Hi

 

Thinking of moving some addons to win8 laptop , and need advice on some issues.

Would be my first time running addons from network

 

addons moving

1. ProATC

2. ASN

3. Fscommander

 

 

Concerns

 

1. Would be nice to be able to run from Sim PC and laptop just in case I have issues with network, will license allow me to do this.

 

2. I already have all these addons setup on sim pc so don't want to change a thing there till all confirmed working on laptop.

 

3. What I don't want is entering my exusing licnesse details for addon on laptop to setup, only to find that breaks the same addon from working in SimPC just in case I need that as fallback

 

4. Don't want to make attempt to move things to network without a fallback to what I have already working o SimPC.

 

 

Tips welcome please, trying to offload cpu usage from simpc.

 

cheers

 

Hi Simmer2050,

 

Without reading the EULA for any of those products I would suspect they have the standard single PC clause in that technically you are only supposed to have it on one PC.   That being said, I did exactly what you are suggesting by getting the program to work first on the local PC then moving it to the networked machine and work on getting that functioning.  Then once it is working on the network machine uninstalling the local version. I can't comment on PROATC or FScommander but it worked fine with ASN.  I also feel this is at the very least in the spirit of the EULA and not likely to cause any ripples with the developer.  If you are concerned with this, you could always contact the developer with your plan and make sure they don't have any issues with it.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Brett

There are folks out there far more knowledgeable than me but here's my experience moving PROATC off my desktop onto a laptop ( I haven't moved ASN and don't use FS Commander). First, I'd recommend upgrading the laptop to Windows 10 and get that completed before moving programs over. Go to the Pointsoft website and download the simconnect.msi file onto your laptop in the Documents folder: http://pointsoftware.de/proatcx_e/download.html  . You'll need to configure the simconnect file with your desktop IP address. With PATC you're only allowed to have an active program on one computer at a time. So you can either copy all of your PATC files over to the laptop or create a fresh load of the program on your laptop your choice. When you open PATC on the laptop for the first time you'll have to register the product with your key  and all that just like you would if you had just purchased it. You'll have to define the paths to all the FSX folders, weather, etc. on your desktop to access them via the network (Once you've registered PATC on your laptop you won't be able to use it on your desktop without re-registering). Things to expect when networking this program: The sound of PATC will come out of your laptop, the popup screen (when you press 1 on your desktop PC) will show up on your FSX screen just like it does now. I find no delay in response when interfacing with PATC in a networked config except the PATC moving map has some understandable delays in picking up the current position. If you desktop IP address changes (they do from time to time even if 'fixed') You'll have to edit the simconnect. msi file in the laptop as well as the simconnect.xml file on your desktop. If this is your first time using a laptop via simconnect there are two files to install on the desktop and the .msi on the laptop. Just search on the forum for that topic. 

 

hope this helps

fred

As far as ASN goes - you can install it on more than one PC *BUT* only one can be running at any time. If you have it running on the laptop and you switch to the ASN on the main box, it will ask for activation. Nothing gets uninstalled, it just isn't activated until you shut down the other.

 

 

Vic

I would like to add, that my sim didn't like it, when ASN was running over network. Most likely my network wasn't fast/reliable enough to handle the weather injects.

 

My sim has been more stable since I moved ASN back to my sim computer (I still run AirHauler, ProATC, FSFlightKeeper and Latitude on my laptop).

As far as ASN goes - you can install it on more than one PC *BUT* only one can be running at any time. If you have it running on the laptop and you switch to the ASN on the main box, it will ask for activation. Nothing gets uninstalled, it just isn't activated until you shut down the other.

 

 

Vic

Yes. But you will run out of activations if you go back and forth often. That's what happened to me. They reset my activations but told me that ASN is supposed to be installed only on a single PC. If you want to use it on both machines on a regular basis, you need to buy an additional license.

I would like to add, that my sim didn't like it, when ASN was running over network. Most likely my network wasn't fast/reliable enough to handle the weather injects.

 

My sim has been more stable since I moved ASN back to my sim computer (I still run AirHauler, ProATC, FSFlightKeeper and Latitude on my laptop).

Not in my case. ASN over the network is perfectly stable and I get much less stutters on the flightsim PC. Definitely better here and well worth the effort.

Hi

 

Thinking of moving some addons to win8 laptop , and need advice on some issues.

Would be my first time running addons from network

 

addons moving

1. ProATC

2. ASN

3. Fscommander

 

 

Concerns

 

1. Would be nice to be able to run from Sim PC and laptop just in case I have issues with network, will license allow me to do this.

 

2. I already have all these addons setup on sim pc so don't want to change a thing there till all confirmed working on laptop.

 

3. What I don't want is entering my exusing licnesse details for addon on laptop to setup, only to find that breaks the same addon from working in SimPC just in case I need that as fallback

 

4. Don't want to make attempt to move things to network without a fallback to what I have already working o SimPC.

 

 

Tips welcome please, trying to offload cpu usage from simpc.

 

cheers

 

Well running ATC (WideFS7) and ASN on a Toshiba win10 tablet lol for 149 euro as for ProATCX it runs on the main PC....

All three applications each have User Manuals that contain elaborate information on networking the applications on a client PC or laptop.

Wow thanks a lot gents in depth info complete with various experiences. All those comments are very useful after initial setup, which is where I am now. Got just  far as to check both proatc and ASN can connect to SimPC, no settings transferred yet.

 

Took several hours two cans of Stella and xxx , but finally got there.

 

Got ASN and ProATC working from win8 laptop. These are the main apps below p3d in core usage on server pc

 

for beginner SimConnect looks a bit intimidating including managing setup on server and client side, checking google posts it was amazing to see forums where issues were always regards typos in one of the three simconnect files, cfg,ini,xml.

 

Took twice as long cause after setting up proatc, the biggest cpu eater addon in my case, I started editing simconnect files to add settings for ASN.  So had to make sure proatc would still work with additions made for ASN. Tested this headbanging not working for several hours.

 

Then reading a post that got me half way, realised the exact same setting for xml,ini,cfg work for ProATC and ASN.

 

In conclusion I worked twice as hard cause I fell for the initial intimidation, but in summary for what you save in cpu load the process is easy.

 

1. Read ProATC guide for Simconnect Network setup  Very Good (google)

 

2.Read ASN guide for SimConnect setup. But here you need to ensure to find the guide that contains full text for xml to copy paste. Don't follow ASN guide that leads by wording with no actual code, cause I wasted time on that.

 

3. In summary Since I startyed  with ProATC client using their instruction, nothing needed to be done for ASN, its same code in all simconnect files, they both use same port given in proatc. ASN manual says port 500 spent ages confused how to use both.

 

 

Once you done the setup for proatc ASN will work, baring stuff like adding shared folders to SIm PC etc.

 

Be sure to report back on cpu load changes on Server simpc. running [email protected].

 

Thought the laptop would do better in the cockpit rather than gathering sauce in the kitchen, had to clean it first :p0306:

 

Thanks again gents,

Getting ready to setup widefs for Fscommander, reading Widefs manual. Found a tip for those getting stutters when using addon in client machine.

 

Tip from widefs is to use static ip address. Am no IP expert, but downloaded a tool easy to find on gooegle that has a wizard to setup static ip address.

 

According to widefs manual, non static ip address could lead to stutters on server machine running fs, due to delays in ip addressing. Static ip address avoids theses delays and thus  stutters

Getting ready to setup widefs for Fscommander, reading Widefs manual. Found a tip for those getting stutters when using addon in client machine.

 

Tip from widefs is to use static ip address. Am no IP expert, but downloaded a tool easy to find on gooegle that has a wizard to setup static ip address.

 

According to widefs manual, non static ip address could lead to stutters on server machine running fs, due to delays in ip addressing. Static ip address avoids theses delays and thus  stutters

 

Correct and I have assigned IP numbers based on mac address ;-)

Main FS PC = the computer you use for flight

Client PC = the computer you use for ASN, FSCommander, ProATC, etc.

 

It's not difficult to setup:

 

1.  Make sure your client PC is setup with a mapped drive letter (works better in most cases to map a drive letter and reconnect at login/boot) and be sure you have full admin rights to the mapped drive and the main FS PC has a share for the appropriate local drive(s) allowing full rights.

 

2.  Use static IPs and assign them to specific devices (done in router) -- I have about 23 devices in my home, some wireless and some wired ... all DHCP but the router will reserved IPs that I define to those computer/device names found on my network.

 

3.  Make sure you have SimConnect.xml setup with correct IPs and I believe it needs to be in the documentation directory on both PCs (need to check this, might be SimConnect.cfg).

 

4.  Recommend any PC you are using for flight sim in a networked configuration be HARD WIRED (not wireless) Cat6 preferable 1000Mbps full duplex at every point of connection (hub, router, nic) ... you need very low latency, bandwidth is not that significant ... wireless connections often have very erratic latency which can cause problems.

 

Having local and network active is actually something I would NOT do -- it may make the network setup appear to work when in fact it might not be working correctly.  I know some of the manuals recommend to get it working local first then do the network setup -- I think this approach can cause more issues that it tries to resolve.

 

Initially when I was doing Network setup many years ago, the biggest issue I had with the product documentation was lack of clarity around the definitions of "Client" and "Server" ... switch terminology in some cases making the documentation confusing, also not being clear at each step of the way what "Client" or "Server" was being acted on.  

 

The good news is that once you get one product working, all the rest will operate in a very similar fashion.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Can you tell me if doing a telnet test on the Main FS PC is a good test? If I try to telnet using:

 

telnet localhost 6811 (port used by ProATCx)

 

gives me a failed connection (The sim us running when I telnet, BTW). Which would indicate to me that I have local PC issues, let alone netwok issues.

Anyone?

 

With the FSX SDK, you would run the "airtraffic.exe" utility to test connectivity. What would be the equivalent in the P3D SDK?

 

But before testing network connectivity, I would like to make sure the main FS PC is configured properly which is why I suggested telnet. 

 

As you can tell, I'm having a hard time setting this up. 

got proatc and ASN working from network, but both have issues.

ProATC crashes midflight

 

ASN seems to have issue probs cause the xguage I was using was installed from ASN version on server pc, will try install xgauge from ASN on client.

 

Bu t for now, back to server pc for all, try networking later, need a few successful flights for a change.

 

But anyone wanting to setup ProATC networking instructions I think is still the easiest to follow cause it gives code to cut paste, without having to bother with the sample xml in SDK folder