Update FSUIPC Interim Notes about Hat Switch

[jordanal]

Hi Pete,

Just a thought; you might want to add a bold note to the Interim release notes in the FSUIPC locked threads above about the hat switch programming change. I couldn't figure out why my hat switch recenlty started to stutter so bad (2 or 3 seconds) while rotating pan_views. I just found a thread whereby you inidicate that you switched the hat button from the button-repeat functionality over to dedicated axis. Noting this in the Interim notes would save everyone else who has a hat switch from figuring out what changed.

Thanks,

Al

[Pete Dowson]

Just a thought; you might want to add a bold note to the Interim release notes in the FSUIPC locked threads above about the hat switch programming change. I couldn't figure out why my hat switch recenlty started to stutter so bad (2 or 3 seconds) while rotating pan_views. I just found a thread whereby you inidicate that you switched the hat button from the button-repeat functionality over to dedicated axis.

No, i haven't. I've merely changed the "delta" for assigned POV axes to 0, so that every scan can give an input to FSX. If you haven't assigned the POV as an axis then it should have absolutely no effect on POVs assigned as buttons -- not only is it entirely different code but it is using an entirely different Windows interface!

On FSUIPC4 the POVs (up to 4 of them) have always been assignable in the axis section -- part of the benefit of moving that part to DirectInput. The Buttons section with its single POV is unchanged and still uses the Windows "joy" API.

Noting this in the Interim notes would save everyone else who has a hat switch from figuring out what changed.

Nothing should have changed for anyone not assigning the POV as an axis. For those that are using axis assignment for POVs the change is simply more smoothness due to the auto-repeats.

Please explain how you are coming to the conclusions you state. I just cannot see how you arrived at such a suggestion!?

Pete

[jordanal]

Hmm, than I am really confused, so I'll back up a bit. On my FSXsp2 rig, this past weekend, I started noticing that when panning with my hat switch on my Saitek Yoke, each view rotation/movement would pause for a second or two between movements of the view, like the button repeate rate was wacked-out or something. I know this has been on at least 4.305 and 4.306 interims.

For example when holding the hat switch left, it would move a bit to the left, wait a second then move again, and repeat. I have been keeping up with installing the Interim releases as you post them, so I thought maybe something changed. In this thread: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=71448&p=445316&hilit=repeat+rate#p445156 you mentioned having changed the hat from button programming to axis movment, so I thought I missed some news regarding a new way to setup the hat switch. I'm still using the buttons 32 to 39 with the "Pan_view -1" code from the the User's Guide (sorry at work now, don't have exact code). All the other axis and button programming seem to be OK or unchanged, it's just the hat movment that I noticed.

Blurb from near the bottom of the second page of the thread mentioned above:

"Here it works absolutely the same as in FSX. I have no idea what your hat configuration looks like, so how can I suggest any change? I have a hat assigned to the Pan View axis in FSUIPC4's Axis Assignments. That's it, nothing else to assign.

It sounds like you are still using the Button assignments either instead, or as well. Check all this. The improved operation can only work with the axis assignment, and that is regulated to provide exactly the same repeat rate as demonstrated by FSX.

In other words, for the same assignment, FSUIPC4 is now doing the same as FSX, so I cannot do any more.

Regards

Pete"

Al

[Pete Dowson]

when panning with my hat switch on my Saitek Yoke, each view rotation/movement would pause for a second or two between movements of the view, like the button repeate rate was wacked-out or something. I know this has been on at least 4.305 and 4.306 interims.

Well There's nothing I've changed knowingly in any of the button side of things.

In this thread: viewtopic.php?f=54&t=71448&p=445316&hilit=repeat+rate#p445156 you mentioned having changed the hat from button programming to axis movment

No, I didn't say that. I said I'd changed the axis assignment method to make it smoother and advised the person who was using button assignment to change to using the axis assignment. I have never said I'd changed anything about the button assignments.

... so I thought I missed some news regarding a new way to setup the hat switch. I'm still using the buttons 32 to 39 with the "Pan_view -1" code from the the User's Guide (sorry at work now, don't have exact code).

Well for FSUIPC4 there was always the alternative way, but it didn't work for panning, only for 2D cockpit view selection, because it never repeated (because of the delta). The change to provide smooth panning via the axis assignment was done after experiments proved it could work. No facilities were removed, only new ones added.

Regards

Pete

[jordanal]

Well that fact that you added repeat capability to the axis pan_view is much easier to setup and seems to work fine here with 4.306. Thanks for the improvement but I still seem to have the same stutter/repeat issue wheather using the buttons assignment or axis assignment to my hat switch.

For some reason, I still get bad stutters with my hat switch when panning around the cockpit or around the outside-view of an aircraft. It's not a frame-rate issue becuase when I enable the joysticks from within the FSX controls menu and the POV (hat) button is set to high in the FSX buttons menu, the hat switch pans around in a super-fast, fluid motion with absolutely zero stutters (less than two seconds to pan all the way around an aircraft). When I again disable the joysticks in the FSX controls menu, the hat switch stutter comes right back. I tried adding RepeatRate=0 to the buttons section of my FSUIPC.ini file to no avail. I'm now confident that I've had this problem for a while, over various versions of FSUIPC, over several different CPU builds, and two different yokes. The only thing I can think of in common is my use of a powered USB hub on my desk to which all my FS periphials are attached. But, if it were a hardware polling issue of some sort, I would think the panning would be as bad when enabling the POV hat switch in the FSX controls menu.

Any thoughts as to why my repeat rate on the hat seems much worse then when my joysticks are enabled through the FSX contorls menu?

Thanks & regards,

[Pete Dowson]

Well that fact that you added repeat capability to the axis pan_view is much easier to setup and seems to work fine here with 4.306. Thanks for the improvement but I still seem to have the same stutter/repeat issue wheather using the buttons assignment or axis assignment to my hat switch.

What's a "repeat" issue?

For some reason, I still get bad stutters with my hat switch when panning around the cockpit or around the outside-view of an aircraft. It's not a frame-rate issue

I had to put an 18fps limiter on the POV repeats because if I left it free-running it was far too fast -- you simply couldn't pan to any place predictably. So, if your FS frame rates are at least 18 the panning should be fine, though things may bunch up in SimConnect (don't forget it is an aysnchronous interface). This is especially likely if you have several SimConnect clients.

becuase when I enable the joysticks from within the FSX controls menu and the POV (hat) button is set to high in the FSX buttons menu, the hat switch pans around in a super-fast, fluid motion with absolutely zero stutters (less than two seconds to pan all the way around an aircraft).

2 seconds? That sounds far too fast for me for it to be properly useful.

I recommend using the FSX native panning in any case. The facility in FSUIPC is bound to always suffer having to work through SimConnect and its TCP/IP or Named Pipes interface. (I assume the latter for you? If you aren't using SP2 or Acceleration then that's really a must for good SimConnect performance).

Any thoughts as to why my repeat rate on the hat seems much worse then when my joysticks are enabled through the FSX contorls menu?

No idea how you can see it as "much worse". Definitely I would expect worse but very usable, as reported by everyone else. Stuttering of inputs is almost inevitable through SimConnect. That's why I bypassed it for direct-assigned axes. I can't do that for panning. You are really trying to use FSUIPC for something it is not designed to do and cannot achieve 100% satisfactorily.

That said, the axis assignment method looks as good here as assigning it in FSX, but then FSUIPC is the only SimConnect client when I'm testing it. I really have no use for a POV controlled pan action on my cockpits where additional SimConnect programs are operating (TrackIR on the VFR cockpit, ASX via a Network on the airliner cockpit).

Sorry, but I have actually exhausted all possible means of driving the panning facility via FSUIPC. A lot of folks are happy with it. Those that aren't should assign it in FSX.

Regards

Pete