Highvolt

Thanks Pete !! I indeed forgot to mention wideclient. And i'm flying the Helo here. Anyway, the project that i'm doing requires at least 40fps at all times. Stutters just don't look good when you show things at exhibitions :) I found the lines that i need to modify in the IPCuser.h IPCuser.c These should be compiled to the FSUIPC_user.lib as i understand it. another thing i was wondering about, is the timeloop from wideview or let's say "FS Modules" limited ? I can suspect that fsmodules have some kind of limit. Thanks for the Help, Wim

Hi Pete, I was playing around with wideview (not widefs) for the last 2 days. I have 2 pc's (amd64 3200+, 1gig ram, ati 9800 XT, raid0, etc) connected together. They all run at 60fps with everything maxed out, but still, the wideview client doesnt seem to go visually over 30fps (altough the frame counter is telling me 60fps) I installed the performance manager tool from WinXP pro, and i sniffed the IPX packets.. no mather what i do, there are only coming 32 packets a second. Next thing I was copying my scenery over from one pc to the other, transfering 1Gig took forever with IPX !! I changed it to tcp/ip for a minute, and *bang* after 15 seconds everything was copied (gigabit lan) So, this got me thinking: is there some limitation in the IPX protocol ? And now for the real question: I want to write my own little 'wideview' as an experiment. (for my project, wideview has some additional limitations) - If PC1 has FS2002 on it, together with fsuipc & widefs. - If PC2 has FS2002 on it, together with only fsuipc. Is it possible to use one 'interface program' on PC2 that reads source variables from PC1 trough widefs, and send them to FSUIPC on PC2 ? My goal is to copy necessary variables from one PC to the other, using the already existing widefs network interface. For that, one must get 2 seperate handles for the fsuipc instances i guess. Kind Regards, Wim

just wanted to say thanks, because i was going to ask the same question one of these days :) Cya

Well Pete, I'm actually using it for a helicopter. And in a helicopter, when you are in icing conditions, the windschield becomes blurred, so you can't see sh*t :) Secondly, the weight of the helicopter increases, so you need more power. I tackled the icing on the windshield by creating a gauge that covers the whole 3d window. In that gauge there is logic to determine icing conditions. but sadly, it's a true/false situation, so you dont have the animation of gradually building the ice. (currently using xml-gauges for that) the increase in weight is still a problem, i dont think you can increase weight in flight (with fs2002), except if you install an extra 'fueltank' which you could use as ballast. but this is a rather ugly hack in my opinion. I was only looking for this offset so i'd have a clean way of coding it. :roll: i'm currently learning pointers, references, copy constructors and all that kind of sh*t. Now that I know something about it, i respect you even more :) You are one hell of a hacker IMHO 8) Cya Pete

After a lot of experimenting, i dont think there is an icing offset :( This is how i worked: I positioned the plane into the clouds with icingconditions, and I hit the pause button. After lets say 20seconds, the airspeed indicator goes to zero. In FSINTERROGATE i did my first scan, on the whole buffer, from 0000 to FFFF. After that, i hit pitot tube heat (still with pause on) when the airspeed indicator was back up again, i did the second scan. Then, i turned off the pitot heater, and waited for the AirspeedIndicator to go to zero. -> third scan. This resulted in 2 offsets: - the pitot tube switch in the 3xxx area - the airspeed indicator value. I tried several times, tried different approuches, watched different variables, etc .. no luck.. So my conclusion is that there is no such offset? I think that flightsimulator works this way: //presetIcingAmount = enum(light, moderate, severe, etc) if(plane in clouds && clouds has icing && !pitotheat) icingtimer = presetIcingAmount * timerconst; if(pitotheat) deicetimer = presetIcingAmount * timerconst2; if(icingtimer) IndicatedAirspeed = 0; if(deicetimer) IndicatedAirspeed = normal airspeed So, maybe it's possible to implement this kind of logic into fsuipc, using a free offset... I dont exactly need the offset, because i'm programming it my own way. But maybe there is some community interest. Kind Regards, Van Ertvelde Wim

Sorry, i probably wasnt clear enough.. I can detect the weathersetting as you say, but i wanted to detect the icing effect on the aircraft itself.. ex: 1. cloudlayer has icingconditions in it. 2. i fly below the cloud, so there will be no icing on my aircraft 3. -> bIcing = false 4. i pull up and go fly in clouds. 5. -> bIcing = false !!!! 6. After a couple of seconds, my airspeed indicator goes to zero, there is icing on my aircraft ! 7. -> bIcing = true See what i mean? the actual variable of icing building up on my aircraft is the one that i'm looking for. I'm using a boolean for now , but it might be an integer that represent actuall buildup stacks of ice. GreetingZ by a C++ apprentice, Wim

Hi Pete, When flying in Overcast (8/8) with Severre icing conditions, i notice that the airspeed indicator goes to 0. I checked the programmers doc, and i couldn't find a variable that has something to do with detecting this icing. I checked the failures for any change, i used fsinterrogate with the 3point find variable method... no luck yet. The way i'm setting my 'bIcing' variable is something like this: if(airspeedindicator == 0 && trueairspeed != 0) bIcing = true; Are there other ways to find variables (i'm using fs2002) ? Kind Regards, Wim

armando, i would like to know a bit more about your program ? I presume you create separate flights with all your aircraft, and just load the flight then ? that way, you have loaded a different aircraft, and all you've got to do then, is change the long/latitude & clock at what it was before. Maybe there's another way by sending keystrokes or something ? Kinda like a macro that goes trough the menus. Cya, Wim

You can shift the point of view even to the outside of the airplane.. that way, the centerline of a runway can be on the left or right monitor. I believe the option is in aircraft.cfg file under [views] eyepoint longitude, latitude, height

Dude, he's using FS2002... I also find the weather behaviour a bit weird. I'm writing this external program for changing all the weather, and not all the settings from inside FS2002 are coming out properly. It has a little mind of it's own in my opinion :) Kind Regards, Wim

Thanks, I also whish everybody: (is this going to be an animated gif contest? :wink: )

hmmm, it seems that you are right :oops: The problem is that i'm doubting my own programming 'skills', so the first thing that comes into my mind is "I've must have programmed something wrong" I'm using MFC for my weather interface, and the "FSConnect" is an object derived from the CFSUIPC that was delivered with the fsuipc (mfc) sdk. Thanks for the help! Cya, Wim

Hi Pete, I'm trying to set the weather using the FS98 interface like you suggested. The only weird thing is that when i set the lower layer to something, an upper layer sometimes is being created at 39000 ft... Even though i'm writing zero's to those offsets at the same time i'm writing the values for the lower layer. Writing zero's to the upper layer doesnt make it go away either. this is a small part of the code: the values are all defined as unsigned shorts. (16bit) FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.baseoffset,2,&CloudUpper.base); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.ceilingoffset,2,&CloudUpper.ceiling); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.coverageoffset,2,&CloudUpper.coverage); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.deviationoffset,2,&CloudUpper.deviation); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.icingoffset,2,&CloudUpper.icing); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.turbulenceoffset,2,&CloudUpper.turbulence); FSConnect->Write(CloudUpper.typeoffset,2,&CloudUpper.type); + 2x this code but with CloudLower & CloudThunderstorm objects Is it normal that FS2002 creates is own upper cloud layer to maybe make it more realistic ? Kind Regards, Van Ertvelde Wim

I'm writing for FS2002, for now. (FS2004 has some aerodynamic incompatibelities regarding helicopters) The way that it is coded will sure be better than my way, because i'm only programming C++ for 2/3 months. I only need it as an example, on how to set weather for 1 layer. Am I supposed to use the exact command described in the AWI.doc ? GetAt, Clear, or the ones that i find in the advweather.h ??? For me, the learning curve to learn all this, is extremely difficult... Maybe i'm just not smart enough :roll: Cya, Wim

Hi Pete, I'm going through all the manuals and stuff for weathersettings. Currently i'm using the FS98 interface, but the only problem is that it cannot read in all the weather that is set in flightsim (because of the 3 layer limit) Therefore, i think i need to go with the AWI, but there is no example for me to look at. In the manual is stated that the weatherset program is an example for the AWI interface. So, could it be possible to include the source for weatherset.exe in an FSUIPC SDK update? btw, if I continue do ask you so many questions, feel free to ask a support fee :) Regards, Wim

Forget what i've said :) it seems that FS2002 shouldnt be in pause/slew mode before reading this. Cya, Wim

In fs2002: Offset 0b6b is an engine failure where the 2^0 to 2^3 specify which engine. I can write to this offset, and the engine fails, but if I want to read a status of all failures, this offset returns 0. Second (minor) problem: I can write to 0b6a (electrical failure) and read back the variable. But: for some reason flightsim's failure dialog doesnt check "Electrical Failure" as being failed. I tried finding maybe some new offsets using FSInterrogate, but that didnt work out :( Kind Regards, Van Ertvelde Wim

language.dll is fs2004 there is no such file for fs2002. Damn, i'll need some more hacking then :p

Hi, Anyone knows in what file the fs2002 menubar is stored (as a resource) ? I have found all the dialogs in some dll files, but never bumped into the main menubar. (I need to get rid of some options :) ) Cya, Wim

I would like to know this too.. I thought they only passed longitude/latitude data + pitch, roll, yaw angle + height. Pete, since they are using your FSUIPC, i expect you know something more about this too ? Kind Regards, Wim

Sorry, have had no internet access for over a week. ----- Original Message ----- From: Van Ertvelde Wim To: Ralph Robinson Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 11:16 AM Subject: question about epicio.dll Hi Ralph, I asked this question first to Pete Dowson: We have a FlightLink KR-1 Radiostack, and a usb-epic. They communicate with epicinfo.dll. I wrote this program that intercepts epic's analogs (using _getAnalog();) and reads some FS2002 variables trough fsuipc.dll. After some calculations I resend new analog values to fsuipc.dll. All this happens at about 10Hz. I have this strange problem, that sometimes, the 3dview from FS2002 freezes, while the instrument panel is still moving. When pressing the 'alt' key to bring in the inflight menu, the 3d view unfreezes. This effect seems to be random. Also, when I close my program, and reload it, it cannot connect to FS2002 anymore, and FS2002 tends to lock up. Pete dowson told me that it could be that epicio.dll only accepts one connection. And that could be the reason that epicinfo.dll or my program behaves weird. Do you have any information regarding this ? Early versions of EPICIO.DLL did only allow one connection. Now it accepts multiples, however there were some handle issues between processes. I am working on this now. This should be done in a couple of days. The fix will allow EPICenter to be minimized while FS is running, EPICINFO running, other programs communicating with EPICIO and multiple EPICUSBs communicating with each other. Which version of the DLL are you running and how are you getting your handle. If you are using just OpenDevice(EPICdevice); that will not work with EPICINFO. Version 1.6 of the DLL will allow you do use _OpenEPIC(EPICdevice, destID) where destID is your program's ID. Since EPICINFO does not do this yet, it is assigned a destID of 9. More on this later/ Second question: How does epicenter reads the analog inputs, before and after calibration ? (the in's & out's) I only see one getAnalog command in the sdk. GetAnalogs returns the output analogs. Output analogs are defined in the device descriptor and can have various sources. IF a source is an input analog, that analogs value is scaled depending on calibration then passed to the output analog where the value can go thru offsets, max delta, rate curves, etc before it comes out as the resultant output analog. also, how does epicenter reads out the buttons ? You do not want to read buttons the way EPICenter does. If you are interested in certain switch activity you can use a device with option(SEND_BUTTON_DLL) and a devid set . Your program can request a devid's actions and these will be passed to you. You can get the device's initial states by using GetDeviceState. There is a bug in that area and I will be fixing that soon and put up an example of reading the device states, SEND_BUTTON_DLL, etc. __________ Ralph Robinson R&R Electronics rrelect@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect Kind Regards, Van Ertvelde Wim "If you find yourself falling off a cliff, you might as well try to fly.....................What have you got to lose."

on http://www.avsim.com ,they also have got 2 forums 'cockpit builder forum & blue side up forum' There are some links to example software. also: visit http://www.mindspring.com/~rrelect1 for the some examples of Ralph Robinson himself

Still no reply from Ralph about epicio.dll, but I got rid of the '3d view' freezing problem with the latest NVIDIA drivers, and DX9.0b. So, for the record, the "Back Screen Bug" that was on the forums a month ago, also exists on FS2002. Kind Regards, Wim

A little update (but no info from Ralph yet) 2 out of 3 simulators work fine when I removed my epic-code. 1 simulator still has that problem. And it looks like it's the same 'black screen' problem like many FS2004 users experienced. When i startup my program, i hit the windows key, so FS2002 loses focus. going back to fs2002 -> 3d view freezes, or has a black screen. (Same diagnose as you once posted on this forum Pete...) Tomorrow I'll update some drivers, and maybe a DX9 update. Also, that sim has the latest intel CPU, while the other two has the slower amd xp2000+ cpu don't you just hate this kind of debuggind.. :cry:

In fs2002, there is no fsuipc offset that provides a boolean or something to detect icing. For setting Icing, look at the weather offsets provided in the "FSUIPC FOR PROGRAMMERS.DOC". But flightsim will only simulate icing in the right conditions. I know, if you fly in Overcast (8/8) with SEVERE ICING, and set the temperatures below 0°C, then your indicated airspeed drops to zero, due to a frozen pitot tube. Setting the pitot heat back on, prevents this. For my knowledge, there is no airframe icing that has any effect on the performance of the airplane/helicopter. In real life, one has to increase power, to overcome the extra drag. Maybe this is modeled in FS2004, i don't know. Kind Regards, Van Ertvelde Wim