Fly!2K GPS autopilot

[Guest angels355]

Hi Randy,I really enjoyed your screenshots, I downloaded all of them, and for the time since we last talked I had your 800XP panel on my internet computer Desktop. I just kept staring at that panel sort of meditating over it, as the graphics of your panel looks so much better than mine.As I said I found the second set of monitor controls and turned the brightness and contrast up so it no longer looks like dusk all the time. But even with that my 800XP panel went from very dark charcoal gray, to a medium charcoal gray, where it should be light gray. I seem to recall when I first installed Fly!2K that when I would turn the knobs to turn up the light on the panels that they would all turn up very bright even at night. As I updated Win 98 first ed. I also updated my on board video card driver, my on board video card is a 3D RAGE LT PRO (English) (DirectX) [Display adapter]. I've also flown massive hours in only 18 months or so on FS98 on that machine (both Fly!2k and FS98 are installed there), and I've noticed that many of the FS98 panels are pitch black (all FS98 graphical settings are maxed), however if I take a favorite FS98 plane and put it on my FS9 computer w/ nice much more capable hardware, 700 mhz pentium III (really it's very nice), and a nVidia Geforce 256 card, and 768 mb's of ram, I notice immediately that the graphics of the FS98 plane is drastically better. There are some FS98 panels that were pitch black on my original computer where Fly is also, where the panel absolutely comes alive with more subtle grays, and many colors that were not even there before when installed on the original computer. Some of these panels I've just gone ahead and kept in FS9. Attached is a screenshot of the F106D by RE Turner for FS98, installed on FS9. Msgt Turner, ret, is a really nice guy, he served in the US Air Force in England, he has a 70's era F4E for FS98 that I like even more that flies and lands great, good flight dynamics. Any way, if you take a look at the attached F106D, on my FS98/Fly!2K computer, the HAL 9001, the outside visual model is basically black or very dark dark charcoal gray. I don't have a panel shot of this plane but, in FS98 on the HAL 9001 it is completely pitch black, however on the 700 mhz computer/FS9 there are more variations of gray and sort of maroon colors.Meditating on your 800XP panel screenshot, it occurred to me that this is a similar graphics problem that I experienced w/ FS98. I'm thinking that maybe I should get a better video card for the HAL 9001. Also it has a 350 megahertz AMD K6-2 w/3DNow! chip, it appears that this board will accept at the top a 500 or 550 mhz chip. I was thinking of getting one of those. I think these upgrades could improve my computer a great deal. I recently added another ram stick, so I can't remember what it's up to, I think it is roughly around 150 mb's (rounding off approx) of pc100 ram. I think it has a max capacity of 384 mb's ram of pc100 or pc128 I think it's called. What do you think of this idea? This HAL 9001 is so pristene, so perfectly preserved like new, that I didn't want to put in a better board etc.Also, what part of the world is that screenshot of the delta/water scenery?

[RandallR 444]

The main item needed for good video in Fly!2K is a proper VCF (Video Card File) so that Fly! uses the attributes of your video card. The original VCFs included with Fly! were quickly out-of-date with the new cards, so you may not be getting proper video. I've dug into my archives - here are some procedures that may help:==============================================Here are step-by-step procedures for setting up a custom video card file with a GeForce card and Fly! There is more you can do for optimizing textures, but these steps should help you start enjoying your card's capabilities within this great sim.1) Make sure that Fly! is recognizing your card as AGP - if it is, it will be using an AGP compatible selection, such as DirectX 6 (AGP). If not, you have a problem. Go to your BIOS and make certain that the AGP Aperture gate is set to 1/2 your RAM - 128MB RAM would be 64MB on the AGP Aperture, etc. Then, go to the Windows system information, Direct X and make sure Windows is using AGP. If it isn't, you need new drivers - go get the latest drivers, or at least updated drivers that are stable. Note - we have much more RAM today. 64MB is probably plenty for this, but you could try higher settings like 128 or 256MB if available).2) Once Fly! offers an AGP compatible card selection, you're on your way! Run a video card test: Go to the Options - Graphics menu. Hold down the Shift key while clicking on the Auto Detect button. This will generate a video card report. Close Fly!3) Go to the Fly! root directory and open this file: Video Card Report.txt. Look under the heading DirectX6 - Card #1. Find the Vendor ID and the Device ID. These are the numbers you will need to place in your VCF for FLY! to properly identify it - write them down.4) Go to Fly's SystemVCF directory and find the VCF you are using now (such as DX6AGP.vcf). If you're not certain, open the fly.ini file and check under the UI section for the videoCardSetup= statement. Right-click the VCF file and turn off the Read Only attribute. Copy this file to a new file - maybe Geforce2.vcf. Then reset Read Only on the original.5) Go to your new VCF file and open it for editing. Check Properties to make sure Read-only is off. Open the file for editing in Notepad: select the file by left-clicking, then Shift-Right click to get the context menu. Note - for XP, probably just right-click and choose Open with...Notepad. Or, drop the file on Notepad. Change the name at the top to identify it as your card, such as My Geforce or GeForce2 (AGP). Place the Vendor ID # in place of 0 for Video Card ID #1 - place the Device ID # in place of 0 for Video Card ID#2. Your numbers will be different, but notice how I've placed the IDs in my VCF:---------------------------------------nVidia GeForce (AGP)tridx6.dll4318 // Video Card ID #1336 // Video Card ID #22 // AGP Flag (0=no AGP, 1=High Detail, 2=High Detail+Triple Buffer)1 // AGP Must Exist (if AGP is non-zero on previous line)0 // Mip mapping0 // Allow AutoMipMapping (Mip Mapping must be off)----------------------------------------Save the new file and reset the Read Only attribute. Start Fly! and see if it shows up as a choice. If it does, you've got a good start! Select that card.==========================================================Here's some info on FSAA - anti-aliasing will help remove the "jaggies":As far as getting a response with FSAA, here's one suggested setup that was posted. It was for a different card, but pay special attention to what the author put in for texture counts. Edit your VCF and give those settings a try - also, you will need to have set at least 2x2(low detail) in the AA area of the Direct 3D (more options) area of your card setup. Example:=========================================================This vcf should work for any 64MB card (except voodoo 5 which duplicates texture storage). Provides NO SHIMMER with FSAA at 2x2, high detailed textures and the highest video resolution (with everything maxed in FlyGraphics). Speed is more than acceptable with standard and any TS2 scenery. Some scenery with lots of buildings may need an adjustment for 256 slots (haven't had a problem with anything released, but developing scenery with tons of textures bogs a bit).GeForce2 GTS-64 FSAAtridx6.dll4318 // Video Card ID #1336 // Video Card ID #21 // AGP Flag (0=no AGP, 1=High Detail, 2=High Detail+Triple Buffer)1 // AGP Must Exist (if AGP is non-zero on previous line)1 // Mip mapping0 // Allow AutoMipMapping (Mip Mapping must be off)0 // Direct Texture Mode0 // Alternate Blend Mode0 // Texture Count 32 (0=default)48 // Texture Count 64 (0=default)224 // Texture Count 128 (0=default)64 // Texture Count 256 (0=default)6 // Video Res Count640 480 16 0 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))800 600 16 0 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))1024 768 16 0 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))640 480 32 0 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))800 600 32 0 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))1024 768 32 1 // Video Resolution (last number is relevance (1=default, 0=normal))0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved0 // Reserved=======================================================Hope this helps!

[Guest angels355]

Thanks very much Randy, that's incredible. I've saved this file to my desktop, I'm sure it will take some time to work on it.I was speaking to zee guys at simvol fora and they say that they have a Courchevel scenery file for Fly! II. I still have to get that program (Fly! II). I can get it I think on Amazon. It sounds like it would be very beneficial to get the simvol/rotw DVD addon for Fly! II, what do you think? I think all of that data can be downloaded free separately however, which would be an adventure.To check out Fly! Legacy how do I search for that? I hope I'm not taking too much of your time.

[RandallR 444]

The great thing about the ROTW DVD is indeed having everything in place plus getting all patch installations and initial settings right from the beginning. There are still some issues, so be sure to do a search on all threads about the DVD and download all documentation.Fly!II Legacy is still being developed.

[Guest angels355]

Thanks very much Randy, I realy appreciate your assistance. Thank goodness for forums, these things would be impossible to learn without them.Fly!II Legacy has me really excited, can you tell me anything about what it's going to be like?I spend an incredible amount of time on sim flying. I am greatly skilled at multitasking so for work in front of my computer, I'm able to do the serious work I have to get done, but at the same time most of the time I can fly also. I just did a circuit in a 767-400 w/ new panel, I love this stuff.I think my sim fight skills have improved so greatly (10.5K hrs) that I can fly w/o thinking about it, of course I have to really concentrate on such things as landing, ILS, radio nav, and other things. But for the most part just flying around, it's as easy as a walk in the park. I hope that when I get my grubby hands on real aircraft that it will be that easy. Unfortunately I have to try to buckle down and study in front of a book with full concentration, however I might be able to study some in a multitasking way w/ educational videos and CD-Roms. Or, I have an idea, read while flying at cruse level on autopilot!

[Guest angels355]

Hi Roger, Randy, Romans, and countrymen,I'm still having GPS Nav problemos. I followed your directions and it worked for all of the aircraft that I tried out, even the Qantas 747 SP featuring a really cool greenish elaborate 74 panel. So I decided to include a Fly!2K flight around the world along with my FS flights. This week I just completed by 230th flight around the world, and I have approximately 6 to 8 flights in progress partially completed, three flights in the air right now. I think flight simming is... OK ...I don't know, perhaps I enjoy it somewhat to some extent...Any way, I have many round the world flights in my flight planner files for Fly!2K, which completely circumnavigate the world in each flight plan. One flight plan, which I'm flying right now with that 747 SP I mentioned, is like this:KLGARJAABIRKKLGARight now I think I'm roughly about 1200 NM's away from RJAA. The problem is I got the autopilot going just as described in your previous responses, and opened the vector window and manually pointed the plane in the right direction. I engaged the autopilot controls including both wpt knobs. On this panel, which works w/ Nav GPS, it doesn't have the Flight Director button options but GPS Nav has worked anyway in the past, the FD bars just come on anyway as a default condition. Any way after turning both wpt knobs on, I kept trying to engage the NAV switch, but it would just click downward not engaging. So I just lined up my plane closesly with the yellow course line in the vector window and watched it for some time with the Heading Hold control selected, then as it was 400 am went to sleep. I suppose you could say I was following the Great Circle curved route by accident, but I woke up over Alaska. Believe me when I say this, but I'm extremely well practiced at navigating by purely numberical GPS means, that was a skill I was really glad I picked up; if I simply only had a handheld GPS instrument with only the numbers, I could navigate the world. I've done it a million times on Fly!2K and FS's, including replicating the 777-200LR Hong Kong to Heathrow long route world record flight, and also the first Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer route. Any way, I contacted the "Center" over Anchorage, and it immediately came back saying that I had to have a flight plan between two points to use the Center.Did something go wrong, or am I so way off course that ATC is not speaking to me, saying "Just go! Leave! Cross that Pacific Ocean with only numerical GPS skills and see if I care!" Perhaps I'm giving the ATC too much personality. But what am I missing?The GPS NAV would not engage from the getgo using this saved flight plan that fully reaches around the world. Perhaps the ATC is not cooperating because I'm so way off course according to the vector window (yellow line nowhere in sight). In the past when I would do these type of fights around the world with saved flight plans, the ATC would work fine, but in those cases I stuck fairly close to the yellow vector line. However in all of those cases even though I would engage both wpt knobs it would never engage the GPS Nav.I'm sorry to bother you again, I hate to seem like a Nave about this GPS Nav, but is there something else I should do to get the flight plan to be recognized by the GPS Nav? Thanks for your assistance.I thought I would share with you my list of flights around the world. The first 1500 hours or so were nearly all Fly!2K flights. My favorite flight might be the 2nd and later flights with Rob Young's Learjet 35A. You might find this funny, but that somewhat weaker computer would crash the Lear 35A simulation if I had the Environment effects option turned on if I changed the view to outside of the cockpit. So in that mode I could only fly from the cockpit, if I tried to change to an outside view the Lear 35A simulation would crash. So I completed that #2 flight around the world entirely by only looking out the cockpit! Then somehow by chance I figured it out, turned off the Environmental effects and could now see the Lear outside views. It was all lots of fun.Here are my flights around the world, 230 total as of this writing, but have about 8 or so more in progress, three in the air right now. All flights are in normal time and distance no compression at all, one hour equals one hour, and one Nautical Mile equals one Nautical Mile:FLIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD(230): 1 Hwkr 800XP 11-042 Learjet 35A 12-04 3 Boeing 747 SP 12-044 Boeing 747 SP 12-045 C-130 01-05.6 737-400 01-057 747-400 01-058 757-200 01 / 02-059 Learjet 35A 02-0510 777-200 02/03-0511 747 SP 03-0512 757-200 03-0513 727-200 03-0514 King Air B200 03-0515 747 SP 04-0516 747 SP 04-0517 N.Am. XB-70A 05-0518 SR-71A 06-0519 TU-144 06-0520 N. Am. XB-70A 06-0521 Concorde 06-0522 Concorde adv 06-0523 SR-71 adv 07-0524 SR-71 07-0525 B-58 08-0526 MiG 25P 08-0527 F-104G 08-0528 F-104S 08-0529 F-16C 08-0530 F-16XL 08-0531 F-16A 08-0532 F-16D 08-0533 MD-12 08-0534 A380-800 08-0535 MD-12 08-0536 A380-800 08-0537 MD F-4E Lt 08-0538 MD F-4E Hvy 08-0539 A380-800 08-0540 YF-23A 08-0541 777-200ER 08/09-0542 A380-800 08/09-0543 777-200ER 09-0544 777-300 09-0545 F-22A 08/09-0546 767-300ER 09-0547 767-300ER 09-0548 Vrg Glb Flyer 09-0549 767-332ER PW 10-0550 787-800 10-0551 767-300ER PW 10-0552 747-475 10-0553 767-300ER 10-0554 787-800 10-0555 747-400 10-0556 767-300ER 10-0557 747-400 10-0558 787-800 10-0559 747-400 10-0560 747-300 10-0561 757-200 10/11-0562 747-400 11-0563 787-800 11-0564 737-300 11-0565 747-400 11-0566 787-800F 11-0567 747-258B 11-0568 787-800F 11-0569 797/763-246C 11-0570 737-400 11-0571 747-458 11-0572 737-700 11-0573 777200LR w rcd 110574 747-400 11-0575 737-600 11-0576 747-400 11-0577 797/763-246C 11-0578 757-300 11-0579 E8C (707-300) 11-0580 A380-800 11-0581 AN225 11-0582 707-320B

[Guest angels355]

I gave it another go, and found part of the problem, that the flight plan needed to be a little refreshed perhaps like with the flight plan edit option so you make sure to get a bright yellow line in the vector window instead of a muted yellow line. But having done that also, I set up for another flight, with a bright yellow line, in a full round the world flight with about 4 or 5 way points, lined it up, with all the knobs turned, pressed NAV hold, and it took off North perpendicular to the yellow line. Could it be heading for a different waypoint like it has a mind of its' own? I'm sure I had the course setting set at neutral default zero.Could it be that the GPS Nav system only wants to have two points in a flight plan and not 4 to 20? Could that be the problem, or what do you think it might be?I'll have to experiment more. That computer is going to be tied up though for about 10 hours or so on a FS98 flight.Thanks for your assistance.

[Roger Mazengarb 0]

G'day,>Could it be heading for a different waypoint like it has a mind of ?>its' own? I'm sure I had the course setting set at neutral default >zero.Fly! should have no problem with 20 waypoints.Just in case you may have a corrupted *.HST file, try deleting the *.HST file for the aircraft in the Aircraft folder.Cheers,Roger

[Guest angels355]

Thanks very much Roger, I appreciate it. If I can keep up with my flight schedule today I might finish my 234th flight around the world tonight.Will Fly! rebuild a new HST file? I was thinking I could put the old one in a folder inside the aircraft folder to back up the old one.I was wondering what aircraft do you focus on in Fly!II? Do you think that the flight dynamics of Fly!II aircraft are better than FS?By the way have you heard whether the flyware group ever finished their 747?http://www.howintheworld.com/flyware/home.html

[Guest angels355]

Well, after a couple of very long flights on FS98 I got Fly!2K going and experimented with the GPS Nav system on a tight 20 NM leg circuit. It appears that refreshing the flight plan before going is critical. And perhaps I need to do some more work in intercepting the course line. I'll still have to experiment.I tried it out on my Fly!2K C-130 which uses the old King Air panel without the GPS Nav button. So typically on those type of panels, when I engage everything to try for GPS Nav and press those Nav buttons on the older panels the button doesn't engage and a note says Nav radio signal too weak. I suppose I could use the tool that opens up pod files and see if I can swap panels. I do that all the time in FS's but haven't tried it w/ Fly!2K.

[Guest angels355]

So far so good on my round the world flight starting with the first leg from PHTO to KLAX in the V88 King Air B200, with a lengthy flight plan. GPS Nav seems to be working OK. I threw out all of the digital "weight", and no passengers and no co-pilot, as a co-pilot is not required on the B200, filled up the digital fuel tanks, and I'm cruising at FL461 with KIAS 147 Knots (337 GS Knots). Do you think I'm pushing the range of the B200? I'm also fully 10,000 feet above it's normal ceiling? Do you think I would be able to get away with these things in a real world flight? Flying at FL461, and stretching the range to go from PHTO to KLAX?I love that sound file, it's so great for the B200, the 800XP sound file is also so great.

[RandallR 444]

The service ceiling of the B200 is supposed to be 35,000. Rob did a fantastic job of flight modeling with the v88 aircraft, though I don't know if he did any work that would have reflected upon real world altitude performance.I know that his first consideration was to get as close to real world performance and handling as possible within the "normal" flight envelope.

[Guest angels355]

Thanks Randy,I just now completed flights all day in the V88 B200, the GPS Nav worked perfect.Rob has recently done the flight dynamics for an FS9 SR-71 for the Pilot's company. The people I've spoken to say that it flies great. It's payware, but it might be worth it.