Radar Contact and PMDG 737

[jd 57]

you will not be able to let the rc co-pilot fly the plane. that is the only limitation i know of with rc, and that plane.jd

[Guest bigun]

Thanks jd. Sounds like I need to order RC. Don't want a co-pilot to fly this great plane anyway:)Thanks

[Dean_EGTC 57]

George,A few of us on the beta team use the PMDG extensively with RC. No problems to report :)

[Guest mikemcbee]

I cant ever use Radar contact with PMDG, as it causes frequent engine shutdowns randomly. I can duplicate it every time with SU2 version of PMDG. So until it is completely tested with PMDG< I wont use it or ever reccommend it. My 2.5c worth. . . Mike

[jd 57]

i've asked my beta testers with this plane to contact you, and get you going. hope you don't mind ;-)jd

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Mike,Give us a breakdown of what is happening. Do you have any other add-ons running as well? I have completed dozens of faultless flights with both SU1 & SU2. As I type right now I'm midway CYVR - KMEM.Give us the details of your scenario and I'll see if I can duplicate it.

[Guest mikemcbee]

Thanks for your help. Here's what I've got: FS9, FSUIPC, FSbuild2, ADVDisp, PMDG 737NG SU2, Groundhandling gauge, Flightdeck FX gauge (FSFX), Radar COntact Ver 3.1, T-37B Microsimulator, various sceneries, latest versions of all of these bought and paid for. My system is a WinXP Pro sys I built myself. Intel D865GBF board, Intel 2.8Ghz CPU, 2GB DDR Ram, Nvidia FX 5600 (with latest drivers), startup clean with minimal programs running. My flight was created with FSbuild 2 - ksfo -Klax. I am also using the latest AIRac from navdata. I made this flight default with PMDG as the starting plane. I start FLight sim , then minimize and start RC2. RC2 also seems to conflict greatly with the groundhandling guage. THe engine shutdowns are random but happen everytime during this flight in almost any phase. Plus, they wont re-start once shutdown. THanks again. Mike

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Ok Mike if this was me :)Firstly, I'm not familiar with either the Groundhandling gauge or the Flightdeck FX gauge (you'll have to tell me how they work). What's the T-37B Microsimulator?The way to solve this, as most FS problems, is by the process of elimination.How I would go about it:-1) Delete the startup flight from your FS folder. Corrupt ones have been known to do ugly things. If you skip the startup screen and go straight to your default flight then make that aircraft an FS default aircraft. Payware developers have been telling us for as long as I can remember this is the only sure fire way to ensure all gauges initialise correctly. 2D panel as well, not the VC. I always start with a C& D Cessna. I can live with waiting 20secs for the PMDG to load after ;)Re-fly but without Radar Contact. Just to be 100% sure all is ok at this point.If we're ok .......2) Comment out both the groundhandling & Flightdeck gauges. Have they been added via the panel.cfg or is there another app you fire up that loads these gauges? Either way stop them loading. Re-fy but with Radar Contact. If the engines still die (but I don't think they will) you can eliminate those gauges as the problem source.3) If they don't die then uncomment one of the gauges and try again. You say the groundhandling gauge doesn't like RC. In that case try uncommenting the Flightdeck gauge first.If you do narrow it down to a gauge then it may be something as simple as conflicting keystrokes although I doubt it.Let us know how you get on :)

[Guest Mike Want]

I'm not minimising Mike's problems, but just so that visitors to the forum don't go away with the wrong impression I use Radar Contact with PMDG 737 all the time, without a single problem. That's running with ActiveSky and ActiveCamera.Mike (another Mike!!)

[Guest mikemcbee]

THanks for your help Mike. The Groundhandling gauge is another fancy way to add Pushback with voices to your panel. It is available here at AVSIM as Freeware I believe. The Flightdeck FX guage is another freeware program available here that you can use on your panel to add cabin calls and background ambient airport noise. Both work great. The T-37B Microsimulator is one of the best military Aircraft I have ever seen for MSFS9. I have worked on that Airplane when in the Air Force, and know it well. I will say it is almost 100% accurate! I have tried using the PMDG removal tool and then re-installing PMDG. Then just use Radar Contact3 (fresh install)without those guages. Still, the engines shutdown. Very weird. If nobody else is seeing this, then there must be something corrupted in my FS sys somewhere. I haven't tried starting by skipping the startup screen and using a default fs A/C. How can I get FS to skip the startup screen again? I forget. Thanks for all your help. Mike

[Guest mikemcbee]

I Just tried it again with your suggestions. I didnt even get to Taxi! The engines shut down again! I'm really getting tired of this. Please, I'm begging for help here. Thanks Mike

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Mike,This is without Radar Contact running? I'm following your thread on the PMDG Forum as well. Leads me to believe the problem is deeper than a conflict with RC.Are you absolutely sure you haven't accidentally checked any failures from the menu?Do you fly with Vatsim? If so we could go somewhere quiet and walk through a short flight.

[jd 57]

i have a suggestion, you probably won't like it, but as a professional troubleshooter.....at some point you have to make the decision. i can spend 40 hours trying to find the problem, or 10 hours from scratch.i would uninstall fs9, your add-onsinstall fs9, install rc, install pmdgsee if it works.if it does, add, your next add on. does it work?add the next add on, does it work?don't install 2, 3, 4 add ons at a time. if one of them breaks fs9, you'll never know what it is.in the end, you may have an fs9 that works, rc works, all your add ons work. you'll never know what was wrong. but you probably never would have found it either.oryou'll find what add-on is messing things up, and you can contact the author, or dean can add the add-on and see what is happening. (easy for me to volunteer dean's machine to mess up, huh :-) )jd

[Guest mikemcbee]

Thanks for your suggestions JD. I have re-installed FS9 from scratch so many times because of conflicts with this, that or the other . . . It's gettn kind of old. I know its a quick fix,but it would do the public and the product a better service if the problem was discovered rather than just start from scratch, don't you think? I am a professional troubleshooter too, and I like to find the problem as time can be a precious thing and it is very time consuming to re-install everything from scratch. Here's the List that yould have to be re-installed from scratch: FS9, (Fs9 CD crack)PMDG, FSUIPC, ADVDisp, 15-2 Add-on sceneries, 15-20 various Aircraft (many which have been bought or downloaded from AVSIM), you get the idea.. . It's almost as much work. I would rather just not use RC3 than go thru that again. Plus the problem never really gets solved and if someone else has the problem, there won't be any other option for them either. I have noticed that RC3 is very heavy on the resources and does not seem to integrate very well with AI. Especialy Ground controllers. I am frequently getting other "heavy's" not seeing me and running into me. The ground controller never interacted with them. SO there are some issues here. DOn't get me wrong, I love what RC3 does, it is a great product, but we need to get these kinds of issues addressed. I have one theory, perhaps the resources are being too heavily tapped into, and when they are low, these anomolies popup? I have 2GB of Ram and wouldn't think that this would be an issue? What do you reccomend for the Direct-X sound setting? Thanks again for your efforts. Mike

[Dean_EGTC 57]

Mike,We need to step back and look at the issue here. The fact is that nobody else, that I've found yet, who uses the combination of FS9 / RC / PMDG is experiencing these unexplained engine shutdowns. If there were even one or two other users seeing the same thing it might be cause for concern. Whatever is happening is related to the interaction between software inside *your* system.I'm going to install both the groundhandling gauge and the flightdeck gauge. One at a time. Have you asked on the PMDG forum if anybody else uses either of these gauges?Radar Contact v3 is not aware of FS AI traffic. That's coming in v4 currently under testing and working well :)You should be seeing neglible drain on resources with system specs like yours. Maybe something else that points to a deeper problem.Can you cut & paste the contents of your PMDG panel.cfg into a message here so I can compare?