More FSLabs oddities

[Nurmblitz 59]

I have just spent two days figuring out why my P3D5.3 does not launch anymore. I launch the game via SimstarterNG. After numerous trails and tests I nailed the problem to FSLabs control center which tries to give graphic settings advice during the P3D/Simstarter start up process. The interference causes the launch to loop forever. I had their Concorde installed but as it is I had to uninstall 90 euros software. I hope that this company should leave the hardware setting instructions to their manuals and let the user decide what to do. 

Edited December 26, 2023 by Ray Proudfoot
Edited to remove offensive statement

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 555]

That "advise" is SO ANNOYING!!

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

@Nurmblitz, I have the FS Labs Concorde and I also use SimStarterNG to launch P3D for Concorde.

I have not encountered the problem you describe. You don't say what your startup aircraft is. It must be a simple default one like the Piper Cub. Then, at the Scenario screen you can select Concorde.

Please list your hardware especially CPU and GPU. It's a demanding aircraft but even on my old i7-8086K and 1080 Ti I could load and fly it okay.

I have edited your post to remove an offensive statement. I could have justifiably hidden your post but felt it better to edit and try to help you.

What version of Concorde are you running? Experimental version? I suggest for now you launch P3D directly and respond to any messages manually. I'm not aware they alter user settings.

[Luke 782]

23 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

What version of Concorde are you running? Experimental version? I suggest for now you launch P3D directly and respond to any messages manually. I'm not aware they alter user settings.

They absolutely do - most critically, they insist that P3D be launched with administrator permissions even if their aircraft is not loaded. I've found it exceptionally frustrating, and I've also noticed numerous terrain.dll errors when their add-on was loaded. They've gone away since I disabled it. Coincidence? Maybe.

Cheers

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

9 minutes ago, Luke said:

They absolutely do - most critically, they insist that P3D be launched with administrator permissions even if their aircraft is not loaded.

SimStarterNG doesn't detect any changes to the Prepar3d.cfg on my system. Launching with admin privileges is pretty standard these days.

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

and I've also noticed numerous terrain.dll errors when their add-on was loaded. They've gone away since I disabled it. Coincidence? Maybe.

I've not had those with Concorde.

[Nurmblitz 59]

Well thank you for advice, but the extra window that popped out during startup was labeled by FSLabs recommending that I should disable FXAA. After uninstalling everything FSLabs no further launching problems have occurred. So ain´t the culprit plain to see. The Concorde version was updated via their own control panel.

About my system; i7 10700, 128 GT RAM, RTX3090 and win10 pro.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

@Nurmblitz, Well that's a recommendation, not a change made by them. FSAA is very hard on performance. Try turning it off and set 4xMSAA instead. I did that with my old 1080Ti in 4K without a problem.

What resolution are you using? 4K with your 3090 is ideal.

Having paid 70USD for Concorde why have you uninstalled it? Just go with the recommendations and see how things go.

AIG recommend their Aircraft Manager is run in admin mode. It won't work unless it does. Nothing sinister about that. Just the way software is designed to cope with Windows.

And you still haven't said what aircraft you start P3D with.

[Biggles2010 343]

5 hours ago, Nurmblitz said:

I have just spent two days figuring out why my P3D5.3 does not launch anymore.

 

1 hour ago, Luke said:

most critically, they insist that P3D be launched with administrator permissions even if their aircraft is not loaded.

To echo what Ray said, it has been the standard and recommended practice in FSX and all versions of P3D to install and run them as admin. It has also been standard to install and run most high end addons as admin. I have always followed this principle with zero problems.

The second thing, as Ray also mentioned, is to start P3D with a simple default aircraft before selecting the aircraft or saved scenario you wish to use. These two simple rules avoid almost all the startup issues users sometimes report. I do not use any FS Labs aircraft, but many others have been using them for a long time without reporting startup problems, so it seems a bit premature to assume that is the cause, rather than the result of not following well established protocols.

[Luke 782]

54 minutes ago, Biggles2010 said:

To echo what Ray said, it has been the standard and recommended practice in FSX and all versions of P3D to install and run them as admin. It has also been standard to install and run most high end addons as admin. I have always followed this principle with zero problems.

It's been standard because most sim add-on authors (and certainly most users) don't have a good understanding of Windows security. It's not particularly difficult to run FSX or P3D in non-admin mode, and I've done it for several thousand hours with numerous add-ons except FSLabs. The point is - it should be my choice.

57 minutes ago, Biggles2010 said:

The second thing, as Ray also mentioned, is to start P3D with a simple default aircraft before selecting the aircraft or saved scenario you wish to use. These two simple rules avoid almost all the startup issues users sometimes report. I do not use any FS Labs aircraft, but many others have been using them for a long time without reporting startup problems, so it seems a bit premature to assume that is the cause, rather than the result of not following well established protocols.

Please don't mansplain. If you have experience in the area, contribute. If not, please don't merely add "I personally haven't heard of anything, therefore it likely doesn't exist".

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I've not had those with Concorde.

I'm sure plenty of people run ORBX Australia scenery without any issues 😉

Cheers

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

16 minutes ago, Luke said:

I'm sure plenty of people run ORBX Australia scenery without any issues 😉

I've just heard back from Nick Cooper who is running v5.3HF2. He says most tickets relate to issues with v5.4.

I shall upload my plan to ORBX tomorrow and request someone with v5.4 test it with AUS v2.

This discussion belongs in my own topic, not here.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

14 minutes ago, Luke said:

Please don't mansplain. If you have experience in the area, contribute. If not, please don't merely add "I personally haven't heard of anything, therefore it likely doesn't exist".

It's not just FS Labs that recommend a simple aircraft to start P3D. PMDG also recommend it for theirs.

[Nurmblitz 59]

To clarify a bit further, two days ago I was about to check a couple of new airports with a default R22 via Simstarter. The game did not start so I embark on usual paths to correct the matter.

Nothing seemed to help so I used Delete generated files function. Game starts and I start slowly add addons and restarting until it is FsLabs turn. The original symptom appears and I repeat it a few times and on one occasion the above mentioned FSLabs dialogue pops up. Uninstalled all FSLabs related stuff and game is running as usual. I think I nailed it.

Resolution is same as my monitor 3440x1440.

[Ray Proudfoot 9,037]

@Nurmblitz, I've done as much as i can to help you but you seem unwilling to take my advice. You still haven't said what your startup aircraft was before you ran the nuclear option of Delete Generated Files.

Ignore SimStarterNG for now. Start P3D directly. At the scenario screen i hope you have a default aircraft already showing. Select Concorde. It takes a while as there lots of files to load.

You won't get a refund so if you want the problem resolving do the above.

You also haven't said if you have selected the Experimental option in the FS Labs Control Centre. Is that version up to date? You should be running Concorde build 227.

Have you turned off FXAA as recommended?

[Biggles2010 343]

15 minutes ago, Luke said:

It's been standard because most sim add-on authors (and certainly most users) don't have a good understanding of Windows security. It's not particularly difficult to run FSX or P3D in non-admin mode, and I've done it for several thousand hours with numerous add-ons except FSLabs. The point is - it should be my choice.

The accepted protocols that I mentioned were established because they worked.  What you choose to do with your setup is up to you. You have a choice not to buy or use a product if it doesn't suit your views on how it should be run.

26 minutes ago, Luke said:

Please don't mansplain. If you have experience in the area, contribute. If not, please don't merely add "I personally haven't heard of anything, therefore it likely doesn't exist".

I have no idea of your own special expertise, but your condescending response was unnecessary.  I do not claim to be an expert in Windows security. Nor do I need to be when there are specialists available in that field. I do however have rather a lot of experience in flight simulation, both professional and domestic setups. I first joined Avsim in 1998, with a different user name. At that time I had moved from FS95 to Falcon 4. I have used pretty much every sim version since then. I have spent the intervening years reading about other's experiences and learning from them. What I pointed out are the well established principles used by myself and others over many years which are proven to work and avoid problems.

[Luke 782]

36 minutes ago, Biggles2010 said:

I have no idea of your own special expertise, but your condescending response was unnecessary.  I do not claim to be an expert in Windows security. Nor do I need to be when there are specialists available in that field. I do however have rather a lot of experience in flight simulation, both professional and domestic setups. I first joined Avsim in 1998, with a different user name. At that time I had moved from FS95 to Falcon 4. I have used pretty much every sim version since then. I have spent the intervening years reading about other's experiences and learning from them. What I pointed out are the well established principles used by myself and others over many years which are proven to work and avoid problems.

I have been writing software (for flightsim, and others) for multi-user operating systems for 35 years now, and I would appreciate the same courtesy.