Imac

Hi again, R. Further to my remarks about the HP file and its involvement in failures of very long flights, I thought I should mention that (from memory) my failures usually occurred on flights of 9 hours or more, e.g. Hong Kong to London, New York to Tokyo, Vancouver to Sydney. So your failures after 6 hours or so might not be caused by background HP services. Perhaps, given Jim's advice, it's a combination of graphic memory depletion along with an intrusive process such as the HPCMPMGR.EXE which mucked me around. But your system and GT740 card don't sound too bad, so it might still be worth doing the elimination tests I mentioned, if no other explanation pops up in the mean time. Of course, if you have to do a 6hr + test flight each time, it might take a week or more to get an orderly set of results. If you do try this elimination routine, I suggest that you write down the services & processes disabled initially, and again each time you re-enable a bunch of processes, so you can analyse the results logically. If I haven't described the elimination process adequately, let me know. Another thought: is there any chance that temperature of the system or graphics card could increase slowly over the time of a long flight? If you live somewhere like Phoenix or Miami, rather than Anchorage or Reykjavic, perhaps the system's thermal performance might be checked. Anyway, enough. Good luck with your investigations, R.! Ian, Oz.

Hi, Likeag6. Your post reminded me of a similar problem I faced two or three years ago, and which I eventually resolved. Apart from my own investigations, Jim Young (who has just responded to your post) was very helpful, and there were good contributions from Matt450 and JayBirdski as well. In my case, the cause was traced to a particular HP (Hewlett-Packard) printer file, HPCMPMGR.EXE. If this was running in the background during a very long flight, FS would eventually crash without warning or explanation. Now, your system is quite different from mine, which was already old in 2013 and is now quite ancient - and you may well not have any HP gear installed. BUT - perhaps you could try to adapt the procedure I used at the time to isolate my problem. In essence, I set up GameBooster to run flights with ALL of its recommended process and service shut-downs in place. In other words, I was disabling background PC functions which GameBooster then thought were unnecessary for FS to run. Then I tried a very long flight. If the flight failed, I knew that (probably) none of the disabled processes was causing the error. If it did NOT fail, I then disabled only HALF of the processes and services in question. If the next long flight failed, it suggested that one (or more, perhaps) of the re-enabled items could be the culprit. You could probably do much the same using Alacrity PC, which I believe is a well-regarded FS tool. I guess you get the idea. My approach was to try to find the culprit with a relatively low test flight count. Of course, you could try disabling services etc. one by one, but wow, that could take a lot of long flights! This approach might not be suitable for you, but if you'd like to look back in the Avsim forums for the thread I started, it's still there in the Crash To Desktop forum. Search for 'Very Long Flights Fail', started by Imac ,April 30th 2013. Possibly something in my investigation, or in the detailed advice offered by Jim, and also remarks by Matt450 and JayBirdski, might be food for thought. I do hope you can sort this out,It's great to know Jim Young and others are still there to help. Good luck! Ian (Imac)

Hi there Jetsmell. There is (or was - just now I can't find it) an Avsim guide to hardware for FSX. It's very helpful indeed for questions such as yours. I go along generally with the other comments, and bear in mind that while the fastest CPU you can get for your board is a good starting point, your i5 should not be useless. Can you try a decent graphics card to see how you go? But in any case, if you can get and read the Hardware Guide, you'll surely get a good idea of where your system needs improvement. Don't worry, it's better than my old Core-2 Duo, anyway! Cheers. Ian / Imac

Hi again, Oliver. Yes, that worked! After uninstalling the NG using PMDG's special removal tool, and uninstalling FS9 via Control Panel, I reinstalled everything to the folder you suggested I create in the C: Drive root directory. Well, I haven't completed a full flight yet, but all the variations and installed liveries are now present. It looks good! Once again, thanks a lot for helping me, Oliver! Best Wishes. Ian / Imac, Murwillumbah (YMUR near YBCG) - Australia.

Hi, Oliver. Thanks for responding. I'll certainly give your suggestions a go. I'm not very familiar with Vista as an OS, but I had heard that the default location is often not the best place for some installations. Nevertheless, I wasn't expecting trouble with the FS9 NG, because FS9 itself seemed to go in OK and run normally enough considering the PC's weak specs. Anyway, I'll do as you say and report how I go. Thanks again for your help. Kind regards, Ian / Imac

Hi all. I've been forced to temporarily install my PMDG 737NG for FS9 in a basic Vista PC. It runs, but only a few of the variations are available - no winglet versions, and just a few of the non-winglet versions. The variations missing from the 'Aircraft' selection window are actually present in the programme's Windows Aircraft folder; they just don't appear for selection within FS9 while it's running. I realise that PMDG did not have Vista in mind when this plane was made, and it has worked wonderfully well for me in XP, but I would like to get the NG going fully again. Does anyone have a clue why some variations appear (and work well enough) - but others are simply not listed for selection when I'm creating a new flight? Thanks for reading. Ian / Imac

Hi Jim, Matt & Anyone Interested. I believe that it is indeed the previously mentioned HP file which was causing the failure of flights beyond about 11 hours. I narrowed it down to HPCMPMGR.EXE as outlined earlier, then further tested by: (a) Disabling about 40 services and processes identified by GB3, but leaving the HP file active - the flight failed at about 11 hours. (b) Enabling all those 40-odd other services but DISABLED the HP file. This flight continued as planned all the way from Hong Kong to Paris. From this I conclude that the HP file is the only one out of all the identified background services and processes which failed the flights. The time taken for it to fail the flights varied between about 10.5 hrs and 11.5 hours. Possibly the timing variation is dependent upon how long FS, or the PC itself, was running before the flights were loaded. Well, it's been a long exercise, but maybe something in the story will help someone else. I don't plan any more testing - I'll trust this result for now. Safe flying, everyone. Ian (Imac)

Hi Matthew, Thanks for your concern. Yes, I THINK I've got it; a check flight is now nearly 9 hours old - not long now before I'll be certain! By the way, I like your X-Ray cat (or is he a Gamma cat?) - ours seems pretty heavily sensored-up, too - two days ago he saw (with merely an idle glance) through a tiny crack in our fence an offending local cat and took off after her like greased lightning. Murder was on his mind, not romance. Fortunately someone else intervened before blood was spilt ... just. Our guy weighs about 20lbs and has real attitude. Okay, Matt, take care. Regards to you in CA from me, Ian, here is AUS.

Hi Jim & Everyone Reading, Sorry to have been absent for a while, but there has at least been some progress. Following your suggestion, Jim, that I look at REX, I reduced the load it offers to the system by reducing texture resolutions, etc., but while this did give a slight lift in FPS, it had no effect on the 'Very Long Flight Failures' problem. I therefore embarked on a programmed investigation of the background processes and services running in Windows (XP). This involved LOTS of flights from Chek Lap Kok (VHHH) to Paris (LFPG). Using GameBoost's free utility (a slightly older version) I first disabled ALL the services/ processes identified by GB as being largely or wholly unnecessary for FS, and tried a flight. If the flight then succeeded, it suggested that the culprit was among these disabled services. And yes, it succeeded. I then re-enabled half of the disabled processes / services before flying again, and so on - each time noting the services and processes either enabled or disabled. This procedure greatly reduces the number of trials needed - otherwise it would have required about 40, ten or twelve hour flights! The last file left in question is one associated (I think) with an older HP printer. The File. HPCMPMGR.EXE might be an update scheduler, but I'll investigate further. So if anyone else has experienced a similar problem, perhaps you could try this process of elimination. Or you could simply use a utility to shut down ALL the services and processes thus identified, but at your own risk. DON'T shut down Windows Explorer' - GameBooster gives a specific warning not to do that. If in doubt about a service or process, leave it running unless you have expert advice to the contrary. Anyway, Jim, this might might be of interest. Thanks again for your thoughts - I now seem to have both my very long flights back, and a useful FPS lift as well! Best wishes, Ian (Imac) - Murwillumbah, Australia.

Hi Jim, and thanks once again. I hadn't thought of the possibility that Rex was involved and your several angles of attack on that front are certainly worth investigating. I'll do that, check the SimConnect angle, and look at my weather configuration in both FSX and FS9 . I must admit I just installed and set Rex to run to my visual preferences and not much else, and it's entirely possible that later experimentation happened at about the time my recent long flights began failing. Something could have changed. Thanks for broadening my thinking, and I'll get back to you. I do appreciate your time and trouble on my behalf. Kind regards, Ian (Imac)

Hi again, Jim - I neglected to thank you specifically for the link to MS KB info on Event Viewer. It could be that I've missed something there. By the way, although for all practical purposes FSX has hung when it minimises as described, Task Manager shows it as still running. Even so, the system as a whole is usually otherwise frozen and a reset is needed. Occasionally I can restart via Task Manager. Oh - another angle: can you tell me whether the flight data stored for Instant Replay continues to accumulate on such long flights? If so, one assumes there's a limit. Can the Instant Replay function be disabled, even for a trial run? Anyway, don't trouble yourself too much with this issue - I really do need a new PC for FS, don't I? Cheers, and thanks again for reading. Ian (Imac).

HI and thanks, Jim. Yes, sorry about 'SP3' - my feeble mind had done a cross-feed between XP with SP3 and FSX with Acceleration. Anyway, I accept all of your comments concerning RAM and the degree of complexity in scenery, etc., which my old system might be expected to handle. I do run Orbx sceneries and other add-ons such as Tom's A340 and 330 models, Posky Boeings and so on, but this FS setup worked for all extended intercontinental flights in the past. No scenery add-ons should have been involved in the largely empty areas where the failures occurred. I can't find anything which has changed significantly either in FS itself or in my PC. Yes, I've searched Event Viewer's logs for clues but see nothing unusual at about the time the failures have occurred. So, yes, I might just have to stick to shorter flights .. and ASAP build a new system with more CPU steam, RAM etc.! But I'll still keep looking for any pesky Windows service or background app which could interfere. Thanks again for your thoughts, JIm. Regards, Imac. .

Hi All. Sorry if I've missed crucial posts on this, but I have yet to find anything re my particular scenario. Simply, FSX fails with no warning and no error messages towards the end of very long flights - usually at about the 10 or 11 hour mark, but still in cruise. One moment the flight is progressing normally - then FSX instantaneously minimises and nothing will wake it. This usually means CTRl+ALT+DEL or even a system reset. I have installed the latest graphics driver from Nvidia, run a memory check, closed all AV, firewall, etc., disabled XP's Power Saving options, defragged, moved the page File to a different HDD and so on. A similar failure occurs in FS9. Examples of failed flights: Hong Kong VHHH to Paris LFPG - fails over Poland or Austria with about 1000 nm or perhaps 750nm to run; also Sydney to Santiago SCEL - fails over the ocean several hours short of the Chilean coast. It looks to me as though there's some time or memory dependent process involved. Setup is FSX-SP3 and FS9, Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz, 2GB RAM, Gigabyte 8600GT graphics, Corsair 650W PSU. Six months ago flights like these ran all the way; now they don't, but I'm unaware of any significant change in the system. Does anyone see something familiar in this? Is there an XP equivalent to 'App Crash View' which might help? Thanks for reading, anyway - Imac.

JOHN & RONZIE - Thanks very much to both of you for your very helpful and thoughtful assistance. As you might guess, I'm pretty hazy about how scenery works, but you've both given helpful clues.Firstly, JOHN: I do appreciate your thoughts on this problem. I didn't know that this effect is not uncommon, and I will have fun now experimenting with other airports - just to increase my awareness of what's going on. It probably is true, looking at the YPPH I'm seeing, that a low-res satellite image has been used - though this one's probably not by the VOZ team. Anyway, it's SO low that (in Top-down view) you couldn't taxi anywhere with any certainty. Right I will try the 'oz-day.bgl' suggestion and see what I learn. I've never noticed that it is normal enough for photo-real layers to be visible in Top-Down, but not in Cockpit View. Well, this is probably all child's play to people who design scenery, but the way it all works still astonishes me. And it gets better just about day by day!And to RONZIE: I really appreciate the effort and time you took to explain about Pete Dowson's utility, 'makerwys'. Your detailed description of its application to my YPPH problem should 'learn' me plenty - for instance, it sounds as though I can check out John's clues as to the YPPH data, and so much else. What an amazing tool this sounds; I've long been aware of Pete Dowson's FSUIPC, and its importance in FS generally, so I've no doubt 'makerwys' will do as you say, IF I can figure it out. I hope to have time over the coming weekend to check it all out. If I can't make it work, it certainly won't be caused by a lack of clear guidance. Exemplary work, Ron!I'll let you know if I learn anything useful. Once again, thanks to you both for your kind and thoughtful responses.Best wishes, Ian (Imac) - at Murwillumbah, a nice little field (in both VOZ and FTX) near YBCG.

Hi All. Perhaps someone can help me un-riddle this scenery error. I'm running FS9 with VOZ 1.8 (a must-have if you fly in Australia with FS2004) and at some stage added other scenery for Perth International, YPPH. Unfortunately I can't now find or identify this add-on, but need to remove it. The airport - taxi-ways, apron etc. look good from the cockpit, but if I change to top-down external view, an odd thing happens. At reasonable viewing height / zoom things look fine with the AFCAD defined runways, etc. all perfectly clear. Zooming in and down, however, for accurate taxi-ing in Top-Down view, the AFCAD features (I think) - i.e. runways, taxi-ways, airport fixtures etc. suddenly vanish below one particular closer zoom step, leaving only an extremely fuzzy ground image - presumably a very low-res photo-real background. Also, there's a pretty serious discrepancy between a genuine charted final approach and the runway (e.g. 03). In other words, I have to alter the final approach path because the genuine track coordinates are too far east of the runway alignment in the scenery.Clearly I've messed things up here. Can anyone suggest where to look for possible causes, or how to return FS9 / VOZ1.8 to their initial state for Perth, without re-installing? No YPPH files or folders show up in 'Addon Scenery / Scenery', or anywhere else that I can see, with the exception of the VOZ AF2 .bgl file in the VOZ folder within Add-on Scenery. But somewhere else there must be inappropriate or corrupt files relating to YPPH. I'm not blaming the scenery itself for this, but my incorrect use of it. So, any clues?Thanks for reading. Cheers - Ian (Imac) at YMUR, near YBCG, Australia.

Mr. HedgehogPilot - It's good to see you solved the YCFS problem with the help of Forum members! I thought you (and maybe others) might also like to know that, as you will now be flying from Coffs Harbour, you can find all the nav charts and other information you need for flying around Australia (navaids, ATS routes, control zones etc.) on the Airservices Australia website. Go to: http://www.airservic...com/sitemap.asp (Google it if necessary) and click on 'Aeronautical Information Package (AIP)' then click to AGREE at the bottom of the next page. Next you click on either DAP or DAH and look around; everything you will need to fly to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth etc. is there, as well as information for many smaller Australian airports. In particular, click on DAP and then 'Aerodrome & Procedure Charts' - there you can get all the approaches and departures you need for all important Australian airports. Or if you want lists of waypoints, route segments, navaids, small airfields, etc., click on DAH - that's the Airspace Handbook. The charts and lists are in PDF format for downloading. If you want some other smaller to mid-size airports to try, maybe YBCG (Gold Coast), YMLT (Launceston), YMAV (Avalon), YSCB (Canberra) and YSTW (Tamworth). OrbX has done several of these airports, including a nice free YMLT.Also, don't forget to try the OrbX forums if you need any help with using the FTX airports. They're very helpful people. Safe and happy flying from YCFS!Ian Macdonald

Thanks again, Al - this time for the Getpaint link. I didn't know that one, either. It sounds like it's going to be useful, and I'll certainly give it a go.I appreciate your help in all this.All the best, Ian (Imac)

Hi Al and Ron - I thank you both for your input. First, to Al: Fortunately I understand the imaging procedure you outlined for planning the Tegucigalpa approach.I will try that when time permits - I don't have Photoshop, but perhaps much the same can be done with the Gimp, PSP or whatever. Now that's a clever idea,and it's bound to be handy. I'll have to look more closely into layers than I've bothered to do in the past, but I don't expect any dramas.So, a slice of cake for the man from 'Her Britannic Majesty's Kingdom of Englandshire'!Now, Ron - from the 'Land of 10,000 Puddles'! Thanks muchly for your link to Planepath / Utilities, the tutorials and AIRAC data provided by Terry Yingling.To my surprise, I don't think I've been to the Planepath site before, even though I've seen it mentioned. I've just downloaded Terry's tutorial (thanks, Terry, if you're there!) and it sounds very promising.I will check out the site in general, too. So thanks, Ron, and good luck with those puddles! (Mind you, my part of Aus often has plenty of puddles, too, but in much of this country people would take puddles any day in preference to drought. You're probably pretty safe from that in Minnesota ...)Okay, I have some nav and imaging work to do, it seems. Thanks and regards to you both!Ian (Imac) - Murwillumbah, Australia (YMUR in FTX/ OZx, near YBCG in FSX / FS9)

Hi, Al, and thanks for your help with my SID programming problem. Just for the exercise, I'll later have a crack at planning a departure including the Honiley VOR- I seem to remember it's not far from London, and maybe I used it in flights from Manchester to LHR.) Now, I think I'll be OK to create a specific waypoint relative to Honiley VOR, as in your example, but that only partly solves my problem. In the Cairns SID mentioned, the departure legs are mainly only defined by track bearings and altitude constraints. Of course, variations of aircraft performance, decision heights etc. will mean that a range of achieved departure tracks will still comply with the SWIFT 3 requirements. To illustrate, here is a textual description of a similar current Cairns SID, SWIFT 7 (This description is NOT exactly as in the official Airservices publication and is of course for FS use only):SWIFT SEVEN DEPARTURE (Rwy 15):Gradient 4% to 600ft, then 3.3%Track 149dAt the Earlier of 400ft or DER (Departure End of Runway, 2.6 DME CS) - turn LEFT tracking 30dIntercept CS R-080When established on CS R-080 and after passing 4,000ft, turn RIGHTTrack direct to SWIFT and thence as cleared.Now, imagine (say) a Lightly laden Learjet, a half-full 737NG, and a 747-400 doing SWIFT 7 departures. Each would surely track differently, and achieve the altitude constraints at very different points, but all could still comply with the SID. So the difficulty is - how can I just programme legs which are defined without reference to waypoints? That 'Turn LEFT tracking 30d', for instance. While the PMDG 737NG's FMC permits custom waypoint entries (including 'Place-Bearing-Distance' waypoints, which I think would suit your Honiley VOR example), I can't see a way to enter a simple TRACK instruction including only a heading and perhaps speed and altitude constraints.I could, I think as you suggest, work out 'unofficial' waypoints along the expected departure track, and programme them in. But it's probably unrealistic to expect that all jets could comply with such a specific track.But I'll give it a go after I look at the London / Honiley scenario. At least I don't think there's a terrain problem as there is south of Cairns .. just Gatwick, Stansted, and half the air traffic of Europe, I suppose!Thanks again for your input, Al. If you have any further observations, that'd be good.By the way, for anyone interested in Australian charts, etc., like the SWIFT 7 departure from Cairns, they're all freely available on the Airservices Australia website. Start at:http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/publications/aip.asp (If this link doesn't appear correctly here, just search the web for 'Airservices Australia' and go to Publications - AIP).(Agree to the Conditions of Use at the bottom of the linked page, and continue to the DAP's for all major Australian airports. Much more's available from the Airservices Australia site - IFR and VFR waypoints, ATS routes, airfield and airstrip data, etc.)Cheers,Ian (Imac)

Hi all. I'd like to program a SID manually into the 737NG's FMC, so effectively making available any current SID, provided you have the chart. It seems that the FMC manual neither covers this specifically, nor has clues on how it might be done. For instance, without downloading new data, my NG has only one SID for Cairns, Australia (YBCS). Essentially, a SWIFT3, RWY 15 departure involves a steep left turn onto 030d at 400ft or by 2.6 DME CS, intercepting the CS 080 radial outbound, and on reaching 4,000ft turn right to SWIFT. Now, this doesn't sound hard, but I'm pretty thick, and can't see how I might use (say) a combination of Intercept Courses and user-defined waypoints to program similar SIDs. Looking at the text content of the .RTE file didn't help a lot, and the formatting of the SID display in LEGS has data which seems unexplained in the FMC manual - e.g., at LSK-2, there's: 030 TRK (CS80) and no constraints; next at LSK3 there's 080 TRK (4000) and also 4000 as an Altitude Constraint at the opposite LSK. Now, I don't expect anyone to try to explain all this, but maybe someone could point me to a tutorial or at least programming clues for doing manual SID (or STAR) entries. Even just knowing how the '030TRK (CS80)' data is created would help. I can do standard route programming OK. Anyone? Thanks for reading!

Thanks for your tip, ContrailSky - at Schiphol. I'll certainly try it, together with Michal's search tips. By the way, I don't read Dutch, sadly, but am trying to read a nice little paperback book all about Schiphol - as it was way back in 1958! Great photos, and I can understand some of the text a little because I can read basic German, and of course there are some similarities. Great photos in the book, too!Thanks again.Ian Macdonald (Imac) Thanks, Michael. And you'll see why I have trouble - pretty stupid, here. I'll probably get the hang of using these forums some day. First I tried to thank you by responding to my own post! All the best,Ian Macdonald (Imac)

Michael - thanks for that. I did actually try searching for references to Mr. Randazzo, but didn't immediately see what I wanted. I will try it the way you suggest, and also use the suggestion kindly made by the Contrail chap.Thanks both!

Forgive me, RSR & PMDG, but is there a single web page or link list via which all NGX pics and textual info released so far are accessible? I've found it hard to backtrack through the forum, seeking any screen shots of the panels, landing gear, FMC etc. If no such progressive collection exists, can anyone suggest search terms which will return only the official releases rather than all the ecstatic responses, grumbles, queries etc.? Sorry to bother you, but I seem to be a bit dim-witted in my efforts so far. Thanks, Ian Macdonald (Imac)