MarkHargrove

I'm trying, for the first time, to assign a joystick button to select a camera view. In the camera definition, I click on the "Joystick Button" field. It turns red. I click on the joystick button I want, but OpusFSI doesn't see the button press. In fact, it doesn't see ANY button presses from any of my USB HID devices that have buttons (all Saitek gear). The button presses are visible to P3D itself if I map one, and they're visible to FSUIPC -- but OpusFSI (4.66.2) doesn't see them. What could be going on? -M.

You are 100% right. I don't know how or why, but my C: drive had lost its share. When I restored it, things started working again. There were a couple of recent Windows updates around the same time I updated both P3D and OpusFSI -- one of those updates obviously "helped" me to "fix" the security of my system (although it is a little weird that you need the entire C: drive shared as read/write for 'Everyone'). I do, btw, have OpusFSI installed in the standard place (C:\OpusFSI). -M.

After updating to P3D 3.3.5 and OpusFSI 4.66.2 this same problem has returned, only now, none of my clients will show the weather on the server (whether live or from a theme). Live View functions continue to work normally, but weather will not update. I have verified that sharing is working in both directions. In particular, I can manually access the \\flightsim1\OpusFSI\Weather\OpusWeather.WTB file (where 'flightsim1' is my server system) from each of my three clients. I can manually copy that file to each individual client (though I don't know exactly where the FSIClient.exe process wants to put it so I cannot absolutely verify that permissions to that destination are correct. In your message from a few months ago (shown above) you say that the client copies the WTB file from the server and writes it into your specified sim folder. I don't know for sure what you mean by the "specified sim" folder. The only two folders that make sense from any configuration I've done are C:\OpusFSI\Weather or into the P3D root installation folder (which the FSIClient has been told about -- it my case it's "C:\Prepar3D v3.3"). In any event, the OpusWeather.WTB file is not being copied ANYWHERE onto any of the client systems -- I've done a system-wide search and it's simply not there. The output from the 'spy' functions on the client: From the client spy window: GEN General process monitoring has been enabled ... SIM Operating in Prepar3D Version 3 Mode SIM Link 1 established with Simulator SIM Link 2 established with Simulator SIM Link 3 established with Simulator SIM Event: Air Folder = WidevieW_Dummy SIM Event: Sim Active APP Application Link 1 Established Connection with Server. APP Application Link 2 Established Connection with Server. FSU Link established with FSUIPC And from the client 'general' spy function after clicking 'Weather/Update' on the server: RX Length 20 Bytes LWE CONTROL DATA UPDATE 05 31 30 30 30 30 04 4B 4C 41 58 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .10000.KLA X......... RX Length 1 Bytes LWA MONITOR STATUS 02 . RX Length 7 Bytes CLOCK UPDATE E0 07 B3 00 0F 14 12 à...... RX Length 0 Bytes WEATHER UPDATE RX Length 0 Bytes LWA DATA UPDATE RX Length 1 Bytes LWA MONITOR STATUS 00 . RX Length 1 Bytes LWA MONITOR STATUS 00 . ... and so on with the LWA monitor status I don't know what to look at next, and I would appreciate another steer. Thanks, -M.

Yes I have FSUIPC running. I have no key-press events being handled by FSUIPC -- only buttons and axes. FSUIPC is actually issuing keystrokes in response to button pushes -- but those keystrokes are never seen by PMDG. I have a bit of further information -- some keystrokes are getting through to PMDG and are working -- default FSX/P3D assignments such as the F1, F2, F3, F4 keys for controlling the throttle are working. Later today I'll try disabling FSUIPC and trying again. -M.

Using Prepar3D v3.3.5 Professional Plus, I cannot get PMDG keyboard shortcuts to work. Specifically, I'm trying to get the Engine 1/2 'Idle' and 'Cutoff' commands to work so I can map them to buttons on my Saitek throttle quads using FSUIPC. I've got the mapping done -- that's pretty trivial -- but neither button worked. I then tried the direct keyboard shortcuts (CTL-SHIFT-F1, F2, F3, F4). They don't work either. I made sure that any conflicting keyboard commands in the P3D 'Standard.xml' config file have been deleted (they have been). Digging in a little more, it appears that NONE of the PMDG-specific assignments are working, and I cannot program new sequences via the FMC. When I press a LSK to select any particular command I see a new screen that says "Press key sequence" (or something like that), but as soon as I press ANY key (including the CTL or SHIFT keys that are supposed to be key MODIFIERS) the display immediately switches to 'New combination' -- and that's it. The only active option at that point is LSK6 - Return and the keyboard shortcut is unaffected. Similarly, I cannot assign a new key-combo to an 'unassigned' command. I'm a bit of a loss here - what else can I check? -M.

After a bit of a hiatus with my sim, I've recently rebuilt it on Windows 10 with P3D v3.1. I re-purchased the Mindstar GNS 430/530 package today (because I lost the email with the original invoice number in, sometimes I'm an idiot). Installation seemed to proceed normally (from the GNS_Setup_1.08.0014.exe installer), and I installed the 530 into my Carenado Cessna Skymaster that I'd had it installed and working in many moons ago -- that was back around P3D v2 (or maybe 2.5). When I start P3D v3.1 (as administrator, per the docs) I see a dialogue box that says: Mindstar Gauge 'MPI GAUGE': Failed to load SimConnect Interface DLL: C:\Mindstar\iSimConnect_P3Dv22.dll Error Code 126 I added SIMCONNECT=NONE to the [GNS] section of the GNS.ini file (in C:\Mindstar, which is where I installed the package), but that didn't seem to do anything. The GNS 530 *does* appear in my Skymaster and seems to work (though I've not given it a thorough checkout yet). Any suggestions? -M.

It was, after all, just a sharing problem. I'd shared both C:\OpusFSI and C:\Prepar3D v3 on both systems as read/write by 'Everyone', but that apparently doesn't do the trick. When I shared the entire C: drive on both system as r/w by 'everyone' the weather started working again. I'm a little surprised that just sharing the OpusFSI folder isn't enough, since that's where the WTB files lives, but these PCs are all dedicated to my sim environment and I'm perfectly happy to just share the whole C: drive. Again, thanks for the steer -- all is good now. -M.

I believe I have sharing permissions set up correctly (I suspected that from the beginning), but since this is a reinstall I'll go back and double check everything. Thanks for giving me a direction Stephen!

After a reinstall of P3D and OpusFSI onto new server and client hardware (2 separate PCs), I'm not getting weather on my client. Live view works fine, and I see weather updates appear in the 'spy' window on the client (when I force a weather refresh on the server, for example) -- but I'm not getting the weather on the server replicated on the client. I've been through the 'getting started' guide pretty thoroughly (well, so I believe), but I just cannot see what is wrong. Running P3D v3.1 and OpusFSI 4.65.3. Can anybody give me a steer? -M.

Don't know if this is related to Dean's issue or not, but I had to re-install AIRAC Cycle 1410 twice to get the GNS 530 in my panel to "see" it. I was on the previous cycle (140something), then used the RealNav Data Update tool to install 1410. When I restarted P3D, I'd reverted to cycle 0801. Running the update again and selecting 'reinstall cycle 1410' did the trick -- next time I restarted P3D it showed the current cycle in the GNS 530. -M.

This is almost certainly not an OpusFSX issue, but I'm asking here because folks here are knowledgeable about (and care about) weather effects. When flying an autopilot-coupled ILS Rwy 19R approach into KSNA (John Wayne Airport, in Southern California, which is sort of my "home" airport when I fly on the PilotEdge network), I hit a pocket of heavy turbulence at almost exactly the same place every single time I fly the approach, irrespective of what weather is current. The characteristics of the turbulence are identical every time -- a severe updraft of about 2000 FPM at 3-4 DME from the airport, followed by a severe downdraft of about the same magnitude at about 1-1.5 DME. It's sometimes bad enough to cause the autopilot to decouple. Even when it stays coupled, the GS deviation is almost two full "dots" on the CDI. What's really strange to me is that is happens in both FSX and P3Dv2 at the same place. Doesn't matter what aircraft I'm flying, doesn't matter whether OpusFSX weather is enabled or not, and doesn't matter which simulator I'm flying. Does anybody have even the slightest thought about what might be going on? I'd also love to hear if anybody else sees the same issue -- just fly the ILS Rwy 19R approach from, say, SNAKE intersection, capture the GS at LEMON, and see what happens. -M.

Disable the OpusFSX weather engine first (in the OpusFSX configuration dialogue), then you can click on 'clear skies' in the weather theme selection in FSX.

Sorry to be dense, but what "Announcements"? Is that a forum topic? (If so, I couldn't find it). I will experiment with the test facility this evening -- I forgot that that was added to the product a while ago (it's been that long since I had to adjust anything!)

I've been using OpusFSX pretty much from the beginning and have been very happy with it. I have a moderately complex setup, with six networked PCs, five of which are "external" displays. I use the Live View feature to keep the displays synchronized. Generally speaking, it works well and I've learned to live with the small stutters and "micro-lags". Unfortunately, with P3Dv2, they're not "micro" any more -- the stutters and lags are severe. P3Dv2 itself is giving me 60+ FPS on each of my slaves -- it's just that it's rendering 60 FPS of lags and stutters. :-( I switched back over to test Wideview with the same PC configuration -- it works pretty much flawlessly. Wideview has always been a little bit better at display synchronization, but the trade-off for the excellent weather synchronization with OpusFSX was well worth it. With P3Dv2, sadly, it's unflyable (and this is as of yesterdays' beta -- 3.38.5, I think). I seem to recall reading a release note somewhere along the way that OpusFSX can now be configured to provide networked weather without Live View enabled. Is that correct, or just wishful thinking? :-) If that can be done, would somebody point me to a post or to a manual page where the setup for that is described? I'd like to try a configuration where I use OpusFSX just for weather injection and synchronization between server and clients, and use Wideview for the display sync. Thanks! -M.

It is not related to FSUIPC. Pete Dowson himself verifed this. The CTD happens even without FSUIPC installed. As it happens, Wilco sent me a new tbm.dll file within 24 hours that fixed the CTD problem. Now the only issues are the poor flight model, lame G1000 implementation, and terrible, terrible frame rate of the airplane. Sigh. -M.

I can confirm this issue. CTD instantly after loading the plane in both FSX and P3Dv2. -M.

Edward, I've got quite a different setup than you do -- I don't know if my experience is going to help you much at all. I found it nearly impossible to get the view I was after with a "triple-wide" monitor setup. The distortion out at the right and left edges of the field of view was significant when I set all three monitors in front of me with the two "outside" monitors tilted in towards me a bit. I finally abandoned this approach and went with multiple PCs, each driving a single display for my "out the window" views. My setup that I have working now has 6 PCs driving 7 monitors. Five of the PCs/monitors are out the window views, the sixth is my "master" flying PC which has two monitors attached -- it is only used for panels. I'm using the OpusFSX server on that system, and an OpusFSX client on the five "external visual" PCs. For my setup, which has monitors set at 0, plus and minus 45 degrees, and plus and minus 90 degrees, I found a zoom factor of about .84 worked very well. One thing you will discover quite quickly is that small zoom factors (of .6 or less) let you see more of the environment, but add considerably more distortion and, generally, poorer view synchronization than larger zoom factors. OpusFSX does a decent but not amazing job of rendering the client displays. Up until recent betas it was NOT doing an acceptable job, but recent betas have improved the lag problem considerably. You will need to frame-rate limit your server to 40FPS or so or your clients will not be able to keep up (and my clients are Core i7 CPUs at 3.4GHz w/ 16 GB RAM). The client display are not, by any stretch of the imagination "silky smooth" -- if you want that you need to consider X-Plane instead of FSX -- but I would say it was acceptable. It is critical that your side views be physically set at the same angle as your view rotation in the LiveCamera setup. That is, if you want 45 degrees left and right for your outside monitors, let them physically at 45 degrees from your "front view" monitor, then set the "Yaw" angle at 45 degrees for both (and I don't mean "approximately" 45 degrees -- use something to measure to get as close to exactly 45 degrees as you can (or whatever angle you're going for)). The field of view you need for each will also be roughly 45 degrees; I get this with a zoom factor of .84 with WideAspect=False. You said your monitors are set at 110 degrees from your forward view -- I can't quite picture how you're doing that (but probably I just misunderstand what you meant). I'll be happy to answer any further questions that you have!

I have no AV running at all, and I'm using the WidevieW Dummy Aircraft as my model on the clients (you can't get any simpler geometry than that). As best as I can tell, I've got a completely apples-to-apples comparison going. Without any other changes, if I disable WidevieW on server and clients and launch LiveView server and clients I get tiny -- but very noticeable -- lags and stutters on the client displays. The lags/stutters are not synchronized between the displays, so the issues doesn't appear to be being caused by the server. If I stop the LiveView clients and server and then re-enable WidevieW clients and servers the client displays become perfectly smooth. My LiveView server is already fixed at 40FPS. If I set it to 'unlimited' the clients all lag very badly -- up to several seconds behind the server. That's sort of strange to me, because my server is the SLOWEST PC in the sim setup -- it's a 3.0 GHz i7 CPU, while the clients are all 3.4GHz i7 CPUs. All systems have at least 16GB of RAM (the server has 24GB, just because it's a triple-channel memory configuration). The interconnect between all systems is 1GbE on a dedicated switch. The only other material differences between the systems are the video cards. 4 of the systems are using nVidia GTX 550 cards, one is using a GTX 670, and one (my server) is using an AMD/Radeon 6780 card. I could try reducing the frame rate even further, but there's a point at which that will interfere with the sim experience in its own right.

After experimentation I've concluded that OpusFSX cannot simply be used to inject weather. Even with LiveCamera control disable on both server and client, the application takes over view control anyway. If LiveView is disabled on the clients, no connection occurs between the server and client. One more thought occured to me just as I was typing this message -- I haven't tried deleting the .CAM files from the clients (in the hope that LiveView won't try to manage the client views). I really want OpusFSX to do nothing more than inject weather into my server and client environments -- I dont' want it to try to control camera views. It's fair to ask why: after a LOT of experimentation I can very definitively say that for my setup, WidevieW does a visibly better job of controlling the remote views. LiveView lags, stutters, and is a bit distracting on all client displays (I have 5 of them). It's not outright terrible, but given the specs of my client systems I expect a nearly-perfect, smooth scenic view. I get it from WidevieW; I don't get it from LiveView. Hmm. Another thought just occured to me -- perhaps I don't need OpusFSX to relay the weather to the clients. WidevieW does that -- so perhaps if I just run the OpusFSX server process to inject weather into FSX, WidevieW will relay that weather to the clients.... Off to the simulator for another experiment! -M.

I think you're making a good decision. There are lots of interesting things to do with an "extra" PC with respect to FSX besides remoting more scenic views. Have a look at EFB from Aivlasoft (www.aivlasoft.com), for example. It's a fantastic flight planning and moving map application -- the best I've seen so far. It's a client/server app that allows the map client to be remoted from the server (which runs on your main "flying" server and connects to FSX). If you're looking for other elements to add to your sim environment to make things more "real" you should also definitely look into the PilotEdge network (www.pilotedge.net). -M.

LiveWeather won't work in the mode you're after quite yet, which is why there is no documentation. The FSXSERVER process has to be run on your FSX PC. I can tell you from experience, though, that that's OK -- it has no noticeable affect on framerate that I can see. You'll still experience trouble with weather synchronization with the server process running on your FSX PC, though, if you don't have a read/write share set up the client and the server for the C:\OpusFSX folder. Their client and server apps need to be able to read and write to that folder across the network.

I have nearly 2TB of add-on scenery and six PC's (a server and five clients). Yes, it's a bit of upkeep, but it's worth it to me. The FSX installations have to be full-up installs with separate licenses. That's not quite the financial burden that is used to be, since FSX Gold (which includes FSX and the Accelerator Pack) is available from Amazon for about $25 USD. The larger expense, of course, is for the additional PC. Yes, it is indeed possible to run a single client PC to manage both views. You'll want to create two cameras within OpusFSX and define each of them as a windowed view (there is a radio button for that as I recall), then manually place one view on the left monitor and one view on the right monitor. Note that when you create the windowed view camera within FSX you will NOT be able to place it on the desired monitor (at least, I couldn't find a way to do that). The actual windowed view won't appear until you save and exit from the camera management dialog. After it appears on your primary monitor (of your client PC; not your big display) you need to undock it and them move it to the "other" monitor. I'll warn you in advance that I had very little luck with OpusFSX in creating windowed views, saving them, and then getting the windowed views to reappear in the right places the next time I started up FSX and OpusFSX. Stephen and the team and OpusFSX frequently discourage use of windowed views and I can see why -- they probably understand how to make them work, but I never could get it to work consistently for me. Completely independently of OpusFSX, FSX itself takes a pretty substantial framerate hit when you ask it to manage two or more "scenic" views, especially if you want them both to be 1920x1080-sized views (just as an aside, though, you can create as many instrument panel views as you need -- that doesn't seem to particularly tax FSX at all) I did this for a while with a client that was pretty beefy -- Core i7 quad-core with 16GB of RAM -- and it worked OK as long as I kept the scenery complexity at around 'medium' for all of the various settings. Using a separate PC for each display, on the other hand, provides a lag-free, (mostly) stutter-free experience at the highest settings for everything. The complexity of managing multiple systems is a big daunting, I'll acknowledge. I share my high-res scenery over the network (and that works well). I copy the aircraft modesl to the SimObjects/Aircraft directories of all the clients that I'm going to use virtual cockpits for. If I don't want a virtual cockpit I use a "dummy" aircraft model that doesn't have any geometry. You can achieve the same effect by moving the camera on the z-axis forward to a setting of 2 or 3 which is generally forward of any model geometry that I've seen on any of my aircraft models so far -- or by using the 2D panel and setting the transparency to 100%. Remember that all of this work is essentially just a one-time effort. Once you've got things configured you really don't have to fuss around too much with it afterwards, even when flying different aircraft (at least, that's what I've found for my system). -M.

Howard, What you want to do is really pretty easy -- 90-degree left and right views don't really have complex alignment problems. The simplest way to do what you're after is to have three PCs: your "flying" server (the system with your large display that will run FSX and the Opus FSXSERVER.EXE process), and then two additional PCs running a display for your left and right views. These two systems will run FSX and the FSXCLIENT.EXE processes. You configure the FSXSERVER to know that it will have two clients, then you configure each FSXCLIENT to know the name of the server (the name of the PC). Note that you must also correctly set up file sharing between all of the PCs. If you're using a Homegroup set up C:\OpusFSX to be read/write by all members of the homegroup. I've also found that I had to setup the install folder for Microsoft Flight Simulator to be read/write shared as well. Start FSX on the client systems. Start FSXSERVER on the 'flying'server (you don't have to start FSX on the server for this setup, I've found it helpful to do so just because you'll have a reference 'front' view). Start FSXCLIENT on both client systems. Watch for the clients and server to connect with each other -- you'll see two data links turn green on the clients and four links turn green on the server. From the FSXSERVER application you select 'Cameras' and then select one of the two side view PCs, say the one on left. When the camera control dialog appears, click 'Add New Camera' and give it a name. You can choose to make it either a 2D or virtual cockpit -- doesn't really matter for side views since there really isn't view alignment issue for the side views (but I would choose the same camera type for both sides). Click in the "Yaw" field (it will turn red), type in -90 (note the minus sign; you want the camera to turn left), then click on the field again. It will turn back white, and the camera view will rotate to 90-degrees left. Set the zoom as you like; a zoom factor between 0.8 and 1.0 seems to work well for a right or left view. Click the 'Save All Cameras' button and exit the screen. Select the 'right' PC and follow the same process as above, setting the Yaw value to 90 (you want the camera to turn right). Set the zoom to match the left view. Click 'Save All Cameras' and exit the screen. That's it. You've now got your server set up for your forward view (with a virtual cockpit if you like that), and your two side views set up for left and right. As long as you have FSXSERVER and the two FSXCLIENT apps running alongside FSX the views will be synchronized. Just FYI, adding additional PCs with clients for displays that are set at say, 45-degrees left and right is basically the same process, but the view alignment for those can be a major struggle without some practical help -- which I'll be happy to give you if you ever get there. It *is* possible to get nearly perfect view alignment for forward views, but the camera setup is very tricky. -M.

OpusFSX does so many things that I've gotten a bit confused. Is it possible to use the product for nothing more than weather injection on a networked flight sim setup, while continuing to use something like Wideview for display synchronization? --or does LiveView have to be running for weather sync to work? -M.

The answer for me was to reduce the frame rate on my server. I left all of the clients set at 'unlimited' and reduced the frame rate on the server to 40 fps. This seems to have completely solved the lag issue. I still get the occasional stutter from the clients, but I can live with that.