FSUIPC future

[dfournie]

Pete,

My apologies if this has been asked before. Has Microsoft ever considered integrating FSUIPC directly into FSX? I know Adam Szofran now works with Microsoft/Aces Game Studio and did quite a bit of work on FSX. Obviously Microsoft is aware of FSUIPC and must have worked with you to ensure FSX compatability. Is this something Microsoft is not interested in taking on? Not to take anything away from you in terms of the financial reward, recognition and high quality and support of your product, but as more commercial products come to rely on FSUIPC I just wondered if it ever was going to head the direction away from a one-man project into something Microsoft would consider adding to the core of the product. I'm not advocating they do or do not, but with the amount of hacking you have had to do on the product and your knowledge of the FS line it seems you would be an incrediable asset to Microsoft's team. Or at the least Microsoft could do something that would allow you to get even more info out of FS at higher rates, etc... Just curious.

[Pete Dowson]

My apologies if this has been asked before. Has Microsoft ever considered integrating FSUIPC directly into FSX?

Yes, of course, and it has been done. Where have you been these last 18 months? ;-)

As far as the IPC facilities are concerned, that is exactly what SimConnect is. I was involved in SimConnect right from the start. It doesn't (yet) quite do everything that FSUIPC does, but it also, in some areas, does a lot more.

I know Adam Szofran now works with Microsoft/Aces Game Studio and did quite a bit of work on FSX.

Yes, he did, he's been working in the FS team since FS2000 days, but he's left now. He was not involved in SimConnect. His area of specialisation was graphics.

Obviously Microsoft is aware of FSUIPC and must have worked with you to ensure FSX compatability.

Well, no, it was the other way around, ensuring that SimConnect was up to the job. The only reason it falls short in some areas is, well, time and money. As usual.

Take a look some time at the FSX SDK. The SimConnect interface is quite well documented, and is being used more and more. ASX, TrackIR, the new PMDG aircraft, and so on, all directly interface to SimConnect, not FSUIPC. The FSUIPC4 application interface for FSX exists only for backward compatibility, to tide things over until all programs interface direct to SimConnect.

This is why my development efforts in the last year have been almost entirely centred on extending the User facilities in FSUIPC, to make it worthwhile as a "Swiss Army Knife" type of toolkit for users. The demand for it to be used as an application interface is receding as SimConnect takes over.

Regards

Pete