Throttle Sync hot key

[Kyprianos Biris]

From user guide on Hot Keys setup :

• Throttle Sync: This operates a facility to make all throttle inputs, for any engine, affect the throttle inputs to all engines. It’s a toggle function—if it is on then using it again turns it off. If you are only using a single throttle then this won’t make a lot of difference except that every time you use it FSUIPC will make the throttle selection (i.e. the keypress E+1 … etc) apply to all engines.

Whenever I try to use it, throttles go all the way to full reverse. Even moving the joystich forward won't disengage them but instead start adding throttle (reducing reverse & going from idle upwards). Only F1 resets the throttle levers to iddle. I tried all combinations.

FS2004

WinXP

DirectX 9.0b

FSUIPC 3.0.6.0

[Pete Dowson]

Whenever I try to use it, throttles go all the way to full reverse.

All throttle sync does is set the normal FS engine select mask (the one affected by the E + 1 2 3 4 keypresses) to select all engines, and send any throttle 1 input to FS as the generic all-engine throttle value. That's it. It doesn't invent any new values, do any calibration, nothing. It is realy simple and hasn't changed since first implemented.

I really have no idea how your throttles are connected or why they are going wrong in that way, but you could try logging the throttle input settings and results, using the new Monitoring facilities in FSUIPC 3 -- see the logging page. If you've not got the SDK, these are the locations (in hex, as used in the Monitor) which may be relevant:

0888 (U8), selected engines mask

3330 (S16). throttle 1 axis value

088C (S16). throttle 1 setting

0924 (S16), throttle 2 setting

You can monitor these on screen, and also log them, but in the latter case if you plan on sending it to me please keep it short or edit the relevant parts.

Regards,

Pete

[Kyprianos Biris]

Peter I don't think its related to joystick. I simply set say "SHIFT n" for that function, press OK and I go FS press SHIFT+n and throttle goes all the way to full reverse. It "decalibrates" so much the throttles of FS2004 that I have to close FS and restart. newtral (idle) point becomes the full reverse and any forward mostion of joystick will start moving it upwards towards full throttle. Not very easy to explain. Anyway, I'll try to log it and send you that part only ziped.

[Pete Dowson]

Peter I don't think its related to joystick. I simply set say "SHIFT n" for that function, press OK and I go FS press SHIFT+n and throttle goes all the way to full reverse. It "decalibrates" so much the throttles of FS2004 that I have to close FS and restart.

Hmmm. There's no recalibration done -- I don't know how that's happening. As I said, all it does is copy the current Throttle 1 input value and send it to FS as the common throttle value, after setting the Engine mask to all engines. Just those two lines of code, that's all. It's probably one of the simplest functions in FSUIPC.

Incidentally, if it is getting a full reverse (negative) value on one of the throttle 1 inputs (either the normal generic throttle or the specific throttle 1 input) then maybe you have an assignment you didn't know about? Have you checked the FS assignments for any spurious assignment to a throttle control anywhere? If so, delete all those you are not using. You don't say what sort of throttle configuration you've got set up so I couldn't hazard any better guess yet I'm afraid.

How many throttle inputs have you got? How are you assigning them? Are you using any of FSUIPC's mapping facilities, or calibrations? Maybe if you send anything you ought to include your FSUIPC INI if so.

Regards,

Pete

[Kyprianos Biris]

OK log & ini files sent.

Fingers crossed :)

[Pete Dowson]

OK log & ini files sent.

Thanks for the logs and things.

I am now a bit puzzled. I see from the FSUIPC INI file that you only have one throttle. The "throttle sync" facility was designed to synchronise multiple throttles using the input from one, but if you only have one in the first place how are you managing to get the throttles out of sync?

I think this may be the cause of your problem. It is actually not doing anything for you except changing a throttle input with no reverse into one with reverse, which you clearly do not want. Only the separate throttle inputs from FS come with a reverse range.

Maybe there's something I should change, and I will check this, but first I need to understand why you are using the facility and what you hope to gain with it. So far, it only looks like I need to be more explicit with the documentation, but I am open to other ideas when I understand what you are wanting to do.

Thanks,

Pete

[Kyprianos Biris]

but if you only have one in the first place how are you managing to get the throttles out of sync?

"I do have one, my aircraft has three though"

Well it seems I missunderstood the user guide. I thought that this Hot Key was correcting the infamous bug by MS of the more than 2 engined aircraft being unable to get engine control back to all engines.

As Richard Probst says in his documentation for the excellent FS2002 727-200 panel ....

YOU CANNOT SELECT INDIVIDUAL ENGINES USING THE KEYBOARD

This is a problem I still haven't been able to fix. Don't touch the "e" key while flying. Instead, use the mouse to select engines if you need to. If you hit "e", you will only be able to use engine one. If you get caught with this, just go to the Aircraft menu and click OK.

So I thought that this .....

... was fixed by the FSUIPC hotkey :oops:

I was pressing it and this is what I was getting ....

Yes I have one single humble Thustmaster HOTAS Cougar throttle and play arround with individual engines with e1 e 2 e1234 and so on but this works only in twin engined aircraft :cry:

For a moment I thought it was one more MS bug Peter had squashed :P

OK Pete, thanks for the support. Obviously I got the wrong idea of what this hotkey does.

[Pete Dowson]

Well it seems I missunderstood the user guide. I thought that this Hot Key was correcting the infamous bug by MS of the more than 2 engined aircraft being unable to get engine control back to all engines.

Er, no. I never knew there was such a bug. The E + 1 2 3 4 facility always worked for me. Are you saying that sometimes pressing E and the list of engines you want to control doesn't work? This is in FS2002 only, or all of them?

Don't touch the "e" key while flying. Instead, use the mouse to select engines if you need to. If you hit "e", you will only be able to use engine one.

I've never had such a problem. All the E + numbers facility does is set the mask in 0888, Now you know how to use the FSUIPC Monitoring facilities, test it yourself. Monitor 0888 on screen (the "AdvDisplay" option, or in the Title bar) and play with E + 1 2 3 4 in various combinations. Doesn't 0888 change to match (F = all 4, whilst 1, 2, 4, 8 are individual single engines, and so on)?

If all you need is a hotkey or control to set 0888 back to F (or more probably 7 for a 727), then I could add one. Basically it would do the same as E + 1 2 3 4 should or does do.

Yes I have one single humble Thustmaster HOTAS Cougar throttle and play arround with individual engines with e1 e 2 e1234 and so on but this works only in twin engined aircraft :cry:

I don't remember that not working with 4 engines -- I never flew a 727 in FS2002 so I wouldn't know about 3 -- but I thought it worked okay with the 747. I'm surprised. I'll just go try it.

Well, I've not got a 747 installed in the copy of FS2002 on this machine, but the Concorde has 4 engines, and so far, no amount of selecting and re-selecting with combinations of E followed by 1, 2, 3, or 4 have failed to select the correct engines and let me adjust their throttles.

Are you sure this is not just the problem trying to use this by pressing all the keys together? That would be a keyboard matrix problem. But you don't need to do that. Once you press E then the 1, 2, 3, 4 keys 'belong' as engine numbers. There's not even a time-out. They stay as selectors until you press some other key, or E again to restart the selection. This has always been the case as far back as I can remember.

What about FS2004, or aren't you using that yet?

Regards,

Pete

[Kyprianos Biris]

Er, no. I never knew there was such a bug. The E + 1 2 3 4 facility always worked for me. Are you saying that sometimes pressing E and the list of engines you want to control doesn't work? This is in FS2002 only, or all of them?

All of them, can you please try a 727 ?

Use excellent model by Charles Fox and panel by Richard Probst.

Aircraft : any from "Charles Fox"

Panel : rp727pn4.zip + update cfrp727.zip

(this is where he mentions the bug in the documentation: Problems/FAQs section)

They're available at avsim.com & flightsim.com

I've never had such a problem. All the E + numbers facility does is set the mask in 0888, Now you know how to use the FSUIPC Monitoring facilities, test it yourself. Monitor 0888 on screen (the "AdvDisplay" option, or in the Title bar) and play with E + 1 2 3 4 in various combinations. Doesn't 0888 change to match (F = all 4, whilst 1, 2, 4, 8 are individual single engines, and so on)?

Will do and will come back.

UPDATE :

On startup

888 0x7

3330 stable

088C Idle 63 -> Full throttle 16384

0924 Idle 63 -> Full throttle 16384

As soon as I press "e" before any number is changed 888 goes to 0x1 and stays there whatever I do :

888 0x1

3330 stable

088C Idle 63 -> Full throttle 16384

0924 stable

If all you need is a hotkey or control to set 0888 back to F (or more probably 7 for a 727), then I could add one. Basically it would do the same as E + 1 2 3 4 should or does do.

Yessss pleaaaaaase !

I don't remember that not working with 4 engines -- I never flew a 727 in FS2002 so I wouldn't know about 3 -- but I thought it worked okay with the 747. I'm surprised. I'll just go try it.

Well, I've not got a 747 installed in the copy of FS2002 on this machine, but the Concorde has 4 engines, and so far, no amount of selecting and re-selecting with combinations of E followed by 1, 2, 3, or 4 have failed to select the correct engines and let me adjust their throttles.

I am not sure about the 747, I rarely fly one. It certainly happens on the 727 both in FS2002 and 2004. And its not just Charles Fox's model, all 727s

Are you sure this is not just the problem trying to use this by pressing all the keys together? That would be a keyboard matrix problem. But you don't need to do that. Once you press E then the 1, 2, 3, 4 keys 'belong' as engine numbers. There's not even a time-out. They stay as selectors until you press some other key, or E again to restart the selection. This has always been the case as far back as I can remember.

What about FS2004, or aren't you using that yet?

Yes Pete, many of us (at least flying 727 taht I know) have had this problem since last year. This is why Richard mentions it in his documentation, to avoid endless emails.

Indeed I try e 1 2 3 both manually and via my programmable joystick but it keeps on sticking to engine 1 authority only. I can only bypass this by selecting again the same aircraft. I have made sure that the joystick gives the keypresses in sequence (and not all at once) but still the problem remains.

So to conclude : whatever I do as soon as I press e , whatever number(s) I enter after that it will stay to Engine 1 authority in a three engined aircraft. Only solution is to reselect it.

[Pete Dowson]

So to conclude : whatever I do as soon as I press e , whatever number(s) I enter after that it will stay to Engine 1 authority in a three engined aircraft. Only solution is to reselect it.

Ah, so it is a bug in FS for 3 engined aircraft only? And you say this has always applied in FS versions -- since FS4, FS5, or only recently? Has it been reported to Microsoft? You'd think they could have fixed that by now, if so?

Odd that I've never heard of this before. Yours is the first mention I've ever seen. But then I only ever had some short experience with a 727 some time back (FS2000 or even FS98). Otherwise all I've ever used is 1, 2 and 4 engined aircraft.

I'll add a new HotKey simply to select all Engines (no copying of throttle values) to the next version of FSUIPC. It will be a couple of weeks or so yet, but it is now officially on my list.

Regards,

Pete

[Kyprianos Biris]

Ah, so it is a bug in FS for 3 engined aircraft only? And you say this has always applied in FS versions -- since FS4, FS5, or only recently? Has it been reported to Microsoft? You'd think they could have fixed that by now, if so?

I have no idea if its been reported.

Odd that I've never heard of this before. Yours is the first mention I've ever seen.

I've seen it mentioned in the avsim msfs forum at an average once evry 3 months. I remember once someone said "how can this have sliped off from Peter Dowson" !!!

I'll add a new HotKey simply to select all Engines (no copying of throttle values) to the next version of FSUIPC. It will be a couple of weeks or so yet, but it is now officially on my list.

Pete

Yes , just to select all engines ; that will do it - thank you Pete :wink:

[Pete Dowson]

It probably hasn't then. It will never be fixed uless someone who knows about it reports it to MS. It goes on a list. If you report it now then it'll be on the list for FS2006. It has to be reported by someone who has seen it happen.

I've seen it mentioned in the avsim msfs forum at an average once evry 3 months. I remember once someone said "how can this have sliped off from Peter Dowson"

I don't get time to surf the web and browse such things. I've always told people that. If they want me to notice things they need to write to me -- originally by email, now here in this Forum. It still takes 50% of my otherwise productive programming time to deal with all this. If i don't do any more programming I could browse, but what's the point?

No one wrote and asked me, that's how it "slipped off"!

Regards,

Pete