Pete Dowson

No vector, and Heathrow and Gatwick are okay (Aerosoft and UK2000 respectively). But I had EGLC installed before I got TE-GBS. So, in about 10 days (when I'm back from a NY break) I will try uninstalling and reinstalling the other way around. Knowing it is possible to get it right is useful. I've just got to locate the culprit! 😉 Pete

I'm afraid that did nothing to fix the altitude problem I have at Orbx EGLC after installing TE-GBS. Pete

I tried both settings, the correct one and the one which shouldn't be correct. No difference here. The arrows, whilst annoying, aren't the biggest problem -- it's the altitude differences of the different areas of the airport, the runway being lower than the taxiways especially. In the New Year, when I again have time, I will try as Rob suggested: uninstall both and reinstall in the order TE-GBS then EGLC. Pete

Okay, thanks. Would that be the AFD file provided with Orbx EGLC, or could there be another? So maybe I only have to figure out why they (and some other parts) are higher than the rest of the airport (runway included), and perhaps, if it is a separate problem, why the colour is all wrong. I don't really understand is how two products from the same supplier don't work together. One of the things you hope for when buying them so is that they match. Thanks, Pete

Strange to have such weird "defaults". But, yes, i assumed it was all related to elevation problems somewhere. The UK2000 version is still installed but deactivated. It seems to be self-contained. All the GB TE series now, plus Ireland and N. Ireland regions, and TE Netherlands. Plus Europe Land Class. No Vector nor FTX England. Thanks, but Vector is not installed. Again, thanks, but FTX England is not installed. I'm probably not going to have time to follow this up now till some time in January. But thanks to all for trying, and Happy Christmas! Pete

No, I checked. I also got Orbx Central to check the files. There's certainly an altitude problem. I checked "on the ground". Parts of the airport are a few feet higher than others parts, including hose taxiways with the big ugly arrow heads (are they correct anyway? I'll need to look on Google). Next time I get my system on I'll check whether some GBS BGL is messing it up. I've got the UK2000 version as well, but changed to the Orbx one as it performs better, and doesn't give me big stutters flying over it or approaching it. I fixed the green thames by selecting different PTA shaders, but the main roads (and railways) are still green, looking more like tractors paths on narrow fields than proper roads. Pete

Well I spluged out and bought TEGBC and TEGBN and also downloaded version 2 of TE GBS. All in all I am very impressed. The frame rate is much improved and i feel, weather permitting, i should even be able to fly in and around London with some settings reduced a bit. BUT three things bug me. Two relatively minor but the third is a real problem. i've not seen it mentioned here so I'm sure it must be specific to my system somehow, so I'll ask about this one first. I already had Orbx London City (EGLC) installed and working well. After installing TE GBS2 I see this mstrosity: Now if it wasn't for the colours this looks like it might be some sort of altitude discrepancy. But how and why? Both products are by Orbx! By contrast EGLL looks fine, and that's Aerosoft on Orbx! Does anyone have an idea (I don't use Orbx Vector -- far too heavy on my system). Do i need to post on Orbx support? I feel that there should be an easy fix for this!? The two lesser complaints (though still quite annoying) are * The Thames through London looks green. That is wrong. It tends to be a dirty brown, not blue, but most certainly not green! It is too fast flowing for so much algae or weed to grow! * Many of the roads, especially in London, are still green, or at least have a green hue, looking more like country paths than tarmac or concrete roads. (This is the same as in version 1). Pete

Sorry. I said it seems pretty good to me, and definitely different to the North American way I had in Radar Contact. But you are probably much more an expert on phraseology than I. I'm afraid that due to my eye problems (hereditary RP) I never got my license. Pete

It sounds very correctly European to me, yes. And Dave is European. I have read in the past some feedback to him about the lack of US terminology though. I don't think that's now the case either. However, I only fly in Europe. When I used Radar Contact it was pretty US based as I recall. I think each product probably does better in its athor's own areas. That's not a difference. That is exactly what Pilot2ATC does! In fact that was one of the main reasons I chose it! I have looked at SimBrief too, but I stick to PFPX because ProSimUtils (a program working with ProSim's CDU to provide ACARS and other services) then allows me to get all the flight plan details, load sheets etc, on my CDU and print them on my centre console if I choose (I have a small thermal printer for this purpose built -in). The Prosim utility automatically gets the plan details from PFPX and the load sheets and so on from TopCat. No. I'm a bit concerned with VoxATC about how to get any information i need OFF the main P3D PC (and screen) onto my Networked PC and my in-cockpit screens, as I can do automatically with P2A. I need the voice input and output on the Networked PC, not on the P3D PC, because it is that which handles the headset and the overhead speakers. Pete

That may well be true of PF3, but certainly not Pilot2ATC which is fully aware of SIDs and STARs, and which will assign them dynamically, according to weather, traffic, etc, should you allow it. Neither Radar Contact nor PF3 are aware of SIDs and STARS in the same way, so if you want to use them you usually have to pre-defined them as part of the plan -- or get them to allow you to do your own thing till you get to the first waypoint (or transition) and once past the last one. As for "longer to put into service), this really isn't a thing. I fly a ProSim837 cockpit, so ,once set correctly, I've never had to change the flight parameters needed for things like TOC and TOD calculation. For all I know P2A may save these details in a database for each aircraft you fly, but I wouldn't know. Really all I have to do is press Connect, to connect to P3D, load (or ask it to generate) the Flight Plan (the basic one, not necessarily with SID and STAR included), the Flight Number (if you want a different one from last time) and desired Flight Level (obtained from your planner), and ask it to Validate it, and File it. All done in a minute or so. It takes much longer using PFPX and TopCat to generate and distribute the plans (as well as P2A -- one for P3D, one for ProSim, and one for ASP4). The only drawback with P2A (and VoxATC for that matter) is the cost of adding decent voices. I've built up a collection over a period, usually when there are sales. Oh, and because I know others will point it out, one of the things with P2A which puts folks off is that it doesn't currently interact with AI. You can have chatter, but it is semi-random, not specifically related to the traffic around you. This will come (Dave is very active in developing and supporting P2A), and at present it doesn't really bother me. It's pretty busy in any case as I like short hops -- mostly not more than an hour between take off and landing, so I'm kept pretty busy. I remember in the days I used Radar Contact often not being able to get a word in because of the chatter! (I like lots of AI traffic) Pete

Please yourself. whatever suits you. I know i get smoother results with the hight CPU clock rates. This is because i am pushing at the limits in order to overcome the performance costs P3D imposes when you have multiple scenery windows. If you are not, then I agree. It is not. The 9900 is way more overclockable. Pete

Thanks. I think I tried that. I concluded that it might "fix" what is reported with RTSS operating the limit, but I haven't found it actually changes performance one bit. I think what must be happening is that RTSS is "soaking up" spare cycles. There's no appearent difference in performance with or without RTSS running. Its only purpose here is to help smooth out P3D, same as using VSync assuming I had my projectors running at 30 fps. Pete

Actually, with good cooling, we had it running at 5.5GHz with the cache at 5.0HGz. But to do that we had to turn down the main memory speed to 3.6GHz. The optimisation in the end worked out at 5.3GHz CPU, 5.0 cache with 4.0 main memory. With 8 real cores I see no need for HT. What are you trying to do with 16 "cores"? From what I read, if you really want many cores rather than concentrate on what P3D really needs you should probably consider Ryzen CPUs these days. With my 210 degree FOV screen and three projectors needing 3 scenery windows, every extra 100 MHz I can squeeze out of the processor etc helps. Multiple windows reduces FPS considerably -- 50% reduction with three! Pete

Also the main 8 cores of the 9900 is more than sufficient. Having HT on generates more heat and usually means you can't overclock on all cores. With HT off you can relatively easily reach 5.0 Hz on all 8 cores. BTW, with RTSS limiting the frame rate I've always found that core 0 (or the first core used by P3D) does tend to lock at 100% usage even when it isn't doing a lot. Pete

I don't know. It may have been part of the movement from 32- to 64- bit code (so fixed in P3Dv4). And that may have been because proper programmable access to the friction tables was part of the list of requirements I prepared for them when I was planning FSUIPC5 -- the request may have prompted them to look at the values. OR it may just be that L-M believe they were okay in the first place. Sorry, I've no way of telling which it might be. I only know that I have never found them to be wrong with the aircraft models I've used. Pete

L-M argues that they adjusted them properly in any case and should need no further messing. They say if you find you need to it is to do with some poorly specified aspects of your add-on aircraft. Personally I've never found any need to make adjustments, but then i've only used a 738 (originally the default from FSX but since I started using ProSim, just its 738), and the JustFlight Piper Arrow III. These are the aircraft suiting my two hardware cockpits. Pete

Why do they need "adding" to each aircraft, then? I'm only going by the documentation. If they are true dialogues then I assume they are produced directly by an installed DLL running in P3D? If they are part of an external EXE program then surely there should be an option to have them on a separate PC? Yes, that's fine once you've both used it enough and also have managed to decipher the speech (some voices, though good, have a rendency to screw up some words quite well). I find that having Pilot2ATC's "conversation text" displayed on a small screen in my cockpit helps a lot whilst 'learning the ropes', and will also help when i expand to using foreign accented voices for assorted European airspaces. Pete

No, I don't need that. My headset is connected to a WideFs client PC running P2A, not to the Sim PC. My dealings with P3D4 are all either by ProSim, or, for menu selections, via a WideClient ButtonScreen on a little touchscreen in the cockpit. Pete

That's what I thought. Hmm. I think that's whay I decided against VoxATC. Gauges have to be part of an aircraft configuration. I have a curved screen outside of a cockpit shell. To show a gauge means having it superimposed on the screen. For the initialisation I suppose that isn't so bad -- but since version 7.4 offers the facility to run the program on a Networked PC I would have hoped that the Gauges woould have been moved there to, to regular Windows presumably. The dialog of transmissions must be similar to Pilot2ATC's "conversation text". I have a method of displaying that on a small screen mounted in my cockpit. I would need to find a way of doing that with VoxATC were I to try using that. I have quite a big collection of voices which i use with Pilot2ATC -- Cereproc and Ivona, mostly. I have some with foreign accents, ready for when P2A chooses them according to the region you are flying over, but I don't use them yet as I have difficulty understanding them even when I slow them down a bit (P2A has speech speed adjustment). P2A is in constant development and its author, Dave, is very responsive indeed. A big plus. I know VoxATC has been around for much much longer and should be pretty mature by now (I remember that Bob Sidwick, my good friend in Bristol now sadly deceased, was pushing VoxATC from its start, many years ago). Pete

I thought VoxATC injected its own traffic? Has that changed? Fpr instance, this is from Mutley Hangar's review (mind this was for VoxATC 6, back in 2012): The VoxATC website still points to that. i can't find any later ones. I assume there must be some full description of the latest one somewhere (is it version 8 or 9 by now?). What put me off in any case was that it had to be run on the same PC as P3D, and had some on-screen presence even though it was voice controlled. I run P2A on a separate PC, one which also links to my overhead speakers and headsets. And P2A, once started with a filed plan, needs nothing but voice interaction. Didn't I read that VoxATC needs an aircraft Gauge (VAGauge?) installed in an aircraft? since I have a hardware cockpit and use ProSim737, my aircraft have no on-screen cockpit in which to display a gauge, and such would not be welcome stuck on the scenery view outside. [LATER] Ah, on the VoxATC website: I can find nothing which talks about interaction or control of traffic it didn't inject itself, like the BGL traffic from AIG plans. However, I did see that since 7.4 you can run it on a separate PC, which is a big improvement. But what about that "gauge" and why is it necessary? Pete

That must be from optional "chatter" files. They are recordings which don't bear any relation to the AI flights around you. I don't like that. Hearing about aircraft or airports which have little to no relation to what is around me has no appeal to me. Pete

Well I use one such, Pilot2ATC, and as I fly short flights only (as you know), it is not a "sterile ennvironment" at all. I am kept pretty busy! When I was using RC4 I found it difficult to get my requests or acknowledgements in because of the constant yapping with or from AI! If you do long flights, or fly in areas with little AI around you, then I can see the AI interaction being more of an enticement. It was just too much for me. And too many AI on the same frequency. Usually in busy airport areas there's more than one controller for each stage. Pete

Actually all versions up to the one i said had the exact same error in. It's just that the corruption didn't affect AI Traffic control by applications. they would have affected something else instead, perhaps more insidious. That's the trouble with memory corruption -- what happens to be in that memory affects the result. Sorry if that's how you interpret it. I would just really appreciate it if folks would at least try the currently supported versions of our software. I understand your motivation at the time. Yes, thank you. Pete

But that thread finished with the completely fixed version, 5.151d! The current release is 5.152 which of course also includes that fix. Please update. It doesn't cost you anything. Download the current version, run the installer. Done! I don't like folks saying FSUIPC is causing problems when they haven't even checked for updates. Pete

I've only just noticed this. Can you explain this business? I am not aware of any problems with AI caused by FSUIPC. Not sure how it could. I always use the latest version (naturally) and I am using 100% traffic level with AIGM-OCI traffic (all airlines, latest versions). Please tell me what to look for. No one has reported a problem on our support forum that I'm aware of. Thanks, Pete