PMDG Update

[Zangoose 1,631]

9 minutes ago, enright said:

Just curious - what about the tablet in the PMDG DC6? That's been there since the beginning, and it's great - super functional with some features that I haven't seen before - like the flight engineer. Why not just use whatever framework that EFB was built on?

I bought the 737 with no expectation of a tablet and consider anything they release at any time to be pure icing on the cake - just thought it was odd that their first MSFS product had it, and everything since doesn't.

The EFB in the DC6 doesn't communicate to the "outside world" so it's not pulling any data from Simbrief etc. Which is what they want to do with the 737 EFB.

Edited January 28, 2023 by Zangoose

[Lucky38i 1,094]

3 hours ago, MDFlier said:

I've done this several times recently at work. Granted, I didn't write one from scratch, I derived an existing one and created a custom formatter to process the stream as it passed through. Took me a couple of days, but since my job isn't being a developer, I didn't think I did too bad creating a custom tool to help me do my actual job. Then, another team spotted it an asked me to do something similar for them.  

Yeah I don’t see why anyone would try to create a serialiser from scratch, it’s like writing you’re own data formatter and that is a complete nightmare. There’s already algos out there but that’s really no needed when npm and Boost serialiser packages exist.

But like I said in my other post, based on how Rob described JavaScript as a language, makes me understand why this is such a huge fiasco for specifically their team.

 

[JRBarrett 3,041]

5 hours ago, enright said:

Just curious - what about the tablet in the PMDG DC6? That's been there since the beginning, and it's great - super functional with some features that I haven't seen before - like the flight engineer. Why not just use whatever framework that EFB was built on?

I bought the 737 with no expectation of a tablet and consider anything they release at any time to be pure icing on the cake - just thought it was odd that their first MSFS product had it, and everything since doesn't.

The tablet in the DC-6 is built in C++/WASM, as is the rest of the aircraft. It only interacts with aircraft systems, (no external communications) so making it in C++ is probably no more difficult than any other gauge or instrument in the aircraft.

The problem with the tablet for the 737 is that it needs to interact with aircraft systems and needs the ability to communicate with the Internet to be able to download Simbrief flight plans and Navigraph charts.

To do that, the tablet has to be written in JavaScript, not C++. Only JS code is permitted to communicate with the outside world in the MSFS environment. 

The problem is that the intercommunication possibilities between JavaScript code and C++ code is very limited by the way that Asobo has designed MSFS. If the EFB only was intended to work with Navigraph and Simbrief, it probably would be ready by now. Or, if it only controlled aircraft systems, (with no need for internet access), it could have been made in C++/WASM (like the DC-6 tablet), and again, it probably would be available by now.

[Claudius_ 323]

7 hours ago, Zangoose said:

The EFB in the DC6 doesn't communicate to the "outside world" so it's not pulling any data from Simbrief etc. Which is what they want to do with the 737 EFB.

the DC6 doesn't need to communicate with anything if you fly it in the old (best) way.

[Konterhalbe 295]

Did my first flight after the recent PMDG update and Ground Equipment seems to be completely fked up on my side...

 

First, I could not disconnect the GPU when I wanted to push.

Alright, can happen once I thought... Restarted MSFS, loaded a different panel state and everything was fine until arrival.

Once arrived at the gate, I've set wheel chocks, clicked CONNECT to connect the GPU and it's still CONNECTING for 12 minutes by now.

Then I tried to REQUEST Stairs 1L, they are ARRIVING since 11 minutes...

 

At least setting and releasing the Parking Brake now works normally again 🙂

[JYW 2,977]

15 minutes ago, Konterhalbe said:

Did my first flight after the recent PMDG update and Ground Equipment seems to be completely fked up on my side...

 

First, I could not disconnect the GPU when I wanted to push.

Alright, can happen once I thought... Restarted MSFS, loaded a different panel state and everything was fine until arrival.

Once arrived at the gate, I've set wheel chocks, clicked CONNECT to connect the GPU and it's still CONNECTING for 12 minutes by now.

Then I tried to REQUEST Stairs 1L, they are ARRIVING since 11 minutes...

 

At least setting and releasing the Parking Brake now works normally again 🙂

Had you set your chocks?

I don't see any of those issues at my end.

In fact, in it's current state, the PMDG737 for MSFS is now one of the best overall addons I've used across all platforms.   I've just flown a 10 hours flight in the -700BBJ from England over to Detroit and it behaved absolutely flawlessly, with no degradation in performance over time.

...and all on my very modest GTX1080Ti based system.

To think that it will only get better (eg with the EFB) is very exciting.

Edited January 29, 2023 by JYW

[Jazz 1,046]

14 minutes ago, Konterhalbe said:

Did my first flight after the recent PMDG update and Ground Equipment seems to be completely fked up on my side...

 

First, I could not disconnect the GPU when I wanted to push.

Alright, can happen once I thought... Restarted MSFS, loaded a different panel state and everything was fine until arrival.

Once arrived at the gate, I've set wheel chocks, clicked CONNECT to connect the GPU and it's still CONNECTING for 12 minutes by now.

Then I tried to REQUEST Stairs 1L, they are ARRIVING since 11 minutes...

 

At least setting and releasing the Parking Brake now works normally again 🙂

This nonsense was a thing before the recent update for me. I never had a problem with the ground connection but often the loaders or baggage transport or the stairs would not come or go. If they were there they wouldn't go away when told and if they were not there they wouldn't come when requested. In order to get them to get lost you would have to pushback and start. A reinstall of the aircraft helped but it didn't cure the problem. Just made it slightly less frequent than every single time I tried to use it. In the end I bought GSX which oddly, is less buggy than the PMDG services. They never worked properly for me since I bought the 737 in MSFS.

I never did get to the bottom of that problem.

[Noel 4,486]

16 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

The problem is that the intercommunication possibilities between JavaScript code and C++ code is very limited by the way that Asobo has designed MSFS. If the EFB only was intended to work with Navigraph and Simbrief, it probably would be ready by now. Or, if it only controlled aircraft systems, (with no need for internet access), it could have been made in C++/WASM (like the DC-6 tablet), and again, it probably would be available by now.

FBW did a nice job with their freeware A320NX EFB.  Were it not for some issues w/ slight pauses during taxi this plane beats PMDG 738 in many ways, and they say they believe they have found the culprit and are rewriting code to resolve it right now.

[crimplene 631]

27 minutes ago, Noel said:

FBW did a nice job with their freeware A320NX EFB.  Were it not for some issues w/ slight pauses during taxi this plane beats PMDG 738 in many ways, and they say they believe they have found the culprit and are rewriting code to resolve it right now.

One thing I like very much with the 737 is the almost perfect state saving when saving a flight for later continuation. If FBW or Fenix could do that, they'd be perfect. Another thing PMDG gets better is performance. Still, I like Fenix the most. 🙂

Edited January 29, 2023 by crimplene

[enright 496]

16 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

The problem is that the intercommunication possibilities between JavaScript code and C++ code is very limited by the way that Asobo has designed MSFS. If the EFB only was intended to work with Navigraph and Simbrief, it probably would be ready by now. Or, if it only controlled aircraft systems, (with no need for internet access), it could have been made in C++/WASM (like the DC-6 tablet), and again, it probably would be available by now.

Super informative and that explains everything. It never occurred to me that the EFB wasn't connecting to anything outside of the sim - appropriate for an aircraft of that era.

I can also see why Microsoft would be militant about restrictions and limitations of this type of functionality on the Xbox. All it takes is one loophole and one poorly written line of code to result in a major security threat.

Thanks again for the explanation - I knew I was missing something.

[Konterhalbe 295]

4 hours ago, JYW said:

Had you set your chocks?

I don't see any of those issues at my end.

[...]

Yeah sure, everything like always.

As I wrote in my post before: Set chocks, request GPU but nothing happened next.
I haven't had a single ground handling issue in my first 100 or so flights with the B738. I just use chocks and GPU (not interested in pax or bag handling).

 

 

[JBDB-MD80 1,470]

Any link to the outside world will not sell on Marketplace or Xbox :re see Fenix or Leonardo MaddogX. When Robert at PMDG realizes this and face reality the better off he would be and can progress further in the future. He is trying to do something that is not permitted within the MSFS platform while calling wolf at the same time and Asobo is not budging.

This is not P3D of FSX.

Edited January 29, 2023 by jbdbow1970

[Zangoose 1,631]

Just now, jbdbow1970 said:

Any link to the outside world will not sell on Marketplace or Xbox :re see Fenix or Leonardo MaddogX. When Robert at PMDG realizes this and face reality the better off he would he and can progress further in the future. He is trying to do something that is not permitted within the MSFS platform while calling wolf at the same time and Asobo is not budging.

I wouldn't say it's not fully impossible because the A310 can get flightplans from Simbrief. 

[Konterhalbe 295]

3 hours ago, crimplene said:

One thing I like very much with the 737 is the almost perfect state saving when saving a flight for later continuation. If FBW or Fenix could do that, they'd be perfect. Another thing PMDG gets better is performance. Still, I like Fenix the most. 🙂

Can't agree more!
I've got 30 different TUIfly liveries and registrations that I fly all day and after arriving at my destination, I save a panel state for each REG.

It's just so nice to have everything set exactly as you've left the plane the last time you've flown it.

Except VHF1, which is always reset to 124.000 and 124.85.

Regarding VHF1 not getting saved in panel state, I've reached out to PMDG through their ticket system and requested to add VHF1 aswell... let's see if they'll implement it in a future update too 🙂

[JBDB-MD80 1,470]

Just now, Zangoose said:

I wouldn't say it's not fully impossible because the A310 can get flightplans from Simbrief. 

Its more to it than just simbrief or flight plans stay tuned.