FS Time/Speed Accuracy

[Flaps30 3]

Just curious, but is the time/flight time vs. speed really accurate in FS?? I thought most of my flights take about the same time as the same real world flights, but I noticed that the clock in the 737-700 is a about 5 seconds slower per minute when timed with my real watch. The elapsed time even seems a little slower. Is this because of slight unnoticeable pauses within FS which will cause the time to halt in order to maintain accuracy within the flight? In other words, if the sim pauses itself briefly to update or for whatever reason, the time should as well. Thanks. Tom.

[Shmiffy 0]

Hi Tom:A reasonable question!The clock in FS is notoriously useless at telling the time. I don't know why however, perhaps someone who is wise in the ways of such things can tell us!There are a couple of utilities (payware and freeware) that allow the clocks to synch up correctly, and i beleive that they acheive this by modifying the Time/Date settings repeatedly throughout a flight whenever the clock starts to drift a bit. I'm afraid that i can't remember the names of the files to search for as i installed them that long ago that they just sit there and get on with it. For what it's worth (and it's not worth a lot at todays prices) my FS9/X machine is entirely separate to the other machines in the house and so sits on GMT all the time as i like to ensure that i have the same time as the local ATC wherever i fly as i fly online, so i am not too sure about the possibility of GMT offsets in these programmes/utilities. CheersPaul

[downscc 1,327]

I think FSUIPC (registered version) has a feature that keeps the MSFS clock within 5 sec of the system clock. Never played with it, but I remember seeing a check box to enable it.

[Flaps30 3]

Thanks guys. I do have the registered version of FSUIPC so I will check that out. Regards, Tom

[tcas_climb 45]

TomAboot the FSUIPC time sync option. It doesnt actually keep your system clock synced to flightsim using the minutes or hours, it keeps it synced using the seconds. So if your flightsim time is different than your system clock, the flightsim clock will not resync to system clock, but the seconds will always match meaning that FS clock wont slow down, so if you pause flightsim, the clock will stop but when you unpause only the seconds on the flightsim clock will resync to system clock.A useful utility called FSRealTime which can be found on AVSIM continually updates flightsim time to system time using hour minutes and seconds. For MY pc it robs aboot 5fps, so i usually just use it after im in the cockpit and then close it and FSUIPC's option will keep the clock from lagging behind.

[jordanal 70]

As a long-time user of both FS Real Time and the FSUIPC sync feature prior to that, I must warn prospective users. If you are a fan of collecting and installing a bunch of AI as do I, there is one draw back of the these time features. As the time is corrected, it can cause havoc with AI accumulating in packs of 100's or even thousands of grouped aircraft when the time is changed. I could watch this on a given live map such those included with FS Flight Keeper or FS Commander. All of the sudden, or especially when coming out of advance time modes such as 2x or 4x, your FPS would tank and all of the sudden you would see large clusters of AI off in the distance. Being such a collector of pax and cargo AI airlines, I have stopped using these time-sync features more than a year ago and have not experienced the formation of AI cluster ever since. This was noted several FS versions ago by Reggie Fields as I discussed it with him at length when I discoverd this issue on my machine. Internal FS time is close enough for my purposes.Regards,

[bob34 124]

>As a long-time user of both FS Real Time and the FSUIPC sync>feature prior to that, I must warn prospective users. If you>are a fan of collecting and installing a bunch of AI as do I,>there is one draw back of the these time features. As the>time is corrected, it can cause havoc with AI accumulating in>packs of 100's or even thousands of grouped aircraft when the>time is changed. I could watch this on a given live map such>those included with FS Flight Keeper or FS Commander. All of>the sudden, or especially when coming out of advance time>modes such as 2x or 4x, your FPS would tank and all of the>sudden you would see large clusters of AI off in the distance.> Being such a collector of pax and cargo AI airlines, I have>stopped using these time-sync features more than a year ago>and have not experienced the formation of AI cluster ever>since. This was noted several FS versions ago by Reggie>Fields as I discussed it with him at length when I discoverd>this issue on my machine. Internal FS time is close enough>for my purposes.>>Regards,I'll be darned. Al - you just solved a mystery that's been bugging me for over a year. The calvary of AI coming at me like a swarm of bees.Gold Star for you Al. Thanks!

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

As a long-time user of both FS Real Time and the FSUIPC sync feature prior to that, I must warn prospective users. If you are a fan of collecting and installing a bunch of AI as do I, there is one draw back of the these time features. As the time is corrected, it can cause havoc with AI accumulating in packs of 100's or even thousands of grouped aircraft when the time is changed. I could watch this on a given live map such those included with FS Flight Keeper or FS Commander. All of the sudden, or especially when coming out of advance time modes such as 2x or 4x, your FPS would tank and all of the sudden you would see large clusters of AI off in the distance. Being such a collector of pax and cargo AI airlines, I have stopped using these time-sync features more than a year ago and have not experienced the formation of AI cluster ever since. This was noted several FS versions ago by Reggie Fields as I discussed it with him at length when I discoverd this issue on my machine. Internal FS time is close enough for my purposes.Regards,

I know this thread's getting a little old, but I thought I'd add something. Any time the FS time is changed by more than a minute or more, the AI refreshes. The updating of the seconds shouldn't trigger anything. Or at least it hasn't in my experience. But manually changing from something like 12:01:59 to 12:02:01 will, for whatever reason, refresh the AI and give you those clusters.

[jordanal 70]

I know this thread's getting a little old, but I thought I'd add something. Any time the FS time is changed by more than a minute or more, the AI refreshes. The updating of the seconds shouldn't trigger anything. Or at least it hasn't in my experience. But manually changing from something like 12:01:59 to 12:02:01 will, for whatever reason, refresh the AI and give you those clusters.

Yes, but almost every time I came out of a 2x or 4x advance-time, or paused long enough to cause a sync-update, I guess the time was always changed by more than a minute because I alway got the "swarm of bees" as was so elequently stated above.Regards,