Virgin Media Thwarting FSX on LAN

[StargazerWoods]

Hi,

I was wondering if there are any other peeps here who run FSX utils on a networked PC. I use mine for GPS tracking in GoogleEarth but I know that lots use it for much meatier applications. I was recently upgraded by my ISP, Virgin Media, to their new SuperHub to upgrade us to the 200mbps plan. At that exact time, FSX stopped talking to my GoogleEarth Tracker.

I have tried to switch to Plan-G which looks pretty good, but I'm failing to get it to connect to my FSX machine. Everything all points back to the new SuperHub. Virgin Mediocre are being a bit useless about it since, as far as they're concerned, our LAN works (which it does for file transfers and the like) and we have a solid internet connection.

Has anyone else, either VM customer or other providers, seen similar problems where a Modem-Router has blocked this kind of connectivity despite all your best efforts to configure the damned thing? Did you fix the problem? If you did, how?

I have becomed highly accustomed to being able to monitor my postion during a flight and I'd dearly like to re-gain that ability. I'd greatly appreciate any assistance of any kind.

Many thanks,

Rob.

[OldAirmail]

My guess is that Virgin is detecting all that data transfer from Google and has decided that you're using too much data. Whatever, I could easily be wrong. It could also be on Google's side too.


Anyway, I've been using Plan-G for years, and there are two things that have to be set up.

First, you need to tell it where your flight sim is.




Next you need to tell Plan-G to import the airport data from your sim. It's not hard, although it may take a while.

Remember, Plan-G works with FS9, FSX, and X-Plane, so it needs to know the where and what before it can be used.



For what it's worth, Plan-G runs on my only computer without slowing it down. And I don't have a fast gaming computer.

If all else fails, read the instructions. I won't tell.



OOOPS! I almost forgot - It also needs to know HOW you want to connect.

[StargazerWoods]

If only it was that simple.

I've come dangerously close to getting Plan-G to work. I've got the databases done and linked it across, but when it comes to making the connection, it either fails to connect or time-out and then crashes to desktop. I do not believe this to be a Plan-G problem.

Besides, FSXGET should still recognise a connection from FSX even without GE open. GE works fine on its own. I don't suspect I'm being throttled back by the ISP, I just think their 'upgraded' router is somehow obstructing ported traffic on the network.

Someone has suggested upgrading the cabling between the machines and the router as the new superhubs can apparently be a little finicky with older wires. The new high-grade cables will be with me middle of the week coming up.

I'm not sure it will make much of a difference but we'll see. Tim Arnott, the developer of Plan-G has told me that he had some troubles with an ISP supplied hub but buying an aftermarket one resolved many of his troubles. I'd rather not have to go down that route but if Virgin are going to be this useless, I may not have much of a choice.

[Sprocket]

..
I SUCCESSFULLY run exactly the set-up that you are referring to, Plan-G on a "homegroups" networked machine, on Virgin Media's NEW 200 Mb/superhub . (Win 10).
(Cabled, not wirelessly linked).

My Plan-G "FS connection" = IPv4 192.168.0.4 Server Port 4506 (This must off course also be correctly entered in the xml file).

(The host machine ,FSX, is localhost / 0, but this has nothing to do with the network set-up)

There are limitations.
1; You cannot build a "Database" from the slaved machine. The best is to also install a copy of Plan-G on the FSX machine, where you build the database, after which you paste into the slave machine.
2;You cannot DIRECTLY export a new plan to the FSX machine. You export it to the slave machine "Documents" , from where you copy and paste it over to the documents folder on the FSX machine, from where you
load it in FSX as normal.

However, the rest of the map is active and is a "moving" map. This set-up really runs well.

Hope this is of some help,
Regards
Jan

[Sprocket]

......
Some more stuff....
.....
FS Connection parameters: -Belonging to the FSX machine, and NOT the slave, (Plan-G), machine



Locations: Nothing to do here..



In Flight:



My Simconnect xml file...



Jan

[StargazerWoods]

I appreciate the help, unfortunately, I've been through the Plan-G manual a few times, copying and pasting xml code and simconnect settings and none of it has any bearing at all.

We've already ruled out cabling issues by installing both Plan-G and FSXGET on my wife's PC and checking the connections on there. Sicne it was only my secondary machine that was an older grade of cable, we've ruled that out as a weak spot.

I really wish I understood how your hub differed from mine since we seem to have done the same thing, but are getting totally different results. How can this be? Did you need to do anything funny to your router settings or did it just work right out of the box?

Lastly, do you fancy swapping routers? ;o)

Rob.

[Sprocket]

..
Hi,
Wish there was more I could add, but seems you have covered all bases. All I can add:

I received my new Superhub (200Mb), from Virgin on 18/11/2015, which is then also the day on which I "installed" it.

I already had Plan-G running on the networked machine on the PREVIOUS modem/hub. (100Mb superhub).
I done nothing to the new hub, settings or anything. Changed passwords around the house , but that was it.

Other than that, I truly hope you can get it working.

Regards
Jan

[OldAirmail]

I know what YOU want to do, but do you HAVE to use Plan-G on a separate computer? Your new computer can't really that slow or out of hard drive space?


Remember what I said above - "For what it's worth, Plan-G runs on my only computer without slowing it down. And I don't have a fast gaming computer".

Actually, I suppose that it would now be considered a lower end gaming computer with its' i5-2400K CPU.


But when I run Prepared I'm also running a number of other programs in addition to Plan-G, as well as up to 6 monitors, - SPAD.neXt, OpusFSI, and two G.A. Panels for external instruments.

On top of that, I usually have a browser open in the background with useful information.

Just for the heck of it, try Plan-G on your main computer. What can it hurt?

I'm also going to assume that you know how to change permissions, or have installed Plan-G outside of C:\ProgramFiles (x86).


Aside from some network settings, I can't think of anything more. Good luck.

[Sprocket]

I know what YOU want to do, but do you HAVE to use Plan-G on a separate computer? Your new computer can't really that slow or out of hard drive space?
.

Hi OAM..Speaking for myself only...

You are quite correct yes..The issue is not PC speed, capability or hdd space, or any of the sort. (64 Bit i7 2600K @ 3.8gHz 8Gb Ram - Nvidia GTX 770 2Gb, FSX on its own dedicated 500Gb HDD )
In my case, it is just more convenient to have it, Plan-G, on a separate machine/monitor.
(I have Plan-G on the FSX machine as well. Sometimes I use it from there, most times not.)

I already run FSX on two stacked monitors, and run Plan-G on the spare i3 machine/monitor. And herein lies the whole crux of the matter for me...

The i3 32bit is spare, so let's use it.
It runs Plan-G, and also gives me an accessible browser for easy access etc.etc. It all works pretty well really.
I guess its just me cobbling together what I've got available, as we all do.

Best Regards
Jan

[StargazerWoods]

Hiya,

As part of my testing process, I ran Plan-G on my Primary and it worked so well it was depressing. But I have a 2-montitor setup on my primary; Cockpit on my big screen in front of me and the GPS-500 on my small second display. This leaves no desktop real-estate for anything else to run and I wouldn't see much or be able to interact with it anyway because FSX is full screened, not windowed. Having it on the 2nd machine allows me to interact with the map and to leave FSX well alone.

Virgin have been appalling with this. They flatout refuse to be reasonable about it and fail to see that it was only their rotten upgrade that broke things. As a test, I tried running our old VM hub as a router off the new super hub with my two machines plugged in to the old one.

Instantly, Tracker started working again which proves it is the new hub (in my opinion). Why it differs from another of the same kind I have no clue. Annoyingly, this isn't fully resolved yet as you can't use a hub as a router. It has too many hang-ups. We'll have to dump the superhub into modem mode and buy a dedicated router to split the signal. Only then will I have FSX-LAN capability back and I'll have a choice of Plan-G or Tracker to enjoy.

I appreciate the help.

Regards,

Rob.

[OldAirmail]

I think that we have a misunderstanding, most definitely on my side.

I ran FSX, and now prepared v3.1, across two or three screens. Two screens when I do a screen capture for posting on Simviation.

For the most part, when I use Plan-G I simply use Alt Tab to pop it up on the right hand monitor (actually, Alt + Tab is assigned to a button using SPAD.neXt).

As I understand it now, you two are using the monitor on another computer to see Plan-G.


In my setup, I have the three main monitors attached to the three outputs of my R9280 AMD Eyefinity card.

I have two nine inch USB monitors dedicated to off-screen instruments.


That worked well until I bought the DesktopAviator GPS. This is a simple VGA monitor in a panel with buttons.

The Eyefinity cards will only connect to three monitors, but the GPS was number four.

There were two ways to go at the situation. The first one that I tried was a USB to VGA converter. All four monitors worked.





But I had an older Eyefinity card and started to wonder if it'd work alongside the other card.

Surprisingly, after installation the three main monitors worked off the faster card.

The GPS and two USB monitors were assigned to the slower card, which was not a problem as they didn't need the higher speed.

(These are from an older post.)







There was one more surprise - with the USB monitors being driven by the other card, it took a small amount of load off the primary video card.

The end result was an extra 4 or 5 FPS in FSX, and an extra 5 to 6 FPS in Prepar3d V2!


Again, this may not be the solution that you were looking for, but if you have a spare video card it might be a viable solution to a fourth monitor for Plan-G on one computer.



One other note. When I look at this now it looks kind of rude. It wasn't my intention. Sorry.

I know what YOU want to do, but do you HAVE to use Plan-G on a separate computer? ....

[StargazerWoods]

No hard feelings at all. When communicating via written word, the inflections and gestures you'd normally use aren't there and so we have to find other ways of putting emphasis into words. There's as much responsibility on the reader as there is the writer to not misinterpret.

I don't have a spare grpahics card. Well... Technically I suppose I do, but it has issues and I'd rather not go back to it. I tried a USB graphics adapater once and FSX refused to run with it attached. Something to do with a graphics adapter not being compaible ot too old. It may be that the USB adapter I bought was a real cheapy one. Running it on my secondary machine, the monitor powered off the USB thing sometimes flashes blue which I've heard is a sign that too much load is being put through the USB widget.

We've ordered an Asus router that was only £30 and was spoken of very highly on the web. Once it is here, most likely Wednesday now, I'll dump the SuperHub back into modem mode and run the router off the SuperHub. Hopefully then, business can returnback to normal. If it turns out that we still have problems after that, I may have to start considering other options, but given that I only have to jump through these hoops because of Virgin Mediocre, I'm betting they won't help foot the bill for all the hardware I need to skirt around the issue that we can't make ports work on their SuperLousyHub.

Grrrrrrr.

[StargazerWoods]

Update:

Definitely, DEFINITELY not a cabling issue.

Have fought with virgin endlessly and they eventually sent us a replacement SuperHub 2AC. Guess what... Same problem. Broadband support referred us to Gadget Rescue. Gadget rescue referred us to Broadband Support. Neither can understand or fix this problem.

We bought a £30 Asus router which halved our internet connection and still didn't resolve the comms issue between the two PC's. Took that back for a refund and now I'm right back at square-1.

It has been about 15years since I last setup networks. I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Best I can figure out, my only choices now are to find a router that might work a bit better but doesn't cost £stupid because we have more important things to be putting proper money on, or putting a little NIC in each of my desktops and directly cabling the two machines together as well as my current cables going to the router.

If I were to try the direct connect thing, what's to say that I won't still have the same problem? Does SimConnect broadcast like a soilt, attention seeking child desperate for anyone who will listen or is it sending specific signals to specific network adapters in the hopes that the right set of ears is also in the vicinity?

This has nearly defeated me and how I use flightsim is really impacted by losing this ability to monitor the flights location. If anyone with some nous in networking can help me get on top of some of this, I'd be forever in your debt.

Regards,

Rob.

[OldAirmail]

I've been trying a number of things and this is the best that I can come up with. It's not aimed, directly, at your problem but I'm sure that you can see the point.


This is the source of the possible solution - PFPX Not starting Windows 10.

The download is here - dodosim's Simconnect test.

The Download is somewhat hard to see, and is misleading - Please Dodotest my Simconnect. Clicking this does not start a test, it downloads a file called SimConnectTest.




My antivirus gives a false positive and quarantines the file when I try to run it. It does this to many files that are ok, not a problem.

If you run into this problem click on Unblock.




This is what you get when you run it. Run it on both computers.






Good luck

[StargazerWoods]

The test file, when run on the FSX machine, comes back with a resounding positive.

When run on the secondary machine, whether I have a good connection or not, it brings back a negative response. I don't really know enough about the relationships between SimConnect and the client applications to know if this was right or not, but whatever the case, the only time I can't get comms through to the secondary PC is when VM's SuperHub 2AC is involved.

Unfortuantely, it's the only Modem/Router we've got that will work with the incoming broadband signal. What's that saying they have about creeks and paddles?

Cheers,

Rob.