I have to give a brief history...I have used sims since 1989 for every facet of training for rw flying. From wind corrections, basic  maneuvers, xwind control practice in 1989, to terrain awareness to new airports with Pro pilot in the 90's, to ifr training with ift pro in the early 90's to chandelles/lazy 8's commercial maneuvers to engine outs in twins fairly recently in fsx-all sims used have been useful and huge money savers when they could reasonably simulate what I needed at the time for rw training.

 

After a certain number of hours  flying is like riding a bike-maybe some rust occurs but it comes back quickly . After two decades of flying though-the one thing that still brings the fear of god to me is gps usage in the ifr system.  There still many flights fresh in my mind where hand flying a Baron in the busy NE US airspace the dreaded words "amended clearance-advise when ready to copy" came over and over -and after spending tedious minutes entering into the gps another new clearance comes-all the while the controllers are screaming at those who can't clairvoyantly get the new complicated clearance instantly .There was an unusual one once when leaving Boston after takeoff the controller came on and said stand by-your clearance is so long I can't give it to you-expect in 40 nm.He never had time to give it to me but luckily Allentown gave me the magic new one "cleared direct". Practicing programming a rw gps on a sim while simulating flying with precision is molto useful and what I need to practice on a sim in my stage of flying. I had a kln94 in my plane but a friend I flew right seat with was always amazed I knew more about his garmin 430 which he only basically knew how to hit direct to -there is so much more to know and practice on the ground in a sim is priceless.

 

The reality xp gps is the godsend for this for all sims-practicing knowing every aspect of the most common gps now (though now going the way of the dino) while maintaining control of an aircraft going 186 kts-this has incredible value rw.

 

I somewhat lost interest in simming a few years ago-the only thing I really needed was practice with this-the endless mouse clicks made it so hard that it really was not useful on a sim. Emerge the desktop aviator hardware Garmin gps..:

http://www.desktopaviator.com/Products/Model_2420/index.htm

 

For under $100 the tactile feeling of the real knobs, buttons, and ease of doing what needs to be practiced-nirvana! I got one and I was elated-probably the best purchase I've ever made for a sim in 30 years.

 

Got it programmed on fsx (with extreme difficulty-perhaps a custom keyboard problem on my end-but it works like butter now).

 

Go to xplane-much easier to program-however seems to only work on the default xplane gps which is not useful.

 

Now -two problems.

 

1) My understanding is since the reality xp gps is 32 bit  it will never work on 64 bit? This is possibly a deal breaker for those who want to train in this manner including flight schools with similar hardware. If this is the case will another step up to the plate to create a rw gps that is commonly used in today's ifr environment for xplane? I'd stay with 32 bit only for the reality xp unit except 32 bit crashes on me with anything but the basic settings-which is pretty desolate.

 

2) Is there a way to get my hardware unit to work in 32 bit xplane? Yes I'd prefer 64 bit since I can crank everything up and get great performance.  I have gone to the plugin admin/hotkey admin in 32 bit but no success in programming the keys-am I missing something? The default xplane gps works great with the hardware and is easily programmed but that is pretty much useless for any reality training.

 

For those that use sims for rw ifr GA training which really is about using common gps's and flying gps approaches this could be a potential deal breaker  for the future. I hope there is some hope here as I'd at this point rather use xplane for my training than fsx. 

 

I'd stay with 32 bit only for the reality xp unit except 32 bit crashes on me with anything but the basic settings-which is pretty desolate

Geofa, I find it odd that you are having problems in 32bit mode. I have a 3 year old hardware and I'm can execute 32bit mode flawlessly, no OOM or CTD with high eye-candy (check out my specs).

 

If your Reality XP GPS works fine in 32bit, maybe we can do something to help you resolve your issues with 32bit.

Can you post you computer specs?

Can you describe the issues you are having?

 

Carlos

I had no problem with 32 bit until mid beta cycle. The error is simply-your computer has run out of memory-turn down rendering settings. I never had this problem till about 4 months ago. Still runs out of memory with settings low.

 

Intel i7 [email protected] ghz, 12 gig ram, win 8 64 bit, nvidia gtx 560

I had no problem with 32 bit until mid beta cycle. The error is simply-your computer has run out of memory-turn down rendering settings. I never had this problem till about 4 months ago. Still runs out of memory with settings low.

 

Intel i7 [email protected] ghz, 12 gig ram, win 8 64 bit, nvidia gtx 560

If I may suggest. Have you checked you Virtual Memory settings? Most stock systems come with the option of "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" or "System Manage Size" if so, you can experiment by setting it up manually to something like: Initial size: 4608, Maximum Size 4608.

 

Also, before you started to have issues, where you running on win8?

Yep-started on win 8. Seems I read that others had the same problem about the time mine started too. Ran fine with nearly max settings in 32 bit till about 6 months ago.

Yep-started on win 8. Seems I read that others had the same problem about the time mine started too. Ran fine with nearly max settings in 32 bit till about 6 months ago.

 

That is strange as before 64bit was out I had only 4 gig of RAM and never had any OOM issues running 32bit. I decided to upgrade to 8gig once 64bit was stable.

 

It would't hurt to check you virtual memory settings just in case.

Since the first 6 months worked without ever crashing In 32 bit I have to conclude something changed in the program-not my machine. In any case, if I can't get the gps hardware to work with the gps software it is a moot point. I am hoping someone comes out with a rw real working working timely gps that will work with 64 bit and hardware controllers.

I'm quoting Dan Klaue here...

 

"The stuff they're putting out for FSX is building on a platform that has been worked on much longer, and more resources are available.  In the X-Plane world, we still have to build a foundation... and I'm working really hard at that.  We're not quite there yet, but we're moving in that direction.  There's still a lot of work to be done. "

 

He's talking about Carenado's fleet and the conversions to X-Plane. So, we'll likely see a Carenado GPS in the future. I hope it happens.

Not sure about Carenado (although I own haven't used their gps's) but what might work and be doable is an xplane interface to the Garmin Gtn on an ipad....

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garmin-gtn-trainer/id479670018?mt=8

Think this might be of any help?

 

http://ross-park.net/xgps/config/win.html

Not really-I don't have a real one to connect. I do think a network connection running the new Garmin gtn which is touch screen on an ipad would be the way to go. Though I never owned a 430 (kln 94 for me) they are the past and touch screens are the new. I have xavion which is really cool for what it does-seems the same could be done with the garmin ipad trainer.

sorry, wrong post

I saw this little gem appear on the x-plane.org store http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=413 (it's windows only)

I saw this little gem appear on the x-plane.org store http://store01.prostores.com/servlet/x-planestore/Detail?no=413 (it's windows only)

Yeah I know, that's what I had posted also. Unfortunately, it's not a GPS. Had me fooled there for a while but not what Geof is looking for.

 

 

Since the first 6 months worked without ever crashing In 32 bit I have to conclude something changed in the program-

 

Do you have the rendering option "Compress Textures to save VRam" ticked?

 

If I untick this one, it causes XP to crash in 32bit in my pc, with it ticked, I have no issues.