
Pete
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Hi again Stuart,
RightI reverted my code to the way it used to be before I made it work on XP, and it DOES shut down Windows 98 okay.
The problem seems to be that on Win98 the "SHUTDOWN" keyword is needed to power off the PC, whereas on WinXP the POWEROFF keyword is needed. If I use the POWEROFF keyword on Win98, it merely logs off the user (AND, I notice, leaves a WideClient process running in the background!).
So much for Microsoft reference documentation! Sorry about that.
It'll be fixed in version 5.50 of WideFS which I'll release soon, maybe over this weekend. I've changed the default to TCP/IP and made a few other tidy-up/cosmetic improvements too.
Regards,
Pete
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Could you please check that with the Project Magenta displays you can turn line and font smoothing on with the Parhelia? Thank you :)
Okay. I've tried this now. They seem to be interlinked. If I turn on Font Smoothing, Line Smoothing comes on any way. If I turn off Line smoothing, font smoothing turns off too. they act as one option.
Other odd things. When I first tried it, the whole right hand part of the PFD (the VSI scale and indications, including vlaues above an below) just disappeared, and the display frame rate sank from 30-34 on each of the three windows to about 11-16.
This seems to be solved by going back into the Menu and disabling line Smoothing (not Font smoothing, which menu item seems non-operative -- though they BOTH switch off together). This brings back the missing parts of the PFD. THEN re-enabling font or Line smoothing makes it all work, the whole PFD, and at about 21-26 fps on all three, not too bad.
BUT, and here's the catch. If I close them all down and start them all up again with this smoothing on, they come back with the partial PFD display and poorer frame rates. Each time I load up, I have to CTRL M to enable the Menu, switch off, then switch on the smoothing, then CTRL M to turn the menu back off.
That is intolerable, so I'll do without smoothing. Seems some attention is needed to this area of PM? I doubt if Enrico will be reading this, he doesn't like Forums, so could you copy him please?
Best regards,
Pete
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Actually, it just occured to me that the Project Magenta CDU 'ShutDown This PC' option works and shuts down the local PC.. It is a Win98_SE PC.
But it doesn't do a thing on Win2000 or WinXP. I sent Enrico the code amendment to get it to work on XP. Both his code and mine were once the same. This should mean that WideFS 5.30 or earlier would have shut down your PC -- but that uses the "SHUTDOWN" call, not the "POWER OFF" call, and folks complained that it didn't power off, only went to the place where Windows said "you can now turn your PC off".
I'll try reverting the code to the way it was (and, I think, PM still is) and check it on my one remaining Win98 PC.
It is VERY confusing!
Regards,
Pete
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Check if you have "simple file sharing" enabled, go to the control panel, folder options, view tab and the last option in the advanced settings. Sharing should then work as with the Home edition.
Ah .. thanks. Now we're getting somewhere. The other PCs now don't say that it is inaccessible! They then asked for a User Name and Password. I had to go back to the XP Pro PC and re-enable the drive sharing that I'd already enabled before!
Why do they bury these options in such obscure and apparently unrelated places?
Thanks! It all works (again) now!
Pete
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The simplest way is to go in the glass cockpit OpenGL menu (CTRL+M if needed) and enable font and line smoothing here.
Oh, it's a Menu item? I didn't realise that. I'll check. I can't use that PC for PFD at this moment -- having installed WinXP I've just converted from FAT32 to NTFS (using Partition Magic) and now PFD needs a new Key. I'm sending off for one now...
Before that I got rid of the jerkiness by setting "UserTimer=On" in all three copies of PFD that I'm running. before, on an nVidia card, and with only the one PFD.EXE running, I found it smoother with "UseTimer=Off", but it looks like the PFD code needs to relinquish the processor via UseTimer in order to allow the other copies of itself to get regular time slots.
For XP, I suppose you are using IP, did you disable the firewall on this one machine?I had the same problems (or so I thought) on two machines. One is XP Home the other XP Professional (I had to go to Pro because I was using Win2000 pro on it before).
I managed to sort the Home one out by copying ALL of the Advanced properties in the TCP/IP section of the Network properties -- I think the stumbling block was probably the "NetBIOS over TCP/IP" option which wasn't selected, but it might have been one of the other things.
But I have EXACTLY the same selections on my XP Pro system AND no firewall, yet, whilst that PC can share files on all the other PCs, none of the others can see files on it. They all simply say it is inaccessible. Odd. Something different in XP Professional perhaps? Any ideas please?
Regards,
Pete
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Hi again Stuart,
Well, I found a way of ennumerating all the Processes (using ToolHelp), and having found the EXPLORER process, obtaining its Process Handle and using this to Terminate it before trying to shut down forcibly, and ...
... it made no difference! So much for Microsoft knowing their own programming!
Sorry, I can't find any way at all of actually shutting down a Win98/Me system from a program. If any other readers know how to do this, please let me know.
Meanwhile I'm afraid I'll just have to change the WideFS documentation to say that the shut down option can only be used to shut down the PC on Win2K or XP.
Regards,
Pete
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I have a Ch Products USB Flight Sim Yoke. It has the 3 levers for throttle, mixture and prop. Now I fly little props about once every blue moon, so the mixture control is a total waste for me.
However, I'd love to map it as a spoiler lever.. I hate the spoilers on/off result you get by using the / key. The default throttle quadrants all come with a realistic spoiler control so the function is there.
Anybody know how and if I can do that? When I got to.. er.. page #6 fot the joystick calibr. inside FSUIPC and move the levers around, no control inputs are deteced.
Go to the Flight Simulator Options-Controls-Assignments and simply reassign the axis to the spoiler -- you'll find it near the end of the Joystick Axes list. FSUIPC cannot see the spoilers axis changing because it isn't assigned by default.
Once you've assigned it then FSUIPC should be able to see it. FSUIPC does NOT read any joysticks itself, it is only manipulating controls inside FS.
Regards,
Pete
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I am still getting the same effect though, when I choose shutdown all pc's all the WideClient logs show:
4357730 Shutdown request received!
4357730 Running on Win95/98/ME, no need for Privilege
and then they just log out and stay at the login prompt.
The second comment simply means that it is by-passing NT/2K/XP-only code which I found I had to add to make it work at all on those operating systems. That code isn't even valid on win98.
All the shutdown code is doing, and this is immediately after the message above, is calling
ExitWindowsEx(EWX_POWEROFF, 0);
According to the Microsoft MSDN reference this does the following:
"EWX_POWEROFF Shuts down the system and turns off the power. The system must support the power-off feature.
Windows NT/2000: The calling process must have the SE_SHUTDOWN_NAME privilege."
HOWEVER, I have just found another note in the same source, one I'd not seen before:
"Windows 95/98: Because of the design of the shell, calling ExitWindowsEx with EWX_FORCE fails to completely log off the user (the system terminates the applications and displays the Enter Windows Password dialog box, however, the user's desktop remains.) To log off the user forcibly, terminate the Explorer process before calling ExitWindowsEx with EWX_LOGOFF and EWX_FORCE."
Now I'd not noticed this before because I am not using "EWX_FORCE" -- it warns me specifically NOT to use this by the statement "This can cause the applications to lose data. Therefore, you should only use this flag in an emergency."
So, I'm in a bit of a quandary. Seems I need to somehow terminate the Explorer processI'm not sure how to do that. I'll see if I can fit time in to experiment.
Regards,
Pete
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Could you please check that with the Project Magenta displays you can turn line and font smoothing on with the Parhelia? Thank you :)
Can you tell me how to do that? The parameters in the PFD.INI totally confuse me I'm afraid. These are the only relevant ones I can find. What should I do with them?
Quality=Lo
PolySmooth=Off
SmoothLineWidth=1
PolyDither=Off
BitmapSmooth=Off
FontFactor=1
NavFontFactor=1
FontQuality=0
What's the best things to set here? Bear in mind I am running this on an Athlon 700MHz. Three copies of PFD.EXE are running simultaneously, each with a graphics frame rate of 33.
WideClient tends to keep to the FS frame rate with no problem, but I am getting some jerky behaviour on ONE of the PFD displays at a time -- I think there are problems with them all trying to get WideClient's attention at the same time. I'm working on optimising just the WideClient timeslicing at present, I'm sure I can sort it with some small timing changes. The service from WideServer is not at all jerky and only one of three PFD instances act jerkily at a time.
Whilst I have your attention, could you help with another matter entirely, please? In order to run the Parhelia I have had to upgrade from Win98SE to WinXP Home -- Matrox don't provide Parhelia drivers for Win98. But now I cannot access files/folders on that PC on my Network. I don't understand what is going on. I've been through all the File Sharing stuff on it. I thought XP would operate the LAN okay -- the other two copies of XP I have running are fine and I cannot see any difference in any of the settings. It took me all day yesterday and I got no where. WideFs is okay, it's just the file sharing.
Thanks,
Pete
No Modules Folder
in FSUIPC Support Pete Dowson Modules
Posted
That makes no sense. Most of FS itself is contained in the Modules folder. If it is missing, most of FS is missing and it won't run. Perhaps you've somehow marked it as "hidden"? Use Windows Explorer folder options to reveal hidden folders.
.Hiw did you do that if you have no modules folder? Sorry, you don't seem to be making sense. And if you deleted everything in Modules you have deleted most of FS and will certainly have to re-install. :-(
Sorry, I don't know. What you are saying conflicts with other things you are saying. Can you try to be clearer, more explicit?
If FSUIPC.DLL is in the FS Modules folder AND you are loading the copy of FS which actually USES that folder, then FS has no alternative but to load and run FSUIPC. If it is not, then you are either not actually copying FSUIPC.DLL into the Modules folder, or you have two or more copies of FS installed and are copying FSUIPC into the wrong one. (Yes, believe it or not, this has happened several times to my knowledge!)
I am leaving on holiday soon (see Announcement), so I hope someone else can jump in here and offer more assistance should you need it.
Regards,
Pete
Thanx