rufowler

+1. +1 here as well. I think the general idea many of us are agree on is that although FA might technically be making adjustments to give us a better looking view in less dense/demanding areas, it would be nice if FA would really shut off and restore out settings when ask it to shut off during a flight. As someone with a half-way decently tweaked config file, I'd like to use this tool to basically help me out when I'm taking off and landing. Config files are static (obviously), and a big selling point of FA is that it is dynamic because it changes things while you fly. I think the way to make it truly dynamic is to allow it to completely shut off -- and thus return our systems to the way they were before we launch FA -- without having to reboot FSX. Hope that makes sense. I think this product has a lot of potential; as is, it's already pretty damn good! Just trying to clarify what some of us are asking for specifically. Keep up the good work, Cheers.

I get that too, though a little less often -- maybe one in 10 times -- and as with you, it seems that restarting it corrects things. Weird. But this saved settings things is driving me insane. I'm going to uninstall it, reboot, and reinstall just for the hell of it. Though I can't imagine it got "broken" by anything I did or installed since. If anyone has any idea, please let me know. At this point I'm considering giving it up for something else. I hear Opus is a competitor, though not as good. UUgh. :-/

And you're running 64-bit version of Windows 8? Threads like this one -- and believe me, there are a lot of similar ones -- make me apprehensive. Also, when you say, it doens't work 15% of the time, do you mean it simply doesn't appear in the FSX menu (& I'm guessing is disabled), or does it do something else weird?

Yeah, I really like Albeo too. I only have one plane from their catalog. Wish they produced more. If I had to buy one today I'd probably get the C177 Cardinal II or the C172RG Cutlass. Do you have either of these? They look pretty nice.

Yeah, I had a feeling. I also coincidentally have very little interest in the G1000-equipped planes. I'm old school. Thanks!

Well I already exported them from the default aricraft and imported them to the newer aircraft, tweaked them, and saved them (which I supposed it automatically does anyway). But just the DHM & walls won't save from one restart to another. Do you mean tweak, export/save as separate files for that plane, then re-import? I will try that. Does it matter where I put the exported settings? There are a couple of EZCA folders it created on install, but I'm assuming it doesn't matter where I put exported files. (Honestly, I'm a day confused about where its database is and what files is uses to determine the settings.) Also just curious. Are you running Window 8 / 64-bit? (From you're PC specs, it looks like no.) Apparently this is a combo that lots of folks have had problems with trying to run EZdok. :-/

I've been using EZdok for a few days now, have read through the manual, have figuring out how to set it up, and I think I have the basics down. Almost everything runs very well except for two things that have been driving me crazy! Certain settings don't save after I shut down & restart FSX. Specifically, it's not saving the DHM settings in any of the cameras (the button remains selected/highlighted for a specific view, but the dials all revert to zero). And the cockpit walls are not saving either; the little "L" icon becomes deselected and all of the previously saved parameters are gone, so after a restart, my head wanders outside of the plane when I look around. What is going on? :( Couple of things to keep in mind: I'm using version 1.16 of EZdok, the one offered on their download page, but not 1.17 which seems like it never left the beta stage and which I've read has caused a lot of problems for some users. But perhaps the fix I'm looking for is in the newer version? I'm running Windows 8.1 / 64-bit. And as per the suggestions of a few other folks in the forums, I'm running the EZCA.exe and the config.exe as an Administrator and also in Windows 7 compatibility mode (both via the files' Properties > Compatibility tab). That didn't seem to help though. I have a registered version of FSUIPC; no buttons are conflicting with that nor with the default FS controls, including the joystick's hat switch which only EZdoc handles. (Not really sure if that matters though.) I've added all executable FSX and EZCA files to the exceptions list in my Norton antivirus. The DHM camera & cockpit walls only not saving for the few Carenado GA I use, but they are working in all the default FSX planes. The settings I'm using are basically the exact ones I imported from similar default planes that EZdok already had cameras for; again, they do work when I initially import & tweak them, but not after I exit. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Whoops! My bad. Didn't realize there was a sub-forum for these sorts of issues. I'll keep my eye out next time. Thanks, mad dog! I hadn't read the advanced users guide yet (just started with the basic/general one) but this is definitely helpful. Looking at it right now. Cheers! I'll check it out. Thanks!

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but I couldn't the answer in the forums and I didn't see it in the manual.... Is it possible to assign one command to two buttons -- pressed simultaneously -- on a joystick with FSUIPC? Basically, I'd like to reassign the trigger button (which it seems is often used for brakes) as a kind of Shift or Control key for other buttons on the joystick. The idea is to be able to perform actions by simply just pressing the trigger and then another button with one hand and thus not have to use my other to press a separate key on the keyboard, which something I know how to do already. Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

Right. I knew that, I just meant that I realize that REX's biggest draw seems to be it's textures, which ASN apparently lacks entirely. Anyhow, yes, I'm off the fence (and not for a lot of money considering that sale) and am trying to figure out the program out now. Looks promising, but I guess we'll see once I start flying around in some crazy weather. Hoping there's a setting for raining bacon. ;) Cheers!

Well, as luck would have it, I happened to see in my inbox today an email about a big sale at PCAviator this weekend, including 50% off REX products! This might be the nudge I needed to dive in since it's only ~$22 usd. But I do realize that it's just a texture program. I guess I might as well start somewhere. I have a feeling I'll grab ASN or FSGRX when/if it's on sale somewhere ... or if I just feel like throwing a few extra dollars into this hobby which is likely to be the case.

Thanks, fshobby! I actually do have have Ideal Flight 10. It was one of the first addons I got a couple of months ago. And I was thinking about it recently when I started thinking about finally getting my first weather addon. I like IF, and it has some nice features, especially the way it randomizes not just the weather, but also the date you're flying, the cargo/passengers you carry, your assignment/mission, etc. But after I got FsPassengers, and especially after I got Air Hauler (which I use most often), the "career" aspect of IF feel a little thin. Depending on how much it costs (or how deep your pockets are), I'd say it's worth a shot. Anyhow, that "random weather" option in REX seems promising. Thanks!

Hmmm... That does sound like an interesting option -- a creative way around things I suppose. I wonder why AS stopped making textures when their previous versions had them. Weird. Thanks for the input! Does

Ah, I didn't realize you meant ASN with vs without REX. Got it. Video looks interesting. I think in an ideal world it seems I should be running both. Thanks! Very cool, indeed. Sounds like the weather archive is a nice option too. :) Just curious (for anyone commenting here): Is there a big hit your framerate with either or both of these? Like I mentioned, I have an ok / not great system at the moment, and it struggles sometimes despite tweaks. I wouldn't want to swap a prettier sky for a soul-crushing 5 fps in my Orbx regions. ;)

So this may be a dumb question, but if I don't care about real-world weather conditions because (as I mentioned above) I'm almost never flying live, either of these programs will still be able to just generate some random weather that's appropriate to the geographical location and the season, time of day, etc., that I'm flying in the sim, correct? Guess I'm just not sure how these work. :-/ Ok, but ASN can't actually make the clouds look all that different since it's not replacing the actual textures, no?

Hmm. Looks like that's a link to their Rex 4 site and that the Rex 4 weather engines are still in development and still in beta testing. But assuming you've got "Plus with Overdrive," you don't have the issues that StubbinMyToe has -- which seems to be the one I've read about previous versions elsewhere? I'm wondering if FSUIPC could help that out. There's a setting in there for weather smoothness (both temps and winds), but I've never played around with it,

Ok, so the way I understand this is ASN is only a weather engine and is great at inserting live weather into FSX, but it has nothing to do with the way things look visually. REX, on the other hand, primarily deals with textures, and while it makes things looks pretty it has a limited engine (or perhaps it doesn't do any weather generation at all?). If this is the case, and since I don't really care about accurate live weather, I'm thinking maybe REX makes more sense. I might be missing what they actually do / can't do differently.

So Active Sky (event Next, their newest release) doesn't have any textures ... which I assume basically means it runs the blah FSX default weather textures? Also, if some day for some reason I wanted to get both, is it a major pain to try to sync them up preflight? Thanks!

I know this has been asked before, but it seems that most threads are from a couple of years back before the two popular and well-loved companies -- REX and Active Sky -- came out with their newer weather releases. The consensus back then seemed to be that REX had prettier textures, but Active Sky had a better weather engine (possibly in part because of it's ability to load historical weather? not quite sure thought). Since 2012 however, REX has come out with "Essential Plus with Overdrive" and AS released "Active Sky Next." So how do they stack up now? I realize some people run (or at least used to run) both programs simultaneously, but if they do similar enough things, I'd rather just get one. Which would you recommend? A couple of things to keep in mind about me: I'm still kind of a newbie and haven't played around with weather settings at all except for loading the few default FSX profiles now and then. In the real world I do most of my flying late at night after work, but in the sim world I prefer to do mostly GA flying during the daytime -- when that gorgeous Orbx scenery is visible. Thus, having super accurate & up-to-the-second live weather isn't necessarily as important to me. In fact, just having randomly generated weather that's geographically-appropriate would be just fine. My machine is so-so (see my system specs), and I'm not even sure if I should be getting a weather addon. But if I do, I'd rather it be easier on the frames -- perhaps one that has a low res setting or something. Thanks in advance for the advice. :) Cheers.

Wow, thanks so much, mad dog! I'll definitely give this a go this weekend when a have a few hours to fiddle with FSX. This is great. Cheers!

I obviously haven't gotten to know my FSUIPC4 / WideFS well enough yet, but how to get ATC message to appear somewhere other than right in front of me? I'd love to put those things aside to a connected laptop!

Thanks. I guess since right now neither my cpu or video card are very good (I have a sub-par pre-made HP), I can pretty much build my machine around whichever sim I use. From what I've read, it seems like a few years down the road PD3 might be the next generation ... esp since apparently Microsoft just sold the rights to the FSX code to another company. That's what the rumor are. Until I have some more spending money, I'm stuck with my set up. It works, just not beautifully. Oh well. Happy flying!

hey jetsflier. Thanks for the input. #1 & #2: Yeah, that's what I heard too. Unfortunately I bought my system a couple of years ago, long before I knew anything about FSX. I think I might build my own system this summer or fall, in which case I'll be able to make something that works well. Sigh. :-/ Do you by any chance know if PD3 requires the same hardware?Since it's an updated & developing program (and possibly the future of flight simming), perhaps it's different. #3: I'm far from max, but not super low either. I heard the same about the water too, so mine is the same. #4: I will have to look into this. Thanks! Btw, sorry White Hawk, if this seemed to be off-topic. Didn't mean to hijack your thread, but perhaps this will help you too in case you for some reason experience performance issues.

@rstough: Could you give us a very rough estimate -- maybe what quarter it might happen? Could you at least tell us whether this is gonna be this year or 2015? Like I said previously, it's alright, we can handle the truth -- we'd really prefer it in this case.

Ok, thanks Dickens. Appreciate the input! Anyone else out there want to weigh in on the benefits of running some addons off another networked system? Is it just for the extra screen?