The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby Anthindelahunt » Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:50 am

Those posts just fried my brain.I just stick with Orbx and Rex.No problems.
However I have far too many aircraft and should uninstall half of them.

Anthin. :doh:
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:32 pm

Back again.

If you don't have any Saitek hardware, and/or you have no desire for any of the Saitek Pro Flight Panels, then there's no use wasting your time here.




For anyone else, there's great news - SPAD.neXt.

The Saitek software does work. Just not very well.

And on top of that there is no customization possible.

That is unless you have SPAD. But the creator of SPAD has had to give up further development.


The developer of SPAD.neXt is in the process of taking SPAD to the next level. Or two. Or three. Or .....

It's not complete, there are some small problems & hiccups along the way.

But as of now it's passed the venerable SPAD.

Even in the unfinished state it can do things that I had given up hope for. And do them easily.

Effortlessly, no. There is a learning curve. This is not SPAD.

But once you start catching on it gets easier, and it is SO much better.



How much simpler & better?

I had a problem with my first Saitek Switch Panel. It'd stopped functioning.

Image

I always start from a cold, dark, aircraft, so needless to say I bought another one.

And as soon as I plugged it in, the original started to work. :confusion-shrug:


After a few minutes of thinking, I decided to keep it. Can't have enough switches can you?

And besides, there was that extra five position rotary switch, and an extra lever (switch).

I had great plans, but some things weren't possible with SPAD. At least not by me.


In the end, I mounted the original under the edge of my desk with an increased, upward, angle.

The new Switch Panel went where the old one had been.

Image

As I decided what each switch would do, I labeled it. Later, I'll have an overlay made.


The new rotary switch makes a great fuel selector switch. And the old landing gear lever makes a great parking break lever.

One of the annoyances' was that the three lights to the left of the old gear lever, duplicated the red/green/light-out of the bottom Switch Panel.


Not any longer - NOW when I flip the lever down the breaks are locked and ONLY the one red light comes on. When I flip the lever up, the breaks are off, and the light goes out.

BTW - I could just as easily have had the red light turn green when the brakes were released.

Image

For the most part, both Switch Panels are treated as separate & unique panels. The lower Switch Panel behaves as it should, independent of the other panel.



If you have the Saitek panels and you don't have SPAD or SPAD.neXt, you've wasted your money.

And of the two, SPAD.neXt is the more powerful.
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:53 pm

To keep the first part from being too monumental, I figured I'd add this later.

This is copied from the SPAD.neXt site.


SPAD.neXt Roadmap

by c0nnex » Wed Jul 15, 2015 10:30 pm

Since I get quite some questions about "when do you implement XYZ", here's the current roadmap:

Upcoming Features (registered only):
- PMDG 737 Full support: released
- PMDG 777 Full support: released
- SimConnect incl. Network Support: released
- LVARS Support: in Development [Code Complete: 80%, Planned for Release 0.7 (September) ]
- FIP Support: in Development [Code Complete: 60%, Planned for Release 0.7 (September) ]
- Keyboard Macro-Support: released
- Yoke/Quadrant Support: in development [Code Complete: 50%, , Planned for Release 0.8 (October) ]
- Aerosoft Airbus/Wilco Airbus Support: [not started, Planned for Release 0.8 (October) ]
- C#-Scripting: in development [Code Complete: 90%, documentation missing]

- SPAD.neXt Manual: Currently being written [Release planned for September]
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:27 pm

OK kids. It's time to grow up.


There are many who have a great amount of fun just flying around.

I do it so often that I could hardly complain about it.


But if you like instrument flying you have three choices.
* Get in a plane
* Get a divorce and build a full cockpit mock-up with 3D projectors
* Get the most out of what you can afford. Saitek, in my case.

Sorry, you could also have the 2D panel fill up most of your screen, just so you can read the instruments.



OR

If you do have the Saitek Panels, your probably wasting you money by using their, VERY limited, drivers.

In the past there were a couple of options that you had.

SPAD, was the best choice, which lets you have much better control over the Saitek Panels.

There was a separate program that complimented SPAD called FSUIPC.


And while SPAD was free, FSUIPC was not.

Unfortunately, most flight simmers don't want anything that they have to pay for.

But if you've already bought a few Saitek Panels, then you might as well spend just a little bit more.



So now we have something a little different, it's called SPAD.neXt.

It has two sides, one free, and one paid.

The free part is as simple to use as SPAD, but more powerful. This part may be all that most people need.

The paid part is something that goes FAR beyond SPAD. It's simple to use, but you don't absolutely need FSUIPC to get the most out of it because it can use SimConnect.



SimConnect is what's already built into FSX/Prepar3d. It's not very user friendly for most people, but a great many programs use it.

FSUIPC is capable of using SimConnect, but can do much more, and do it fairly easy.

SPAD.neXt is capable of using both SimConnect and/or FSUIPC.

Image

BTW -ignore that word - OFFSET. For now, just think of it as "select an option"..



In a previous post, elsewhere, I tried to show how simple it was to use SPAD.neXt to do something that I thought was impossible.

I don't think that I impressed very many people, because my use was unique.

So this time I'll show a couple of examples in the next post that might appeal to more people.


If it looks confusing remember this;

If I can use it ANYBODY can use it.
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:30 pm

I'll start off at KDEN, Denver International. Denver is a high altitude place and will help to make some of the numbers more meaningful.

Image



IF you dont know what this is, you are either in the wrong place, or interested in SPAD.next.

Image

Once you have COM1, COM2, NAV1, and NAV2 set, you're pretty much done with this panel.



This is not something that I'm recommending. This is just to show how simple it is to re-purpose the Saitek Panels.

Each display is programmed separately, and the display will change according to the knob setting.

Also, let me warn you that I have the paid version. The free version will be different, so this may not work. But then again, it may. :D


As you can see, what I've done is to display some information that many people are interested in.

Indicated air Speed - Both FSUIPC and SimConnect work a bit differently, so there may be a way to display only the air speed to the left of the decimal point.

OAT - Outside Air Temperature -This is the air temperature, in celsius, "on the ground" at Denver International Airport as reported by Opus. If you don't have real time weather, you may get anything.



For the next two, I'll give examples

AGL - Height Above Ground Level - is just that. Hopefully it'll tell you how far the runway is below you.

To get this
Image

Select this
Image



Indicated Altitude - This is how high the plane "thinks" that it is above sea level.

To get this
Image

Select this
Image


OK. All the programming is done, just save it.

Now isn't that simple?
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Sun Jan 10, 2016 1:43 pm

Update alert - if you've already downloaded FreeMeshX, the Latest Patch is now out. There's a new updating procedure that's easier to use too.


For the rest - How about a very good FREE mesh?

There are a number of payware meshs out there. Until now I've been using FSGenesis - World Terrain Mesh. At $20 US it's more than worth it.

FSGenesis has a LOD (Level Of Detail) of 6, up to a LOD of 9 (LOD 11 in a few areas).

FS Global Mesh 2010 from Pilots ($65 US) is technically better with a LOD of 8 (very flat) to a LOD of 12 (only in the USA) (very good detail no doubt about it). And you can get better mesh from Pilots for different areas & countries. But it does start adding up. Fast.


Enter FreeMeshX.

FreeMeshX is LOD 9 - LOD 10. BUT THAT'S FOR THE ENTIRE WORLD!

LOD 12 for the rest of the world is being worked on now.

I've heard a twit say that the earth hasn't changed so the mesh can't get better.

WRONG - FreeMeshX is working with newer NASA data than FS Global Mesh 2010 uses.

And unlike FS Global Mesh 2010, FreeMeshX is for the rest of the world. It uses data from SRTM 3.0 released in 2014.

U.S. Releases Enhanced Shuttle Land Elevation Data

FS Global Mesh 2010 has the highest detail only in the USA, and was created with SRTM 2.


If you look into FSX mesh, you'll find that FSX will use whatever mesh has the higher detail. So even if you have good mesh now, FreeMeshX will give you better detail in the rest of the world.

And it's free.

If you haven't paid $65 for mesh then you're going to be ahead of the game.




BTW - What can you expect from FreeMeshX?

The scenery below is from China, and it's not photoscenery.

Without any add-on mesh
Image

With FreeMeshX
Image

Notice any improvement? :D
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Sun Feb 28, 2016 5:07 pm

Some things are clearly hardware, and some are clearly software.


I suppose that this software, SPAD.neXt, falls a little more on the software side.

And for those who don't know, SPAD.neXt gives you enormous (but easy to use) control over the Saitek hardware.

On top of that, last December it started letting you have better control over normal USB devices like joysticks.



But this post is a demonstration, (on the Multi Panel), of how easy it is to "program" with SPAD.neXt.
Image
This does just what you'd think - aircraft navigation Control.

Neat! Cool! Whatever.

But what if you could do all that auto-pilot stuff with it, AND use it to do other Neat, Cool, Whatever stuff too?


Anyone need/want extra buttons?

SPAD.neXt has the options, on some buttons, to execute a new, and different, set of commands by pressing a button for one second, rather than a quick tap as you would expect. This one second press is called a Long click.

Take the FLAPS toggle. Push it down once and the flaps go down one notch for whatever distance is appropriate. But with SPAD.neXt you can tell it to continue moving down, to the last setting.

The same thing applies for raising the flaps for raising the flaps: one tap up, or hold it for one second to make the flaps travel all the way up without having to tap it multiple times.



Until now, I haven't used this feature. But I was flying a Grumman Goose, and wanted to let the wingtip floats down for a water landing.

How hard is it to "program" all this?

The only thing that you hade to do is find the command from a list, and select it. In the case of the Grumman Goose you need to press the switch twice. UNLESS you want to have the button press do it two time for you. :D

It's not really difficult, and the next version will be even easier. :dance:

This is what it looks like now. Not all that hard, really.
Image
If you read all of this then you've spent FAR more time reading than it takes to "program" the action.



BTW - Don't want to raise & lower the wing tips on a Goose? Do anything that you want. The "long click" doesn't interfere with the normal button uses.

YOU can make the buttons and levers do what YOU want them to do!


Otherwise - Happy flying.
Image
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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Re: The poor mans sim pit - SOFTWARE

Postby OldAirmail » Sat Jun 04, 2016 9:08 am

Backup Software - Acronis

Last March I bought Acronis True Image 2016.


So far, it's turned out to be both fast and easy to use.

Until today. :evil:


It started with an update notice. Fine.

But the update failed with a notice that my installation was corrupt.

Not a problem (I thought). I have all of the account information along with the serial number.

So I downloaded the latest & greatest. Won't install. :evil:

So I downloaded an older version. Won't install. :evil:

OK. I used Revo Uninstaller to remove Acronis. And then I re-downloaded the latest & greatest. Checked the MD5 checksum, and tried to install it. Won't install. :evil:

Ran CCleaner to clean the Registry. Acronis still won't install. :evil: :evil:



OK. Time to get some help.

YOU CAN'T GET SUPPORT. If you buy Acronis True Image 2016 you only get full support for 30 days! :o

You only get full support if you buy a subscription to "cloud backup". THEN you can get full support.


Their website says that you can get support if you're unable to restore a back-up.

So I attached the error file and a description of the problem, with the last line saying that I can't restore my back-ups because I can't reinstall their program that I bought back in March.


I have to say that, at this point, I'm VERY reluctant to recommend Acronis.

ONLY 30 days of full tech support for a $50 program seems a little sub-standard.


Lets see how they respond.
.. .
Get the most out of your controls - SPAD.neXt

Image
. . . . . .Any time, any plane, any weather.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Prepar3d V4
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