gliderdriver

johnnycaptain is right; I have the same issues from time to time. Although I use FSUIPC to assign axes, I find I have to reinstall Saitek drivers and then the hardware is again recognised. It must refresh things in the windows registry?

I use FSPS FSXBooster2013 to choose and set my initial fsx.cfg settings and in-flight I run FSPs Fibre Accelerator. With these applications managing the variety of .cfg variables, I don't get any graphics artefacts at all, whereas, flying the same scenario without them, I do. Fibre Accelerator gets me through those graphic-intensive areas which claw down frame rates. I am no beginner at flight simming, and have reasonable IT skills, certainly enough to change some values in a text file (fsx.cfg) with Notepad. Unlike those respondents above , what I don't have is time, inclination and patience to research, fiddle and tweak, nor money to spend on a computer upgrade. We have to speak as we find, and I find FSPS FSXBooster 2013 works for me, and so I offer this for what it's worth, a small amount of money spent on trying the same might make that laptop a viable platform for your simming. If not, no great loss. The only caveat I have is that FSPS Fibre Accelerator, whilst it creates a fsx.cfg backup, leaves its amended fsx.cfg in place on exit. Maybe this is a problem on my side, but I just copy and paste the original back in.

A force-feedback stick is a good thing, and I use a MS FFB 2 stick which are quite expensive at around £50 but can be obtained on eBay and after years of use still seem to function well. Choose carefully from those available and be prepared to pay more for a better presented example. I use the FSforce driver software which enables trim differently from the stock FSX trim. It is as near to 'attitude-power-trim' or 'power-attitude-trim' routines that we use with 'trimming the forces' off the stick after a change of attitude, that we can get in simulation. Not quite right, but at least we can simulate the correct process of changing attitude and power setting and then re-trimming with a degree of 'feel'. Forces can be adjusted to the type of aircraft flown. http://fs-force.com This is quite an expensive solution but I find it very pleasant to use. I hasten to say I have no connection to fsforce other than as a customer. Phil

Why do you prefer SPAD free to SPAD.next free? Just interested... more simple to use? Phil

Spad.next offers support for the multipanel for free if you are using it on the main FSX computer. If you want to add functionality, support for controls or simconnect connectivity over a home network, then you need to buy a license. I can't remember how I installed it, whether there is a .exe or a .msi executable file, but I rather think there must be one of those... PHIL

FWAviation, in FSX-SE I have the same problem on my 6 year old AMD dual core/ATI 7850 (2 gig memory) graphics card, PC which has 4 gigs of RAM and a 32 bit OS. Flying 'wild Alaska' with loads of add-on scenery and Orbx textures and freemesh, I fly with fps limited to 30 fps and can get that with no trouble, rendering is always smooth, no stuttering. However, after 30 minutes with virtual memory still showing around 1000 Mb, I get flashing textures and spiking scenery, and the graphics card is overloaded. If you have manual fan control on your graphics card software, run it at 100% as suggested above and see if that helps. Now, I am about to 'blow' any street-cred I may have had here and please ignore the howls of derision and cries of 'snake oil' which may follow, but if you still get trouble and can afford a small 'investment' or 'gamble', do what I did and try these... I use FSPS FSXBooster2013 to choose and set my initial fsx.cfg settings and in-flight I run FSPs Fibre Accelerator. With these applications managing the variety of .cfg variables, I don't get any graphics artefacts at all, whereas, flying the same scenario without them, I do. I am no beginner at flight simming, and have reasonable IT skills, certainly enough to change some values in a text file (fsx.cfg) with Notepad. What I don't have is time, inclination and patience to research, fiddle and tweak, nor money to spend on a computer upgrade. We have to speak as we find, and I find FSPS works for me, and so I offer this for what it's worth, a small amount of money spent on trying the same might make that laptop a viable platform for your simming. If not, no great loss. Best wishes, Phil

Many thanks guys, I will instead look at a new Intel CPU/Mobo combination and then look to add a NVidia card upgrade. Phil

braudoux I just bought a new Saitek quadrant; they are not cheap but also not too expensive compared with the alternatives such as the goflight example. We 'get what we pay for' I suppose, but a pity that these things are so subject to wear. Good luck with your endeavours. Phil

If the registry fix doesn't work then I would suspect a worn potentiometer. These quadrants are prone to wear. The fix shown isn't easy, but worth a try if you have a nimble fingers. I gave up on mine and bought a new one. I would be very wary of buying any second-hand quadrant for this reason. Phil

Hi all I have a HD7850 2 Gb card at the moment running on a 6 year old AMD dual core (3.1 Mhz) chip and a Gigabyte Mobo. I have been running GenX! photoscenery with no autogen and the HD7850 copes Ok with that, except I have never been able to overcome the Vsync tearing despite trying all manner of 3rd party software to clamp the rendering. I have started to run OrbX! scenery and the FPS is much reduced, so thought to change cards to a GTX 970 in the hope of no hideous Vsync issues, better shading and lighting, lower power use, cooler, and better FPS. I can't afford a new chip/Mobo combination and only have the Win 7 32 bit OS with 4 Gb of RAM (3Gb addressable with the 'switch'). My question please: How would a 970 4 Gb card interact and cope with the memory limitation of my system and should I stick to a 2 Gb card? What thoughts have you generally on my plan? Many thanks, Phil

If I pause for a longish period in FSX-SE I sometimes get a CTD with the cause being FSForce 2 dll file (a 3rd party force feedback driver) which unloads itself if inactive, otherwise I think all other processes are halted and FSX checks a memory offset every few miliseconds to see if the pause flag is still set. PH

Wayne G - what you said, and it's so easy to reinstall, no SP's, no Acceleration, no registration issues.

With accufeel, when flying near 'vne' at cloudbase in a glider, I have found that turbulence is much increased, airspeed begins to increase rapidly, accompanied with a ballistic increase in altitude, gaining thousands of feet in seconds. This happens whether or not ASN is active, and I do think accufeel can be adversely affected by interactions by or with other turbulence related programs.

I am not sure if this screen shot will show what I mean, or what you want to know, but here we see a CumulusX! cloud bitmap displaying behind FSX clouds, and I can't remember whether the default clouds were FSX clouds or REX or AS2012 replacements, but the difference is clear to see. The integration is not unpleasant, and at least allows us to identify a CumulusX! cloud, and therefore a thermal under there somewhere. Remember you can try CumulusX! to see if you like the clouds for free, but you will need to buy the license if you want ground shadows with soft edges, but again, they only appear in relation to the CumulusX! clouds. CumulusX!'s algorithm for producing lift, and therefore populating with the associated clouds is very complex, sampling a very wide range of factors, topographical and meteoroligical. I don't remember seeing CumulusX! clouds in circumstances of 8/8ths cloud cover (no sun = no ground warming?) but I can say that the 'mix' is always pleasing to me as a glider flyer. What jcomm says about ASN and CumulusX! may well be true, but if you read James' and Harry's blogs you will see that they have identified issues between ASN and CumulusX! for virtual soaring. I don't think one would want CumulusX! if not for virtual soaring, as it can't be considered a cloud enhancement program, as is REX or AS2012 replacement textures.

I gather you are not much interested in CumulusX! for soaring, but rather more for the cloud shadow? When you run CumulusX! it populates the sky with its own cloud bitmaps in addition to what ever clouds are already there, it does not replace the existing FSX clouds. So, you can clearly distinguish CumulusX! clouds from the others, be they default clouds or REX replacements. Default clouds will sometimes appear in front of the CumulusX! clouds, which looks strange, but otherwise the 'inter-mingling' of the cloud objects works quite well. CumulusX! clouds at least for the licensed version of CumulusX! do provide ground shadows with soft edges, but only for the CumulusX! cloud objects, NOT for the default FSX clouds. CumulusX! and ASN do not work well together, as ASN has been shown to affect both ridge and thermal lift for soaring. A good deal of analytical work has been done testing ASN with CumulusX, by two folks in Australia, James and Harry, find Harry's blog here: https://harryosh.wordpress.com and James': http://blog.allen.asn.au Harry says that ASN depiction of stratus kills the thermals we need to stay aloft. However, you are not concerned about soaring (?) - so I don't think CumulusX! will provide you with what you want, cloud shadows for default clouds. Phil