Hi all,

 

I am considering MCE but my only real interest as a mainly GA flyer is in the ability to voice interact with the FS ATC.

 

Is MCE worth the cost for this feature alone?

 

Thanks,

 

Glenn

 

Ah just seen that there is a demo. Probably best to give it a try myself!

Definitely yes IMO. That's all I use it for. Like you, I fly mainly VFR, so the crew interaction , good though it is, is not relevant to my environment.

Thanks Dick...

 

Do you still have to add the edit to the file to disable co-pilot totally?

 

From reading the manual it seems that can be done from within the user interface?

 

Am I missing something?

 

Thanks,

 

Glenn

Well - you csn disable everything except ATC from the user interface, and that should have the same effect. But to be sure (to be sure) that the copilot is completely dormant, I believe the "DickIsHere" edit is pretty much sledgehammer failsafe :smile2:

 

The FS++ folks may wish to comment !

Don't write-off the co-pilot. I'm new to MCE and bought it thinking I just wanted to use it for ATC. It works great for ATC but I've found the co-pilot to be handy to have and it adds some immersion and fun. But as stated above, you can quite easily disable the features you don't want.

 

Absolutely well worth the money regardless of how you use it.

 

Randall

^{I've found the co-pilot to be handy to have and it adds some immersion and fun}

 

^{Agreed. It's just a tad disconcerting in a single-seat a/c !}

Well,

 

I have had the demo for 3 days. First off I had several issues with it just crashing at startup and disappearing from the running programs list. (Yes, I have UAC totally off)

 

A reinstall to a custom location seemed to fix this.

 

Next, I ran the training for ATC. Then I finally got into the user interface of the actual program. There were options in there that are not even mentioned in the manual. There are also issues with clicking the modules that you want to enable or disable in the fact that there is no response to the clicks half the time.

 

Then when I finally got into the sim itself, the ATC barely recognized anything that I said. (yes, I was holding the PTT button and hearing the static effect)

 

All in all, it was completely frustrating. I have had zero issues with voice commands in Fs2Crew for the J41 so I was expecting better with this. (I have a $60 headset with noise cancelling mic so I know the hardware is ok)

 

To top it all, for some reason now when I start the MCXP program, it fires up the windows speech recog module on my windows desktop, but its in the 'off' mode. The mic symbol now also shows up in the tray at the bottom right which it did not do before.

 

All I can say is that I am very glad that I had an option for the demo before dropping $59.99 on this!

 

I'm sure there are things on my end that are wrong, and I would gladly try and work through it, but my demo time is pretty much up anyway. I just don't think it should be this difficult. All I want is the same level of performance that guy in the Cessna 172 circuits video was getting. I really dont care about any of the other functions (only fly single seat stuff really) so it might be an overkill and over-expensive addon for me anyway.

 

No disrespect to anyone here, just sharing my experience.

 

 

^{Agreed. It's just a tad disconcerting in a single-seat a/c !}

 

Oh, that kind of GA!

 

Well,

 

I have had the demo for 3 days. First off I had several issues with it just crashing at startup and disappearing from the running programs list. (Yes, I have UAC totally off)

 

A reinstall to a custom location seemed to fix this.

 

Next, I ran the training for ATC. Then I finally got into the user interface of the actual program. There were options in there that are not even mentioned in the manual. There are also issues with clicking the modules that you want to enable or disable in the fact that there is no response to the clicks half the time.

 

Then when I finally got into the sim itself, the ATC barely recognized anything that I said. (yes, I was holding the PTT button and hearing the static effect)

 

All in all, it was completely frustrating. I have had zero issues with voice commands in Fs2Crew for the J41 so I was expecting better with this. (I have a $60 headset with noise cancelling mic so I know the hardware is ok)

 

To top it all, for some reason now when I start the MCXP program, it fires up the windows speech recog module on my windows desktop, but its in the 'off' mode. The mic symbol now also shows up in the tray at the bottom right which it did not do before.

 

All I can say is that I am very glad that I had an option for the demo before dropping $59.99 on this!

 

I'm sure there are things on my end that are wrong, and I would gladly try and work through it, but my demo time is pretty much up anyway. I just don't think it should be this difficult. All I want is the same level of performance that guy in the Cessna 172 circuits video was getting. I really dont care about any of the other functions (only fly single seat stuff really) so it might be an overkill and over-expensive addon for me anyway.

 

No disrespect to anyone here, just sharing my experience.

 

I had absolutley no problems installing and running the demo. Contact the developers. They've been known to extend the demo time limit in the relatively rare (?) times that people had trouble with it.

 

Randall

Glenn,

 

The program has way too many options to list, it is not like some of the other voice add ons where you are limited to a set of responses and commands or it doesnt work, you could say it has a more human feel to it, for that reason, you just wont find all the commands or syntax listed in the documentation.

 

I have been using MCE for a year now and i am still discovering new things it can do, but to be honest, i never got the demo to work for me, i had not read about the differences between Flight mode and Dialogue mode, thus i could not get it work, so i bought it "sight unseen".

 

At the time i had a very cheap $10 headset and when it died i upgraded to a noise canceling one, my interaction with all things voice control, including MCE, has been superb. I have not had to do any tweaks to my setup, just turn it on and go, so there are issues in yours that need to be looked at.

 

My suggestion is to fire off an email to the FS++ team, they will respond fairly quickly, and from personal experience these guys are actual C++ programmers with extensive experience in Windows, and of course, the relevant SDKs so they can help diagnose issues for you.

Absolutely agree with WR269. Any issues with this product, email the developers direct. That's the way they prefer to provide support, and they are very responsive.They will work with you to resolve any issues you have.

Absolutely agree with WR269. Any issues with this product, email the developers direct. That's the way they prefer to provide support, and they are very responsive.They will work with you to resolve any issues you have.

 

+2. They're great. I email them quite a bit trying to get them to add features haha. They always respond within a day and are very helpful. I wasn't too bowled over by the demo either but I took a punt based on the review by Chock and I can't fly without MCE now.

I found a similar thing with ATC at first.

 

Two things helped:

1. I increased the speed setting in the MCE window, I must talk fast I guess.

2. I found the PDF document that lists the common ATC interactions can use.

 

It seems to work better when I have a flight plan as well, but maybe this is just in my mind?

Well,

 

To top it all, for some reason now when I start the MCXP program, it fires up the windows speech recog module on my windows desktop, but its in the 'off' mode. The mic symbol now also shows up in the tray at the bottom right which it did not do before.

 

I'm sure there are things on my end that are wrong, and I would gladly try and work through it, but my demo time is pretty much up anyway. I just don't think it should be this difficult. All I want is the same level of performance that guy in the Cessna 172 circuits video was getting.

 

Sorry to hear the Demo didn’t work out for you.

 

The Windows speech bar appears at the top most likely because you turned “Exclusive access to recognizer” option in <Command> tab, off.

 

The preferred method is to run the speech engine inside the MCE process, that way there is no interference from Windows trying to interpret “start engine one” as “start Notepad”. All voice commands are intended for the simulator.

 

However, the option is there for people who for some reason (maybe have other speech enabled applications running in parallel) want to run the speech engine in “shared mode”.

 

Of all the features, the ATC feature is the most challenging one.

 

The PTT button plays a very subtle part. In order to manage the thousands of voice commands available, when you hold the button down, all voice commands for interacting with FO are suspended, and those for ATC are enabled. The opposite happens when you release the button.

 

Release the button too early for example and you end up with the ATC context disabled before any recognition has taken place. Always wait until your message has been spoken completely before releasing.

 

Also, to optimise the ATC feature there are two different grammars. One optimised for airliners (example KLM 143, Speedbird 1243 Golf, United 236..) and another one for general aviation traffic (with call-signs like Cessna Mike Charlie Sierra, Mooney Tango Bravo one).

 

At runtime, MCE will load the relevant grammar based on the settings it finds for the loaded aircraft. You may want to check (in aircraft settings->details) that you have the correct call sign, and that no "flight number or airline" name is assigned for a GA aircraft.

 

Next comes the challenge of speaking correct ATC phraseology.

 

While real world pilots will be at ease, novice users will have to go through a learning curve.

 

MCE constantly monitors what's on the ATC menu. It doesn't just link what you say to a keyboard key and shoot it to the simulator hoping for the best (as for example VAC does).

 

For example, if you acknowledge, "clear for takeoff runway 24L United 874", although acknowledgments always use the keyboard "1", MCE will not select that unless the option - Acknowledge takeoff clearance is there.

 

Who knows the menu might have changed, and you end up selecting [1 - Tune whatever on XXX.XX frequency] by accident. Not exactly what you want.

 

Needless to say, you can only make requests or acknowledgments that are part of the ATC menu.

 

There is one tutorial for native ATC. Suggest you start there:

 

Start->All Programs->Multi Crew Experience->Paper Tutorials->IFR Native FSX & FS9 ATC.

 

 

You also need to speak your message swiftly. Even with “speech pace” slider in <Command> page set to slow, if you pause for more than 1 second, the speech engine will consider that you’ve finished speaking and will try to match your speech to one of the existing rules.

 

Most people trying the Demo out would typically use all the features first, then later when they register, start disabling stuff they don’t need.

 

For example when using MCE with fs2crew you have to keep in mind that the other software will also be listening to what you say, hence the need to mute the fs2crew recognition when talking to ATC.

 

Finally, MCE user interface is not meant to display with the simulator in full screen mode.

 

You may get it to display temporarily, but trying to interact with it in that mode is not recommended.

 

If you want the extended Demo, please contact [email protected], and we will send you a private link.

 

Regards,

If you want the extended Demo, please contact [email protected], and we will send you a private link.

 

Thanks for your excellent response. I have sent an email to the support address.

 

Regards,

 

Glenn

Well, Im pleased to report that FS++ allowed me to extend my trial. They also gave me some instructions to fully remove the previous installation and start again.

 

I have just finished a 2 hour session on FSX with full voice interaction with ATC! Worked perfectly this time so I have no idea what was wrong initially.

 

Also had a little fun getting the co-pilot to do everything for me!

 

Looking forward to exploring more during the trial period, but based on this first 2 hour session I am pretty sure it will be a keeper.

 

One question - When I installed first time there was an option to adjust the static volume when the PTT button was pressed. This appears to have been removed in the latest version. Am I imagining things?