NEU: FSUIPC 2.90

[CarstenB]

Derzeit geht es wieder Schlag auf Schag nachdem einige Wochen Ruhe war und es ist die Version 2.90 von [url="http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.html"FSUIPC[/url] erschienen.

Wer das Programm noch nicht kennt: Alex aka Alfora hat eine deutsche deutsche Anleitung erstellt (s. http://homepage.mac.com/alfora/fs/fsuipc/index.html oder http://mitglied.lycos.de/alfora/fs/fsuipc/index.html )

Mein Dank gilt den beiden.

Hier die History:
Version 2.90 includes these fixes, improvements and new facilities:
• A facility is added for FSUIPC to automatically run additional programs whilst FS is loading, or after it is ready. This facility is controlled by parameters in an additional section of the FSUIPC.INI file, entitled [Programs]. The facility is not accessible through the on-line options in FS, but by editing the INI file, and this is described in the Advanced Users guide. José Oliveira has kindly supplied a utility program called “Run Options” to edit these options, and this is available in a separate Zip (“FSUIPC Run Options.zip”).
• An option has been added on FS2002 to actively smooth the IAS (indicated air speed) value supplied through the IPC interface for external programs. This is to get over a slight (less than 1 knot) regular ‘jitter’, like a ratcheting action, observed in climbs and descents in FS2002 only.
• Whilst fixing some of the visibility problems in version 2.89, I broke the visibility smoothing facility. When enabled it prevented external program control over the visibility! This is fixed.
• The spike removal action is now available for aileron and elevator as well as rudder (see the Technical Options page). This gets around another apparent 767PIC problem whereby the elevator can get stuck in a full nose-up configuration.
• Switching off main throttle and prop pitch axis mapping now resets the calibration on the mapped throttle and prop pitch axes too. This was previously confusing folks who had mapped the throttle in order to get a reverse range, but then changed their minds, and didn’t realise that the calibration on the mapped throttle page was still active. It seems that these separate throttle axes are used by 767PIC (and probably other panels) when the engine control unit is engaged (which I think it is by default).
• A mapped throttle or prop pitch axis does not now impose calibration on any external use of that axis, only on the values mapped from the original input. This was quite a nasty problem, as folks who did map the throttle in order to get a reverse zone found that the 767PIC engine control unit (and maybe others) was then setting odd thrusts.
This was because, for instance, in order to have a small reverse region at one end of the throttle lever range, that calibration involved putting “idle” down at negative values, like –5000 or so, instead of 0. When the Engine Control Unit set idle, it of course set 0, but FSUIPC was calibrating it to some positive thrust value as obviously 0 is well above the idle of –5000.
Unfortunately this doesn't help multiple throttle users with reverse calibrations on the same levers. FSUIPC has no way of discriminating between controls arriving from the real throttles and those arriving from the Engine Control Unit. Such users will either have to calibrate with zero idle, or find some other way of controlling reverse thrust, or perhaps just switch off the ECU in the panel altogether.
• Use of the FSUIPC interface by internal modules has been made more reliable by allowing access to FS internals earlier than before, at least on FS2002. In previous versions many of the facilities were not accessible until all parts of FS had initialised and ‘settled down’. This was to avoid crashes caused by access to parts not yet ready. Internal modules are liable to request access long before external programs and this was a problem unless they took care to either keep retrying or to delay their requests by quite a substantial time.
The relaxation of checks applies only to those facilities which are not dependant on parts of FS loading, and are more extensive on FS2002 than other versions (because in FS2002 SIM1.DLL is resident, whereas on earlier versions SIM1.SIM was loaded and re-loaded with aircraft).
• The clock synchronising option for FS2002 is now automatically disabled whilst the simulator is run at speeds other than the normal 1x.
• The AWI-read visibility for the surface layer now reflects the current visibility, not the target. These two can be different if visibility smoothing is in operation.
• A.I. aircraft that are listed with negative altitudes are now not entered into the TCAS table. It seems that some such entries can be generated by presumably faulty additional AI traffic packages—the case that affected my system was for British Airways. The problem with these entries is that they seem to stay in FS’s list of active AI aircraft forever, and so occupy space in FSUIPC’s tables better used for real aircraft in flight.
• A number of small additional improvements have been made, particularly in the way the exact “local” weather is determined. This may provide more predictability in areas of many close METAR stations providing conflicting weather data.