Personal Observations/Experiments with fluid RC3 Speech

[Guest]

Hi,My system was not capable for whatever reasons of playing RC3 in an acceptable fashion and since I am a devoted fan of Radar Contact I eagerly jumped at using batch files to set processor priority in Windows XP. Doing so made a terrific improvement to an OK workable level. I have tried setting the priorities via batch files and also using the 3.01 patch command string settings to Above Normal, High, and Realtime. I have also used a batch file to set FS2002 to low in combination with the Radar Contact priorities. I have not been able to notice any difference in fluid performance once you set Radar Contact to anything at Above Normal or higher. Setting FS2002 to low did not seem to make any difference. Being as there is no Frame Rate Counter to utilize, I just have to go by my listening judgement. That, is surely far from scientific!The 3.01 patch also did not seem to make much difference over the released version as to voice speed no matter what priorities I set comparing the two at the Above Normal or higher priority settings. All the other changes it made were great. Prior to the patch I got so involved with my obsession with all of this that I started delving into editing the sound files. This was mostly because I particularly like Jeff Evans Pilot voice. Sounds sorta "John Wayne" or something to me, whatever. But, Jeff's pronunciation of "ONE" was particularly long and drawn out IMHO and being that every frequency you are given he is going to repeat it back, it was kind of driving me up the wall. So, I dug around and found a wave editor and started in. I'm here to tell you folks, that making these voice waves and editing them is tedious hard work. My hat is completely off to Scott Campbell and all the guys who have worked so obviously hard to bring us a terrific product. I did find some slack in Jeff's "ONE" and edited it out and it worked just great for me. Then, the evil obsession took me over and I edited all of Jeff's alphabet and numbers. Took one whopper of a long time, but Jeff really had his speech together for me. Thought about doing the same thing to all the controller files but just couldn't bring myself to giving it the time it would take. Anyway, thanks a million Jeff for your pilot voice. Available on Scott's site by the way. I have read with great interest all the posts about utilizing a second computer to run Radar Contact. I had a PIII 850 collecting dust so I thought I would give it a whirl while dreading going through the pain of learning how to network computers. I was also skeptical that two machines would make all that much difference since I felt a P4 2.2 gig with G4 Ti 4600 would be horsepower enough to do Radar Contact as well as it could possibly be done. We can't compare frame rates over this kind of thing so just how fast were the other guys Radar Contact being heard?Results? Unbelievable! The controllers are talking so fast that I about fell all over myself trying to get that first clearance down. The station identifier letters were popped out so fast that they sounded almost like one word all run together. My initial reaction was yep, this is what real controllers are like, fast talkers and you better be able to keep up. You really have to listen alertly or you'll miss stuff. The chatter really comes hot and heavy as well. Auditing Jeff's voice would not have been required (Except maybe for his ONE) and he REALLY talks fast now. Rattles those frequency numbers right out he does! Immersion is rather total. Obviously not everyone is going to go out and buy a second computer just to run Radar Contact. I never would have but just happened to have my old one available. If you do have a second machine and you're fence sitting about whether to do it or not I would give it my strongest recommendation. I have since found that I can also run Active Sky wxRE on the second machine as well as an linked FS Nav 3.0 with no slowdown whatsoever of FS2002. A side bonus was finding out I could play MP3 files for music while cruising along! I have yet to conquer FS FlightMax on the second machine but that is a future goal. I am just beginning to realize all the capabilities of having the second machine networked to my FS 2002 computer.One thing that did suprise me was to find out that I needed to play Radar Contact through an additional pair of speakers. Well, one speaker would do. I thought Radar Contact would come out of my primary computer with FS2002. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but when I think about it the logic suggests it would come out of my secondary machine. I found that using a headphone set worked out pretty neat. You're hearing your controllers through the headphones while you can use your primary computer speakers turned up to simulate your engines etc. I've got a fairly good speaker/subwoofer system and churning up the bass and volume really puts out those vibrations in the prop aircraft. Geof, I think it would work super great for you with your Debonair, just like it has for me. Great airplane and thanks again! One last item. Since my system is right next to my bedroom wall, and since my wonderful wife always goes to bed hours before I do, no longer would wearing the headphones work as I could only choose to listen to either Radar Contact or FS 2002. So, I had a set of earbuds laying around and hooked them up to the secondary computer with the big padded recessed headphones now being placed over the top of the earbuds. This works great and you have the ability to set the volumes of both Radar Contact and FS2002 to acheive the exact levels you want. Thanks again to JD, Rick, Scott and all the other folks that have turned out such a tremendous product through an obvious one heck of a lot of hard work and devotion!I sincerely hope some of these thoughts and observations may be of help to some of you.Bob, Rogers, Arkansas

[Guest BRIANWHARRIS]

Mr. Rogers:Thank-you for your efforts regarding RCv3 and the speech rate and cadence issues/solutions.I'm attempting to network RCv3 onto a client computer that shares Jeppessen FlightStar/Flight Map ***[in order to generate flight plans and automatically send them to Radar Contact and to Project Magenta's CDU (cdu-accomplished)].I'm receiving an error message as I attempt to "start Radar Contact":"Unable to link to FSUIPC and Wide Client."Server-FS2002/WIN_XP P3 2GCLIENTS x 6 WIN 98_SE [PROJECT MAGENTA GLASS COCKPIT]**Client#4=FLITESTAR/FLIGHTMAP + RADAR CONTACT (RCv3)I've place Wideclient/FSUIPC/ADVdispl in the directories and the client is already configured for file and printer sharing via "TCP protocol"."ANY SUGGESTIONS ARE RESPECTED".Respectfully,Brian W. Harris, M.D.(Boeing 737_9 project)

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Brian,Are you seeing 'A Century of Flight with Wideserver: 1 connected' in the FS window before you start RC?