Anybody using SA_WXR with FSX? - I have a problem

[Suggy]

I have finally made the switch to FSx from FS9.

Everything is working fine except SA_WXR.

When the radar is turned on it keeps in 'warm up' mode. I am assuming it's having difficulty reading FSX weather.

The software is running on a remote computer and is used by Project Magenta's ND to display the weather.

All other third party programmes are runing and connecting fine.

Is anybody using the software successfully in FSX?

Regards,
Darren

www.sugden.karoo.net

[a340-th]

Hi Darren

as far as I now I does not work with FSX.

I keep running it but it does not get further then the "warming up stage" and no weather is shown (nothing in PM netdir).

[Suggy]

Thanks for the reply, Erhard.

It looks as though I'll have to revert to PM's Getweather and Whazzup setup.

It's nice to see you are still in the hobby. Your website was the first I stumbled accross some years ago chronicling the build of a home cockpit. That's where my desire for a homecockpit started!!!

Regards,
Darren

[Peter Dowson]

as far as I now I does not work with FSX.
I keep running it but it does not get further then the "warming up stage" and no weather is shown (nothing in PM netdir).
Strange. I've used SA_WXR with FSX continuously now since FSX was first available, and there's no difference at all from its operation with FS9. In fact checking its interaction with FSUIPC it cannot tell the difference -- nothing it does tells it whether it is FS9 or FSX and it behaves identically.

Regards
Pete

[Suggy]

Thanks, Peter.

Your comments gave me hope in that there was something not quite right at my end. After a lot of testing I think I have found the problem - HiFi's Active Sky Evolution (ASE).

When I migrated to FSX I also upgraded from Active Sky 6 to ASE.

Here is what I found:

If I start ASE first and then SA_WXR then SA_WXR gets stuck at the 'Warm Up' phase. If I then shut down ASE, SA_WXR still gets stuck in the 'Warm Up' phase. If I go into FSX and clear the weather, then SA_WXR works and I can select WX and/or WX + TURB.

If I create live weather within FSX's weather menu, SA_WXR still works fine.

So obviously, it's something to do with ASE. BUT, if I start SA_WXR BEFORE starting ASE, then SA_WXR works fine. So that appears to be the solution, start SA_WXR and turn it on before starting ASE. However, in this test I did not test whether the weather image was sent to the ND of my Project Magenta display in this instance.

I have no idea why this is the case but that is what I am seeing!

Erhard, are you running ASE also?

I'll pop over to HiFi's forums and see whether a similar issue has been reported there.

Thanks Peter and Erhard for your comments.

Kind regards,
Darren

[Peter Dowson]

When I migrated to FSX I also upgraded from Active Sky 6 to ASE.
Yes, I went from ASV6.5 to ASX to ASA and now ASE ...


If I start ASE first and then SA_WXR then SA_WXR gets stuck at the 'Warm Up' phase. If I then shut down ASE, SA_WXR still gets stuck in the 'Warm Up' phase. If I go into FSX and clear the weather, then SA_WXR works and I can select WX and/or WX + TURB.
Hmm. Makes no sense to me. SA_WXR reads the weather. It shouldn't make any difference how the weather is set. The interface through FSUIPC4 is identical no matter what's happening regarding weather inputs or downloads.

My copy of ASE is actually running on the same PC as SA_WXR, but it is running before I start FSX, whilst SA_WXR is started by WideClient on a "RunReady" paramter, so it only starts when FSX is ready to fly. by that time ASX is already feeding in the weather which it had downloaded before FSX even started.



So obviously, it's something to do with ASE. BUT, if I start SA_WXR BEFORE starting ASE, then SA_WXR works fine. So that appears to be the solution, start SA_WXR and turn it on before starting ASE.
Odd that this is the exact opposite of what I'm doing.

You aren't using one of ASE's global weather modes, like Direct Wind control, are you? SA_WXR won't get any different weather to provide a radar if you use that.

Regards
Pete

[Suggy]

Hello, Peter.

My Direct Wind control was enabled and after disenabling it, it 'seems' to have done the trick. :-)

I say 'seems' because there was the odd occasion that SA_WXR was still stuck on 'Warm Up'. However, that seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. So big progress here.

Just like your setup, ASE and SA_WXR run on the same computer and just like you, ASE is always the first programme I run. I also tried running SA_WXR on another client computer (as opposed to the FSX computer) and it worked fine.

The weather was transferred correctly onto the ND.

So a VERY BIG THANK YOU, Peter, to you. Hopefully the Direct Wind control was the problem. I obviously don't understand enough yet how the weather system works. I will have to do a thorough research into that this weekend. I'm finding ASE's interface 'too simple' - I'm still not sure what the big implications are 'behind the scences' of selecting or deselecting a particular variable. I have only had the programme a week or so.

The good news to come out of all this is that whilst I was focused on the weather radar, I finally managed to get the tilt working perfectly using a potentiometer and coded through SIOC (using Opencockpit cards). So now I have a fully functional radar panel in my A320 cockpit. I can turn the radar on, select WX or WX+TURB and adjust the tilt +/- 15 degrees using a pot. So, today hasn't been a total waste.

Hopefully, that's my migration to FSX completed now!!

Once again, Peter, many many thanks. I know you are always inundated with queries, requests etc so it is very much appreciated.

Best wishes,
Darren

[a340-th]

oooppss, seems I had given up too early on SA_WXR.

Thank you very much to both of you, Peter and Darren.

Of course I am running ASE (and Active Sky before), but it never crossed my mind that they would have an influence on SA_WXR even more so as the combination of Active Sky/FS9 and SA_WXR was working well before.

In my case ASE and SA_WXR run on different computers, but I really do not think that this should have an influence.

Something to try out when I get to start the sim on the weekend.

I'll let you know the outcome, in the meantime thanks again to both of you.

[Suggy]

Hello, Erhard.

I look forward to your findings.

Regards,
Darren

[Peter Dowson]

Of course I am running ASE (and Active Sky before), but it never crossed my mind that they would have an influence on SA_WXR even more so as the combination of Active Sky/FS9 and SA_WXR was working well before.
In my case ASE and SA_WXR run on different computers, but I really do not think that this should have an influence.
No, no influence at all.

I think the only problem is the use of those facilities in ASE or ASA which invoke FSX's "Global Weather" mode. The Direct Wind control (DWC) does this, as do some of the smoothing facilities (vis and pressure, i think). They do this because the bugs in the FS weather machine only arise from its faulty interpolation between different weather stations. In Global Weather mode (new to FSX) there are, in effect, no weather stations, only "GLOB" (which is the only "station" for Global weather).

SA_WXR is trying to read the weather for a number of positions or Wx stations around the aircraft, and it gets no response because there isn't any. Only GLOB, which it doesn't read.

Even if it did get a response, the weather it got would be the same everywhere because that's what GLOBAL means!

Regards
Pete

[Suggy]

Thanks for the heads up on that Peter.

I know I also have smoothing enabled for pressure and vis. I'll turn those off and hopefully I won't get the odd occurance when 'Warming Up' fails to progress further. I noticed too that 'Warming Up' kept on a little longer than what I experienced using ASV6.5 and FS2004. Maybe that's the cause of it?? I'm not at the computer at the moment so not able to check it out now (I'm at work as I write this).

From memory, I think I have options checked for FSX extra features which provides 'pseudo' weather stations (to help in the interpolation??).
I'll turn those off also.

Once again, Peter, thank you in explaining the 'Global Weather' part of ASE and FSX. It makes sense why this appears to be reason why SA_WXR was stalling once started.

At the end of the day, I have SA_WXR working again so I'm a happy bunny once more. :-)

Regards,
Darren

[Peter Dowson]

I noticed too that 'Warming Up' kept on a little longer than what I experienced using ASV6.5 and FS2004.
There's a lot more going on between ASE and FSX via SimConnect, and SimConnect blends in the weather a lot more slowly too. It therefore takes longer for FSUIPC to read the assorted WX stations requested by the likes of SA_WXR before it has enough to make its graphics. All of these exchanges with SimConnect are in an extended character-based readable METAR format which is a lot less efficient than the compact binary interfaces used in FS9 and before, and unlike FSUIPC3 which delves directly into FS9 for weather, SimConnect operates on a client/server basis with response taking sometimes a second or so each when it is busy, as it is when first deploying weather from ASE.

Weather radars are slow warming up in any case, so think of it as more realistic! ;-)

Regards
Pete

[Suggy]

Weather radars are slow warming up in any case, so think of it as more realistic!

It's not a problem, just an observation :-)

Actually, I have just had an idea in the way to start SA_WXR.

At the moment, I flip a switch on the weather panel and that simultaneously turns on the weather radar (Warm Up >> WXR) as well as the radar display on the ND. At that instance, there is a small grey message at the bottom right of the ND stating 'No WXR'. Of course, SA_WXR has just started and therefore there is no graphic yet to be shown at that instance - it is still computing it.

I think the best way of doing it is to code SIOC to turn on SA_WXR straight away when I set up the cockpit (initialise offset 6D00 with the command value 2).

Then when I eventually turn on the radar i.e. turn on the weather display in the ND, a graphic should already be there .

If, however, the message 'No WXR' is actually what is displayed when the radar is warming up, then I'll leave things as they are. I'll ask that question on Dodiano's Airbus forum!!

Darren

[a340-th]

Hi...

Success.

I went home early today to start the sim and I guess disabling DWC did the trick - I have left the other options in ASE ("create additional stations" and "enhance route coverage") on and SA_WXR showed a radar picture already on the ground.

BTW: It helps immensely to switch the radar to "On" in PMGC. I had disconnected my hardware for a rebuild of that panel and left the switch off..... I feel sorry for all the ramp agents who are going to be fried by my radar in the next couple of weeks until I get that panel going again.

Now, if Enrico has solved the problem with the disappearing waypoints at the end of the route with the new builds that just came out - I will be a very happy Airbus pilot (at least for a while).

Thanks again to Peter and Suggy for making me try again with something on which I had given up already.

[Suggy]

Hello, Erhard.
I'm glad it's working for you. We have obviously foud a problem and the solution!

I'm 'glad' you are having problems with disappearing waypoints towards the end of the route.

It happened to me last night, as well as on other occasions. It usually happens about 100 miles form the destination. Although the route disaapeared from the ND, the a/c still flew the route (I was monitoring it on Flightsim Commander).

I have just downloaded the most recent testnavdata (v34) which were posted yesterday (26 Aug) and at this moment I am doing a test flight - fingers crossed this might solve the problem ?????????. I did email PM about the disappearing waypoints towards the end of the route not so long ago. I thought it was just me.........

Regards,
Darren

[a340-th]

Hello Darren,

LOL - here I was thinking I am the only one with that symptom, waypoints disappear even 200 or more NM out.

The new build did not cure it instead there were some new problems with the AP, so I have gone back to the old one.

Is yours a B or A sim ? In case of the AB MCDU I can bring the waypoints back by executing a DIR to the next waypoint.

B Rgds

[Suggy]

Hello, Erhard.

The flight yesterday resulted in again losing the waypoints - this time about 200 miles out.

I immediately emailed Enrico and got a reply straight away asking for details about my flight (flight plan etc.).

I am flying the Airbus. thanks for the tip about executing a DIR to restore the waypoints.

Regards,
Darren

[Suggy]

Good news, Erhard, about the disappearing waypoints.
Enrico has just emailed me and he has found the bug and a new file (MCDU 321d) will be posted.

Regards,
Darren

[a340-th]

Hello,

yes, I got a mail from Enrico too. Unfortunately, by the time I woke up MCDU321d was replaced by MCDU321e and that one makes a runtime error <G>

[Suggy]

Yes, same for me :-(

Anyway, I've emailed him and he asked me to send a copy of my MCDU folder as he hasn't experienced the problem. So hopefully, it will be corrected shortly.
Regards,
Darren