WideFS the problem or just a victim?

[dong]

Weird thing has happened to me 2 times in a row now. Let me give you the setup:

2 PC's, one running FS2004 and FSUIPC 3.47 and one running WideFS and ActiveSky 2004.5. The other thing running on the FS PC was the module version of SB3 (started from within the sim in the modules menu), not stand-alone version that runs outside of the sim).

Everything's fine until I get to the area where would normally load the scenery for the destination airport. In both cases this was KIAH, and I use the scenery from SimFlyers. Normally, the sim will pause for a bit while it loads the scenery, this is a normal thing that I have come to expect. But the last 2 times it paused for a very long time and I was only able to recover once, by killing WideFS and ActiveSky on the non-FS PC. Weird.

I did this because on the FS PC, I was able to switch tasks back to the desktop and open up Task Manager, but I was unable to switch back to FS. I started trying everything that I know to get the sim back, including ALT-ENTER to switch to windowed mode. Eventually, I got a partial screen draw and I could see the title of the FS window, but where it says "with WideFS - 1 connected", it now said 20 connections and it was increasing! 21, 22, 23, 24 as I watched.

So, I killed WideFS and ActiveSKy and lo and behold FS came back and was operating fine.

Now this problem did occur twice and I was running the module version of SB3 both times. I have done the same approach to same airport with the same scenery, yet running SB3 on the non-FS machine and I don't have this problem. So I'm not convinced that it's FSUIPC or WideFS, since SB3 is the last thing that I installed.

I'll get the logs and post them if I run into this problem again, was just curious if anyone else has seen this before?

-Don

[Pete Dowson]

... I could see the title of the FS window, but where it says "with WideFS - 1 connected", it now said 20 connections and it was increasing! 21, 22, 23, 24 as I watched.

As explained in the WideFS documentation, that happens when the Client is not getting messages from the server and times out the connection. When it re-connects the count increases. The disconnection at the server end is more generous with its timeout -- eventually, when the server sees no activity on one of the connections it will close that end, and the count will decrease again. But this will only happen when the Server is able to talk to the client so that it doesn't keep timing out.

Now this problem did occur twice and I was running the module version of SB3 both times. I have done the same approach to same airport with the same scenery, yet running SB3 on the non-FS machine and I don't have this problem. So I'm not convinced that it's FSUIPC or WideFS, since SB3 is the last thing that I installed.

It sounds like something is keeping FS from running so much that WideServer isn't able to get messages out to the Client (it only needs one frame every two seconds to keep it happy, so that's pretty serious). With both WideServer and SB3 both presumably trying to use the Network (?) maybe they are somehow blocking each other.

Where's the Internet connection? Over the Network on a router or on the non-FS PC? If so, you are definitely putting a big load on the Server Network connection when AS2004.5 is in full flow, as it will be initially, and SB3 is also trying to sort stuff out with its server.

Why SB3 works better on the non-FS PC I'm not sure -- maybe it's the Internet connection -- but I would have thought that would be the better approach in any case. You ought to leave the FS PC as free of extra clutter as possible. FS is very hungry, especially using weather from AS2004.5.

Regards,

Pete

[dong]

Update:

I've removed the SimFlyers scenery (it's a framerate killer anyway) and so far, so good. The problem would only happen when on approach to KIAH and so we'll see what happens when I don't use that scenery. :)

Thanks for your feedback Pete, and thanks for all your hard work on FSUIPC and WideFS, definitely makes my simming much more enjoyable.

-Don