Pete Dowson

I am told by users that the PMDG NGX and 777 have throttle systems which read the throttle axis more directly, not at the same level which FSUIPC's calibration routine is able to feed them to FS. This can cause conflicts where the two settings disagree. If the calibration pretty closely matches what the input would give directly in any case (for example, you've not done a lot, no slopes etc), then it might not be so noticeable. I don't know all this first hand, only from reports. Pete

You posted this non-question in the wrong place. You are lucky I saw it. If you have a problem with PMDG you must go to their support forum and explain it there. This forum is for FSUIPC and WideFS. I don't support PMDG's products. If you have an FSUIPC problem you must actually say what it is, give information. How do you really expect anyone to be able to answer a question as general as the one you asked? Please read the first entry in the forum, the one entitled "READ BEFORE POSTING FSUIPC PROBLEM REPORT". Pete

You don't need a macro, and messing about with the FS light controls is fraught. Much simpler: just assign the switch to an FSUIPC offset control. To switch the light on, assign to Offset word setbits with the offset set to 0x0D0C and a parameter of 1 To switch it off, assign to Offset word clrbits with the offset set to x0D0C and a parameter of 1 Pete

Is the gamepad seen as a joystick in FS or FSUIPC? If so, isn't it a separate device? Why would it cause a problem in FS or FSUIPC if it isn't assigned to anything? The problem with FIFA is probably that it sees the rudder as another valid input, and accepts that too. I don't know if FIFA has control facilities so you can unuassign it, but certainly both FS and FSUIPC allow you to pick and choose what controllers you use. Pete

Without more information I can't really help. It certainly sounds like poor calibration, or you forget to do something like reverse the axeis beforehand. How do you actually assign brakes to a joystick? Are you using the elevator or aileron axis, or something else? Best thing is to show me your complete FSUIPC4.INI file (from the modules folder). That contains al your FSUIPC settings. I would also need to know whether you've disabled controllers in FSX. BTW, if FS is displaying "differential brakes" it does mean there is braking action occurring, presumably just not the amount you expected. Also that just means the inputs on left and right aren't the same -- another indication of poor calibration, unless you are actually applying differential pressure which seems unlikely without separate axes as on toe brakes.. Also, if you assigned in FSUIPC, tell me whether the numbers in the assignments tab increase when you press the brakes, or descrease. Pete

You just click the (oddly named?) "Start New Topic" button at the top of the forum, which is usually pre-selected for you on the assumption that is what you will do. If the rotary switch postions are detected as button presses, yes, of course. I think pretty much all such switches are so detected. Just turn the knob, get it recognised, and assign the button so identified to whichever of the above controls you want assigned there. It's exactly the same as with any other buttons -- except that, usually, one of the positions doesn't have a "button pressed" indication. That's the one for which you have to assign your chosen function to the next position's "button released" indication. Pete

How strange! I don't know how any ASCII characters, special or otherwise come into it. Please keep me informed. Pete

What is "the main site" according to you? The version from the www.schiratti.com/dowson site IS the current version. The link there simply points to the same files as here, and they are updated simultaneously. If you are going to some unauthorised site you won't get any support. So please don't. Also bear in mind that when you use that site, because the link names don't change (Mr. Schiratti, not I, is in charge there), unless you refresh or clear your cache, your download may fetch the same file as you got the time before. It does warn you about that on that site. I deliberately name the links differently each time in the Download Links subforum to prevent that. Pete

You are using the wrong version of FSUIPC for P3D 3.4! The current and earliest supported version is 4.957b, released on the 26th September. There's also an interim update 4.957c available. These are the only versions of FSUIPC4 generally available. There will be another new version released after the next P3D update. Please always keep abreast. If you are going to update the simulator you must always check for a corresponding update of FSUIPC. It is almost always the same day or soon after, except when the P3D release comes whilst I'm away. Also, if you ever get any problems the first thing you should do it check for updates. There's no new naming structure. The control names used in have been the same for many versions of FS for many years. You are confusing yourself needlessly. Pete

I don't think that will make much difference. Sorry I'm not much help here. The code to do wind smoothing in FSUIPC is now very old. I know it is ONLY related to the wind being now set and the wind as it was before. It simply stops the wind being set reaching the Simulation code directly, but allows the change in increments. None of it has anything whatsoever to do with location, altitude, airspeed, or any things else. It is just concerned with those two values -- wind speed and wind direction. If you want to delve deeper into what is happening, you could try enabling Logging of the smoothing actions. You do this by adding TestOptions=x4000 to the [General] section of the INI file before loading FS. I warn you, the log will get large and it might not be easy to work out what is happening. If you do this AND manage to isolate the portion of the log which you think indicates something wrong, then by all means show me that section (only0 and I will help interpret it. But I still won't necessarily be able to help. Really, 99% of the the weather-related facilities in FSUIPC have fallen by the wayside with the advent of much more sophisticated and excellent working systems such as those from Active Sky -- which I can thoroughly recommend. In fact any of the forefront weather programs will do better than anything in FSUIPC, simply because the FSUIPC facilities were a stop-gap, a measure originally taken back in FS2002 when there were lots of Weather problems, continuing on to FS2004. FSX looked better but still had a nasty 180 degree switching of winds in some areas of the world (most notably central western Europe, and near Chicago in the USA, but there were others). This was caused by incorrect triangulation of weather interpolation areas (interpolation is performed in FS from the supposedly nearby weather stations, but sometimes one of the three was many hundreds of miles away with very different weather settings). Anyway, the position now regarding weather features in FSUIPC is that they are pretty much disused in favour of the add-on weather program control, and the code is so old and convoluted I'm not in a position to change it. (EXCEPT perhaps to rip it all out, which I should probably have done a while back). Pete

Well, Windows already provides the scroll options after all! I added some more profiles to your list, so it would definitely be too long for my screen -- in preparation for testing some solutions -- and, what do you know? Windows automatically put little scroll markers on -- solid black triangles appear when there are more items "off screen". All you need to do it click the appropriate triangle, and, lo and behold, the list scrolls. So, as far as I can see there's no problem t solve. is there? Pete

I'n not sure why or where you think it shows your 'error', but what I do see is again signs of SimConnect slowing or stopping: So again, it's performance. something is clobbering the interface being used between FSUIPC and SimConnect. Please refer back to my ealrier replay with the same diagnosis. Pete

With a Popup menu I cannot really think of a tidy way to do this. For scrolling, for instance, it would have to close the popup and re-build it in a different order. Once the popup is made, the program providing it has no control over it at all -- it just receives the selection back when it is chosen. To scroll one at a time by remaking it would be rather painful for the user if there are many items invisible off the bottom of the screen, but I can look at such. To scroll up or down would need two extra lines for the scroll choices. If the popup started at the top of the screen instead of by the selector, would that work? {LATER] Just tried your INI -- Windows already starts the popup as high as it needs to go to try to fit it in! And, at least on my screen, they all fit. just! Or having a way of reversing the order? (would need an extra line just to select that option). Hmm. 59 defined [Profile. xxxx] sections, but only these actual Profile-oriented assignments: [Axes.Beech B55 E55] [JoystickCalibration.Beech B55 E55] [Buttons.F/A-18E] [Axes.F/A-18E] [JoystickCalibration.F/A-18E] Only two out of 59 profiles used? Or is this a work in progress? I've always found it better to make the profiles as you find you need then. Make your basic Jet, Prop, etc ones then, for variations where truly needed, used the "new based on" option to derive variations from that. It looks like, instead, you've started with a long list of all your aircraft and created Profile labels for them ahead of all this, "just in case", perhaps? Oh, one last thing: the Profile selection popup is only used when assigning a new aircraft to a Profile. So are you still adding new aircraft? Pete

Well, since "installation of FSUIPC" is merely the placing of the module, FSUIPC4.DLL into the Modules folder and editing the DLL.XML file so that FS loads it, "reinstallation" changes nothing whatsoever. How can it? If things changed than, you must have done something else. Like maybe your computer memory is now more heavily used so Windows cannot cache files for writing to disk as much as before. And/or maybe your hard disk is that much more inefficient through files and directories being fragmented. Honestly, there is no way I can know, or put forward any other hypotheses. FSUIPC's part in saving flights is ONE CALL to SimConnect, a call which says "save a flight with this name". That's it! It couldn't be simpler! What else can I tell you? There's a setting you can make to change the default behaviour on disk writes so that they get written immediately rather than cached. I don't remember where it is now or what it is called, and I'm pretty sure this is always defaulted off in Windows these days. It certainly will be if you've not changed it. [LATER] Here's a reference if you want to read more: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa364218(v=vs.85).aspx Yes, two, but you won't like either: Either don't use such complex add-on aircraft, or Don't use any form of Autosave, whether FSUIPC's or any of the other utilities which offer this. One way of having sophisticated realistic aircraft systems without all of the complexities being within the code bolted into FS is to use separate avionics suites, like Project Magenta, ProSim, or SimAvionics. I use Prosim737 and the aircraft model used is based on the default FSX 738.(Mind you, these have their own difficulties providing proper recovery files like autosave). The other alternative is, of course, ask yourself whether you really need Autosave. Why do you need it? Is your system crashing? If so, wouldn't it be better to find out why and fix that instead? I don't remember the last crash I had. If the autosave is just so you can resume a flight part way through, then normal user-instigated saving would suffice. Pete

Yes, this is a well known problem with sophisticated add-on aircraft. All FSUIPC does for "autosave" is call the facility in FS, the same as if you pressed ";" and entered a filename for a saved flight, or did the same in the FS menus. The save itself is done by FS, not FSUIPC, so all FSUIPC's part is done simply by generating a name and calling an FS function. (To me it would seem more friendly to do it in dribs and drabs over a period, to avoid affecting performance -- but then, really, they are assuming that saves are only done through overt user action). The problem with some of the more complex add-on aircraft is that they also save their settings at the same time -- automatically detecting when a flight is saved. When they do this they seem to freeze the aircraft whilst they collect and write out all the data, presumably freezing matters so that all the data relates to the one instant.. Sorry, but there's really nothing FSUIPC (or FS) can do about this. If the delay is inordinately long it may also be exacerbated by delays on the disk, though most folks leave Windows to default to buffering files in memory rather than have them written directly. Pete

The IDs come from the Registry. If you only have one "Rhino Throttle" and one "Rhino Stick" then somehow two of each have become registered. Does JoyIDs register both copies too? No, no impact at all. All you need to do is assign to whichever are being recognised in the assignments tab when you move the axes or press the buttons. This seems to be a common problem with Saitek stuff, and seems to be related to the way the devices are defined in the Registry via their installed "Inf" files. I'm pretty sure the Saitek website has threads and maybe answers about this, but meanwhile also look at the FAQ subforum threads entitled Some Saitek axes only provide partial movement and Fixing problems with 50% (or digital on/off) action with Saitek levers Pete

Ah, ok. So you can use the FSUIPC Keys tab to assign keypresses to FS controls. mind you, of course, many such functions are already assigned to FS controls n FS itslef. What aircraft is this with? I assume an add-on, because very few of the default aircraft panels are amenable to Mouse Macros in any case. Okay. I've re-checked this, and the only way it doesn't create a macro file is when you haven't actually created any macros. Otherwise, if you've entered macro names in the semi-transparent window where you use TAB to test your macro, and confirm, it has nothing to write, so it doesn't. Ah, right. Good. Yes, you must confirm each named macro or it won't get written out. Pete

Sorry, no. I don't really much like the idea of FSUIPC periodically going on-line to check. But I do ask folks to check before posting any support questions -- after all, whatever it is they are asking about may be fixed, and in any case Logs and so on from older versions aren't always useful. Another time to check is when updating versions of fS. I know this isn't relevant to FSX these days, but it certainly still is for P3D. Pete

This is a matter for FSAcars support, it isn't an FSUIPC message. I cannot support old versions. The current version is 4.957b. Please update. The DLL.XML is okay, and the Install log says 4.957b despite you saying 4.953! The log is from 4.936c, a really old version!!! If no log is now being produced then FSUIPC is not loading. Since the DLL.XML file does look okay, I suspect FSUIPC is just being refused by settings in your FSX CFG file. You probably rejected it on one of the loads. see the FAQ thread entitled "FSX automatically mistrusts modules (FSUIPC not loaded) - solution" Pete

When you operate a switch on the displayed cockpit panel? Surely you mean when you press a key? What key are you pressing, and why? What has this got to do with assigning ot those Lights switches? Pete

NOTE: you posted this support question in the "FAQ" subforum. I've moved it for you so it can get attention -- you are lucky that I saw it. Please ALWAYS post support questions to the Support Forum. That is what it is for! Whilst the installation was successful, this: FSUIPC4_Loader section already exists but will be replaced. (with FSUIPC4_Loader entry) indicates you are trying to use the Loader DLL, rather than FSUIPC4 directly. Why is this? It is only recommended in very very special circumstances which only really apply to FSX. To fix this you need to remove the Loader DLL from the Modules folder and re-run the Installer. (Never copy all of the files from the ZIP into the Modules folder. Read the Installation instructions). If doing this doesn't fix the problem I need to see the DLL.XML file from this folder: C:\Users\Giorgio\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3 Also, see if an FSUIPC4.LOG file is being produced in the Modules folder when you run P3D. If it is, then FSUIPC4 is getting loaded, so something else must be wrong. I'd need to see that Log file in that case. Pete

But why do you want mouse macros for features supported by standard FS controls. Those all have their own assignable controls: TOGGLE BEACON LIGHTS TOGGLE NAV LIGHTS TOGGLE TAXI LIGHTS To find the name of controls instigated by switches on a panel, just enable FSUIPC's Event logging (in its Logging tab). When you operate anything which uses an FS control, it will be logged with its name. You can even see this is real time if you run FS in Windowed mode and enable FSUIPC's log console. It actually starts creating the file immediately you enter the mode, so I don't know why you aren't seeing it. If the macro file listed in the Macrofiles section of the FSUIPC4.INI file? Pete

I'm afraid you still misunderstand. It is nothing to do with FSUIPC. When the value sent to FS is 0 it means flaps 0 (or "up"). The number sent to FS is based on the numbers received from your device. FSUIPC has no idea whether your specific device sends low values at the forward end or the back end. The direction in which the numbers move is device dependent, and all FSUIPC knows about the device is that it gets numbers from it! All you need to do for any axis on any device, BEFORE doing any calibration at all, is check whether you need to reverse it or not.. Simples! If you calibrate when the aircraft is loaded and profile is ticked on the calibration tab, with the profile name shown in the title, then that is where they would be placed. It is logical. Think about it. If a profile is not active, because none of the relevant aircraft are currently loaded, then you cannot make changes which affect that profile. This is also surely logical? It is well worthwhile, I can assure you. But if you had a working setup in FSX, why did you throw away your FSUIPC settings? All you needed to do was save and reuse the FSUIPC4.INI file. FSX and FSX-SE are pretty identical is all respects except for performance (FSX-SE is better) and reliability (FSX-SE has many FSX bugs fixed). FSX-SE also has slightly better memory management, so less likelihood or running short of process memory. You can even use the exact same settings file in P3D, if you ever moved to that. P3D is derived from ESP which was derived from FSX. I hope you've made a backup copy of the INI file now! Pete

FSX always sets the screen black. You don't need to see it when you start macro making. All you do in the FSUIPC options is start it and give a filename for the macro file. The macros themselves are created whilst you are in normal flight modes -- else FSUIPC cannot trap what your mouse click does! When you've finished making macros, you just got back and tell it you've finished. All this is explained in the User Guide which you'll find in your FSUIPC Documents folder. Pete

That only happens if the values aren't increasing. You have the axis reversed -- either check the REV button first, before calibrating, or uncheck it if you have it checked already, before calibrating and then calibrate as per instructions. With all axes, FSUIPC (and FS) need the numbers going from low to high. The direction axes operate on varies from device to device, and also, of course, you usually want the "Flaps Down" position to be fully forward -- equivalent to where "max thrust" would be for a throttle. So Flaps will be reversed compared to throttles. Same applies to spoilers/speed brakes. No, don't. You are almost there. Just apply some logic. The options are there. REV is quite useful and essential at times. But I cannot document it as "definitely use REV for this" because devices vary. Pete