Pete Dowson

Sorry, I don't know enough about VB to identify your problem. Someone else will need to help. Well, I may well be wrong, but it looks like you convert to ASCII then back to whatever default character code you have in VB: ChrB(Asc(Mid(strMessage, i, 1))) which seems to defeat the object. Try using a byte array and copying the Asc values into that instead. Also, although you take all that trouble to build a string in strMessageB, you then write strMessage to 3380. Finally, it is very very inefficient to do multiple FSUIPC_Process calls, each one causing a process switch. Just to all the reads and writes you want to do in each cycle with one Process call at the end. In this example, providing you write 32FA after writing 3380 it will work with one Process call. Do you clear strMessageB to nothing first? Are you sure? Doesn't "Chr" convert it to whatever character system in use? Or is "ChrB" a special variant? Strange, then. Who wrote that? Does the example work? Have you tried using the Logging facilities in FSUIPC to see what it is being written? I'm sure it will be easy to work it out when you know that! That's what the logging facilities are for. Regards Pete

Yes, but, as it says in the Guide, you should always allow a little leeway at both ends, so that you can always achieve full deflection when needed in spite of small hardware variations. These changes can occur due to voltage levels, humidity, and temperature. That's a normal result of centralising springs not always returning to the same place -- and the variation is "jitter". This is why you should calibrate with "dead" zones at either end AND in the centre. Your central zone should be wide enough to always encompass all the values you might get with "feet off". Apart from jitter (due to environment), with most pedals the springs which centre the pedals seldom return them to the exact same place. Your figures show that not only have you not even set a central zone, but you've set both upper and lower values of the central "point" (!) to a value which isn't even matching the "central" IN value you show! Take your feet off. Then press left pedal a little, making sure the IN number changes. Click the central "SET". Then do the same with the right pedal. It does say this in the guide. ALWAYS calibrate with a range for centre with your "normal" feet off value in the middle! Then check a few times by pressing full left and/or right and letting go -- see if the spring gets it back inside the centre range. If not you will have to make it wider still. This isn't hard. It is very easy. It only involves two clicks on buttons! You could then also use the Slopes facility to flatten the response a little in the centre so you don't get so big an effect unless pushing hard. Pete

Well, you've not calibrated correctly at all. To start with -16380 and +16380 for the minimum and maximum positions are the defaults, assumed by FSUIPC if you don't set real ones, so you've not bothered to set those. And you have the zero centre zone fixed at 3883 to 3883 -- i.e one single spot on the axis, with zero width (no chance of it being there often) --- and which is certainly not 2271 which appears to be your normal feet-off reading. Your centre values should be below and above that, with a good margin, so it is always achieved. I am thinking now that you do not understand FSUIPC calibration. Please please simply follow the numbered steps as described in the User Guide. If you don't it's really a complete waste of time using FSUIPC for your joysticks. Regards Pete

You missed showing the other centre value -- there are two, making the limits of the centre "parking" zone which gives zero. And in any case, you are getting zero -- that OUT value you show of 0, for an IN value of 2272 shows that the rudder is neutral at 2272 (so evidently your other centre calibration is less than or equal to 2272). There are other possible reasons you your plane pulling to the left on the ground. The most usual one is prop torque and prop wash. If it pulls more with higher revs and less with lower revs, then this is what it is. When taxiing and taking off in a single prop aircraft you do need right-rudder (or left, depending on prop turning direction, but most usually right) to keep it straight. I learned this in a real Cessna 152 aircraft. However, it can be rather overdone in FS -- if it seems excessive, go to FS's Aircraft - Realism menu and take the torque slider down a bit. I find having all those sliders about central give most realism to my feel of things. Second, possibly your rudder trim is offset. Use the rear outside view of your aircraft to see if the rudder looks straight when stationary, facing the wind, and feet off the pedals. If not you need to centre the trim. If your aircraft doesn't have a rudder trim adjustment, load one that does, centre it with that, then change to yours and save the flight so it'll be centred next time. Regards Pete

The User Guide (and all the documentation) is readable without purchase. Have a browse through that, especially the introductory sections about what you get. Either install FSUIPC and get the documentation that way, or download the documentation separately from the Updates and Other Goodies Announcement above. I don't think FSUIPC can help with that, because I have never seen it happen and don't even know what could cause it. Have you checked with the authors? Regards Pete

Why in the INI? Isn't it a normal joystick type device like other gamepads? Don't it's buttons and joysticks or rocker pads show in the Buttons and Axes tabs? You shouldn't need to edit the INI. Does FS see it? Pete

When you downloaded the FSUIPC.ZIP you would have found the FSUIPC Installer (which you ran) and the Installation guide (which you should have read). That tells you exactly what files you get and where to find them! All documents and other goodies are installed in the FSUIPC Documents folder, inside the FS Modules folder. Documents are supplied to inform you. Please do use them. Pete

Sorry, I don't understand. what are you considering "primary" here? And what is your condition? That seems only to be a simply example of a button programmed to do two things instead of one. Again, simple two actions, no conditions. If you apply conditions, then the action only happens if the condition is true. not if false. That's what "conditional" means. Merely having two or more controls occurring on the press of one button is a simple case of multiple assignments to the one button, not anything to do with conditions. What conditions? You've mentioned none! The conditions available are combinations of buttons -- button X does Y when button Z is also pressed (or "on"), and so on. Or, for offset conditions, when an offset has a particular value or bit set or not. Please do check the examples provided! Why vague? Tell me which part is "vague". I never ever write "vague" stuff! I write definitively, as like a specification. It is how I am trained (and that's what folks usually criticize my documentation for, certainly not "vagueness"! That's a first!). If you find there is something "vague" please show me exactly which part you mean!! What is it you really don't understand? From the odd condition-less examples you quote, it seems to me it is the word "condition" which you don't understand. Is that right? Regards Pete

The same, it's still to 1 and not 0. Sounds like you don't actually get -16364 then. Just try decreasing the number a little at a time: 0.00775, 0.00774 etc. This is only a workaround else you'll need to wait a couple of weeks. I've got a heavy change underway and cannot release an interim version at present. Regards Pete

In that case it is almost certainly a registration problem. Did you not check that? It was the second thing I asked you to check, if you refer back. You've already shown me the (good) installation log twice before. I asked for the FSUIPC log, not the Install log -- but close FS first. Pete

Ah, yes. Sorry, it doesn't get saved to that accuracy. I can save it to, say, 7 figures. But that won't be till the next update, which i can't make yet. However, if you simply change the 0.00781 to 0.00776 it should work okay then. Regards Pete

You mean you use the mouse to drag the mixture lever on the screen? If so that needs no assignments nor calibration. You simply drag it to where you want it. Also, since none of your axes are calibrated in FSUIPC and you don't appear to be interested in doing so, why not simply re-enable controllers in FS and delete all of the [Axes...] and [JoystickCalibration ...] sections in your FSUIPC INI file? Regards Pete

Ermouse? Sorry. FSUIPC provides no mouse facilities other than the option to use the mousewheel for trimming. I don't know anything which allows assignment of mouse actions to axes. But if there is, then it sounds like you are mixing FSUIPC up with something else, perhaps? You aren't concerned, then that you have lots of axes assigned in FSUIPC and none of them actually usefully so because of being unassigned. Regards Pete

Seems something else has changed in your system, then? The INI file you sent shows no signs of any calibration for any axis on any aircraft. Can you please look in the FSUIPC User Guide, find the chapter entitled "Joystick Calibration" and follow the numbered steps in there. I can't see what you are doing from here, so you'll need to explain your actions if you want help. You actually haven't even enabled calibration on anything (by pressing the left-most "Set" button so it changes to "Reset"), otherwise at least default calibration lines would appear in your INI file. Regards Pete

That is okay. But are you deleting FSUIPC each time, for some reason? I ask this because of this line: Is FSUIPC actually running when you run FS? i.e. is there a Modules menu entry containing FSUIPC? Please close FS and show me the FSUIPC.LOG file from the FS Modules folder. Pete

No. You didn't read what I said! :-( Updating FSUIPC merely replaces the DLL (the program itself) and the documentation. It touches nothing else. All your settings are the same, if you ever had any. All of your axis assignments are still in the INI file. But there are NO CALIBRATIONS. It appears you never calibrated any of them at all. Therefore FSUIPC is really doing nothing for you. That's what I said. Please go and read it again! What was your previous config? If it has changed YOU have changed it. No one else! It simply is not possible for an FSUIPC update to change ANY of your settings. I cannot return them if you've deleted them. If you backed your INI file up before deleting it, use the backup. Otherwise you need to calibrate ever axis for each aircraft you have separate settings for -- or simply delete the separate settings (which are doing nothing in any case at present) and calibrate for all aircraft once. If you've never calibrated, which it appears you never have, then FSUIPC has never had anything to do with your axis values. It only has any effect if you actually use it! Pete

Like the example in the Advanced User's manual, just scale it and add the value to make it positive. i.e. *0.0078125,+128 The value 0.0078125 is 1/128, so dividing your -16384 to 16383 range to get -128 to +127. And then adding 128 gives you 0 to 255. See? It really is only simple arithmetic. Pete

FSUIPC, merely being installed, changes nothing. You need to tell me what you've done. Why? What are you trying to do? If you disable controllers in FS you will have to do all your assignments and calibrations in FSUIPC. Why do you want to do this? If you only want to use FSUIPC's more precise calibration, you can do so without assigning the axes in FSUIPC as well. Without knowing what you've done or what you want to do I really cannot comment further, except to say that usually, when folks have erratic behaviour on an axis it is because there are multiple assignments to the same axis. You can do that in FSUIPC's assignments, but more usually it indicates dual FSUIPC and FS assignments. Pete

The assignment of buttons to controls is surely easy enough? There are even pictures in the document showing what the option pages look like. Don't they help? And doesn't the word "Throttle" used at the beginning of a listed control, viewable in the drop-down when you come to assign a button, mean anything to you? Sorry, just saying you understand nothing helps neither you nor me. Tell me exactly why you cannot work out how to simply assign a button and I'll try to understand why you find the manual so bad. Do you find FS's own documentation so much better? If so, please show me where you are looking. They are not called "left engines" and "right engines", but they are numbered, as in the real world, from 1 extreme left to 4 extreme right, depending how many you have. Normal arrangements are 1, 1 -- 2, 1 -- 2 -- 3, and 1-2 -- 3-4. There are separate controls for each engine as well as the generic controls for all together. In the list I gave you the numbers 1 to 4 in the control name refer to the engine. FSUIPC allows you to have different button and axis assignments, different calibrations, different keypresses, etc, for each aircraft specifically, or you can use Profiles to set up specific setups for different types of aircraft. But really, if you don't understand any of the documentation at all I wouldn't advise you to spend any money on these things. I can help with specific questions But I am not about to give lengthy tutorials. The manual is as good as I can make it (without further constructive feedback, in any event), and includes the results of feedback over the 12 years of FSUIPC. Regards Pete

You have not calibrated any axes in FSUIPC, so it will not be helping you at all. Since calibrations would most certainly not have been removed by either the installer or FSUIPC, it looks like you deleted the INI file you had before for some reason and have since forgotten to calibrate. You even have some axes for some aircraft assigned "Direct to FSUIPC calibration", and they won't work at all unless you calibrate, they'll simply be ignored. You have separate calibration sections in the INI file for several aircraft, yet none contain any calibrations whatsoever. If you don't calibrate the axes assigned in FSUIPC then they will either not work (when assigned direct), or simply operate with whatever default values the hardware provides, which is rarely going to be correct. So, it really is a waste of time assigning in FSUIPC (as you have done) unless you also calibrate. You might as well just use normal FS assignments. Note that there is nothing in any program of mine which edits or deletes all calibrations -- you can only do that manually yourself or via the Joysticks tab in FSUIPC options, and then the latter is only individual, per control, per aircraft. It really looks like you've simply not calibrated anything. Regards Pete

I can't do that as it is much more work to update the FSI files than to document things in documents, and also I can easily put much more information into the documents. If you would like to volunteer to go through the whole FSI data, via FSInterrogate, and check it, expand upon it, and add to it, please please do so. I would then incorporate your version instead of Pelle's original and credit you. All in all I think that using the reference documentation for reference and FSI for experimentation is the best way for any developer to proceed. Regards Pete

The indication "/?" is only a description of what is shown on the key -- assuming a standard UK keyboard. There is a note in the documentation about keys which are different in different countries. The /? key is the one immediately to the left of the right-hand shift key. It might be labelled differently on your keyboard. Don't forget, the key assignments are assigning KEYS not characters like ? or /! If you want to produce a shifted character (the ? in this case) you'd need the Shift key as well. without the shift key the /? key would produce / (on a UK/US keyboard). Regards Pete

I answered in your other post with the same question, thus: Not directly, as they are USB HID devices. But Massimo ("maxx") made a driver which allows you to do that: maxx's free SPAD: Saitek Panels Advanced Driver Go to http://fstools.weebly.com Regards Pete

Yes. The easiest way is to assign it to the Offset Byte Cyclic Inc control, incrementing a user offset such as x66C0. Using a byte allows up to 256 functions, though you'd obviously limit it using the limit field in the control. There's an example in the Advanced User's guide -- check the section "Adding Offset Conditions", and in particular the last bit starting "finally, for clever ...". Regards Pete

Yes. It's actually the same bug as was in FS9, but in FS9 I was able to hack deeper into the FS code and make the smoothing work better. In FSX that wasn't possible (I couldn't find the right place), so the FSX facility, whilst definitely helping quite a bit, cannot cure it completely. The "complete cure" is to use only global weather -- that is weather which is the same all over the world, but updated as you fly. ActiveSkyX does have this facility ("DWC" or "direct Wind control" uses it). But unfortunately this has other side effects like ATIS reports being wrong for remote stations. Regards Pete