flying_w

Thanks - a timely reminder

I'd like to think MS have learnt as much from past "disappointments" as much if not more so than from past "successes" and that has influenced on the journey here. Think of Vista, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Flight, I'm sure we can all think of other examples... Did they not say something along the lines of "thanks for bearing with us despite a few mis-steps" when they first talked about MSFS?

For myself as a casual simmer, the lighter weight (but still heavier weight than FSX/P3D) default aircraft are perfect because as much as I'd love to I just can't find the time to learn the more details third party addons. "The slower day is coming.....", I wish. Simon

I remember from the IFR feature discovery the ATC was giving speed commands to the user aircraft. If they are given to AI to in the "terminal area", then perhaps approach spacing will be much better managed than we've seen before. Also if AI is flying SID/STARS, that will also help organise the arrival pattern. What they are doing with AI looks excellent, one thing I hope they'll show at some point is what these AI aircraft look like close up and preferbly as a landing and takeoff "movie". The questions I have are: What's the range of AI models available in the sim, what's the visual quality of the models (and there may be compromises in AI models for good performance reasons)? What compromises are made in the flight model compared to the user's experience, How are airline paint schemes handled? The latter may all boil down to a template paint, like we see on the user airbus and 747. If so, perhaps an opportunity for third parties? Any of this info already published? Would be glad to be pointed to it. Simon

Sounds like it's Just Flight Traffic Global, their latest AI package

I probably am, in which case I'll see how the 2nd user availability is looking for a like for like swap.

None of the RAM sticks would work in any slot, even just one and following the layout in the Z170 user guide 😞

Many tanks for all of the suggestions. After taking out the RAM and GPU, I received one long beep and two short beeps at the next power up. Consulting the internet I understand that to mean "RAM problem". Furthermore I noticed on my mobo I have four little LEDS, marked CPU, RAM, GPU and one other I forget. During power up, the CPU lit up the went off, the RAM LED did the same and then the power went off. The GPU led and the other LED were never lit. As I have tried two different GPUs, I don't think it's getting as far as the GPU before it powers down again. Most likely cause at this time, my RAM or the Mobo circuitry associated with that. As I don't have any spares, my inclination is to buy one stick of the cheapest RAM compatible and see if that rescues the machine. If it does, I can go forward from there. I don't want to buy a like for like replacement or better until later in the year, when the entire system is due an upgrade (and at which time the hardware requirements for the new MS FlightSim may be known) Any comments? Thanks Simon

Out of the blue, my 4 year old self built sim PC is no longer starting up. I switch it on at the mains, the fans and CPU water pump all start spinning but then they all go off again. At this point I'd press the power button on the PC itself, but that does nothing, does not even spin the fans up. In order to try to book again I have to power off at the mains and plug in again. However that results in the above. All lights look normal on the motherboard itself, when it does try to start the monitor never wakes up, so I don't even get a bios screen. I've tried: Changing the graphics card to a spare; Changing the Power Suppoy to a spare; Re-seating all motherboard components; Booting without any internal cables (e.g. USB, SSD) attached; I've not tried removing the NVMIe card and booting because those screws are a fiddle. Not sure what else to try as I've no spare parts to try to isolate to motherboard, RAM or CPU. Anyone been down this road before with these symptoms? How does the BIOS communicate a fault these days (Asus Pro Gaming Z170)? I remember in the "olden days" it used by be a speaker and you'd have to find out what the sequence of beeps where. However my modern case does not have a speaker. Thanks for any thought on this Simon

No effect on the size of the reality bubble, it's as big as it always is for BGL based traffic. The flight plans all specify what is the minimum value of P3D traffic slider required in order for that flight to be made into a simulator AI object at the appropriate time and place. I use both all the time, and randomize over again every once in a while just to see a different set (although still real world accurate) of AI flights for a given slider value. Simon

The DX9 option might not work fully as that may include FS8/9 format models. They are reported to have problems in P3DV4 including missing moving parts. As that's a legacy format, it's probably not something that will be fixed in the simulator.

Any AI add-on with FSX format models and FSX format traffic schedules (BGL) should work in Prepar3D V4 as far as I can see, at least from the point of view of the AI showing up in the simulator. Not sure if the older FS8/9 formats are still supported. Simon

It's not just the official APIs like SimConnect, but the "unofficial" ones also. For example a number of us add-on developers interpret the contents of BGLs to get airport information, traffic schedules, etc. simply because that sort of information isn't provided through a regular API. I would love to see one, but I suspect we'll be carrying on as before. The question then is will the BGL format change to use 64bit based pointers rather than 32bit? Simon

Same problem here. Where road traffic is implemented using the standard techniques dating back to FSX and controlled by the density slider, they shake as they go by. When it's implemented using some other animation, such as UK2000 airports, it's much smoother (although limited to that airport of course). I hope it's an area that sees some enhancement in the next version. Simon

Jay, to switch off STB's efforts to control AI aircraft, go to the settings notebook, Board Control tab, and uncheck one or more options under "Flight Control". Simon

Hi Jay, Thanks for the help. I discovered my sound folder was virtually empty, so it's likely something went wrong in the original P3D V3 install (although I don't recall any errors being reported). In any case, I uninstalled the deficient 3.0 content, installed the 3.1 content and everything is the way it should be. Simon

Somewhere along the way in my Prepar3D V3 journey, I have lost both the ability to see ATC text and hear ATC voices. When I try to do anything with ATC, I get the window coming up with the appropriate options, but when I select an option it "completes" really quickly with no communications text and no voice. If I look further into Sound options in Prepar3D, where I normally expect to see a list of the voices available the list is in fact empty. Not sure if I had this in 3.0 as I moved to 3.1 very quickly, and I'm sure it's just me rather than something systematic. But before I go to a little trouble of a reinstall, does anyone know another way to get ATC working again? Thanks Simon

Just thought I'd report in with the end of this story. A new Gigabyte 980Ti arrived today and I'm relieved to say it worked perfectly (in the same computer as the Palit). So I think we can safely conclude the previous Palit card was faulty rather than the PC itself or my sanity. Nothing bad to say about Palit, there support was excellent and the RMA process painless. There's every chance a Palit replacement card would have worked but I decided to play it safe with another vendor just in case. And finally I'm very grateful of the suggestions, support and encouragement received here. Thanks everyone! Simon

Thank you for the link, and I'd have been glad to try it had the card not already been returned. Palit wrote to me to say I already had the latest bios so that was the end of the story as far as they were concerned and it was time for an RMA. I'm certainly glad of the support I received, although I'm a little hesitant now about buying another 980ti (the RMA was for a refund). Simon

I reached out to Palit for help and I'm glad to say I received a reply. While it may be a stock answer to every situation, I was impressed to receive anything based on my experiences with other manufactures over the years. For anyone else in this situation, they suggested the following: Please try below possible solutions. 1. If the graphic card is dusty please clean dust from the graphic card. (Dust might keep some wet and affect electric components) 2. Clean the PCI-E "gold finger" of the graphic card by an eraser. 3. Download the DDU to un-install current graphic card driver and clean driver leftover files completely. Then install the latest graphic card driver. DDU: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/550192/geforce-drivers/display-driver-uninstaller-ddu-v12-9-5-1-released-06-18-14-/ Download driver website: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us 4. Please upgrade the motherboard BIOS to the latest version. 5. Upgrade the graphic card BIOS to the latest version. Please follow the steps of attached TXT file to backup your graphic card’s BIOS and then send to us. We’ll provide the latest BIOS for you to try. Please also provide the S/N of the graphic card to us. You can find it from the product box or the sticker in back of the graphic card. If the error remained and if it's possible please test the graphic card in another PC. If the error happened again please contact the store where you bought the graphic card to claim warranty. From the above I have tried everything except the VGA bios, which I have provided to them as requested. Last restore, and not a bad one, is RMA. Thank you, all good suggestions here. I have tried: - On my Ti it's a 6 and 8 pin connection; - Tried feeding each from separate rails on the PSU; - The fans spin up during PC bios and initial windows boot, but go off as soon as Windows desktop is up as there's little load at that point. - When running load tests the fans do not kick in. That said, the lack of output could be a "crash" as it happens so quickly and the load may have been disposed of. - Tried now in two PCs, one with a Corsair 1050W PSU and another with CoolerMaster 750W. And in all cases the results are unchanged. I did monitor the situation with GPU-Z, and when load is applied the card frequency, voltage and performance counters all step up a little for one reading in the log, after which further readings all contain "no values" for the various metrics. Another symptom of crash or failure perhaps. I suspect this one is heading for RMA, and thanks once again for the ideas. Simon

Just acquired a new GTX980Ti to upgrade my GTX970 which is working just fine. With the Ti I can get as far as the windows desktop most of the time, but any significant graphics load causes the monitor to go black and report "no signal detected". It does this on every card port (DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI) and even the scenario screen with the spinning aircraft on FSX/P3D is enough to bring it down. Sometimes even the Windows 10 desktop does it in, Windows 7 seems to be OK. I've tried everything I can think of: - Updating drivers - Different versions of windows - Different cables and rail combinations from the PSU But nothing seems to fix it. I put the 970 back in and it works fine, right up to 99% GPU consumption if I wish. The first thought is PSU problems, but it's hard to accept when the 970 works fine and the Ti can't even manage minimal 3D workloads. The second thought is a faulty card. Anyone come across this kind of thing before? Thanks Simon

One of the features I liked in GEX is woodlands didn't always have very dense autogen trees which was good for FSX performance. However in P3D that's much less of a concern, and ORBX have some spectacularly dense forest for example in the New Zealand region packs. In fact so dense it's sometimes hard to see the forest floor (texture). Now I don't wish to compare either product to an ORBX region pack, but how do the forests look in FTX Global compared to GEP3D? Thanks Simon

Thanks all for contributing, sounds like SLI and 4K are worthy investments. I won't expect FPS miracles! Simon

I agree about the CPU. However as I run with unlocked frames and vsync to a 30Hz screen, the CPU is often well under 100% on the main core. Indeed this gives me scenario and scenery tuning options to get more (or less if it does bottleneck) as the demand is not hidden in the way it is for simulator locked frame rates. If I have read correctly, P3D V2 was optimised for SLI (by Nvidia?). Is the same true for V3, or perhaps way too soon? Thanks Simon

Before I go off and make a regretful purchase, anyone experience with Prepar3D V3 and SLI? In particular, is there any benefit in SLI for: a) The prepar3d graphics workload in general b) Running a 4K monitor c) Running a 2K monitor, but with DSR processing the image at 4K? I would like to go to 2x GTX970. The one I have is currently doing a fine job, but I can find scenarios where is run out of capacity. Thanks Simon