LecLightning56

How do you fool Nvidia into thinking that P3D v4.5 is a supported game? Edit: Found it! It is in the Nvidia Control Panel under Image Sharpening.

Without detracting from the thread significantly, but are you able to use touch controllers in P3D without the requirement for FlyInside, and if so how do you use them (some people have claimed that they can use them without FlyInside)?

I am mildly amused by the obituaries to the flightsim world as we know it, i.e. RIP etc., particularly since we may all have a good year ahead to wait before we can start using MSFS2020, and the fact that avsim.com now seems to full of clairvoyants providing their vision of what they think things are going to develop into. We don't know enough about LM's future plans and nor for that matter what X-Plane may bring in the future and it may be too early to write these off completely just yet. It is strange that we all get to see something even brighter and shinier and, like all children, start throwing away our old toys and scream for the latest and greatest offerings. Yes, MSFS2020 does look very good but at least it may set a benchmark for others in what PC-based flight simulation is capable of producing. This can only be good in terms of directing things we way we need it to be. The plethora of scenery available exemplifies the problem we have got at the moment: the default offerings are perhaps a little inadequate and do not provide an immersive, satisfying experience. So, I am positive about what the future holds but will continue to enjoy my products for the time being and cannot see the point in ditching everything in despair at the present time. Also, I have had a quiet laugh at how frequently people may upgrade their hardware: I have upgraded my CPU and motherboard recently, replacing not-so-inadequate 10 year old kit. I for one prefer a slower pace of change where my PC is concerned!

I believe that I may have discovered what may be a neat way to use the full detent range of the Aerosoft Airbus Professional throttles using FSUIPC, if you only have one basic throttle lever as hardware (I have a Thrustmaster T.1600M HOTAS FCS throttle and stick - nothing too elaborate). My settings in the Aerosoft A320/321 Configurator are as follows: Load e.g. the A320 in P3D and delete all throttle assignments in the P3D settings. Now go into FSUIPC and select the Axis Assignments as follows: Yes, that is correct, I have setup three throttle assignments operating with the one hardware lever. Note also I have setup a profile specific to these settings with a name of e.g. "Aerosoft A320" and hence the check box under "Profile specific?". Next you need to calibrate the three throttle assignments. Start with "Throttle" in the "Joystick Calibration" tab. My settings are as follows for "Throttle": Note that the lower limit (801) is intermediate between the upper limit (approximately 16384) and the lower limit of approximately -16384: the reason for this is that this range determines the forward thrust range from the idle detent to the max thrust detent. Now calibrate "Throttle1" and "Throttle2" as shown below: Note that the intermediate settings for "Throttle1" and "Throttle2" are that of the lower setting for "Throttle", i.e. 801. Below 801, reverse thrust is selected. -16384 here equates to max reverse thrust. That is basically it and I now have a thrust lever for the Aerosoft Airbus Professional Series which I use in a logical way across the full range of detents from max reverse thrust to max forward thrust. All I need now is to try and find some way of broadcasting a text message to alert me of the point at which a particular detent is selected, rather than to use the visual clues from the throttle animations in the cockpit as well as the audio clicks. Note for FSiPanel 2017 users (practising approach procedures etc.): the above works well but make sure that FSUIPC is working with the correct settings before you let JP's program operate with trimming the aircraft and programming the FMC, i.e. before you press the "Y" key to select "SPEED" in the PFD by way of the "CL" throttle detent. The above may need some fine tuning (and it may not yet be entirely perfect), but I have not found any other suitable explanation/advice on any of the forums searched on the internet on the subject matter discussed. Happy days for throttle use with the Aerosoft Airbus using FSUIPC (I never liked pressing the F2 key for reverse thrust)!

I have now received a response from SimSkunkWorks and apparently they will send you links to download your purchases if you have an account at www.simmarket.de (same as simmarket.com) and notify them by way of request that you would like to have links available for download as and when necessary. Hope this helps for anyone who may be in the same situation.

SimSkunkWorks have recently transferred their website to a new server. I cannot see any way to re-download my purchases as an older customer of theirs. Apparently SimSkunkWorks is no longer marketing its products from its own website using instead e.g. simmarket.com. Has anyone else experienced similar issues and have you found a way to grab back your older purchases? I have emailed SimSkunkWorks on this subject but if anyone can preempt such a response with your own findings then so much the better.

One further thing, in an A320 for example, how can we use gaze selection to adjust speed/altitude etc.?

I believe this thread on the Prepar3D forum answers my question: https://prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6314&p=204089

Almost an embarrassing question, but how do I press a VC button/click a switch using the Oculus VR option in P3D v4.5? I am sure that this glaringly simple but cannot find it at the moment. I can point at the control button/switch with no difficulty but do not know how to activate it. I am using an Oculus Rift S.

It looks like I can answer my own question here. I have an Oculus Rift S which has hand controllers which you cannot switch off. What you need to do is to remove the batteries from the controllers to deactivate them then the blue dot appears in FlyInside. Once into FlyInside you can set up a joystick button for enabling/disabling hand tracking so that when you wish to use the FlyInside Menu, you can disable the hand controllers and make the necessary adjustments. Didn't seem obvious to me immediately, but having seen a thread in the FlyInside forum governing enabling/disabling hand controllers for an Oculus Rift it occurred to me that the blue dot in FlyInside cannot coexist with enabled hand controllers, hence the use of a simple enable/disable button does the job just fine. So problem solved and thread is closed!

I am a newcomer to VR (Oculus Rift S) and I must admit I am impressed (my head is still in a spin!). I thought that FlyInside for P3D v4 (I have P3D v4.5 HF2 installed) would be a good investment for making use of the VC controls in the absence of a mouse, but I cannot get access to the FlyInside settings because the blue dot does not appear in my headset to navigate my way round the menu when initially setting up FlyInside. I have posted in the FlyInside forums but don't really expect much joy there, since there has been at least one other such posting with no response. Has anyone else had this problem in P3D v4.5 with FlyInside, and if so, how did you resolve it if at all? Finally, is touch for controllers supported in P3D v4.5 HF2 and has anyone managed to get this working along similar lines to what FlyInside can do using native P3D VR?

I am inclined to agree. Other than enjoying what I already have, it seems self-defeating trying to enjoy this hobby at the same rate of enthusiasm knowing full well what we have glimpsed of the future (and how lacking current simulators are by comparison). Spending much more money on what may be quality products but would nevertheless become redundant fairly soon with the older sims does not seem to make any sense. The only incentive would be if we had more insight into what the future holds for the current simulators, but I still cannot see that massive investment of the order that has been calculated elsewhere by the user (and only covering the United States) will be a worthy competitor to even the default scenery if the current simulators adopt a similar path to Microsoft in their next iteration (and may have to in some respect?). I can't speak for P3D since it is not currently and may never be pitched at the consumer market for entertainment: that said if the Microsoft product becomes top dog and is so close to the mechanics of real flight and the environment in which it operates that it is physically certified by the authorities for professional training applications in flight schools/academies for students and perhaps even the military, anything that is currently aimed at such markets may well have to up their game to compete and continue to capture these markets. Let us not forget that the Microsoft project is very heavily staffed compared with P3D and the former is, let's face it, gathering significant media interest whereas I have little recollection of much if any attention directed at P3D (not that it is aimed at attracting significant public interest). It may even be that P3D will be wound down if it was felt that it could no longer be developed to meet and compete with the standards set by Microsoft as a professionally-approved application. ☹️

I sincerely hope that your orders will be fulfilled and that the company has not fallen by the wayside (I think that the flight sim community has been looking for a quality, budget-priced yoke for a long time). But I guess that pre-ordering always carries an inherent risk.

It looks as if MSFS is set to blow everything else out of the water. More the pity that a lot of the community (myself included) has been led astray with things which may have little promise of matching such a revolutionary step forward in the genre. What could have been if the original flight simulator had not been allowed to fall by the wayside (and just perhaps we would be at the MSFS stage now)! That said, we have little while to go before we can all try it out and it is too early to say whether or not it will attract widespread adoption in preference to anything else.

This is getting into the realms of rich kids with their toys, but we are not permitted to discuss eligibility for LM licences here of course!

I am inclined to agree that the TacPack route is a more logical choice for the functionality that some may seek to practice rather than to factor out most of us interested mortals, but I doubt if we shall get any responses from any real-world crew who would claim to use this as a serious tool. It may be that the functionality applied to an otherwise fun product is aimed more at those in a more diverse training environment than considerations of USAF B-1B operations, which I suppose could make sense.

Thought I would get the record straight with my original posting where I have now stressed that the developer is not charging more, rather that a LM Pro Plus licence is required for additional capability with the product (and hence the extra cost). The Virtavia product is actually competitively priced.

This one caught my eye on a payware website, and I was gobsmacked to read that a Prepar3D v4.5 Professional Plus licence ($2300!) is required to use the weapons system governing droppable and fireable objects. What are your thoughts on this? I don't mean the LM licencing which I am sure that very few people on this forum actually qualify for (and I believe we are not permitted to discuss), but the fact that what is basically very much akin to the FSX version of the Virtavia B-1B (which I own and think is a fun model fit for entertainment) is suddenly elevated to this standard without apparently significant advances in the complexity of the aircraft per se, unless someone can correct me with that one. Perhaps the weapons system is very complex and hence warrants the Pro Plus compatibility only but one wonders who in that category would actually train with this vehicle at its current state of development. The Virtavia B-1B is effectively the cockpit layout as delivered to the USAF and the real-world B-1B has since undergone significant upgrades which I do not believe the Prepar3D 4.5 version has simulated. Edit: I must stress that the Prepar3D v4.5 version of the Virtavia B-1B is available at low cost but it is merely the use of the weapons system which necessitates the Pro Plus licence of Prepar3D v4.5. Please do not think incorrectly that the vendor is requesting massive sums of money from the user for using the weapons system, if you wish to use this extra capability then a Pro Plus licence is required from LM, not from the vendor. I hope that this clears up any ambiguity.

Whereas I have no wish to spoil your fun confining your interests to the UK with ORBX True Earth GB, it has to be said that the land mass of the UK is small by comparison with Europe let alone the rest of the world. It seems prohibitively impossible to do justice to the whole planet with the same technology that we, let's face it, occasionally struggle with today even with the best efforts of ORBX. We need radical change in the way that the world is portrayed and delivered to the sim which MSFS may well deliver for us all. Whether or not LM will rise to the challenge with a worthy contender to Microsoft's offering remains to be seen. But as we are going at the moment, we are only really being delighted by a well-produced experience of a mere fraction of the Earth's scenery which, continuing at the present rate of development and with the current ESP-based software, could take many years to cover more significant landmasses than we are currently experiencing (I for one think ORBX's Honolulu is brilliant, but let's face it Hawaii is but a dot on the planet compared with Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas).

Revisiting the Virtavia C-17 following a recent update by Virtavia and also retrofitting the cockpits with ISG Simavionics gauges from Ernie Alston so that a Smiths FMC can be used, I encountered a reference in the panel.cfg file to C17_BND.dll which does not appear to be native to Virtavia (strenuous denials of it having ever been used by Virtavia for the C-17 by Phil of Virtavia support. Very responsive by the way is Virtavia support). The following extract shows the use of C17_BND.dll under the [Vcockpit01] heading in the panel.cfg file of the retrofitted example given on the ISG Simavionics website (this is not how it appears having installed the Virtavia product): [Vcockpit01] ; MFDs file=$vpanel.bmp Background_color=0,0,0 size_mm=1024,1024 visible=0 pixel_size=1024,1024 texture=$vpanel gauge00=isg1!C17_MFD, 130, 90, 330, 330,1_VC gauge01=isg1!C17_MFD, 580, 90, 330, 330,2_VC gauge02=isg1!C17_MFD, 130, 550, 330, 330,3_VC gauge03=isg1!C17_MFD, 580, 550, 330, 330,4_VC gauge04=Virtavia_C-17!MFDX1_vc, 93, 56, 403, 422 gauge05=Virtavia_C-17!MFDX2_vc, 544, 56, 403, 422 gauge06=Virtavia_C-17!MFDX3_vc, 93, 520, 403, 422 gauge07=Virtavia_C-17!MFDX4_vc, 544, 520, 403, 422 gauge08=Virtavia_C-17!AP N1_7, 0, 0 gauge09=Virtavia_C-17!REFUEL, 0, 0 gauge10=C17_BND!BND, 1,1,1,1 Does anyone know what C17_BND.dll is and indeed where it can be obtained from? It would appear it is somehow connected with the panel retrofit using ISG gauges, but it is not provided with the retrofit itself. If anyone has this file installed and can (legally) send it to me then so much the better, particularly if it is somehow critical to the use of the ISG gauges. I am not finding Ernie easy to contact at the moment and it could be that ISG is winding down a little these days in interest, but that is not to say that the gauges on offer are in any respect unworthy as most who have employed them successfully will vouch for their abilities.

Yes, let's hope with the resurgence of interest in Hawaii he relents to add to our enjoyment of the great scenery on offer! P.S. Saddened to hear about the skydiving accident there recently.

Does anyone know where I can pick up a legal copy of Aerosoft's Hawaii Dillingham X by Bill Womack? There is reference to it in the ORBX Honolulu manual. As is usual on the internet there are ample references to it in the shady shareware/freeware websites but nothing apparently from the usual sources. It is a pity that it is not released as freeware if no longer for sale.

It looks as if the FSPXAI Boeing 787 models used for the FLAI package may be incompatible with P3D v4. I have just substituted the FSPXAI Boeing 787 models with UTT Boeing 787 models (compatible with P3D v4 and borrowed from AIGAIM - OCI) and there are no problems as described above. I note that the FSPXAI models are at version 1 status and there is a version 2 product available (payware) which is compatible with P3D v4.

I have just managed to find a way to use the bgl files from AI Live Traffic with VoxATC, thereby providing some element of "live" control of AI aircraft with VoxATC in Prepar3D v4.5. I am using the FLAI package as the AI input to AI Live Traffic and thence the compiled bgl files read and processed by VoxATC. Watching arrivals at Heathrow, I noted that all Boeing 787 aircraft eventually stall and crash into the ground on the approach. Closer inspection of the aircraft themselves has revealed that the flaps do not operate on these aircraft on the approach, but the slats are extended. No other aircraft type has this issue and flaps are set appropriately to the airspeed on the approach for such AI aircraft. Any ideas as to why the flaps do not function with these aircraft (Boeing 787) on the approach? I also noted that the flaps are set correctly for the Boeing 787 for takeoff, so it is only on the approach that problems exist. The FLAI Boeing 787 models are freeware FSPXAI aircraft in origin. One possibility may be the way that VoxATC operates on AI aircraft with its own control of behaviours which has upset things specifically for the models concerned.

I have found an even neater way of doing the same thing. If you open the bgl file in AI Flight Planner (AIFP) and then select "Adjust Day-Encoding" from the "Flight Plans" tab, enter "1" for FSX->FS9 in the box and compile the bgl file. This has the same effect as the above but alleviates any requirement to physically save the bgl file as a txt file and edit it manually before recompiling. Far neater and less error-prone, I do believe.