As a TechNet subscriber, I updated to Windows 8.1 RTM last night, and unfortunately, the joystick problem still persists.  Bummer.  The quest for an ideal solution continues.  I may, ultimately, have to go back to Windows 7.

 

As for how FSX runs in Windows 8.1, it's flawless with excellent FPS (slightly better than Windows 7 for my setup).  Did a 2 hour flight in the PMDG 777 and all was just fine, except, of course, for the joystick problem. 

 

too bad FSX requires windows; (of course Xplane can run on MacOSX) but this would be a good opportunity for Apple to step in and pick up the slack Microsoft is leaving behind I'd switch to Apple if FSX could run natively on it and if I didn't have to acquire apple hardware to have apple OS.

Has anyone used FSXAssist? Does it fix the joystick problem since most people are talking about it.

Has anyone used FSXAssist? Does it fix the joystick problem since most people are talking about it.

 

I'm also interested in the answer to this. Been running FSX on Vista now for a few weeks and even though it's the most stable I've had it compared to Win 7 or 8 I find that I actually get worse performance overall with terrible FPS especially around 3rd party airports and FTX AU scenery.

 

I suspect that the Vista NVidia driver isn't as good and would consider going back to Win 8 if FSXAssist solves this problem once and for all.

 

 

As a TechNet subscriber, I updated to Windows 8.1 RTM last night, and unfortunately, the joystick problem still persists.

 

That is bad news, but we can't expect much from Microsoft at this point. FSX is a dingy being towed behind the sinking MS battleship. Probably the only real solution is for a third party to make a new version of DINPUT8.DLL

I'm also interested in the answer to this. Been running FSX on Vista now for a few weeks and even though it's the most stable I've had it compared to Win 7 or 8 I find that I actually get worse performance overall with terrible FPS especially around 3rd party airports and FTX AU scenery.

 

I suspect that the Vista NVidia driver isn't as good and would consider going back to Win 8 if FSXAssist solves this problem once and for all.

 

I have FSXAssist, there seems to be some technical issues; I don't know if its my PC or the software but right now its not doing what its intended to do but so far I haven't had any joystick dropuots today oddly...

 

 

 

That is bad news, but we can't expect much from Microsoft at this point. FSX is a dingy being towed behind the sinking MS battleship. Probably the only real solution is for a third party to make a new version of DINPUT8.DLL

 

 

Yeah well I was starting to like/trust M$ after win7 after they had done so well going from XP and then they bombed out on win8; I so want to get out from under windows but its just not possible.

I have FSXAssist, there seems to be some technical issues; I don't know if its my PC or the software but right now its not doing what its intended to do but so far I haven't had any joystick dropuots today oddly...

 

 

 

 

 

 what are the issues?

 what are the issues?

 

Exactly. Would be interested to know.

 

I'm willing to setup a test bed of Win 8 and FSX, PMDG 777, FTX etc on another hard drive with FSXAssist since it's only about $12 or so then test it for a few weeks till I'm 100% satisfied there are no more issues. I can then image it across to my main SSD.

Like i said before i am tired of having this issue. i cant do any flights with the pmdg 777. and i am wondering if i should to go to windows 7 because this small issue that should not be there in the first place  is holding me back from flying in fsx. so i am hoping microsoft can fix this problem some how put this in the next update for windows 8. 

 what are the issues?

 

Right now FSX Assist closes after FSX loads even though "close after load" is unchecked (otherwise this would be correct if it were ticked) but since it was unticked it still closes anyway so therefore the app can't do what it is supposed to do which is to poll the joystick so it won't disconnect but like I said it can't because it closes so it defeats the whole point of the app in the first place.

 

This could simply be an issue with other things on my PC so I'm trying to figure out how to get the log files to send to the developer; I am not sure where to get it but I have an idea I think.

 

Like i said before i am tired of having this issue. i cant do any flights with the pmdg 777. and i am wondering if i should to go to windows 7 because this small issue that should not be there in the first place  is holding me back from flying in fsx. so i am hoping microsoft can fix this problem some how put this in the next update for windows 8. 

 

Someone made a comment that the problem is now evident in win8.1 Microsoft has no plans to fix their screwups

 

 

Right now FSX Assist closes after FSX loads even though "close after load" is unchecked (otherwise this would be correct if it were ticked) but since it was unticked it still closes anyway so therefore the app can't do what it is supposed to do which is to poll the joystick so it won't disconnect but like I said it can't because it closes so it defeats the whole point of the app in the first place.

 

Would you still recommend the software even though it doesn't cost that much in comparison to other add-ons? I've read up on the features on their site and to be honest I'm only really going to use it specifically to try and fix this issue. Like I said earlier I'm happy to setup a test install of Win 8 on another disk but will need to reinstall FSX + all add-ons which will take a bit of time.

 

 

 

Someone made a comment that the problem is now evident in win8.1 Microsoft has no plans to fix their screwups

 

I guess if FSXAssist doesn't ultimately fix this then we really are stuck with Win 7. I've tried the FSUIPC fix in the past and it just wasn't reliable for me, I would often find that FSUIPC would simply 'forget' all the assignments at some point then revert to FSX assignments causing the dropouts to occur again. I also noticed that when the dropout does occur and controls are assigned via FSUIPC the pan view control movements would become incredibly slow. Just not a good solution IMHO...

 

Also, as much as I like X-Plane 10 for what it is I've come to the realisation (especially since the release of PMDG 777) that even though it's technologically superior to FSX at it's core, the overall experience with add-ons on that platform is just not the same so found myself coming back to FSX again. It just can't really replace FSX for me just yet.

Would you still recommend the software even though it doesn't cost that much in comparison to other add-ons? I've read up on the features on their site and to be honest I'm only really going to use it specifically to try and fix this issue. Like I said earlier I'm happy to setup a test install of Win 8 on another disk but will need to reinstall FSX + all add-ons which will take a bit of time.

 

 

 

 

I guess if FSXAssist doesn't ultimately fix this then we really are stuck with Win 7. I've tried the FSUIPC fix in the past and it just wasn't reliable for me, I would often find that FSUIPC would simply 'forget' all the assignments at some point then revert to FSX assignments causing the dropouts to occur again. I also noticed that when the dropout does occur and controls are assigned via FSUIPC the pan view control movements would become incredibly slow. Just not a good solution IMHO...

 

Also, as much as I like X-Plane 10 for what it is I've come to the realisation (especially since the release of PMDG 777) that even though it's technologically superior to FSX at it's core, the overall experience with add-ons on that platform is just not the same so found myself coming back to FSX again. It just can't really replace FSX for me just yet.

 

I got FSXAssist mainly to fix the joystick problem, I thought the feature had already been implemented in 1.0.7 but I read it wrong; so I waited for 1.0.8 which is supposed to have the feature included (and even if it didn't I'm having an issue outside of that)

 

I'll admit that FSXAssist DOES have some nice features such as being able to change your LOD, texture size, etc (and I found a freeware app that will make your texture size stay, but FSXA will do it for you too)

 

IF you want to use it for other features then I'd recommend it; but if you want it for the joystick feature I'd test it first then if you like it then keep it; I'm all for saying yes its all worth it but I can't say that because of the problem I am having which you may not have so it would be worth having someone also test and verify.

 

You don't need to install everything; I'd just install FSX and FSXAssist and see if it does what its supposed to do (and of course use the same controller you intend to use with the system that FSXAssist will run on permenantly)

Hi guys - While FSSAssist currently is not a placebo for the controller dropout it does maintain a USP controller connection via simmconnect polling.  As far as we can tell this feature has no impact on FSX performance as it simply asks FSX to confirm that the controller is active and therefore FSXAssist forces FSX to confirm the active controller.  

 

We know that this functionality is working because FSX will reestablish the controller even if it is unplugged for many seconds and plugged back in again.  This was not possible before the dropout fix code.

 

As a followup we are looking at other measures via simconnect to do a full reconnect if necessary.

 

Yes it is a major bummer that Windows 8.1 does not address this but I suppose that that was to be expected since FSX is definitely considered to be a legacy code base but at the same time FS9 does not appear to have this issue so we are punching through the FS9 code base to determine why.

 

Suffice it to say that since FS9 is even older code (that still uses D3D9) then we believe that FSX works differently with both the D3D and simconnect API's.  All this is to say that we at SkyPilot think that the problem can be solved.

 

Finally - we have found rare situations where FSX fails to connect to the active controller even on a fresh restart.  We are trying to determine what would cause this as it may determine the root cause of all controller dropouts.

 

Regards

Jim Allen

SkyPilot Software 

 

 

You don't need to install everything; I'd just install FSX and FSXAssist and see if it does what its supposed to do (and of course use the same controller you intend to use with the system that FSXAssist will run on permenantly)

 

I did a Win 8 install on a second disk last night (gonna miss the performance of my SSD for a while) and will continue installing FSX tonight. I'll install the PMDG 777 at least as that's the aircraft I primarily fly at the moment and has the ability to transfer activation codes to another installation.

 

 

Hi guys - While FSSAssist currently is not a placebo for the controller dropout it does maintain a USP controller connection via simmconnect polling.  As far as we can tell this feature has no impact on FSX performance as it simply asks FSX to confirm that the controller is active and therefore FSXAssist forces FSX to confirm the active controller.  

 

We know that this functionality is working because FSX will reestablish the controller even if it is unplugged for many seconds and plugged back in again.  This was not possible before the dropout fix code.

 

As a followup we are looking at other measures via simconnect to do a full reconnect if necessary.

 

Yes it is a major bummer that Windows 8.1 does not address this but I suppose that that was to be expected since FSX is definitely considered to be a legacy code base but at the same time FS9 does not appear to have this issue so we are punching through the FS9 code base to determine why.

 

Suffice it to say that since FS9 is even older code (that still uses D3D9) then we believe that FSX works differently with both the D3D and simconnect API's.  All this is to say that we at SkyPilot think that the problem can be solved.

 

Finally - we have found rare situations where FSX fails to connect to the active controller even on a fresh restart.  We are trying to determine what would cause this as it may determine the root cause of all controller dropouts.

 

Regards

Jim Allen

SkyPilot Software 

 

 

I'll be installing your software on my test build as well to see how it goes once I get it all up and running. You guys seem to be the only ones actively working on resolving this problem by actually finding the root cause so that in itself should be commended.

Microsoft may not care about old software; we know that FS9 doesn't have this problem; this is a Microsoft product they NEED to put their arm out and get it slapped for doing this to us we didn't ASK them to do MS Flight either.

But I hope that FSXAssist will be here to help us win8 users and my issue with FSXA and hopefully this will be good until somebody comes out with another simulator; we're way overdue for another one already.

Has anyone used FSXAssist? Does it fix the joystick problem since most people are talking about it.

 

I use FSXAssist, and recently upgraded to it's 1.08 version that includes the joystick polling fix.

 

As long as you disable the Close on Load option (so FSXAssist stays running in the taskbar after FSX launches), then it continues to poll for joystick devices.

 

I can happily report that since using this, I have not had any joystick disconnects.