FG9.3 Some Config Questions

[Guest juvat2]

Hi,I very recently completed the download and I'm very glad I did. From the few flights I've been able to do, I think this is one great simulation of flight. My install isn't without some problems though.Idling at eor, my aircraft (172) tends to drift left in a complete circle ever so slowly. I've been having to command heading hold to compensate(ctrl+H). Re-caled my joystick and still does it. Also when I release brakes and throttle, I really start into a left turn. I sense FG needs some type of joy cal feature.On start-up of the sim I always get an aircraft load error no matter what aircraft I select initially. If I click ok, I can get into the sim. If I repeatedly try and select a different aircraft, I eventually cdt to desktop or worse, lockup and have to restart windows.Also, I've downloaded the scenery just north of what came with the sim download (w130n40.tar.gz) How do I install this scenery?Looking at the pdf keyboard reference I printed, there's nothing listed for external views. Are there external views?To get the sim to run I've had to disable 3D Clouds, all other settings are on.Anyone running this with a Voodoo v5-5500? If so could you let me know your card settings and driver for FG?my pc(home built): win98se, amd 1.4, 512 pc133sdram, v5-5500pci(amigamerlin driver), dx8.1Many more questions; but for later.To all you folks that are selflessly developing and are continuing to developFG, I thank you.Isn't AVSIM the best sight ever? Dedicated forums, library's, screen shots and many other great features. Other sights really ought to "template" what the AVSIM folks are doing here for us all. Outstanding!You all take care,JimB

[Guest daveL]

>Idling at eor, my aircraft (172) tends to drift left in a>complete circle ever so slowly. I've been having to command>heading hold to compensate(ctrl+H). Re-caled my joystick and>still does it. Also when I release brakes and throttle, I>really start into a left turn. I sense FG needs some type of>joy cal feature.>Hi JimB,There are a couple of possible issues biting you here. At rest, the default plane drifts slightly. This appears to be worse with the parking brake on. This is due to problems with the ground reaction code of the FDM used for this plane, and will hopefully get fixed at some point.During the takeoff roll, rudder is needed to keep the aircraft going in a straight line. Apparently most real planes also need rudder input in the takeoff roll. If you only have a joystick, the easiest way to use rudder is with the mouse, holding the left button down.>Also, I've downloaded the scenery just north of what came with>the sim download (w130n40.tar.gz) How do I install this>scenery?>Find the Scenery folder with the default scenery in, and unzip it into that. The folder heirarchy should look something like:Scenery/10x10chunk/1x1chunk/*.btgeg Scenery/w130n40/w127n36/9854623.btg>Looking at the pdf keyboard reference I printed, there's>nothing listed for external views. Are there external views?>Yes - hit V / shift-V to cycle forward and backward through views, ctrl-V to get straight to the cockpit view.>To get the sim to run I've had to disable 3D Clouds, all other>settings are on.>Yes - 3D clouds are still very much simply a demonstration, not a working feature.>Isn't AVSIM the best sight ever? Dedicated forums, library's,>screen shots and many other great features. Other sights>really ought to "template" what the AVSIM folks are doing here>for us all. Outstanding!>Yes, it's good to see FG get a forum! Thanks avsim.Hope some of the above helped!Cheers - Dave

[Guest Aki]

Sounds a bit of the problems I have encountered.First installation on a twin PIII+512 mb + 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1+ W2k.Only few aircrafts did allow me past the aircraft selection, others crashed the program.Those few (the default A4) let select other options, but after splash screen the system hung. Always had to reset Windows.Second installation on IBM laptop (P4+194 mb+ ATI mobility radeon+W2k).OK, but it was slow, but flyable.Third installation on P4+512mb RAMBUS+ Matrox G450+W2k.All aircrafts selectable, but very slow, about 1 frame per second.Found out that my display driver was old, so I replaced it the fresh one. The result was suprising, after splash screen, the system hung!Looks something like a display problem, but what to try?All are OpenGL capable and should work fine on that interface.

[Guest daveL]

I also used to use an Oxygen VX1 with FG on NT4, it used to work but about 1 - 2 years ago a change in one of the libraries FG depends on appeared to tickle a driver bug and it crashes as you describe - I swapped it for a Radeon. Realistically, the VX1 is now sufficiently unusual and outdated that a fix is unlikely.With the mobility Radeon, you might find that disabling the cloud layers speeds things up. If the graphics RAM is fairly small (<32 Meg, say) then renaming the textures.high directory might help - if FG can't find textures.high it will revert to the lower res textures. Also, if you are using 0.9.4, some people find the pa28-161 to give higher framerates than the default c172.Don't know about the Matrox :-( I can only suggest that you try it with 0.9.4 and post to the FG mailing list if it still doesn't work. I have found that both Radeons and GeForces can hang with W2k if using the drivers off the CD, but this is always fixed with the latest drivers from the web.Cheers - Dave

[Guest Aki]

I digged the oldest drivers I could find for VX-1, even some NT4 drivers (suprisingly they worked on W2k system!), but the end result was always the same.It surely looks a display problem as when selecting aircraft, some crash the fgrun.exe and some don't. That pa28-161 crashes fgrun, by the way. There must be some details on the image that uses the library you mentioned.The 0.9.4 does not cure this problem, but makes it faster to test. System does not hung, the program only crashes (to a window Program error, making a log file...).Have not tested the matrox card with 0.9.4..Aki

[Guest Aki]

Matrox card seems to like 0.9.4 version.Only clouds did knock it down (to 1 frame per second).Without clouds it rendered smoothly (even at 1600x1200 screen).Aki