I read this with interest. I purchased Voice Buddy 2.0 a couple of months ago along with their headset and have given up trying to use it. Despite others claims of remarkable success with voice recognition, training the program, having adequate power to run it, etc, I find that about 50% of the time it simply ignores or cannot recognize the same commands. At other times it can. Tech support has not been able to solve the issue for me. This rate of recognition led to many frustrating and aborted flights. I asked if the headset is faulty but they say it does not fail and won't replace it.The command editor is also very clumsy compared to Game Commander. I wanted to heavily edit it because I fly PSS Airbus 322/330 and the keyboard commands for the same functions are unfortunately different in the two airplanes. Whereas Game Commnader allows airplane specific command sets, Voice Buddy has one incredibly long command seg. So to pull up the MCDU in one airplane you have to name it say "Two MCDU" or "three MCDU" to distinguish the keyboard commands. What is the point of memorizing lots of different commands for the same function in different airplanes? It defeats the purpose of voice command. Finally the command editor has no search function, so one has to scroll down a long list everytime one wants to find the commnand to edit. Addes commands seem to wind up anywhere in the list further complicating the search function.I prefer Game commander at this point and although it does not talk back to you, it is much easier to work with and, and seems much more reliable in terms of recognition of speech.I wonder what others experiences have been?Greg

I've been using VB since V1.0 and love it. Took a while to train it to ignore all the background noises but once trained it has worked very well. Once in a very great while, I experience VB going totally brain dead and just not functioning. A quick restart of the pgm always solves that issue.I've added a few commands with the command editor and, although not perfect, it is functional. Search functions and the like are eyewash functions that probably can be added as the product matures but are not necessary to run the program.If tech support can't help you I don't know what to say, they helped me get it set up initially.One thing that has helped me - there is a command "LOOK LEFT" that VB *always* seems to execute. If I am having trouble getting it to recognize a command, I say "LOOK LEFT" and it executes - this seems to wake up the system and from then on - all is well.Just MHO,VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Did you get the plantronics A90 headset? These are known for getting dead mics. Mine died however when it worked it worked great for me. I did however train it so it would recognize my voice easier.But the A90 is as mentioned known to break so it

I'm now using the program with a Labtec mic designed for speech recognition and a pair of headphones.-It recognizes the commands >90% of the time now-Sometimes it falsely recognizes something when I e.g. clear my throat, move the chair or fold a chart. The mic has a mute feature so I mute it when I'm in the cruise and typically don't need voice recognition for a while.-I agree about the command manager/user interface. For $50 I expected more.-All the "interactive" lessons and checklists do really is that they have the Microsoft voice read some text, pause for a while, then continue on. It doesn't actually interact with your or FS in any way. This is very obvious with the flaps command - there are several voice commands, "extend flaps one", "extend flaps two" etc. but they are all assigned to the F7 key so you can't e.g. go from no flaps to setting two with one command (not needed very often, just an example).-The voice responses are annoying. I removed it for most things but for some things like gear down it's important to have some kind of confirmation that it has recognized the phrase.-Since there's a slight delay, it's sometimes hard to get a "slot" in the ATC system when there's a lot of other traffic around. Under those circumstances I often have to use the keyboard instead.Overall I see zero reasons for the casual voice recognition user to get this over one of the several freeware programs out there. If you really want cool voice recognition and don't mind the synthesized voices you should look at VoxATC instead - cheaper and far more advanced.

Glad you got it working somewhat Jimmi :)That microphone where did you get that? I tried to find some noise cancelling stuff but couldn

I got it from Inwarehouse.se.I think it's this one, though mine was actually grey, not white like the one in the pic: http://www.inwarehouse.se/productDetail.as...73844&ReferId=3I hate buying cheap stuff online because shipping becomes almost as expensive as the product, so I bought an MX1000 and 25 DVD's at the same time :-lol

Yeah I know svenska posten they surely know how to charge.Okay. And it works good with the mic on your desk? Are you a TrackIR user?Anyway I got the Zalman mic because that was the only one I could find that wasn

Hi Greg,Sorry to hear you are having so many problems.I don't own vb so I can't comment on what works well, and what doesn't.I do use a product that uses the exact same Microsoft VR Engine, so I can comment on that.The training is paramount to success. From looking at the various screen captures, most of it appears to be the same Microsoft Training sessions included in the FREEWARE Speech engine.Anyone considering using VR (Voice Recognition) would do well to try one of the FREEWARE Alternatives, IMHO, before spending money on a payware version.That way you can install the exact same FREEWARE VR Speech Engine Microsoft gives you, and do the training sessions as well.This Technology does take some time to tweak and train no matter what anyone else says. You would do well not to believe any hype, and learn the limitations of the FREEWARE Microsoft Speech Engine which ALL these programs use.As for folks getting false commands when moving a chair or coughing. There is a simple solution to that.USE THE Push To Talk Option instead. I heavily use teamspeak, Multiplayer and my voice recognition profiles all at the same time.I also recommend that you add words to the (add/delete words option under speech tools). Hopefully you already have the task bar language bar installed to do that. My experience has been that if I add aviation terminology to the add/delete words option, I get better recognition. I've added about 75 or so words to mine.As for Microphones, IMH Expert Opinion (my choice of words, since I've been doing this long enough), you don't need some fancy shmancy microphone and headset to get better VR success.IF YOU ENABLE PUSH TO TALK. (I use F12 for Teamspeak, and Button #10 on my yoke for VR), you can use any $14.00 Noise Canceling Microphone Headset out there.In other words, my experience with at least 4 different VR FREEWARE programs is that if the training is not done, (all of it), if you do not add words to the engine, and if you don't use your VR very much, you won't get the success that many claim. This knowledge has been gained from reading dozens of threads on many sites, and tossing aside biased payware opinions where a conflict of interest exists, IMHO.There are many Microphone choices for those starting out with VR that have Noise canceling built in.This is what I currently use which I picked up at WalMart for about $14.00, and while they are not the highest end, they meet my needs for VR and Teamspeak.Link is for NewEgg Thoughhttp://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-106-932&depa=0For anyone contemplating any VR Payware Purchase, try out either SpeechBuddy or Flight Assistant FIRST. Both are available here in the Avsim Library.I have links below for FA and some profiles I have uploaded to the library. I also have more planned and in the works, including some enhanced hardware VR profiles. (more on that later)I would also be happy to help anyone having problems on what they can specifically do to gain a better experience with VR.BTW - Most of this post was done in The Freeware OpenOffice.org with Voice recognition enabled. :-)Best of Luck,JoeJOIN The AVSIM RTW RACE FLIGHT TEAM****************Grab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Hi, Greg and everyone.I do not use Voice Buddy, I use

Is SpeechBuddy2 compatible with FS9?

SpeechBuddy2 is fully FS9 compatible. I have used SB for a coupla years now with great success. I also purchased Voice Buddy 2, thinking I might be upgrading my voice control setup. Not so! Speechbuddy (freeware open source) remains superior to Voice Buddy, partially due to the fact that SB actually utilizes FSUIPC to directly interact with FlightSim on numerous functions. You can directly command changes to all radio frequencies, and SB is aware of the current status of many aircraft systems. For example, if the gear is already up and you issue the "gear up" command, SB will tell you gear is already up. Same with master power/avionics and other systems.On the "down" side...SB's script editing interface is also very basic.....no search function and somewhat intimidating command language at first glance. However, once you browse through the included FS script set, you can quickly get the idea of how to add/modify commands.In summary.....do what the others have suggested and start with the freeware speech programs, my personal recommendation is SpeechBuddy2. Once you use it for a bit, I don't think you'll find any reason to switch.P.S. I also use a $20.00 USD Plantronics headset/mic, and after running through all the training sessions in the Windows Control Panel-Speech option, I get an average 95% or better recognition rate, WITH the TV on at low-moderate volumes in the same room.