SB very slow on WideFS

[Guest zip]

I just joined VATSIM last weekend, and entered my fourth day in trying to come up with a working solution. I tried, and failed, to run SB on my FS9 box, and it was recommended to run it on a separate machine over wideFS anyway for stability and frame rates.My setup:Running FS9 with FSUIPC 3.2 (registered) and WideFS (latest), and FS Navigator. The primary PC is an AMD FX-51 based box running XP SP1a, with 1Gb of memory and a an AT9800 running at 2.2GHz or thereabouts, which in the Intel world is over a 3GHz equivalent.The wideFS PC is a 2.2GHz P4 with 1GB memory and an NVidia 5900 ultra. I also use ActiveSky 2004 and Radar contact 3.1 on this machine (when not online) with much success. Also running ServInfo 2.2 with the gauges over WideFS with no problems, and I've downloaded AVC and tested voice, but didn't get far enough to be able to use it.The network is a switched ethernet using TCP/IP in a standard NAT configuration with a cable modem for the uplink to the outside world. The firewall is a hardware firewall, and presented no particular problems when I ran SB on the FS9 machine (able to view other people, and file a flight plan, but I experienced some random stability issues with FS9 with SB running on the same box.Both PCs run Service pack 1A of XP and all the critical fixes issued as of last week.I've modified my squawkbox.ini file to include the "widefs=3" line, and am getting the proper override message when SB starts up. No network issues to find and/or connect to sessions, all appears to be well there, and very stable except for two problems:1) upon loading, SB systematically complains it cannot find the CSL definition file in its main folder. The shortcut is set to start in this folder, and for good measure, I've add the the path to the system path (just in case). To no avail. I've tried to run it from WideFS directly or manually, same story.2) after loading in SB Host, SB is very, very slow. This is without running anything other than SB Relay and SB Host. It is so bad that it's not usable at all: example: a right click on the menu takes up to 10 seconds to show up. I am getting communication to the FS PC because i'm seeing the messages from SB on the FS box, and it's working "normally" as far as I can tell. SB Relay shows all the messages and no errors. Loading a flight plan into SB works, even if it takes eons to get there (and because of 1, the CSL for my plane isn't available from teh drop down). Hitting the connect button doesn't seem to do a whole lot either.I'm perplexed. It doesn't appear to me that we're running out of memory of CPU "oomf", task manager shows plenty to spare. I tried the other add-ons (ActiveSky and SevInfo, both work perfectly at normal speed, at the same time SB is still thinking about where the mouse was minutes ago). The load order is correct (I think, start FS9 on main PC, start WideFS on remote PC, start SB Relay on remote PC, start MP connection on FS9 PC, start SB Host on remote PC, start SB on remote PC)Any help would be appreciated as I'm dying to get online, but after four days of trying different things and reading all the info on all the possible issues others have, I'm still stuck.Regards,EM

[Vulcan]

From someone who runs on 2PCs without any problem, but without a router :-)First, why are you running SBHost, you don't need it when running 2PCs?Second, have you reinstalled SB since setting up the second PC or are you using SB as it was installed for single PC oepration?Third, have you looked at the Pilot Resource Centre on the main VATSIM site to see if there is anything there that would help?I run SBrelay on the same PC as FS, others run it on the 'Net connected PC, so it looks like it can run on both.My method of starting.Run SBrelay and wait for it to say I can connect SB & FS9.Start FS9 ->MP and JOIN the SBRelay session.(I am on BB so don't need to dial up for a 'Net connection). Start WideFS and wait for it to connect to FS, leave the WideFS window open so I can see SB when it starts.Start SB, search for MP session leaving the IP address box empty.Join the SBrelay session and away I go, no problem.CSL folder is copied to FS9aircraft and the 'aircraft.csl' file is renamed to 'aircraft.cfg'CSL_ICAO.csv file is in the same directory as the SB executable and, like you, the shortcut is set to run in the main SB directory.If you have not reinstalled SB since changing to 2 PCs that *may* be the problem as you use a different version of SB.Right click on squawkbox.exe and check the version, if it is 2.3.0.5 you have the wrong version, you need 2.3.0.4HTHIf all of that didn't help but think further discussion might help PM me.Rgds

[Guest zip]

Thanks for the pointers.I found one area of trouble. I changed in widefs from the IP address to the name of the FS9 PC where wideserver runs, and the speed issue went away.Why that would make a difference beats me, because the other apps were not affected.I'll check the version of SB, because I do believe I'm running .0.5, not .0.4.According to the instructions, SB Host is necessary - is this incorrect? I tried to run without, and I get the "unable to enumerate hosts" error, and the docs on SBRelay seem to say you need SB Host.Regardless, I seem to have made progress by leaps and bounds, and thanks again for the info.

[Vulcan]

Don't know what happened but I did reply yesterday, however accessing the forums lately has become something of a hit and miss affair with forum posts from me vanishing :-(SBHost is only needed if you are running on one PC which most people are and is why it is included in the SBRelay docs.SBHost came into being with FS2k2 I think to overcome a problem.When using Widefs it 'pretends' to be FS98 to other programs such as SB so you don't need SBHost and why you need SB .0.4 and not .0.5'Enumerate hosts' has come up before but I cannot remember the solution, sorry. However I would do a search for that phrase here and in the VATSIM forum or someone who can remember the solution may chip in.One solution, but cannot remember if it is only for when SB cannot find the session, is to disable the uPnP service in Win XP, you might try that as it is easy to enable if it doesn't work.HTH

[Guest mmorrell]

That is odd... it doen't make sense that name resolution would make a difference... quite the contrary, really.Never the less... good to know - I am getting to the point in my cockpit where I will be ready to start flying online.Question - do you find that there is sufficient voice controllers out there? My cockpit will not have a keyboard or a mouse in it.Thanks!

[Vulcan]

Almost all controllers now use voice Mitch even though primary communication on VATSIM is text. By that I mean all controllers and pilots must be able to use text, voice is optional.Also the new voice client (AVC) is far better than RW was.