gavink42

Procedure turns are also sometimes included to allow an aircraft to lose altitude before making the approach.

There is finally new development taking place for SPAD, and it's called SPAD.Next! Here is a link to a survey the developer posted to assist determining priorities. http://fsgs.com/spad-next-survey/ If you use SPAD, please take his short survey! If you're not sure what SPAD is, and you use Saitek panels, here is the original SPAD's home page: http://fstools.weebly.com/ Important note to SPAD "newbies"... If you use SPAD, you *must* uninstall all Saitek driver software, or there will be issues! (Disclaimer: I have no stake in SPAD, other than wanting to see it developed further) -Gavin

Not everything is there! Not for the USB controllers themselves. If you go into Device Manager and look at the properties for some of the devices under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers", there is a tab called "Power Management". Look for the option called "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power." On my system (Win 8.1), even after turning off all power save items in Control Panel Power Options, my Device Manager settings were causing all of my Saitek controllers to drop out of windows. Once I un-ticked that item for each USB device in Device Manager, it never happened again. - Gavin

That was the problem for my system. In device manager, under USB controllers, I right-clicked each item and made sure that the system was not allowed to turn off the device to save power. - Gavin

Be alert for USB devices going to sleep at random times. If you experience that, there are some settings in device manager that will keep that from happening. I'm running 8.1 (not by choice), and that has been the only issue that nailed me. - Gavin

You simply re-run the installer, and it will ask you to enter your registration information. - Gavin

I installed them all into P3D with their *free* Scenery Install Manager: http://www.megasceneryearth.com/store/cart.php?target=news&mode=view&news_id=63 That extracted everything into the desired directories. But as I'm thinking about it, I remember having to tell P3D to add the new areas. That's in the "World... Scenery Library" menu, then "Add Area". You'll tell it where your MSE files are (each state or city separately), and you should see them pop up in the list. Make sure you put a check in the "Enable" box, if it doesn't do it automatically. Hope this helps!

I have various MegaScenery Earth 2.0 states, and a few Ultra-res cities. The states that I have were purchased for FSX over the past 15 months. All of them work fine with my current configuration of P3D 2.2.

I run Carenado's Commander 114 on my setup (2.2) with no issues. Can't help with the Seneca. Gavin

I'm not a developer, but your last sentence got me wondering... Are you saying that a plane designed for FSX might appear to be running perfectly fine in P3D, but still have issues going on behind the scenes? Are you talking about frame rates or flight model or other things? I have absolutely no problem paying developers for their time and effort! It would make the extra outlay of money easier if I understood the differences between a plane designed for FSX, and the same one from the same developer that was designed specifically for P3D. Gavin

I highly recommend PilotEdge. http://www.pilotedge.net It's a paid service with live controllers using real world procedures and frequencies. They offer a free trial period. I've been a subscriber to their service for about 2 years now, and can't say enough good things about it! Gavin

There's a P3D sub-forum on the PilotEdge web site with lots of good info. If you run into problems after reviewing that forum, post your issues there and someone will come to your assistance pretty quickly. http://forums.pilotedge.net/viewforum.php?f=45 -Gavin

I love photo scenery. But the major downsides for me are blurriness at low altitudes and autogen buildings that don't match well into it. I was researching purchasing Orbx. But after several back and forth emails, they could never fix my forum login. Eventually, I just gave up on them for that reason.

I may have to dust off my X-Plane 10 and give it another try, once 10.30 is released! http://developer.x-plane.com/2014/03/new-approach-capable-gps-navigator-in-x-plane-10-30

LatinVFR KSAN installs and displays without errors using EMT.

I use P3D (with PilotEdge at times) to keep my real-world IFR proceedures sharp. While I may have entertained myself at times, that is the primary use for me. -Gavin

I had exactly the same problem with LatinVFR's San Diego scenery. The installer for that had me select either FSX (which I don't have installed) or P3D. I choose P3D and it failed with the same message. Just run the migration tool and enable Virtual FSX. Then run your scenery installer again and choose P3D as your platform. Doing that made my scenery installer happy, and it continued with the installation. Gavin

Thanks for digging this solution up Jeroen! It solved the problem in 2 minutes! I notified Mike at NaturalPoint (TrackIR) who was helping me troubleshoot from their end. He had other TIR customers who also reported the problem. I was impressed by their quick response to my support email! Gavin

I would hate to have to load FSX, just to run TIR on P3D! I also tried using the migration tool (enabling virtual FSX), but TIR still won't work in P3Dv2.1 Has anyone gotten TIR running without having a prior FSX install?

My TrackIR isn't working either. I have a brand-new high end laptop (Asus 750JH) that never had FSX or P3D on it. Did a full install of P3Dv2.1, FSUIPC 4929 (registered), SPAD and TrackIR 5.2.2 (with game updates). The TrackIR window functions perfectly and shows good head movement. But, the P3D view doesn't move at all. Natural Point suggested I try running TIR and P3D as administrator, and if that didn't work to uninstall TIR and try version 5.1.3 instead. All no-go. I'm wondering if the problem only surfaces with a full install, versus patching P3Dv2.0.

Thanks for all the info guys! In the end, I went with an ASUS G750JH. After I get P3Dv2 (and everything else) installed and playing nice, I'll post a review of my experience. Gavin

Thanks for the feedback so far! I'm sure the latest $3600 MSI or ASUS gaming laptops would have no problem, but knowing that some of the older ones can do so will save me quite a bit of money!

I will be traveling quite a bit, and unfortunately can't take my desktop/sim system along. Has anyone had good experiences with P3Dv2 on a laptop? If so, would you share your laptop model and/or specs here? Thanks! -Gavin

Many are using only the limited features provided by the unregistered version. But to get the full use out of FSUIPC, you've got to purchase it.

It's a legit question for those of us trying to accurately simulate breaking-out at minimums and the accompanying low visibility. I don't have P3Dv2 fully set up yet, but in FSX, I was usually able to see through the low clouds to the ground. This broke the realism of what I was trying to accomplish. The brute force method I ended up using was to not worry about setting up the clouds, and manually setting low visibility. Then I pause my TrackIR while focused only on the panel. When I get to minimums, I hit F9 to un-pause the TrackIR and "break-out". Unfortunately, this method doesn't allow for the surprise of when that will happen (as in real life). The ideal situation though is for the cloud deck and visibility to be unpredictably somewhere near minimums. I know we can set or play back recorded weather with Opus. But then we still know when breaking out is going to happen.