JimboG

I'm in. Happy to help. Get well soon Tony, my thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time. All the very best to you. Kind regards, James

Well Arjen, I think your comments on X-Plane are a bit strong, and this topic was not intended to be yet another FSX vs X-Plane debate, so could you be mindful of how arbitrary your views are on X-Plane please? I for one have switched over to using X-Plane in the past couple of months and am very happy indeed, once I got over the learning curve - which in all honesty took about a week. Having persevered with FSX and P3D and Flight I have been open-minded and "loyal" to all three simulators for as much as I could take before "caving in" and trying X-Plane. I also admit to being one of those people who binned the product demo of XP10 after 10 minutes when it came out last year. However, a year later it's a different story. Now I am not going to get into a tit-for-tat debate on your various comments about the strengths and weaknesses of each simulator, but let's just say that I have "wowed" and "oh my God'd" in the past few weeks more than I have done in a couple of years on other products. With only a few add-ons and very little "tweaking" I have something that is an absolute joy to use and the suspension of disbelief is quite astounding. I am so impressed and I see so much potential yet to come on top of what I am already experiencing (with a medium spec machine) that I am happy to wait for things like an improved ATC, more airport scenery and more add-ons, including PMDGs foray into this space. So I would agree with you that for the longest time I was one of those that would say "it's not there yet" - but that is simply no longer true. Cheers James

Hi there, I am new to X-Plane, dipped my toe in about a month ago and am loving it! Just like FSX at the very beginning there are mini-projects you give yourself to figure out, "OK - how do I do this?" - but after a couple of days of playing about it all started coming together. I've already bought some other add-ons from other 3rd parties, and I have to say that they are excellent. All in all, I would say that I have made the switch and am very happy about it. The potential with XP is amazing. (See what's coming from LR and other vendors, such as native Navigraph support etc) So without trying to hijack this thread, (apologies!) I am very keen to see what PMDG does with XP. 2013 will be a lot of fun, and I think people will start to seriously look at alternatives. With PMDG on-board with other vendors like Aerosoft the momentum will certainly build. Don't get me wrong, I never used XP before and will admit to binning the demo after 10 minutes a year ago. But this time around with some real interest it has paid off handsomely it seems. Good luck, hope you both have a good experience. Cheers James

Hi Bryan,Thanks very much indeed. I will live in hope, and without FS2Crew for the time being as I think I will be staying with P3D. For any "inconveniences" currently in P3D like managing the fight planning and so on, I can deal with it in exchange for a stable, reliable flight. And.... I will get DirectX11 and modern hardware support in due course too. So with that in mind I will keeping supporting LM and P3D in anticipation of these two features. If it sways any decision either way, I am prepared (no pun intended!) to pay for a P3D license upgrade, I don't expect it for free. And of course if it is such a "tiny, tiny" problem and you have a free Sunday afternoon then I'd be more than happy to beta test an update for you. ;-)Many thanks for your response in any case on this matter, I really appreciate it. Kind regards,James

Hi there,Just "tagging" onto Ian's last comment there - I too have been experimenting with P3D and wonder if *anyone* has had any joy / effort in setting up FS2Crew with the NGX in P3D?I have tried with limited success, but of course I am no expert in doing these things. I managed to get FS2Crew to register in P3D and even get the Configuration Manager to register the button control option successfully, but when switching to the NGX (aircraft) in P3D I got a CTD.I am not sure of it's due to the Gauge (or similar!?) not being trusted and so on - I'll admit I was fiddling really but I don't know where to go from here so I have kind of just left it / backed away. (I am pondering though on a solution based on guesses to what the problem might be)It's a shame because P3D seems to be rock-solid and I've managed to get most other add-ons / hardware to work (albeit with workaround in place) resulting in a wonderfully stable experience. Too many times has FSX arbitrarily "punished" me for no apparent reason with a CTD. But as I am sure many will attest to:The PMDG NGX cockpit (like the iFly) is a lonely place without FS2Crew.....Sorry Ian to hijack your thread - I hadn't actually plucked up enough courage to even post about this to be honest. I am hoping I won't get my wrists smacked by Bryan for trying to get FS2Crew working in P3D.What can I say? Addicts do irrational things sometimes!Thank you.Kind regards,James Gillies

Hi there,I think I figured it out... I managed to find the key in the registry that wasn't right - the HKey..USERS "AppPath" key. (My Local Machine Key was OK)Thanks anyway for your help.Kind regards,James GilliesThanks for your reply Damien, I look forward to getting it up and running and trying it out properly.I also look forward to learning from your audio content in AGS!CheersJames

Hi there,I wonder if someone mught be able to point me in the right direction, thank you.I have installed the FS2Crew for 737NGX (Captains' Package) but I am having problems with the configuration post-install. I do not have FSX installed in the "common" location, rather on a different drive. I also have the PMDG installed in that location and all is working well. The FS2Crew installer detected my FSX installation path and I can see that it has been installed in the correct place- but when I try to start the configuration editor I get the message:"Sorry, the PMDG 737 NGX doesw not appear to be installed!""Before using this product you need to purchase it from the PMDG website."I then click on "OK" which opens the FS2Crew configuration editor. If I then click on say "Button Control" and then "Enable FS2Crew Button Control" I get a further error popping up saying:"PMDG 737NGX NOT FOUND:C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes\PMDG 737-800NGX\panel\panel.cfg"It is as if the configuration editor is looking for the gauges to edit in the wrong place - it's not looking in the place where FSX (and the PMDG planes) are installed.From inside the FS2Crew installation directory I also ran the "\FS2Crew2010\Versions\PMDG737NGX\Registry Check\FSX\FSXRegUtility.exe" which finds the FSX install directory so I am not sure what the problem is.Is the FS2Crew configuration editor hard-coded to look in the path in the error message or perhaps there is still a registry key which is pointing at an old install directory that the configuration editor is looking at. Would anyone know what that is or know what I need to do to get the FS2Crew configuration editor to look at the right path?Thanks very much for any pointers you might have.Kind regards,James Gillies

LOL! Very good!As it happens I *think* everything is back to normal now..... phew!I've left it running for a good couple of hours, tweaked my FSUIPC about 20 times, been in and out of Full Screen a dozen times and have used TrackIR all the while. Not a single artifact.I'll chalk it down to the card needing to be re-seated and a quick dusting.Thanks again!Kind regards,James Gillies

Re: Hey James- I was having the same problems. Thought the card was dying, blew out the dust and reseat of the card seemed to fix mine... Good luck!@ Buddy2 - Thanks for the advice - this is exactly what I did. The inside of the machine was really clean but there was the very beginnings of dust buildup on the fan blades of the card. So I took the card out, feather dusted the whole machine, paying particular attention to the graphics card, reseatced it and then put it back together. When I fired it up it seemed to be "OK". So today (Sunday morning) I will fire up FSX again and see what happens, fingers crossed!Re: Delete the fsx.cfg file and try again. Follow this guidehttp://www.simforums...topic29041.html@ Gear Up and Off - I will bear this in mind certainly, however I have been using the "******* Tweak" to build my fsx.cfg files historically. In terms of add-on scenery I have very little to be honest, it's something I have been looking to do more with.Re: You haven't mentioned GPU temps at the time of the screenshot, so I'll ask: Are you monitoring temps? You need to with that kind of artifacting. Dust isn't the only culprit in overheats.Also, are you using the highmemfix=1 tweak? (you should be)@ ZachLW - Was I monitoring temps? Yes, sort of! Having used GPU-Z a few times my temps have been around 40C and the CPU has been around 35C. I use the Intel Turbo Boost feature on the board to get 3.0Ghz out of the 2.8Ghz chip. To be fair, I don't do any extreme o/cing or anything like that - this machine is a stepping-stone to the "big one" - it's only supposed to run iTunes across the network for Apple TV and so on! LOLI will certainly keep an eye on the temperatures if this starts happening again.I can confirm that I am using the highmemfix=1 tweak, it is included in the ******* tweak I applied.Re: looks like a memory leaking problem try sliding your settings down abit to see if it fixes the problem@ Pete_auau - Thanks Pete, I will check it out if it happens again.One final point I will make is that the machine isn't really taxed when using FSX and I will get 25-40fps with standard textures at 1680x1050x32 - BUT:1.) MS Flight would put much more load on the GPU with no impact on temperatures that I would notice. (And I was getting more than 25fps!)2.) Encoding movies in Handbrake would max out all four cores whilst encoding - which it could do for several hours at a time without issue or overheats.So.... given that Windows itself was complaining that the Nvidia driver was crashing out I will stay focussed on keeping the card happy and clean and watch what apps I am using and how I using them when it happens..... if it happens again.I'll post any further updates as is prudent.Thanks again to all of you for the assistance.Kind regards,James Gillies

Hi Carl,Thanks for your reply, I just had a nightmare!My Nvidia driver started crashing every 20 seconds or so whilst it was running in the background, and I couldn't even get the screenshot posted before it crashed completely and I had to hit the power button!I've just stripped the machine and checked for a build-up of dust - expecting a heat issue or a dead graphics card. (It was clean as a babys bottom, have dusted the fans anyway to remove all traces of dust - the machien is less than four months old.)Am back up and running now, I've now attached the screenshot. This is an example of it being particularly bad.Thanks again, I will look into adjusting the buffer pools as you suggest.Kind regards,James Gillies

I am going to update my nVidia drivers to the latest version to see if that makes any difference, or at the very least eliminate drivers.285.62-desktop-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whqlI can also confirm that this occurs when either in full screen or windowed mode.I use TrackIR for head movements, and although I have literally just upgraded to TrackIR 5 this week I saw this whilst still using TracKIR 4.Essentially random peices of the gauges come "shooting" out in a straight line.Update: When switching to windows mode I saw the same issues with standard FSX textures outside of the VC for a few seconds, then it sorted itself out.Very strange indeed. I will keep investigating.Kind regards,James Gillies

Hi there,A bit of a weird one this, have never seen it before the other day and I don't recall it happening with any other add-on.I've also ran about 20 different searches on the forum before posting, just in case - but to no avail.In the past week I have upgraded from the first hotfix of the NGX800/900 to SP1b and immediately started noticing graphical issues in the VC which would be completely random - but would start within the first minute of the session.Basically it looks like "bits" of the VC texture will shoot out into a "bar", straight through the VC - which could be any direction. When it's really bad it's a bit like (I would imagine!) being inside the box of swords in the magicians act, you know?It's really frustrating and offputting, as even if I try to ignore it sometimes one of the "bars" can be in the way of one of the dials on the MCP, totally ruining the experiecne and forcing me to come out of the session and try to start again.The only two things that I can think of that would have been changes to the environment would have been:1.) Installing SP1b (as Administrator)2.) Letting REX Overdrive do it's very first "let me do everything" routine (having installed it a couple of months ago and not using it yet.)3.) I immediatley restored my FSX textures back to default from the backup as I was seeing wierd nightime blue shimmering textures that looked awful (DirectX 10 maybe?) and I haven't used it since.4.) Installed the 600 having bought it, but not installed it yet. I have not used it yet either.I've reinstalled the NGX800 and patched it again to SP1b but I am still seeing this problem, although not *quite* as bad as the other day.I am perplexed and wonder if anyone has seen this before or might have some idea about what may have caused it? Is this a known-issue with SP1b for example?Specs:Windows 2008 R2 Standardi5 2300 @ 3.0Ghz8GB RamGTX560Everything installed "as Administrator"I can provide a screenshot in a further post if anyone wants/needs to actually see what I am talking about.Thanks very much for any input you may have.Kind regards,James Gillies

HI Günter, Thanks for the information on this, I will bear it in mind when I look closer at the Offsets. I understand what you're saying about the com.write so I won't focus on that too much! I didn't see your PM until just now, thanks a lot, I will let you know how that goes with my testing. So I have a lot to learn and many things I am trying to look at at the same time! Like Yoda said: "No, no! There is no why... Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions..... hmmmm.... good... yes." I must go and train some more. Cheers! James

Hi Günter, First things first - I have a fully synced HDG knob and it works lovely! (I took a copy of the Default FSX Library and am using it in my own module as a test for the moment.) I have been doing some more research today but this time with FSX Offsets and how they work, it's a different kettle of fish again! I found some Lua code written by a guy called Word Not Allowed, who was using Lua scripts leading up to the development of LINDA by Artem and yourself. Having looked at some of his examples I have been able to make some interesting progress with the ALT display..... it looks like the Mustang is using almost all default FSX Controls and quite a lot of FSX Offsets - so I have been playing with some functions like this: function setAPALT () -- (offset, value) --buffer = ipc.readUD(0x07D4)/65536*3.28/100 -- Not sure what this is buffer = ipc.readUD(0x3324)/65536 -- Not sure what this is com.write(dev, string.format("ALT%03d", math.ceil(buffer)),8 )end So I had a test function that was something like this: -- ALT Knob Inc Slow function F1Must_ALT_inc_slow () F1ALT = ipc.readLvar("ApAltSelKnob") F1ALT = F1ALT + 5 if F1ALT >= 100 then F1ALT = 0 end F1ALT = ipc.writeLvar("ApAltSelKnob", F1ALT) ipc.macro("FLIGHT1MUSTANG: Alt+100") buffer = ipc.readUD(0x07D)/65536*3.28/100 --buffer = ipc.readUD(0x07D0)/65536*3.28/100 com.write(dev, string.format("ALT%03d", math.ceil(buffer)),8 ) end What this would basically do is update the ALT dispay according to what the FSX Offset is telling it.. So for the actual change to the ALT number I am using an FSUIPC Mouse Macro (for now!) set to the small 100 feet increment for this function. I reckon instead of using an FSUIPC Mouse Macro I'll eventully be able to figure out how to send an ipc.control command that uses a parameter but that number is based on a "for if" statement itself. Here's what I got from Pete Dowsons FSX Offsets Manual: 07D0 4 Autopilot altitude lock07D4 4 Autopilot altitude value, as metres*655363324 4 This is the altimeter reading in feet (or metres, if the user is running with the preference for altitudes in metres), as a 32-bit signed integer. Please check offset 0C18 to determine when metres are used (0C18 contains ‗2‘). The same value can be calculated from the actual altitude and the difference between the QNH and the altimeter ―Kollsman‖pressure setting, but this value ensures agreement. So I am not sure which offset I should be using or even if it's one of these three - it also takes a little bit of time to see how you need to convert the number eg. /65536 or *3.28/100 etc etc - So you need to experiment I think until you see a value that either "makes sense" or matches what you are seeing in the VC. So far I am not sure what I am seeing, nor do I know how to program a function for the displays that just loops over and over - although I think I saw some clues in the 737NGX module that might help! I am convinced that this is progress of sorts, and thought I should bounce it off you in case you had any ideas on this front? Cheers James

Cool, I will do. When it comes to making things better and more efficient I am a complete pain in the @rse - I'll always be thinking about ways to improve something - I can't help myself. So I'll do my homework on this for sure to get an initial understanding of how this stuff works and then start to get more advanced, A quick question on the HDG display if I may: When you say that your HDG display is synced using the FSX default I take it you mean the "SPD Show" setting against "Display" on the HDG Knob in LINDA? (I believe this is the setting used by the Default FSX Module) If so, when you say it's synced to the VC do you mean that it's synced to the HDG you are tracking or the Heading bug? I have been trying to read the value from the Heading Bug and have that show on my Combo...... Cheers James