Once again: control acceleration

[mhuck]

Hello,

since I upgraded my Hardware (many new components), i have big problems with setting the heading bug, CDI and other things; that has always been difficult in my view, but now the results are unpredictable (FSUIPC option 'fix control acceleration' is turned on); klicking on the mouse dial spots on the panel, sometimes the corresponding gauge steps +/-1, sometimes +/-10.

Someone else wrote about this some times ago, but there was no real solution except using the mouse wheel, but i have no mouse wheel and do not want to use one because of my special trackball-hardware.

So, is it possible to take influence on FS' behaviour (by programming special IPC-offsets), for example switch off control acceleration at all, or change the timer preset ?

And one another thing:

I would like to thank you (Pete Dowson and others) for offering the possibilties to look inside / modify FS and have so much fun with it !!

Thank you,

sorry for my probably 'funny' english,

Matthias Huck, Oelde, Germany

[Pete Dowson]

since I upgraded my Hardware (many new components), i have big problems with setting the heading bug, CDI and other things; that has always been difficult in my view, but now the results are unpredictable (FSUIPC option 'fix control acceleration' is turned on); klicking on the mouse dial spots on the panel, sometimes the corresponding gauge steps +/-1, sometimes +/-10.

Hmmm, I'm not sure that the FSUIPC option ever helped with anything but button operations on those, though I suppose it is just possible. This problem only affects certain add-on aircraft in any case, and the FSUIPC facility was a work-around until the aircraft programmers (hopefully) fixed their code.

So, is it possible to take influence on FS' behaviour (by programming special IPC-offsets)

You could, with effort and ingenuity, program keypress or buttons to add or subtract 1 or 10 or 100 directly to the variable offsets, using the Offset controls in FSUIPC's dropdowns. But this would only really be feasible with those offsets which do actually use units you can manipulate easily. The Course/OBS settings are okay, as would be Altitude and IAS, but the heading is in units such that 360 degrees = 65536 units, so the inc/dec for 1 degree would be 182.0444.... You can't add the fractional part, so it would occasionally repeat, and the true setting could ultimately be up to a degree off what you thought owing to the fractions.

You'll need the documentation in the FSUIPC SDK for offsets and units. And you cannot program button ops that way.

... for example switch off control acceleration at all, or change the timer preset ?

Well, no, not really. The time it uses is quite lax in any case at around 400 mSecs (nearly half a second). I really wouldn't know how to change it permanently, at least not without hours spent rummaging around in several FS Modules. I'm not really keen on doing any more of that on a 30 month old product when I've got some much else to do. Sorry.

It should be quite satisfactory as it is, and as it really has been like in all the versions of FS I can remember. It was only the introduction of third party advanced aircraft panels which send loads of controls every second which ever messed things up -- that started in FS2002.

Try one of the default aircraft, if you still have a problem then it sounds like you have a faulty mouse rather than anything else.

And I don't think you'd like it off permanently in any case, or it would take ages to change settings by more than a few degrees or feet or knots.

Regards

Pete

[mhuck]

Hello Pete,

thank you for your fast reply. I didn't mean that you should solve (program) it for me; I always have a self-written Delphi program running in the background, dealing with some special self-built input devices, so I meant if you had an idea how I could manipulate the FS-repeat-timer on low level I could try it myself. But it doesn't seem to be possible ...

(But you should know that my program does not cause the problems !)

The mouse cannot be the problem because the first thing I noticed was not the Heading/CDI 'jumping', but the difficulty to trim the elevator. I use 2 Joystickbuttons to trim up/down (repeat off), and i noticed a strange feeling trying to level out any aircraft. Some buttonpresses have only a very small effect, and some presses cause the trim-setting to make a 'jump'. Trying to compensate, I often need many more buttonpresses in the opposite direction than I made before. That doesn't seem to be panel-specific.

Matthias

[Pete Dowson]

The mouse cannot be the problem because the first thing I noticed was not the Heading/CDI 'jumping', but the difficulty to trim the elevator. I use 2 Joystickbuttons to trim up/down (repeat off), and i noticed a strange feeling trying to level out any aircraft. Some buttonpresses have only a very small effect, and some presses cause the trim-setting to make a 'jump'. Trying to compensate, I often need many more buttonpresses in the opposite direction than I made before. That doesn't seem to be panel-specific.

Are the frame rates in FS fairly stable, or jumping up and down a lot? What you are describing, especially if not related to some complex add-on aircraft/panel, sounds more like a performance issue to me. As in FS not processing a bunch of controls for a short time, then suddenly processing them all at once.

I'd investigate all the assorted performance parameters in FS first, and especially the video settings, possibly also looking for a newer (or at least better) video driver. As a test, try going into Windowed mode and making the window relatively small, so that video rendering is not such a time consumer.

Regards

Pete

[mhuck]

Sorry, I cannot believe it's a performance problem; I upgraded my maschine to get a good performance, and at the moment I'm very pleased about the framerates; also they seem to be very stable.

My old mashine was much slower, and there were no problems with the controls.

But i will do a bit more investigation as I hear that this is no 'usual known problem'. Perhaps I'll find a little temporary 'performance-killer'.

And I'll try some FS standard aircraft.

Perhaps my TrackIR4 ? That is new ....

Matthias

[Pete Dowson]

Sorry, I cannot believe it's a performance problem; I upgraded my maschine to get a good performance, and at the moment I'm very pleased about the framerates; also they seem to be very stable.

My old mashine was much slower, and there were no problems with the controls.

But that is what I meantthe first thing I did with a much faster machine was let the frame rates go as high as they like. But this results, quite often, in them varying. See if it helps setting a frame rate limit.

And I'll try some FS standard aircraft.

You mean you haven't checked it with a default aircraft yet? That's the first thing to do.

Perhaps my TrackIR4 ? That is new ....

Check without it, just in case.

Pete

[mhuck]

Hello Pete,

I could find out exactly what causes the problem. You seem to be right, it is a (invisible) performance problem which occurs when I

1. activate Anti Aliasing

2. Switch on TrackIR4.

Deactivating one of them solves the problem. I decided not to use AA because it seemed to cause some other problems on my mashine (incorrect panel drawing , for example).

Thank you,

Matthias Huck