Hello All,Currently I'm running MCE with RC4 and have been enjoying how the two are able to tie together, but I recently dl'd Vox6 and it appears to be alot more fluid than MCE/RC4 when it comes to recognizing my commands. I'm wondering if anybody who has tried both setups, can tell me that I won't be wasting my money getting another ATC program. I have yet to try the VFR portion to see if it's worth the penny, but the IFR seems sweet and the SID/STAR addition is cool. Just wondering what others think.

I too would like an answer to Spencer's question, I want to buy it but I just need a couple more tyhings to put me over the edge.

For me it's a big difference if some software listens to you and then orders another software to chose out of given options (like your current setup with the "tuned" non-voiced ATC solution does) or if the thing is just one module, listing and don't necessary following the small menu but a large variety of ATC related options.Maybe that's what you are describing with the more fluent experience when using VoxATC.I had both big non-voiced ATC solutions before (RC and PFE, mainly PFE later) and was very critical towards VoxATC. I applauded to the trial option and later bought version 5 but I didn't get to the point where I had big fun. The voice stuff was very nice and immersive but e. g. the SID/STAR management drove me nuts. You can still read my older thread around here.As version 6 came, a whole lot of critical things just disappeared and the (in my eyes) fantastic and easy implementation of current SID/STAR was added. I haven't been using the VFR option much as IFR really kicks a.. on this software and don't needs any special setup like seen on the competitors (which are none in my eyes, the voice part there is button and menu based, VoxATC is flexible and really listens). As even UT2 based traffic can be easily included in No.6, my personal package of complains is gone.So it's somehow difficult to say if you will regret a change. While the trial period is a fine offer, it might be too short for getting to know the program if the days go by and you just can test one hour a day or so in average. Agreed.It will be difficult to answer the question about which combination of programs will serve your needs for an offline ATC solution. I'm looking at VoxATC being competitor-free with the real integration of the voice and therefor highly recommend it as the ATC to use when not flying online, at online breaks or times with too low coverage there. The other solution (the "forced" voice on the button based programs) is no option for me there but it might well be for others. So personal preference will point in the right direction.From the main guidance techniques, VoxATCs has not to fear the others but also don't clearly outperforms them, although I like the phraseology in it very much and never had difficulties when using it on VATSIM too.Another cost expensive point from version 5 has vanished too. You don't need to buy some voices now if Microsoft Anna annoys you after a while. VoxPop Voices come for free and just need some RAM amount to run fine. So the choice still stays on your side as you judge by your preference.

CoolIp thanks, for the inputs. Still have 5 more days of trial I believe. Still trying t get used to that whole load flightplan/save/exit load scheme , I also wished they didn't drop FS9 support. Not sure if you've tried the MCE/RC4, because short of VFR it's really quite good also. You are not limited to what is dispalyed on the menu and beleive me there is a large amount of options and ways to speak it. Going to play with VoxATC somemore, I want to do try it on a longhaul since on my little neck of the woods I fly it's not much chatter going on.

Still trying t get used to that whole load flightplan/save/exit load scheme

That scheme luckily isn't current anymore in version 6.Just

1. load a flight plan into FSX when you and your desired plane are at the gate
2. save that flight plan (FSX might ask for "overwrite" there, just say "ok")
3. save the actual flight
4. start VoxATC

No need to exit anymore or something. I don't know if this big change is clearly mentioned in the version 6 manuals but I think so.By the way, those guys use VoxATC to. Might be the older version though. http://www.pmflight.co.uk/goto/promo

Well this morning, I ran both VOXATC 6 and my hybrid MCE/RC4 using the same flightplans to see what each offered. Things I like/dislike;VOXATC= Don't know what to say? just read the script :) Still don't know what to say, just say anything. VOX appears not to utilize speech recog when the script is up. I just started blowing into the Mic to move on. VOX also appears to handhold you thru to the runway, try and deviate from its plan and you get the "Cannot support this at this time". MCE/RC4=plan to invest alot of time in Training if you want an acceptable experience. Plan to learn what and how to say it if you want RC4 to recognize your desires. Also choose a good easily recognized callsign, due to every transmission will get checked for it. Lot more repeating until you and the computer are both trained up.Environment/AI= VOX IMO suffers in my setup, I have My TrafficX and in major Airports there is a lot of activity that VOX appears to not register while RC4 does. Also even with quality added on voices VOX sounds horrible compared to RC4s. I personally don't like RC4s AI Chatter (too much going on) so I won't talk about that.In flight Calls: I tested an emergency landing once airborne and VOX(Maybe I did it wrong) could not register, nor did I see an option for Emergency? RC4 registered my emergency with nearest airport with vectors.I'm looking thru VOX's manual to see maybe I'm overlooking something, but the options for ATC seem kind of low. It seems that your flight plan is scripted from start to finish with no room for deviations. (Please correct me if wrong) I thought the voice recog was better than MCE/RC4s, but now I see it's because it doesn't have to check what you are saying only that you responded to its prompts. I do like the ability for VFR flight using VoX, but for my cross country trex think I'm more at ease with RC4. Also I like tha VoX is far more forgiving than MCE/RC4 for protocol. Just my .02 cents.

Interesting report, ohsirus.I'd like to comment on some things as one maybe has to look at them from the concept side. I'm stepping a bit through your given order but I'm willing to catch all points.First, the voices and their quality.While the voices on the non-voiced (meaning not naturally voice driven) addons like RC, PFE or even the default FSX ATC come in large bits, the voice driven solution on VoxATC works on a word by word basis. This is the advantage when looking for flexibility and the disadvantage when going for an even sounding voice output.Imagine the simple "climb and maintain" sentence, together with a FL like e.g. "320". This sentence comes as [climb and maintain] (one big phrase, accurately pronounced) on the non-voice driven addons while the numbers then come [3] [2] [0] (separately pronounced, just like in real cockpits).Now, VoxATC simply drives your external voices, no build in ones and therefor the same sentence comes like [climb] [and] [maintain] together with the also separated numbers. So the actual sound will always be less even or consistent as every word is spoken as a separate one while the non-voiced addons use big pre-spoken phrases, sounding more evenly as they were recorded for this special ATC purpose.So while this word by word approach offers quite some flexibility, it depends hugely on the voices you use. If they were recorded for reading texts or with a "funny" accent, you get in (audio only) trouble when using them on typical aviation phrases together with the word by word technique (which is the only technique on the current text-to-speech operation).The free VoxPop voices therefor offer just one approach to the actual sound of voices in your sim and will never reach the nice and even sounds of pre-recorder phrases. But, of course, the weight of this point is a very personal one. I sometimes have to laugh about my used voices as they pronounce e. g. "glidepath" or even the simple word "wind" very funny sometimes. Well, those voices I use weren't made for aviation at all and I think that they therefor struggle hard with some terms. I've used the free VoxPop voices too but they ate too much of my RAM, so I went back to my buy from the version 5 times of VoxATC.Concerning the traffic detection in VoxATC, the clear answer is that VoxATC generates its own traffic. You can adjust the amount with the slider in the settings tool and this amount will be the only traffic VoxATC sees. I had some time with version 5 where UT2 didn't work (in version 6 it does well though) and I therefor had some VoxATC generated traffic (it used the default FSX models there) together with UT2 generated. The only models that are recognized were and still are the VoxATC generated ones only.So your impression is correct. The approach of the VoxATC traffic is an active one, it generates its own, while the other addons just detect traffic and don't depend on the actual traffic addon you use.Downside or advantages? Well, the active stuff really gets controlled by VoxATC, the detection stuff just get reported in a way to make it look like the ATC addon controls them. Downsides are that the fine logic of some traffic addons disappears with VoxATC. E. g. no UT2 flight plans are noticed, just the models are used. So every time table with somehow accurate real world flight data is lost while you "just get some traffic". But now, when VoxATC reports traffic on final, it even controls it while the other addons just watch the show and have no opportunity to really control the movement.For me this isn't a problem so far as the active traffic from VoxATC behaves good and often enough uses somehow correct names and models on the airlines. It won't catch up on accurate plans but you always have some coverage, even at not so busy airports.I haven't experienced VoxATC to be so strict on the actual plans, taxi routes and phraseology. In fact, you see me quite often reporting about the big flexibility of it, while I was forced to press some numbers on the other addons and didn't have an option to press the right one when the addon didn't detect me to be at the right spot.Are you aware of the text options in VoxATC? You don't necessarily need them but you can always press zero "0" and see what could be interesting for you. )Make sure the VoxATC window (it's actually a gauge) is visible, you can define keys or buttons for it to come up.)As said, you are most of the time able to just speak your wishes and reports (and VoxATC detects them), so this menu is a help, not a must.A slight behavior advice might be to let VoxATC finish its instructions first. For example, if it commands you to descend while you would like to be on cruise level for some extra minutes, just acknowledge the last "order" with e. g. "descend and maintain FL 120" (while you are at FL340 or so) and thereafter request your current flight level again. Otherwise, you will very likely receive some "unable this time" and a constant nag about descending now. Asking later, your chance is high to stay up high and ask for a descend later. This asking can once again be done via the zero "0" menu or just by talking, without a menu. That's the flexibility I was speaking of.Real world ATC might not be that nice on wishes though. :( Luckily, even VATSIM one simetimes is, so I'm ok with the realism here.So "don't know what to say" gets some lift here and VoxATC always prompts you what it currently expects you to do and offers some text you can follow if it e. g. says "make contact". You can follow this text but you only have to use some signal words in it, so no simple reading the prompt needed there.Concerning the taxi route. I deviate very often from it and never ran into problems or constant nagging from VoxATC (version 6) there. Even if it doesn't detect that I'm at the entry point of the runway or if I want to cross a runway, backtaxi or something .. zero "0" always helps and offers you some options like "report ready for departure" which then works fine.I saw some guys struggling with VoxATC because their mic/voice detection setup (for and in VoxATC) wasn't correct. Since you already use some voice soft, maybe you set up windows to use a new speech profile for you to go for VoxATC. Don't worry, you can have many of those profiles, so the old RC4 based one doesn't get deleted. Be aware that VoxATC listens on the first try and accepts anything on the second. So even this mic blowing might get you further, but of course isn't a solution when you are looking for real voice recognition. So really double check that the mic is working in VoxATC. The current device used can be set up via the VoiceConfig tool.The intention of accepting even a mic blowing user on the second try is to avoid that one gets stuck on e. g. the approach with a constantly asking ATC "say again"? So this is be design.Emergencies work in every flight phase and should take in account which aircraft you use (make sure to enable VoxATC with the right aircraft and don't change it later. Always disable VoxATC first, change the a/c and enable it again). If you again use zero "0" inflight, you can see the option "declare emergency" there. Enable it and get some help on what to say there.As said, you don't actually need this menu, but it's there to help you when looking for the right phraseology.

CoolIP, You know VOX doesn't have the market on AIControl. RC4 has AI ControlAI interactions including:

-Ground traffic frozen to prevent runway incursions while you are on final.

-Chatter appropriate to their actions.

-Detecting AI planes that will cause a conflict.

-When you are on final, slow faster planes behind you, and speed up slower

planes in front of you.Pressing "0"I was aware of the "0" press, but still didn't find as much selection as I thought.ex I did a runway cross and then chose to go back and was no longer given any option but proceed to runway. I'm sitting here looking thru the manuals now for what is available.mic/voice detection setup VoxATC works great out the box or maybe the MCE profile is so extensive it crosses over. Trust me training a full MCE profile is time consuming, but the amount of options you have is quite overwhelming. Trying to not compare MCE to VoX, just voice RC4 to VoX. Think you were under the impression you were limited to what was in the box at the time, but MCE interfaces with it as transparent as VoX is.VoicesStill RC4 hands down.What I'm really wondering besides VoX's voice feature, does it offer more in the realm of ATC than RC4? I can't fully test it like I want, got wifey drama.

Seems like you've changed your font to bigger values, ohsirus, but, be assured, I was able to read the smaller one too. :(First of all, that drama you spoke of is the important thing for you now. Flight sim stuff can come later.Thanks for giving me an update on the RC4 traffic features. Seems like I've missed some functions over the time. But, getting back to the actual topic, it seems like the choice is very preference depended now while I wonder a bit about the missing options in your zero "0" menu there.If the indexer ran and knows the airport, you surely get some options for taxi, flight, emergencies (later) and so on. If you chose to backtaxi, you then should taxi to the end of the assigned runway to let VoxATC detect that you are ready for departure. So the missing options at that point just show that the taxi procedure wasn't finished until then and VoxATC waits for you to complete your latest request until going one step further (takeoff).If there are not enough options shown when you press zero "0", make sure to be able to see them all. This sometimes requires to expand that little VoxATC window by grabbing it with the mouse on the lower border, just like you would do on Windows views.

Ohsirus,

You know VOX doesn't have the market on AIControl. RC4 has AI ControlAI interactions including:-Ground traffic frozen to prevent runway incursions while you are on final.-Chatter appropriate to their actions.-Detecting AI planes that will cause a conflict.-When you are on final, slow faster planes behind you, and speed up slower planes in front of you.

This could indicate that you have some 'local' traffic files other than MYT somewhere in your FSX installation.Find them and disable them.

Pressing "0"I was aware of the "0" press, but still didn't find as much selection as I thought.ex I did a runway cross and then chose to go back and was no longer given any option but proceed to runway. I'm sitting here looking thru the manuals now for what is available.

Give VoxATC a chance here. You crossed a runway, but then decided to go back :( VoxATC will expect you to follow procedures, just as a controller on VATSIM/IVAO would do.

VoicesStill RC4 hands down.

I had about 15 voices for the VoxATC version 5.3, but I think that the new VoxPop voices with volume and rate set up correctly, are far superior than my 'old' voices. Comes very close to ATC 'chatter'.

Coolip sorry about the Fontsize, was working on my netbook and it looked too small on my screen. I still haven't wrote it off yet, I also checked an older Flightsim post where a guy addressed alot of my questions.

No problem here I have the glasses on :(