As the title implies is VoxATC still supported by the developer in both support on this site or email AND further development.

 

I am looking to buy a good ATC package, from what I read VoxATC seems to cover real-world procedures better that other packages. One of my criteria for buying software is that its still developing and supported by its developer and not just by the very helpful user community.

 

Glen

Hi Glen,

I believe it is yes. I've Emailed the developer Tegwyn a few times now and had a pretty quick reply each time. I understand he is working on an updated version now but I'm afraid I don't have any details on how that's going or when it's likely to be released, sorry.

Cheers

K

Hi Kevin, thanks for the info.

 

Over the years I have seen developers get bored and lose interest with their projects, FSNav, Squawkbox, Ready for Pushback etc.

 

As mentioned before by others VoxATC is not cheap and I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money on an unfinished product, hence my concern. The majority of support on this site appears to be from VoxATC users rather than the development team, I accept your comment that Tegwyn seems to prefer direct email contact rather than using the forum.

 

At £85 UK Pounds my flight sim enthusiasm says go for it, but my wallet says don't be stupid and save your money :Thinking:

 

Glen

There is a demo you can use to see if it's something that suits you or not.

 

It can certainly be alot of fun to use in the beginning and lots of people enjoy it, however I always felt it was too limited (no vfr, you must be able to practice and recall EXACT phraseology or it wont work) and a bit unpredictable at times (sometimes things went smoothly, sometimes not) for my liking. So taking the price into consideration (plus the cost of buying improved text to speech voices) I decided to pass on it a couple years back. Dunno what it's like these days but from what i read i didnt see much difference in terms of features/functionality)

 

As I said though...try the demo first as it will give you something to think about. it's one of those addons that you'll need to use daily/weekly or you will forget how to operate it (or you can also print out a cheat sheet!), so just be aware of that.

VFR should be supported. There are couple of tutorials in the manual: one for VFR and at least one for IFR.

 

I have only done a couple of IFR flights so far so I can't comment on how well the VFR flying works.

Just to let you guys know, Tegwyn has been working very hard on a major update now for about a year,this will be free for existing users and includes features that that have have mentioned and wanted. Re VFR flight, this is particularly well catered for in the DVD version mentioned particulaly in the United Kingdom where it covers the Lower Airspace Radar services very well. It meticulously follows CAP413, the CAA document. Some proceedures will be updated in the upgrade. The version mentioned includes VoxATC, VoxATC UK and 4 voices. We will let you know via the front page of AVSIM, when this is ready.

I've generally found Vox to be a great add-on, but I have a couple of major niggles with it at the moment. If you fly vfr from small aerodromes it works fine, but I bought it intending to fly from my home airfield, Liverpool EGGP. Now, the normal proc is tower hands over to approach when departing but because of some quirk in the airspace management (I don't understand whether that's a vox problem or something inherently related to FSX) approach never gets a look in and tower just asks you to change to en route frequency. As a rw pilot I found this lack of realism killed the immersion for me a little. Tegwyn is aware of the issue and is working around it for the next release I think?

 

The other two issues are a bit more fundamental and they probably relate to the architecture of Vox so I have no idea whether they will be addressed by the forthcoming update. The first is the availability of rw VRPs for VFR flight. Vox can do this but it is implemented only at Bristol and Cardiff at the moment I think, as it is programmed through .dll's When I spoke to him by email Tegwyn said creating bespoke rw VRPs for other airports was on the list but with many other things so there was no timescale for implementing more. Even Bristol now is out of date concerning the VRP information used. It would be really useful if Vox was set up to enable users to setup VRP's themselves somehow as we could all then share different airport info worldwide.

 

The second niggle is that Vox seems (shoot me down in flames here if I'm wrong!) to use part of FSX's 4gb virtual address space. It seems to be that with heavy addons and scenery like the NGX being used, I get OOM errors using Vox, following investigations using Process Explorer. The amount of VAS Vox takes seems to vary depending on the number of voice packs I have active. I invested a lot of money in every voice pack I could get my hands on, and when they are all in play Vox uses over 1gb of VAS!! Add in the 2.2gb fsx uses just with the NGX on the ground and there's hartdly any left for scenery etc. So I can't fly the NGX in heavy scenery with demanding weather and use Vox with all my voices :( If Vox could be altered so that it runs as a standalone prog outside of FSX and therefore didn't use any of FSX's 4gb VAS then it would be a much more useable product for me. I've emailed Tegwyn tonight about it so when I get an answer I'll update this post. I may be entirely on the wrong track - we'll see!

 

Cheers

k

as for the OOM 4GB VAS , what I saw was that Vox and the voices uses their own process and not piggybacking on the FSX process, what does take a lot of Memory

from FSX due to Vox is the AI, if you lower the amount of AI Vox injects that could help.

another thing is that you most likely on overshooting the 4GB VAS is if you increase the LOD settings from the default 4.4 to 6.5 or even as lower as 5.5

(depends on the richness of the Scenery at that area) .

that is a known Memory killer. also if you use UTX and/or GEX (I have noticed mainly with GEX) with the combination of a high LOD , it would overshoot the 4GB VAS.

I would advise you to try and lower the LOD to 4.5.

that is what killed my FSX causing it to crash on an OMM due to the fact is passed the 4GB VAS.

once I lowered the LOD back to 4.5, the OOM was never seen again.

no matter my sceneries, NGX, UTX,GEX,Vox, etc.

Increasing your RAM is the best thing you can do with VoxATC, especially when using additional voices.

I went from 6Gb to 12Gb and had no issues thereafter.

Increasing your RAM is the best thing you can do with VoxATC, especially when using additional voices.

I went from 6Gb to 12Gb and had no issues thereafter.

Not relevant in this/his case, as we are talking about the Virtual Memory Addressing of the FSX Process which is limited to 4GB (like any other 32Bit process regardless on what OS it runs on), not the General RAM available in the Machine/OS.

Not relevant in this/his case, as we are talking about the Virtual Memory Addressing of the FSX Process which is limited to 4GB (like any other 32Bit process regardless on what OS it runs on), not the General RAM available in the Machine/OS.

Fair enough, but those additional TTS voices do use up a ton of RAM.

Just look at the processes in the task manager when you have a few loaded up.

If your PC has a modest amount of RAM you will end up page-swapping which will cause trouble in VoxATC and FSX.

With 12Gb I have no ill effects loading the extra VoxPop voices plus a bunch of Ivona stuff I bought on special.

that is true in general. yes Vox voices would suck up RAM from your system, but not from your FSX VAS Memory

but their own VAS Memory.

in this case Kevin complaint about OOM FSX crash which is solo related to the 4GB VAS limit.

Just to let you guys know, Tegwyn has been working very hard on a major update now for about a year,this will be free for existing users and includes features that that have have mentioned and wanted. Re VFR flight, this is particularly well catered for in the DVD version mentioned particulaly in the United Kingdom where it covers the Lower Airspace Radar services very well. It meticulously follows CAP413, the CAA document. Some proceedures will be updated in the upgrade. The version mentioned includes VoxATC, VoxATC UK and 4 voices. We will let you know via the front page of AVSIM, when this is ready.

 

About to get VoxATC, if I may query re this. I'm not clear "The version mentioned" - does this mean the DVD version or the one Tegwyn is working on? I know the download at the moment is not the UK version and no voices, but I believe it does do the mid-Atlantic change? I've also been reading the manual (odd, I know!) and see response for example "one two two decimal seven five {callsign}. Does that mean if I use "over to one two two decimal seven five for {callsign} as in FSX ATC it wil get thrown out or are extra (not wrong) words ignored?. I hear all sorts on real ATC. not expecting Vox to understand humour of course . . .

 

Thanks, Mike

About to get VoxATC, if I may query re this. I'm not clear "The version mentioned" - does this mean the DVD version or the one Tegwyn is working on? I know the download at the moment is not the UK version and no voices, but I believe it does do the mid-Atlantic change? I've also been reading the manual (odd, I know!) and see response for example "one two two decimal seven five {callsign}. Does that mean if I use "over to one two two decimal seven five for {callsign} as in FSX ATC it wil get thrown out or are extra (not wrong) words ignored?. I hear all sorts on real ATC. not expecting Vox to understand humour of course . . .

 

Thanks, Mike

 

birdman,

 

As it is now, you need to read back exactly what the text on the VoxATC dialog says or else VoxATC responds with 'Last aircraft say again'.

 

BUT after some years using VoxATC and listening to real ATC, I phrase my request/answer after what I believe is true to real-life ATC comms.

Before I get the response above I just double-click the PTT right after and then VoxATC accepts it. Thats the way it was designed. Neat huh?

That'll help - time to have a go. Thanks Michael