torque2

There is Aerosoft's "Airport Enhancement Service", which I believe still works in FS9. You buy credits ("AES Creditpack") which you spend to activate airports. Some airports work for 'free' so you can download it and try it out. Others cost anywhere from 1 - 5 credits, depending on the complexity of the airport. Gets expensive however if you want to activate more than a few airports. Regards, David

I have a three computer network and they are all at least six years old. I turn them off every time I finish a flight. Only two of the three will come out of sleep mode properly anyway. In six years I have not had a single hardware failure with this practice. And no worries about electrical surges causing damage. I also believe starting a new flight from a 'fresh bootup' is less likely to cause glitches than beginning a new flight after a previous one.

Welcome to the club! I bought the Blackbox A330 'prologue' V0.6 nearly three years ago. In three years it has progressed from V0.6 to V0.81. No sign of when the official 'V1.0' will be released, if ever. But at least there are signs they are 'working on it'. Buying an in-development product comes with no guarantees of when, or if, a final product will be released. David CYXE

Hi All, The mission compass display was designed back when monitors had standard 4:3 aspect ratio displays. Most everyone now has a widescreen monitor, so the mission compass appears stretched horizontally. With some detective work I have found a way to correct it. In your FSX gauges folder, look for the file "missionpanels.cfg" and make a backup. Open it in notepad and scroll down to the [Window00] section. Despite rather standard-looking entries, many are overriden by FSX internal code. For example, the 'window_size' and 'window_pos" entries are totally ignored. So no help in fixing the problem. I also discovered the "size_mm" value can be commented out completely with no effect. In fact, the easiest way to change the aspect ratio of the gauge00 in this window I found is to remove it (comment it out). Then I was able to change the compass display's aspect ratio simply by changing values on the gauge00= line. The third and fourth parameter then directly control the width and height of the gauge. For my 16:10 apect ratio monitor I made the following changes: [Window00] ;size_mm=98,123 // this line is commented out ... ;gauge00=Missions!POI, 0, 0, 98, 123 // original gauge00=Missions!POI, 0, 0, 82, 100 // My settings for 16:10. For 16:9 displays, try 75 instead of 82 I haven't tested this fully in other missions but in simple ones with just the mission pointer it looks much better. David CYXE

Thanks Mark, that was the problem. David

Problem solved! I discovered I have to re-select the radio button for my installation type (in my case FSX) after browsing to my FSX directory for the install to complete successfully. Now I just need to figure out how to keep the passenger and engine doors open (they reclose immediately) so I can complete my preflight! David

Hi all: Anyone else having trouble installing this product? I keep getting installer errors ("Object Reference not set to an instance of an object", "Access to path 'C:\users\...\Appdata\Roaming' is denied". This despite disabling any antivirus software and running the installer as administrator. The aircraft installs ok but the FMS hangs at the 'Loading Navdata' screen. Looks like the navdata is not being installed. I'm running Win7-64bit, FSX with Acceleration. Never had installation problems before. I have submitted a ticket to Carenado. David CYXE

Hi All: Thought some of you might be interested in a discovery I made today on loading times for FSX from a cold boot to the 'Free Flight' screen. I recently upgraded to an SSD for my OS (Windows 7) and FSX. I, however, have several hundred GB of scenery data that won't begin to fit on the SSD so I have it still installed on a hard drive. But with the rest of FSX and W7 on the SSD I expected to see a significant improvement in FSX startup times. I did not. Maybe 30 secs at the most (3 mins before, about 2.5 mins after). Why? The only data not on the SSD is the scenery data. That must be what is still slowing my startup times. I tried some things. As a first test, I substituted the default scenery.cfg file from back when FSX was installed for my current one, expecting a big difference in startup times: No! Barely any difference! FSX was still reading lots of scenery before the 'Free Fligh't Screen would appear. Next I tried an empty 'Addon Scenery' folder (moved my current one outside of FSX and replaced it with an empty one, just like FSX newly installed). Some improvement but still slow (2:22). I have lots of scenery installed in the FSX folders, not just in the 'Addon Scenery' folder. So next I moved all those folders (only my payware/freeware folders, not any of the default folders) outside of the FSX folder structure and retested from a cold start: Big improvement! Startup time a mere 0:20!! So it appears FSX scans all the folders within the FSX file structure for scenery on startup, even when there is no corresponding entry in the scenery.cfg file. So next I put back my scenery.cfg file, but modified it with the new locations of all my scenery folders outside of the FSX main folder. This was very easy to do, just needed to add a "..\" in front of each local= entry for folders that were moved. Shut down the computer, waited a minute or so then restarted. My new boot time, with my 'normal' scenery active: 0:35!! A full 2 minutes quicker than before. I will add that the load times from pressing 'Fly Now' until the cockpit appears, ready for flight, do not change with this technique. So if you normally fly with most of your scenery active this method will not help you. But for me, with hundreds of GB of scenery data, and only a small portion of it active at any one time, it made a very welcome difference. Almost as good as a brand new installation! The only scenery folder I cannot move in this fashion is Orbx. That has to stay where it is. FTX have not provided a way to move it elsewhere. I have 68GB of data in that folder (linked to a hard drive folder). It is costing me 10 seconds in startup time! I could move that 68GB to my SSD but that would nearly fill it. If anyone knows a way to move it so FSX doesn't scan it on startup I would love to know! David CYXE

I have done this merge and am very pleased with the results - CLS visuals along with Wilco's panel. In addition to replacing Wilco's model and texture files you also need to make several changes to Wilco's aircraft.cfg file, using the values from CLS. These include the [Views], [Lights], [Contact points], [TailHook] and [Exits] sections - ie anything that refers to the visual model. I also found the resulting model a little overpowered so I reduced the thrust_scalar from 0.98 to 0.90 but increased the fuel_flow_scalar from 0.6175 to 0.70255 to keep that aspect accurate. Hope this helps. David

Nope. If you click on any of these FS9 links you get an 'HTTP' file not found error, or a message 'this product is no longer in our catalog' David (CYXE)

I just came from the PMDG website where I wanted to review a possible purchase for FS9, only to find all their FS9 products have disappeared! No sign of them under 'Products' nor in their online shop. I hope this is a temporary aberation and not that they have stopped selling all FS9 versions of their products! David (CYXE)

As the original poster of this topic I would like to post a followup. Further experience and testing has shown me that the key for me is to delete the FS9.cfg file then restart FS9 (to the welcome screen) to allow it to re-initialize itself. Then I close FS9 and restart it a second time, this time with my saved configuration file (using the /cfg: command line switch) and my blurries are gone as long as I don't restart my computer. Shutting down my computer or rebooting causes the blurries to reappear and I have to go through this process again. I have written a short batch file to automate this process and I run it each time I start my computer. I have no explanation for this behavior. It seems that having FS9 regenerate a new cfg file resets something unrelated to the cfg file itself such that I can then run FS9 with my old cfg file and my textures remain sharp for the rest of my session. I pass this off to some peculiar glitch with modern hardware that FS9 is probably not totally compatible with. I never had this problem with my old dual core computer. David

Hi FS2004 fans: Thought I would post a discovery I made which appears to have solved a problem I have had for several months - namely blurry ground textures. The textures near the aircraft have been OK but not far away turn into a complete blurry mess! I tried tweaking all the terrain and texture settings in my FS9.cfg file per recommendations I have found online, to no avail. Yesterday I tried deleting ( actually I hid it by renaming it) my user\application data\Microsoft\FS9 directory (I'm using WindowsXP) and had FS2004 rebuild it on the next restart. This directory includes not just your FS9.cfg file but also index files and a scenery cache directory. On the next restart FS2004 regenerated some indexes and to my amazement, my blurries were gone! Textures were nice and clear much further into the distance. I then tried replacing the newly rebuilt FS9.cfg with my old one to see if it was a bad setting in that file that was causing my problem. To my surprise my textures remained clear! So, at least for me, it was some scenery index or cache file in my user directory that was causing my trouble. Time will tell if my solution remains permanent but I am so happy to finally have this problem solved! I had not encountered this suggestion online so I am posting it here. Long live FS2004! David B.

Hi All:Recently I decided to 'downgrade' my video card and am surprised at the improvements I have seen.First a little background as to why I would even want to do this. I am a longtime flightsimmer, since the genre was born, so to speak. I currently am a 'tri-simmer', that is, I fly one of three flight sims, depending on what my main interest is on any particular day. For the best visual experience, I fly FSX and Orbx scenery. For general flightsimming, I still prefer FS2004. And for those days when I want a real challenge and fly an IFR approach down to minimums, with nothing visible outside the cockpit window, I fly FS2002! Microsoft seriously 'broke' IFR flying with FS2004 and FSX. Even 'inside' an overcast layer it is easy to see the ground looking to the side or downwards. FS2002 is the last sim they made that can still display a total 'whiteout' inside an overcast layer.I recently rebuilt my Sim computer for FSX. i7-2600K CPU overclocked now to 4200 GHz, ASUS P8P67 motherboard, and an nVidia GTX 560Ti video card. You would think this setup should run any of my three sims just fine. FSX was good. FS9, a few nagging issues from time to time with a video 'freeze' for several minutes. But the biggest disappointment was with FS2002. Slow and jerky! My old dual core CPU/8800GT video computer ran it much better! I found I had to turn off MIP mapping, cut down autogen scenery to sparse, etc. just to be flyable!I happened to have laying around another video card I had picked up cheaply that I was planning to use to rebuild another computer (non-gaming), an ATI Radeon HD6670. This is considered a 'mid-range' card at best,certainly not a gaming card. I figured FSX performance would suffer but I really wanted my FS2002 back to a playable state. So out came the nVidia card and in went the Radeon.The results have exceeded my expectations by far. FS2002 now runs as smoothly as it ever did on my old system, FS2004 seems the same as before (no video lockups so far). But the biggest surprise of all came in FSX: No noticable performance hit at all!! As a test I loaded up my most demanding aircraft (Flight1 Mustang) parked at a busy Orly X Airport, with low clouds and rain, all things that should make a 'slow' Radeon video card drop to it's knees and beg for mercy! But no, it reported framerates identical to what I had seem before with my nVidia card: 20 - 30 fps. In fact, outside panning around the aircraft always seemed to stutter a little with the nVidia card, but this little Radeon (which requires no power other than what it gets from the PCI-Express bus) pans even smoother!I don't know how to explain this. I have just done this 'downgrade' a couple of days ago so time will tell if this is genuine or not. I will also say I run fairly low resolutions. My monitor is 1680x1050 and I often run a window in a 4:3 aspect ratio to keep my 2D panels from being stretched. People who run HD monitors full screen or multiple monitors will likely need a more powerful card.I wil add the same doesn't hold for Microsoft Flight. That game stutters significantly now when panning around, whereas it was pefectly smooth before. But since I have pretty well abandoned that 'sim' it doesn't matter to me.But it is interesting that newer and faster video cards are not necessarily better for these 'older' flightsims.David

Hi JetProp fans:Anyone else notice that the OAT displayed by the G500 PFD is bogus? It appears to be a calculated value based solely on aircraft altitude, displaying the ISA standard temperature for that altitude and not the actual temperature outside the aircraft. At least that is what I see on my machine.It's very easy to test. Park at any airport in the world and note the OAT reading. Now go into the FSX weather menu and change the ground temperature (and dew point if necessary) by several degrees. On my machine the OAT display does not change!Is this important? For purists trying to match real world performance as closely as possible it does. Turboprop cruise true airspeed varies directly with the OAT, for the same power settings. Furthermore, I own a copy of a Piper Meridian Pilot's Information Manual and the Meridian has OAT limits beyond which it cannot be operated. For Jet A fuel the minimum permissible OAT is -34C and for Jet A1 fuel it is -41C. I believe this is because the fuel in these planes is not heated and colder temperatures run the risk of freezing your fuel supply! I don't know for sure about the JetProp but I assume the same restriction applies. The Flight1 Meridian has long been a favourite aircraft of mine, and numerous times I have had to descend to lower altitudes in the winter because of this OAT limitation. In the JetProp I have yet to see an OAT of -41C, as that would require climbing to FL280!As a workaround I installed a third party OAT gauge into my JetProp panel.cfg file. Now I can read the real OAT from my addon gauge, and compare it to the ISA standard temperature from Carenado's G500 gauge. I can now instantly see how different the current conditions are from ISA, and thus what difference in true airpseed I can expect to see. And, of course, descend to a lower altitude if it is too cold! I don't want to run the risk of freezing my virtual fuel supply!David

Thank you for your assistance. Using the FSLook2 tool you suggested I noted odd behavior in the Prop 2 axis. I deleted my FSUIPC.ini file and started fresh. And now my spoiler lever works properly, and the flaps retract! There must have been some obscure setting in my FSUIPC.ini file that was interfering.David

I checked for that, thinking the same thing was possible. I even disabled my hardware controllers completely thinking there was something overriding control. No change.Does the spoiler lever on the pedestal normally move fully upwards (to the 'Down' positiion) when the spoilers are retracted, or is it only active in the bottom half of the range, which is what I am seeing? [When the plane first loads, the lever is already half way down, and I can't get it to move up any further].David

I am having a problem with the spoilers. They will extent but not retract, either in the air or on the ground. When I first load the aircraft (from a running C172 startup) I note the spoiler lever is already deployed about half way, but the spoilers are down so I figured this was OK. There is no way using the mouse to get the lever to move further up to the 'Down' position. Is this normal? I am using the default Terry Gaff model.If I use speedbrakes at all during descent I get the annoying alarm as soon as I start to extend flaps, due to the fact my speedbrakes are not fully retracted. This lasts right to touchdown.The only way I have found I can retract the spoilers is by staying with gauge file 1.20 and pressing "/" on the keyboard, with the spoiler lever as far up as possible. Then the spoilers will retract. This does not work with versions 1.21 or later because the programming for the "/" key has been changed. The spoilers stay fully extended.I have tried everything - mapping the spoiler axis to "Prop Pitch 1", to a joystick button, disabling the joystick altogether and just using the mouse, just using "/", nothing works.I have searched through this forum without success. I would love to find a solution to this because I otherwise really like this plane!David