Flying Kiwi

Last night I was doing an IFR flight to Brisbane, and was vectored to land on Runway 19, but my IFR clearance was sabotaged by the Moochydore ATIS being on the same frequency as Brisbane Center! The ATIS overrode the ATC and I couldn't respond to ATC, resulting in my IFR being cancelled through no fault of my own. Immensely frustrating, to say the least. This is apparently a well-known issue in both FSX and P3D. Apparently, the Brisbane Center and Moochydore ATIS are on the same frequency in real life. But in the simulator, that just doesn't work. Given that Lockheed Martin has fixed some FSX bugs and issues, you'd think maybe they could sort this out. I am aware of a fix for FSX that someone else has done, but that only appears to be for default scenery, and I have Orbx scenery (Global BASE, Global VECTOR, Australia SP4 and YBBN). The AFCAD for Moochydore Airport is inside the ORBX folder (this is the case for both FSX and P3D). Has a fix for this maddening problem ever been released for P3D? Would the existing fix for FSX work with P3D and/or Orbx scenery? Is there otherwise any kind of way to manually fix it so I can fly IFR to Brisbane without being effectively sabotaged? TIA for any assistance you can provide.

What are your graphics settings? Apparently, frame rates were being capped if you adjusted your graphics settings down, but an update has just been applied that fixes that and now guarantees unlimited frame rates whatever your settings.

In the VOR Navigation lesson, the instructor makes several references to an autopilot and tells you to use it, but neither default plane in the game has an autopilot! Also, the margins in the Approach and Landing lesson, especially on finals, are way too tight. You get failed for "going too slow" even though you're only SLIGHTLY too slow, and more maddeningly still, the instructor will praise you moments later for being on speed and glideslope just before you get the fail message! At the very least, you should get a warning or two about your speed without being failed instantly. And apart from skewed headings, I reckon the RPM recommendation is slightly off too, and that 1500 or 1600 would be better than 1400. The instructors are very "naggy" in the lessons. They need to give you more time to correct your speed or altitude, rather than constantly telling you to make the desired correction. But at the same time, either the instructors or a written script should warn you if you're on the verge of failing, and why. The ATC and pilot voices in Free Flight sound absolutely dreadful - very robotic and not at all human. Performance is very choppy with anti-aliasing on. It seems to be much smoother when that's turned off. My Logitech Extreme 3D Pro seems to work perfectly with this game though. I was able to manipulate the throttle, rudder pedals and so on with no problems at all, without doing a thing to the settings!

Interesting video. Some good thoughts at the end there, and a couple of useful tips too! One little niggle though: the plane you were flying was a Piper Cherokee, not an Archer. Also, the default scenery is indeed by Orbx - Dovetail Games have officially partnered with them.

I disagree with this. The flight planner is actually extremely limited compared with the FSX/P3D one. The map visuals are quite nice, sure, and it's certainly easy to select a departure point and destination, but beyond that there is no way to select what gate you start at (you just start on the end of a runway, end of story), no navlog generated (so how are you supposed to do any VOR navigation if you can't look up the beacon frequency on your navlog?), no way to choose between VFR or IFR flights (I guess the game is mainly geared to VFR flying though) or anything of that sort. So some prettier graphics and simpler interface notwithstanding, overall the flight planner is a major step backwards IMO. That aside, I don't think the game is as friendly to newbies as it could be. For example, the lesson on VOR navigation has several references to an autopilot. Umm ... WHAT autopilot? Neither of the default aircraft in this game have autopilots! Also, the margins between success and failure in the Approach and Landing lesson in particular are far too fine. I have been failed several times in that lesson for being "too slow" on my final approach, yet I was only FRACTIONALLY below 55 mph (probably doing 51 or 52), and after getting the "Nope, we're too slow" message, the instructor then said "Right on speed and glideslope. Nice." But by then it was too late, because I'd already been deemed to have failed the mission. I find that quite utterly ridiculous and unfair. The instructor should warn you if your speed is wrong, not give you an instant fail. And the tolerance margins need to be increased a little. Another bugbear of mine is the ATC and pilot voices in free flight. They sound like robots! Or like third-rate pop singers with autotune. Game for newbies or not, it's completely unacceptable for ATC and pilots to have voices as bad as that. (The voices in the lessons and missions are fine - the problem is with the ATC interaction during free flights.) I think the basic concept of the game is good, and the Orbx scenery naturally looks fantastic. But it has a number of bugs and design flaws that really need to be ironed out. I actually think the FSX lessons (well, some of them) are better for newbies than this game at the moment.

I have just tried a flight using Orbx scenery, and this time the performance was amazing - total turnaround from my earlier experiences (some with default, some with Orbx)! I limited frame rates to 20 FPS and followed most other suggestions such as turning off MSAA and tessellation. I'll probably play around with the settings a little bit more - in particular, I want to see if I can at least get away with medium settings for scenery - but this has been most heartening. After having done worse than FSX previously, this time around it did better! It is going to be possible to use P3D on my machine after all. Just have to treat the GPU with kid gloves, pretty much.

Funnily enough, the FPS was originally locked at 20. However, I don't know if I want to go back to that - maybe I'll try 30. FSX has unlimited FPS, but it's not always that smooth, so perhaps a limited FPS would help in that too. I have to confess that when I first got this computer back in late 2013, I hadn't even heard of FSX, P3D or anything else. I only found FSX on Steam in February last year, and didn't really get into flight simming until November/December last year. Since then though, it has become somewhat of an addiction, and I have got lots of add-ons, both payware and freeware. Mainly scenery and aircraft. But all that might be starting to put a bit of a strain on the computer. The thing is though, I wasn't thinking about optimal performance for flight simulation back in late 2013. The HP Pavilion 23 seemed perfectly adequate for my needs at the time. And before I got into flight simming, I was a pretty keen player of Euro Truck Simulator 2 and Train Simulator 2015/2016 (which I still enjoy from time to time), which this computer can cope with quite well. I guess those games don't put quite the same demands on resources that FSX and P3D do. Obviously, when I get another computer in the future, I will have very different considerations about the graphics card and performance capacity. But I don't know that I want to get a new machine just yet. Apart from the cost factor, there's the hassle of migrating everything over and starting again with fresh installations. So for now it's a case of trying to get the most acceptable performance I can with my currently somewhat limited resources. Anyway, thanks for that, Vic and others. I think this can probably be regarded as solved now (though of course, any more good advice about optimising performance is welcome).

Thank you all very much for your help. I have turned off tesselation, MSAA, HDR, volumetric fog, reflections, shadows and set frame rates to Unlimited, among one or two other things. That has definitely improved the FPS, although it's still not brilliant. Actually, when doing a test with FSX SE tonight, I discovered the frame rates in that aren't too wonderful either, hovering around the high teens. However, the FSX frame rates don't dip into single figures the way they do in P3D. But the performance difference between the two is not so drastically different after all. If I use the minimal 2D panel with six basic instruments and nothing else, P3D's frame rate rockets up to 25-30 FPS, but that doesn't make for very exciting flight simming. What would be a better sort of setup to achieve more reasonable frame rates in P3D and FSX? 16 GB of RAM instead of 8? Bigger hard drive? Or is the graphics card the main problem? How much memory would be ideal? 4 GB inadequate? I think it's an "integrated" one. My PC is desktop, by the way. The hard drive is inside the large flat-screen monitor, as is the graphics card. Again, thanks most kindly for the assistance. Much appreciated.

I've just sat a plane (one of Virtualcol's "frame rate-friendly" aircraft) at an airport for about 25 minutes, doing absolutely nothing, and my FPS managed to shoot all the way up to ... 15.7. Average was around 11-12 this time. Not horrendously bad, but still far from ideal. My current settings (after tweaking): Resolution: 1920x180x32 (I have not changed this) FXAA (whatever that is): On MSAA (whatever that is): 2 Samples Texture Filtering: Anisotropic 4x Texture Resolution: Medium 1024x1024 (but even Low 512x512 has made no difference to my frame rates) Tessellation: Enabled VSync: Off Target Frame Rate: 30 Wide-View Aspect Ratio: Unchecked Mip-map VC Panels: Checked 2D Panel Transparency: 0% Level of detail radius: Medium Tessellation Factor: Medium Mesh resolution: 19m Texture resolution: 1m Land detail textures: Checked Water Detail: Medium Reflections: Cloud and User Vehicle checked, everything else unchecked Scenery complexity: Normal Autogen vegetation density: Sparse Autogen building density: Sparse Special effects detail: Low Special effects distance: Low HDR lighting: Checked Brightness: 1.10 Bloom: 1.00 Saturation: 0.80 Dynamic reflections: Off Landing-lights illuminate ground: Checked Lens flare: Checked Shadow Quality: Medium Enable Terrain to Receive Shadows: Checked Terrain Shadow Cast Distance: 0m Cloud Shadow Cast Distance: 0m Object Shadow Cast Distance: 6,000m Cast and Receive checked for Internal Vehicle and External Vehicle, unchecked for everything else. Cloud draw distance: 80 mi Cloud coverage distance: Medium Volumetric Fog: Checked Clouds: Detailed Thermal visualization: None Rate at which weather changes over time: Medium Air traffic density: 25% GA traffic density: 25% Airport Vehicle density: Minimum Land and Sea Traffic: 15% for everything So as you can see, I don't have any settings maxed out, and most are either low or medium. Even with 0% traffic (which seemed to be the default), frame rates have so far been awful. I've just defragged my hard drive (it was 14% fragmented), which may have helped fractionally with the frame rates. At a loss to know why they continue to be so bad though. I've only had this for two days though - does it need more settling down time or something? Otherwise, what else can I tweak to improve performance?

I purchased the Academic version of P3D V3 a couple of days ago. But to date the frame rates have been absolutely appalling, hovering regularly around 6-7 and never getting higher than 11.4! I have never experienced frame rates this poor in FSX Steam Edition (at least, not all the time, though they can get quite bad in a graphic-heavy airport) or in X-Plane 10 Global (I only have a "vanilla" version of that though, with no add-ons as I don't use it much). Of course, I have tried turning my sliders down, but that has not made a blind bit of difference. I also adjusted my frame rate target from 20 to 30, but that didn't change a thing. Even when I wander around in Avatar mode (which has to be less complex than using an aircraft), the FPS remains at this extremely low rate and refuses to climb any higher than 11.4. I can't understand why this is happening when I get acceptable frame rates in FSX SE and X-Plane (latter is also on Steam). Here are my specs: Computer - Hewlett-Packard Pavilion with Windows 10 Home and touchscreen Hard drive capacity - 2 TB (I have recently tipped over the 1 TB mark with all my FSX add-ons and have about 900 GB left) Processor - AMD A8 6500 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (3.50 GHz) Installed memory - 8 GB of RAM, 7.2 GB usable System type - 64-bit OS, x64-based processor Graphics card - AMD Radeon 8570D with 4224 MB (4.2 GB I guess) of total available graphics memory Not a super powerful machine (I got it in late 2013), but is able to handle such games as Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, OMSI 2, Train Simulator 2016 and of course FSX:SE and X-Plane 10 Global without any problems (or at least, only the occasional stutter). I have tried to find solutions by Googling, but there is such a vast array of different answers and theories that I have been left completely bewildered and confused. One thing I haven't tried is changing my P3D config file, but I wouldn't have the first idea where to start with that (I am reasonably computer-literate, and know just enough to make basic edits to aircraft config files, but I'm no coding expert). So is there some sort of reasonably simple solution that doesn't involve anything too drastic or complicated, or is P3D V3 just too sophisticated for my current hardware? TIA for any assistance you can render.

"ui_manufacturer" is for the actual aircraft manufacturer (Vickers, British Aerospace etc.). As far as I can tell, these lines are all present and correct in the affected aircraft config files. So that can't be it.

Belated thanks for your answer, Jim. I thought GPWS_sound.gau was also a default file because it was in my "gauges" folder (but as you say, I must have put it there myself when installing a freeware aircraft). The one in that folder was dated 14/2/2014, whereas all the other ones I saw seemed to be dated 4/1/2005. I tried replacing these with the one dated 14/2/2014, but FSX still crashed as soon as I tried to load a flight with the affected aircraft. There seems to be nothing for it but to delete the line referring to that gauge (it's usually only one line - have to remember to renumber the other gauges though) from the aircraft config file. This particular gauge must be incompatible with FSX. Even the code related to it appears incompatible with FSX! My aircraft still have sound though, but I guess in those particular planes, I might have to do without a few ground proximity warning messages or something. Anyway, if you're downloading any freeware aircraft, this gauge is something to beware of. Not too many planes have it thankfully, but the ones that do won't work in FSX until it's gotten rid of. Then they'll work just fine (as far as I have been able to ascertain, anyway).

I'm having a problem in which a small number of my aircraft are appearing under the wrong publisher. This seems to be occurring when I have aircraft of the same type, but by different publishers. For example, I have the payware Vickers Viscount 800 by Just Flight, but also a freeware Vickers Viscount 800 by Jens Kristensen ("JBK"). The latter appears under "JBK" as it should, but the Just Flight Viscount also appears under "JBK"! Yet when I open the aircraft configuration file for the Just Flight Viscount, there is a line for every livery that says "ui_createdby=Just Flight". And in the aircraft config file for the JBK Viscount has a line for every livery that says "ui_createdby=JBK"! So it just doesn't make any sense that the two should appear under the same publisher. Another example: I have a BAe 146-200 by Just Flight, and a BAe 146-200 by Premier Aircraft Design. Both lots of aircraft appear under Premier Aircraft Design! Yet I have a Just Flight BAe 146-300, and that appears under "Just Flight" as it should. Perhaps it helps that I don't have a PAD 146-300 (I think they've only done the 146-100 and 146-200). Once again, the "ui_createdby" line in the aircraft config file is correct in both cases. Here is yet another puzzle: I have British Aerospace Jetstream 31s by both Premier Aircraft Design and Virtualcol. The PAD Jetstream 31 appears under "Premier Aircraft Design", but the Virtualcol Jetstream 31 does not appear under either "Premier Aircraft Design" or "Virtualcol FS Software"! Yet if I select "British Aerospace" in the "Aircraft manufacturer" menu, then both the PAD and Virtualcol Jetstreams appear. Again, the correct "ui_createdby" line is in the aircraft config files for both sets of aircraft. Last but not least, FSX insists on classifying some publishers as "Unknown" even when the correct ui_createdby line is in the aircraft config file. This is the case for instance with a handful of Dash 8-100s and Saab 340Bs by Premier Aircraft Design, and also, bizarrely, Saab 340Fs by Virtualcol (I'm pretty sure though that the Virtualcol Saab 340Fs did appear under "Virtualcol FS Software" before I got the PAD Saabs). I had to add the ui_createdby lines in manually for those (except the Virtualcol Saabs), yet they remain stubbornly classified under "Unknown". Yet I manually added ui_createdby lines for other aircraft by both JBK and PAD, and they duly went from "Unknown" to their correct publisher. About 95% of all my aircraft, including ones whose aircraft config files I had to edit with ui_createdby lines, are listed under their correct publishers. So it's just a small number that remain troublesome. For the life of me, I can't work out why they won't go under the correct publisher. There is probably something wrong with the config files of either the freeware or payware aircraft (more likely the former), but I simply cannot figure out what that would be. Why won't FSX recognise the ui_createdby line for these particular aircraft, and why does it put some aircraft under entirely the wrong publisher even when the correct ui_createdby line is present? Many thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this most perplexing mystery.

While most of my aircraft (default, payware and freeware) work splendidly in FSX Steam Edition, I have experienced FSX CTDs whenever I try to load a freeware aircraft that includes the file "GPWS_Sound.gau". When I get rid of the file, the aircraft works great. I have discovered however that it's not enough to remove this file from the panel folder of the freeware aircraft in question. The lines referring to it in the aircraft's panel configuration file also have to be deleted. Otherwise there will still be a crash. An alternative is to select "Don't Run" when FSX asks you if you want to run GPWS_Sound.gau. This also works well. I have noticed that GPWS_Sound.gau is also a default file. But that doesn't cause FSX to crash (thank goodness!). The GPWS_Sound.gau files for my handful of freeware aircraft that cause FSX to crash always seem to be dated 4/1/2005. So I think they might precede FSX, and there could be some sort of version compatibility issue. Or maybe they're clashing with the default file? I don't know exactly, but I have narrowed the crashes down to that one file and coding of it in panel.cfg. Any thoughts on this issue?

I have a question about a freeware aircraft I downloaded from the AVSIM library, but I'm not sure where to post it. I notice a lot of freeware support forums, but they seem to be for specific types or brands of freeware, and my question comes more under "Miscellaneous Freeware" or "Other Freeware", for which there does not appear to be a forum. Essentially, I downloaded the Boeing 717-200 by David Robles, and can't get the SFX panel to work. The switches are operational, but no sound plays, and when I mouse over them, I get "File Not Found", even though I do have the required sound files and have installed them in the main "Sound" folder. So where specifically can I ask about this, please? Many thanks in advance for your help.