Pete Dowson

Why google? What's wrong with looking at the options in FSUIPC? It does actually come with documentation, and something this easy is even pretty quick to spot on-screen, inside the FSUIPC options displays. For the throttles, check the documentation or the actual option pages on screen, and note the options on the 4 throttles page to assign 1->12 and 2->34. You simply assign and calibrate as if for 2 engines, than check that option. FSUIPC will do that mapping for a 4 engined aircraft but keep the standard 2-engine arrangement for a 2 engined one. As you aren't using the reverse zone, dont forget to check the "no reverse zone" option too. Unfortunately at present there's no similar mapping on the 4 reversers page -- though now that the need has come up it is something I may well do. However, there's always the other way of doing this. Since you have to assign reversers in the FSUIPC axis assignments tab in any case, note that you can assign any axis to 1, 2, 3 or 4 controls -- there are 4 entries for the axis assignment. So you can assign one axis to reversers 1 and 2 and another to 3 and 4. What does "up to date" mean? 4.60 or 4.604 or later? Folks have said that before and realy meant "the last version they saw", wherever. Regards Pete

The repairs are done, motorised trim working well, and the overhead is installed. But lots of work to do still ... The relevant FSUIPC setting are just these, in the [General] section. Most are default values in any case I think. I don't have FSUIPC wind smoothing on these days, I find ASE okay without needing it in addition. Maybe that's the main difference? UpperWindGusts=No WindTurbulence=No MaxSurfaceWind=0 WindLimitLevel=200 WindDiscardLevel=400 WindAjustAltitude=No WindAjustAltitudeBy=2000 ClearWeatherDynamics=No OwnWeatherChanges=No WeatherReadFactor=2 WindSmoothing=No WindSmoothness=1 WindSmoothAirborneOnly=Yes SuppressWindVariance=No SuppressWindTurbulence=No SuppressCloudTurbulence=No SuppressAllGusts=No TurbulenceRate=1.0,5.0 TurbulenceDivisor=20,20,40,40 VisibilityOptions=No WeatherRewriteSeconds=1 CustomWeatherModify=No SmoothBySimTime=No I don't know where to find the ASE options -- but here's a pic of my Wind settings. Again, nothing astonishing I'm sure. Regards Pete

You have a corrupted FSX installation. There's only the FSUIPC4.DLL. Nothing else is relevant. Removing that uninstalls it, but from what you say it wasn't installed in any case. So what do you mean, and why? Ouch! It is usually that sort of action which seems to cause this sort of problem. The FSX uninstaller doesn't do a correct job most of the time and screws up the SimConnect side-by-side library. You may need to reinstall Windows and start again. Take care to install FSX step by step -- first the DVD base version, test it, then SP1, test it, then SP2 (or Acceleration). Always run it between each update. Pete

No, FSUIPC will do that for you automatically! Just add the assignments in the [JoyNames] section -- don't remove any lines, just reproduce those there replacing the numbers on the left by your chosen letters. Or let FSUIPC do even that for you if you don't mind simply "A", "B", "C" etc for 0, 1, 2 ... You misunderstand. Some folks use a lever rather than a switch for gear, i.e. a lever which looks like an axis to Windows. You can't program those in the Buttons & Switches tab -- you have to use the Axis tab. But you can assign a region at one end for GEAR UP and the other for GEAR DOWN. If FS supported the "Gear OFF" position which airliners have you'd have then in the centre, but that isn't the point. Oh dear. Please read what I write or I waste my time. I told you a way to find out using the tools in FSUIPC. But please yourself if you don't want such help. :-( Again you persist in ignoring what I tell you. FS has a "REVERSE" checkbox too. Go look! If you assign to FS and it reverses you don't need to also reverse in FSUIPC. Because that's the way manufacturers often make them. Go ask them. Pete

If FSUIPC4's log (in the FSX Modules folder) says it is okay with SimCnnect, then there shouldn't be a problem. Possibly, however, FSUIPC is getting on okay with the SP2/Acceleration version but your aircraft is written to only use the SP1 or original base versions and perhaps they are corrupted. Show me the FSUIPC Install log (also in the FSX Modules folder). That will show if they are all okay or not. I have two PCs here, one on Win7 and the other WinXP, and both with good SP2 SimConnects but broken SP1 and base SimConnects, and nothing I do with fix them. At least short of a Windows re-install. I investigated this for two solid weeks and got nowhere. It is too complicated. Regards Pete

I don't think any of these aircraft use FSUIPC in any case. Certainly "smartassembly" errors are nearly all ones relating to some mis-installation. It needs something you don't have. Have you tried uninstalling it and re-installing it in case something went awry? No, FSUIPC on FSX uses SimConnect throughtut and there's really no relationship with any FSX gauges. If the authors of the aircraft haven't a clue I'm afraid I have no idea what to suggest, except to get your money back on an aircraft you can't use. Sorry. Try reinstalling it first. Regards Pete

Great! I'm very pleased you got it sorted out so relatively quickly! Regards Pete

Well that's one use, though a more important one is to find the axis you want to assign when there's another with "jitters" which keeps getting detected first. You can use the "ignore" button to tell it to (temporarily) ignore the axis which is getting in the way, and then rescan from the beginning ot find the right one. It clears the assignment and parameters currently displayed, in the mode (aircraft specific or profile or global0 you are currently in (and shown as in), so that when you press "OK" that assignment is removed from your settings. If you press ESCape at any time when in the FSUIPC options, all changes you make are reversed. It genuinely means "escape", i.e. "get out of whatever I've done". In order for changes to stick they have to be confirmed, or OKayed. The Windows joystick API uses numerics, 0-15, for joysticks. Those have been used universally since Windows 3.1 days or before. FSUIPC operates with FS98, FS2000, CFS1, FS2002, CFS2, FS2004, FSX and ESP, and throughout al those it has been consistent, with ongoing compatibility. USB is a recent invention comparatively, and there were no readable names for game port devices. By moving an axis or pressing a button, depending which screen you are looking at. But you can also look in the FSUIPC NI file, in the [JoyNames] section, where you wil see the names assigned to the numeric IDs. There you can also assign letters instead of numbers, and doing this will enable FSUIPC to automatically track devices, using names and GUIDs, in order to allow for unplugging and re-plugging, which changes the numeric IDs. Please refer to the section on this useful facility in the documentation. FS uses GUIDs to identify devices, as well as many other things. No. You can assign one axis to up to 4 different controls at the same time. It does have uses, believe me. To make different things happen along different places or regions along the axis travel you use the right-hand side of the page. There's an example in the documentation for using an axis for Gear operation. That's all very well, but I spent many many hours on the documentation in order to explain things. I don't intend to do it all again here. If the documentation is confusing to you, please, wouldn't it be more constructive for you to point out places there which you don't understand, and tell me exactly why? Breaks? What are they? Or do you mean "brakes"? As it clearly says, the numbers MUST increase left to right on screen. The "Minimum" number means the LOWEST, the Maximum number means the HIGHEST. +16384 is much higher than -16384. It is simply arithmetic to understand the concept of lower versus higher, surely? Because that is the way many (but not all) manufacturers wire their pedals. This is why there's a "REV" button in the calibration screen. It does explain all this in the documentation. You will find exactly the same in FS assignments -- there's a REV button there too! A dead zone in the centre of rudder, aileron or elevator axes is produced by having two different values in the two centre boxes of the calibration. that is EXACTLY why there are two values for centre. If you'd ever read the documentation and followed the easy numbered steps to proper calibration you would have known this. Why don't you try something like that? You obviously haven't read it, or skipped too much! Perhaps if you looked for Brakes instead you'd find them. They are certainly there. There aren't any controls for any "breaks" as hopefully there are none in your aircraft. The names are chosen by Microsoft. Go complain to them. FSUIPC is not inventing any names there, it gets them form FS. ALL of the FS controls are listed, but with the names FS assigns to them! Because Microsoft did not name them that way. They named them "View mode" and "View Mode Rev" respectively, at least in FSX. There's also "Next Sub view" and "Prev sub view" normally assigned to the A key. There are two ways to identify exactly the correct names. One is to look at the default assignments XML file in the FSX installation, and the other, which works for all versions of FS since FS98, is to enable Event logging in FSUIPC, then press the key and see what the Log says it is called. Pete

I don't know, but it would certainly be worth a try. Regards Pete

Goodglad you got it sorted out! Pete

No! Those files are for installing SimConnect on a different PC, for accessing FSX remotely. FSX SimConnect is installed just by installing FSX. It's an integral part of FSX. The base SimConnect installs with the original CDRom, the SP1 version with SP1 and the SP2 version with SP2 or Acceleration. I'm afraid you may have messed things up. I know, but that won't normally prevent FSUIPC4 being installed in the FSX Modules folder. When you run FSX it should try to load FSUIPC4 -- you MUST have tried this as you said you looked for the menu and it wasn't there. Do you remember? It won't mention an error, but you probably shouldn't try to re-install SimConnect when it is already installed. And installing FSX installs SimConnect. Obviously. How do you think those users who purchased the non-DeLuxe version of FSX run programs like FSUIPC? The whole SimConnect WinSxS system is very error prone and complex. Many problems were reported to Microsoft and they were aware of them, and I'm sure it would have been sorted out eventually if the FS team had survived. But as it is, it is a mess we have to endure and work around I'm afraid. I did spend a lot of time trying to work out a program which folks could run to repair these sorts of problems, but after several weeks of trying to trace through the convoluted inter-relationships between folders, files, GUIDs and very arcane Registry entries, I gave up in despair. It is quicker to simply reformat and reinstall everything. I might have another stab at it one day, when I have time, but it is enough to drive one crazy -- and it is totally different between Windows XP and Vista/win7. :-( Correct. As I said. You misunderstand. SimConnect is a fundamental part of FSX, it is not a separate "product". FSUIPC is 99% dependent upon it. That's why I asked you to check, if you recall. So your DLL.XML file is okay. Yes, this confirms the findings of the Installer. I suspect the side-by-side library links for SimConnect are broken. I suspect you need to uninstall FSX completely and start again, although with a WinSxS problem like that I've found I've needed to reinstall Windows first. Can you ask them how they do that, then, because every single time i have seen these symptoms, no program at all connects. Are you sure ASA isn't connecting to FSUIPC instead? It has both interfaces built in. Or it may just be that the problem isn't affecting linking from external programs rather than in-process DLLs. No. Your SimConnect installation is corrupted. The Win side-by-side system is in a mess. I don't know of any easy answers at all. Sorry. You will have to "bite the bullet". Regards Pete

Writing to 3110 merely causes FSUIPC to send a Windows message with the control number and parameter. It is those same messages FSUIPC intercepts and logs when you enable Event logging, and it is those same controls which can be assigned in FS and in FSUIPC to keypresses and buttons. FSUIPC's "mouse" macros detect and hook into the code in gauges which are written according to Microsoft's C/C++ gauge-writing SDK. It can do this because they define mouse-sensitive spots on screen via a table of regular structures, and those structures contain the address in the Gauge code of the routine which processes a mouse click in those areas. No, because there is no standard way of storing and accessing such information. Even to provide access to most of FS's own internal data values meant many thousands of hours slogging through FS code using debuggers and disassemblers. I'm not doing that for all add-ons too! If they use name local variables then the facilities provided to read and write "L:vars" might do the job for you, but "L:vars" are more often used with XML-written gauges (not susceptible to mouse macros). You could try listing the L:vars and see -- facilities exist in FSUIPC to do this, as documented. So it should tell you where to find the values you want, then? Regards Pete

Why do you think they use any FSUIPC offsets for that? Do they use FSUIPC at all? More likely it is all internal to their code. There's no real FS simulation of the APU so why would they need anything external in any case? Really there are very few sophisticated add-on aircraft whose systems are amenable to implementation in a hardware cockpit. This is why packages like Project Magenta, SimAvionics and FlightDeckSoftware are used in so many. They have the systems outside of FS, only using FS for visuals and flight simulation. There are a few exceptions, but not many. The Level-D aircraft have a software SDK I think. Regards Pete

Assuming you mean "FSX" not "SDX", I tried that once. It didn't work. I managed to get the SP2/Acceleration version of SimConnect re-installed okay, but programs needing SP1 SimConnect (and there are many) could not be used therafter. I've found no answer, despite hours of trying to find out how the WinSxS stuff is linked to things via registry etc, but it is very very convoluted snd impossible to follow, even with all my debug tools. I think the only answer is a Windows re-install. There never is a Modules tab in FSX. SDK? What has the SDK got to do with it? Yet ASA linked okay? via SimConnect? All the FSUIPC4 installer is doing is reporting back what Windows says when it tries to connect to the SimConnect DLL. I'm confused here. What do the SDKs have to do with it? SimConnect is installed with FSX. FSUIPC doesn't need anything in the SDK. Don't bother to install or reinstall it. If FSUIPC4 is loading there will be an FSUIPC4.LOG file. If there is on, show it to me. If not, you have a corrupted DLL.XML file. The SDK is nothing to do with the run-time SimConnect, or FSUIPC. FSUIPC has to work with the standard FSX version -- the SDK is only provided with the DeLuxe version. Regards Pete

Whilst you do need to update to 3.98 or FSUIPC, you reported your other problem as: which is most certainly not anything to do with FS or FSUIPC, but obviously some connecting function of this LWThrottle program you are running. Do you know why it wants to use a serial comport? Have you plugged whatever it is it wants to see into your PC, and told it where it is? You really do need to read the documentation which comes with the "LWThrottle" program, and/or find their support. I have no idea even what it is, but you are asking for help in the wrong place. Sorry. Regards Pete

I know of such encoders, but I've never seen any. I assume the Leo Bodnar card is doing the decoding -- though there are ways of doing it in FSUIPC's INI file using flags. There's an example in the Advanced User's guide. All of the encoders I've ever used are simple to connect and program, without a special decoding circuit. They have common and two other connections which provide the "button pressed" pulse for each direction. Those are a doddle to program of course. And, yes, it is always much more efficient to program them direct to FS controls rather than keypresses, but unfortunately some add-ons only accept keypresses for some tasks (like, presumably, the RealityXP gauge add-ons). Not the regular FS OBI adjustments though, the controls are fine for that. Regards Pete

No. SimConnect supplies many things as doubles. FSUIPC has to convert to keep compatibility with previous versions of FS. That's the whole point of FSUIPC after all. Offset 0020 is, as it says, in 1/256ths of a metre, making it accurate to just under 4mm, so, yes, 2mm either way is going to happen quite often. What practical purpose needs more accuracy in any case? For new projects, not needing to maintain compatibility with previous versions of FS, I would expect folks to be interfacing to SimConnect directly in any case. This is why I'm not developing the IPC interface any further, but concentrating on additional user facilities instead. Regards Pete

I don't actually have a website at all -- but probably you mean the page Enrico Schiratti created to put all my modules in one place -- both freeware and payware. There's only one. You don't get the program from SimMarket, only the Key to unlock the additional user facilities. You don't need those just for Radar Contact. After you've installed FSUIPC you can read the supplied documentation and decide then whether you want to buy a key to unlock the extra features or not. No, WideFs is a facility to allow you to network FS applications on two or more computers, linking to FS on a Server PC. If you want to run Radar Contact on the same PC as FS you don't need WideFS. I expect there are a lot more programs listed on that page which you don't know about. Just get what you need according to whatever instructions you got with your add-on. Pete

No, your key should work fine. Please always state the version number of FSUIPC when asking about it here (currently supported versions are 3.98 and later). If, in the Installer, you registration is rejected then you will be making a mistake in one of the three entry fields -- name, address and key must be all exactly the same as originally. it doesn't matter if you changed your email since. Pete

There's probably no way then, unless you can persuade them or PMDG to release it (again). Regards Pete

No. It's some sort of file access error I think, reported by the Visual Basic system RC uses. A Google search shows it to probably be "path not found". But I've no idea what file or what path it is trying to use. You need to go to the RC Support Forum on AVSIM. Regards Pete

Don't FlightSimLabs sell a driver for that? I know they did one for the CPFlight MCP. There's no easy way for outsiders to do it because you can't read the values at all, though I think some folks hacked a few of them. It would need PMDG or FlightSimLabs (founded by an ex-member of PMDG) to do it properly. Regards Pete

I know this, but i was explaining how it is done, using buttons, so you can work out how to do it in SIOC. I know nothing aboutr SIOC. Maybe it can't be done, but in order to determine whether it can you need to understand how it is normally done and then try to make SIOC do it. But I keep explaining it to you. Offset 3125 contains switches for all 4 pumps. Do you not understand this basic fact? Each pump only needs 1 bit, not all 8 bits, to operate it. If a pump's bit is a '1' the pump in on, if its bit is a '0' its pump is off. If SIOC can read AND write offsets then you have to READ 3125, change the bit for the pump you want to switch, and then write the value back to 3125. For example, suppose offset 3125 is named 'pumps": x = pumps x = x OR 4 pumps = x In other words, OR ind the value 4 (bit 2^2) into 3125 switches the pump number 2 on, while x = pumps x = x AND 11 pumps = x switches pump #2 off. The mask value '11' is 2^0 + 2^1 + 2^3 (1 + 2 + 8 ), which makes sure the other three pumps, 1, 2 and 4, aren't affected. I really cannot explain it any simpler. If there is insufficient documentation for SIOC to help you do things with it I suspect you have chosen the wrong technology for your project. But before giving up, see if there is any SIOC support. Pete

For FSX, or an older version? For FS9 I suppose it might be possible for a third-party add-on aircraft, should they have implemented such a feature, but I don't think there's any way of doing it for the default FS implementation. Have you tried? In FSX the left and right flaps offset (0BE0 and 0BE4) are certainly separately writable, but whether they result in a separate movement I don't know. There's also a series of writeable offsets from 30E0 which separate the flaps into 8 parts - 4 left, 4 right, leading and trailing, inner and outer. Try writing to individual ones there. I really have no idea if that will work though. You could try writing to those offsets in FS9 too. Spoilers are another matter. Although there are offsets for left and right positions, they are not writeable in FSX. The speed is determined by the Aircraft CFG or AIR files. I don't know any way of changing it internally. Previous implementers have done it by messing about with the position, to deley it getting to the desired position. This could have the desired effect on flight characteristics, but won't look correct of course. Regards Pete

Whatever value it is you write, it is the same offset. For bit-oriented swtches like the fire switches, the pumps, and the 10 light switches at offset 0D0C, you really want to toggle individual bits. Does your software provide such facilities? The normal way with button assignments in FSUIPC is to assign to the "Offset Byte ToggleBits" control, with offset XXXX (e.g. 3125) and parameter according to which bit -- 01, 02, 04 or 08 in this case. The togglebits control changes the bit -- on if off, off if on. If you are using a latching switch, not a button, you'd use "Offset byte setbits" to turn a pump on, or "Offset byte clearbits" to turn it off. If this SIOC software you are using doesn't provide any bit changing facilities then you might be out of luck. It would surprise me if it doesn't, however, as there are many needs for bit changing rather than whole byte or word changing. It isn't simulated in FS as far as I know. Pete