Pete Dowson

Okay. You should find it's only a matter of a few lines of Lua code, basically just calling FSUIPC added functions to test a button and to send controls. For the axis controls you want you can either use the FS ones (number equivalents listed in the List of FS controls document), or the "direct to FSUIPC calibration" ones (listed in the Advanced User's guide) -- whichever you would have otherwise assigned in the Axis Assignments tab. Realy the only "programming" part if the "if ... then ... else ... end" part. Regards Pete

3.999z3 is almost identical to 3.999z2. What's the problem? And it isn't a Beta, but an interim update -- merely an additional parameter in the Lua library function ipc.display. In fact I won't be making ANY new updates to FSUIPC3 itself, but interim updates may occur from time to time to keep the Lua plug-in area compatible. Both FSUIPC4 and FSUIPC3 have the same code for this. I should probably separate it out into its own DLL, but it gets messier and the size of it really doesn't warrant that. No, I'm not making the ZIP bigger than it needs be. And there should not be any need. Please see my last reply. Pete

For FSX? 4.90, I hope. 4.09 would be about 7 years old! ;-). I thought you were talking about FS9 and FSUIPC3 all this time -- are you an FSX user? Looking back I see you never mentioned what FS you were talking about, except for one reference to FS9. If so I thought Saitek devices use their own driver, and what you are seeing is evidently a bug in that. Again, SPAD may get around that for you -- I think it works without the Saitek drivers installed. Do you use WideFS? In FSX? If so the only part of the WideFS package you'd use for FSX would be the WideClient.exe on your client PCs, and of course the Documentation. Pete

There's an unpackaged version in the Download Links subforum. There nearly always is. But then you don't get all the extras -- the documentatin in particular. You can get a slightly outdated version of the documents in a separate ZIP in the Download Links subforum, and also the complete up to date Lua plugins package. Not these days. Earlier versions of the Installer used to find them from their Registry entries. But I stopped doing that automatically because the current versions may not work correctly in anything before FS9 -- I am not able to do retrospective testing on those any more like I used to. I advised users a while back to retain their older versions of FSUIPC for that, preferably before FSUIPC3 (so without registration or signature checks). I think you'll find that neither Documentation nor Installation Guide make any mention of anything before FS9 these days. I changed the Installer because folks who were updating their FS9 version also had the FS8 etc versions changed too and actually lost the last working version they had in consequence. It was safer to disable the automatic update for those. If you really don't have FS9 installed you may only need to name any file in the FS8 (or other) folder as "FS9.EXE" and point to it when requested. I think that should work, though it may not like the version number. However, beware the fact that current versions of FSUIPC may not work in all aspects. I'm afraid I don't recall which. Regards Pete PS: I don't really know what I'm still even supporting that 10 year old FS9 program! I wish it weren't still so popular! ;-)

Okay. If all else fails there is one other solution which ma work, but it is a little more drastic. FS gets information about how to assign device axes and so on from a file called DEVICES.CFG (also in some versions DEVICES2.CFG), which you'll find in the main FS folder. You could try renaming that, or even finding the relevant CH entry in it and editing just that section. It's a text file --- edit it with Notepad, not Wordpad. Regards Pete

Not easy, because FS has a habit of re-assigning things unless you stop it altogether. Why can't you assign everything in one place or the other? FS will always automatically assign to those joysticks it thinks have been newly connected. So it sounds like your CH pedals keep disconnecting and reconnecting? There is absolutely no way that any version of FSUIPC can make FS assign things automatically!! It just isn't possible. FS will always automatically assign anything it thinks you just connected, so it sounds like a connection problem. Because it it nothing to do with the installation of either, or even of Windows. It is to do with that device and its USB connection. Not really. Most devices stay connected unless you physically disconnect them. Maybe you are connecting them through an unpowered hub, or have Windows USB power management set to switch them off? Anyway, it is better to assign everything, incuding the hat, in one or the other. Pete

Whether you can assign buttons and things from a Saitek device I've no idea. I think for that you may need a program called SPAD. FSUIPC does also offer plug-in programming facilities for any USB HID device, so they could certainly be programmed there, but you'd need to do research on the Saitek interface and learn a bit of Lua. Until Saitek / MadCatz reneged on their licensing agreement for FSUIPC and refused to pay the agreed fee, I was about to add direct support for their devices, as I did with VRI serial port devices. Shame really. If you have not downloaded and installed the current version then I wouldn't be at all surprised if the reasons for the Saitek problems are not simply because you are using a very old and unsupported version of FSUIPC. The earliest supported version for FS9 is 3.999z2. I really don't think FSUIPC can actually be involved in that. If it isn't registered it isn't reading any devices in any case. Regards Pete

You are trying to install a very old unsupported version. The earliest version supported and working for FSX is 4.90. I've no idea where you got 4.60a from, it isn't available on any official site. Pete

Well they never paid to use FSUIPC in the first place. Saitek agreed, but then MadCatz took over and refused to honour Saitek's agreement. If they are not using FSUIPC and you are not assigning those knobs in FSUIPC, then FSUIPC cannot possibly have anything to do with it. If it isn't even registered, and the Saitek panels are not even using it (which seems doubtful as they certainly always did, despite their refusal to acquire a license) then FSUIPC is really playing no part whatsoever in this. If you are not registered then you have no settings to delete. No, never to me for certain. I'm sorry, but I cannot support MadCatz products. I have nothing to do with them and they spurned my help when they took over Saitek. Regards Pete

Sorry, I really had not noticed the change in the person contributing to the thread. I just thought I was having an exchange with the one person. This is the trouble with threads -- you think you are conversing but in fact it's a multi-person conference really! ;-) Regards Pete

How are you steering on the ground, then? Don't you need the pedals for that -- or do you have a tiller? You can automatically change the function of an axis by assigning it in FSUIPC to a Lua plug-in instead of a speific axis. That Lua plug-in receives the axis value as a variable called ipcPARAM, and can then direct it to the appropriate true axis according to the state of FS values -- in this case the "on ground" flag. Have a look in your FSUIPC documents folder for the Lua package and its documentation and examples. If you want to go ahead but are still unsure how, come back and we'll g through it in a bit more detail. You need rudder control as well. How would you propose to have both? FS does have the facility to automate the rudder action, effectively linking it to the aileron action on the yoke. but if you use that there's no need to have the facility to switch the pedals -- you could have them permanently assigned to toe brakes. Regards Pete

FSUIPC has absolutely nothing to do with anything that doesn't need to use it UNLESS you personally have programmed it to do something! Just delete all your settings (the INI file in the FS Modules folder) and it will do absolutely nothing to any connected devices! Obviously you've used it badly. Deleting your settings will remove all the bad things you've done. Pete

Has it always frozen FSX? If so don't all SPAD users have the same problem? Have you any information about the freeze at all? Does it still do it if you set the recent FSUIPC option "AutoScanDevices" to 'No'? If it is only related to the Saitek devices then I'd suspect their drivers. Are there other versions you can try? Or maybe they've been corrupted and an uninstall and reinstall might help? BTW, I was getting hangs and crashes around I have flown around Bornholm and also sometimes near Copenhagen, and I narrowed it down specifically to two BGLs in Ultimate Terrain. Once I'd disabled those i never got the problems again. If you are only getting problems in specific geographic areas it will always be down to BGLs or their associated textures or terrain. If you switched from Saitek to Goflight, why are you running SPAD in any case? Isn't it specific to Saitek? Regards Pete

Sorry, I've no idea about SPAD. Is there a Support Forum for it? Please note that I cannot support any version of FSUIPC earlier than 4.90 or 3.999z2. You seem to be adding to an old thread dating back to 4.823! Pete

No. DX9. Maybe your Airbus X installation is simply out of date? Pete

It is not normally needed, no. It is offered as an option, as clearly described in the Installation guide. Did you not read it? If you only copied the file in and did not then also rerun the Installer, then it is doing nothing at all. Regards Pete

If you are sending from a WideClient PC, yes, because WideClient updates the local memory at the same time. If you are talking about a program on the FS PC, then yes for FSUIPC3 on FS9 and before, no on FSUIPC4 and FSX/ESP, because it maintains two sets of offset data - write and read, and the latter will be updated according to the data received from SimConnect. Depends as just stated. SimConnect is asynchronous because it is based on messages sent and received, not returns from functions or procedures. In FSUIPC3 it's all done by hacks into FS innards so it tends to be synchronous. Your messages goes into a message queue operated by Windows. FS itself uses messages also, profusely. It also has quite a lot else to do during which times the messages don't get a look in. So the main variability is how long it takes for FSUIPC to actually see the message. The other is how long it takes for Windows to switch processes in whatever processor they are running. FSUIPC is only part of the normal FS main thread, not a separate one. For reads only it responds directly, so once the message is seen it is no time at all. Writes are often different because they trigger other actions and possibly calls into other parts of FS. That's purely application dependent. If you only need things every second, then 1000 mS is okay. If you are trying to control the aircraft in real time, then 10-20 milliseconds might be needed. But then don't assume that all your polls will be equally spaced. If you need them to be, use the miilisecond timer to determine the true spacing and adjust variables accordingly. Regards Pete

You simply need to use elevated administrator privileges to install --the "run as" right-click option, selecting "administator". Otherwise the default FSX install folders, like all folders in Program Files, are protected. The log file MUST be there in that case! I am suspecting now that you are running Windows Explorer with it set to hide flie extensions from you and you are simply not recognising the files you are looking at. Please change that Explorer option and check again. The FSUIPC installation guide tells you how to do this if you don't know. Pete

Right. That's why the settings aren't there either. FSUIPC always creates a log file. Can you list what IS there, in the Modules folder, please? You say NO log file, but you also said you copied the whole Modules folder from the C: installation, so, unless you'd NEVER run FSUIPC there there must have been a log file copied too! Also, can you please explain why you are running FSX from different places? They'll all use the same settings and so on because they are stored in Windows folders in any case. I just can't see any reason to do what you are doing. Pete

No, sorry. There are no button conditions for keypress assignments. You'd need to program it via a Lua plug-in. Make the keypress run a plug-in which tests the button and does one or the other accordingly. Regards Pete

I'm not after the options you have set, logging or otherwise. I need you to look in the Modules folder to see if there is an FSUIPC4.LOG file there! FSUIPC4 stores your SETTINGS in an INI file in the MODULES folder, and it also reates a LOG file EVERY TIME IT RUNS. So both your settings and the Log should be in the folder. This is nothing to do with RUNNUNG FSX at present. We are simply trying to establish whether your Modules folder is being written to by FSUIPC!!! Pete

Don't do that. I see from the picture you posted that it does actually identify a place inside FSUIPC, so this means FSUIPC was actually loaded and running. So it isn't the SimConnect timing bug as before. When you say "latest version", I see from that pic too that it is in fact 4.900, the main first release with the signature reoved. If it were 4.904 (the latest release from Download Links) then I could use the Offset shown (almost readable in the pic, 0001c614 perhaps?) to see whereabouts the problem lies. But unfortunately I don't have 4.900 now, only 4.904. So, please: 1. Install 4.904 (you simply copy in the DLL from the downloaded ZIP) 2. Reproduce the error, note the fault module name, version, exception code and exception offset from the details as in your pic 3. Post here with those details, the FSUIPC4.LOG, and your FSUIPC4.INI file. I will then be on the case immediately, as I don't like these sorts of things occurring in FSUIPC! Regards Pete

Did you read my reply of a couple of days ago? Pete

It means that your system is so overloaded that events being sent to FSUIPC stop over a long enough period for it to time out and assume that the SimConnect connection has failed, so it re-connects automatically. Normally it would receive dozens of events per second. The timeout defaults to one whole second. If you had lots of these it would certainly be bad for anything dependent upon that information. It would also tend to make your system run even more slowly because each time is reconnects it has to re-establish its requests for every SimConnect variable and all of the AI traffic data. Additionally any WideFS clients would need complete refreshing of any data they were reading. You probably need to get a faster computer or reduce some sliders. If you want to simply make the FSUIPC timeout more lenient, find this line in the [General] section of the FSUIPC4.INI file: SimConnectStallTime=1 and change the 1 to something higher. It's in seconds. Regards Pete

The LOG file doesn't do that. I asked you to look to see if there IS a log file produced in the correct Modules folder when you run FS. FSUIPC creates a new Log file every time it runs! Pete