Testing the joystick

Within fs9 there is a calibration setting in settings I think

As TTT said, under settings go to the <sensitivities> button. Make sure you select the correct device, then under <advanced> you can set the sensitivity and null zone. Be careful though, you could end up all over the place if they are set to tight. Good Luck

Thanks TTT and Mike.
I installed on another PC and in both cases checked the sensitivities. Not knowing what right or left meant I settled for a middle sensitivity and null.

Still more trouble. On another PC after the lesson went well after a down turn looks like Rod went for an extended beer. After 10 minutes of waiting for his return and having leveled off I quit the flight.

On the other PC same story. Except that Rod was thirsty even before. And a consistent msg that I should raise the flaps to 20, which they were at. I tried to lower them to 30 and back to 20 to raise Rod's interest. To no avail. I try maneuvers to shake the plane from unresponsive. The rudder works but not the bank. Then all of a sudden (a good 20 seconds later) the bank works. Still no sign of life from Rod. I go back to straight and level. Thanks God there is unlimited fuel, I am going to go round the globe. I hit escape and resume the lesson in the vain hope Rod will take interest again. To no avail. I quit.

I start again, check the sensitivites again. Try the same lesson. Lessons goes OK after the climb. I level at proper altitude with the continuing msg to raise to full power. The power level is to full (on the joystick, I did not check if on the screen the rod reflected that setting, possibly not) and yet the rpm is on 2100. I have been at it for a good 10 minutes with no message from Rod. Then Rod comes back from the bar and says "since this is not going too well ..."

Can I safely deem that the joystick is malfunctional. I have only two more days before I can send it back. I have checked it under CPanel/systems/hardware/Device Manager/HID and it is right there under both HID and USB and both "working properly".

Thanks,
Pierre

Dont write it off just yet
Try recalibrating again,this time tweak the null and sens mode
Rod and wife(she will fail you if one lace on your shoes is too long)can be a bit tempremental and if you dont react in a given time (sometimes milliseconds )they both nod off

Have tried new drivers?

http://www.saitekusa.com/usa/down/drivers.htm

I am not sure what you mean by tweak the sens and null. Are there any indication of what the leftmost position mean, and righmost as well so that one has one indication of what the ruler mean. I suspect rightmost means more sensitivity. Anyway I ran it at 100% both and 50%, and that is not where trouble comes from.

I also took two flights with Rod away for Xmas from Tacoma. First one goes OK except that full throttle does not go beyond 2100 rpm i/o 2500. Still climbs, level does a few turn, come back for landing and on the glidepath the ailerons just quit (remain stuck), the throttle as well and refuses to go below 1700. I hit esc to abort, but not very responsive to that command as well. I try Task manager after a while, does not work either. I have to reset.

On second flight out of the same airport the bank control gets stuck right after rotate, and even more difficult to escape and Task Manager takes 2 minutes to finally kill the program.

I have downloaded the drivers from the site, but their code is 4.3.3.1727 when the one installed is 1730, I doubt that will solve it. I will try though, with the downloaded version of the programming software as well.

To take a break I contemplate going to fly the real thing again, this would sure be comforting, flying Windows is a test in itself.

Thanks,

Pierre

Updated the driver, but the driver signature is the same as before. Anyway I am convinced the jstick is not in question.

I have tried a Skylane around Seattle. All OK until the approach to the airport when all gets unresponsive.

I have tried a 172 out of Grand Canyon. Again I get only 2100 rpm (altitude?) Barely climbing, but OK for 25 minutes flying the canyon at rim level. On the retrun back same process starts. Slow response on the side windows (takes 4 or 5 seconds to show up). Since I am so low with little power I have a nose up and I have to use side view to see where I am. The stick responds but with delay, so as I think it does not get it I have given some more, and then it delivers the stored orders to a bank of 60°. or a climb at 30° or more (with 2100rpm!).

Out of pride I have tried to bring it back to the airport and was always close enough but never able to adjust anything to align heading and altitude. The stick responded as if there was a bag of rusty nails fallen in the joint with a pot of honey thrown in for good measure. I am convinced that the stick is not in question now since it works OK at the outset. It is the windows engine which gets overloaded and can't process the commands (I believe). I have a 1.4MHZ MP and 740MB of memory, so that should suffice. The other PC has 2.4MHz and 512MB, and showed the same problem.

Any idea how I go from here other than taking up knitting?

Thanks,

Pierre

What graphics card have you got ?

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 for the desktop
Mobility Radeon 7500 for the laptop
I have tried to reduce the load on the card (desktop) by reducing the complexity (texture, etc.) to standard or lower. But on starting a new flight maxi power is still 2100rpm i/o 2500. There is nothing that could be blamed on the card for that. The testing of the JStick is OK: feels good and hand-feeling matches well the moving signal on th screen.

Also on previous flights the view had switched to outside view through no action on my part. It was good to see the result of JStick actions on the attitude of the plane. But I could never go back inside, and general flight was OK, but approach was hard to align. WHAT is the command to get back into the plane?

Thanks,

Pierre

I tried the following on the desktop
reduce all settings to standard or lower. I did a flight OK out of my closest airport. Landed OK after more than 20 years; LOL probably.

Then tried terrain complexity at max, ditto texture. The plane would barely show a move although, of course, the computer had it moving. I shut off FS and the stick continued to vibrate. I shut off Windows (not restart) and the stick still shaked (runway vibration). It only stop shaking on booting back up.

I tried again standard and low complexity and again it barely worked and refused any processing of display at the end.

What kind of display card is required to fly this FS? ❓

Thanks

Pierre

Anonymous wrote:

I tried the following on the desktop
reduce all settings to standard or lower. I did a flight OK out of my closest airport. Landed OK after more than 20 years; LOL probably.

Then tried terrain complexity at max, ditto texture. The plane would barely show a move although, of course, the computer had it moving. I shut off FS and the stick continued to vibrate. I shut off Windows (not restart) and the stick still shaked (runway vibration). It only stop shaking on booting back up.

I tried again standard and low complexity and again it barely worked and refused any processing of display at the end.

What kind of display card is required to fly this FS? ❓

Thanks

Pierre

Take a look at this post and check out the links in both, the TomsHardware (link) should help you choose a new card.

Hi RadarMan,

The post you quote was mine, and I did not see any link. But, I browsed the forum yesterday and found posts on video cards. I then realized through the proposed links that the card I have is so way down the line that it can probably only simulate snails races, and of no more than one participant at best.

I was never interested in games so never had a topnotch card. Will do now.

Thanks, 🙂

Pierre

PierreL wrote:

Hi RadarMan,

The post you quote was mine, and I did not see any link. But, I browsed the forum yesterday and found posts on video cards. I then realized through the proposed links that the card I have is so way down the line that it can probably only simulate snails races, and of no more than one participant at best.

I was never interested in games so never had a topnotch card. Will do now.

Thanks, 🙂

Pierre

Sorry, this is the post that I meant.

https://forum.flyawaysimulation.com/forum/topic/3730/about-to-buy-new-video-card/

Thanks, I am now in the market. But one more question: with a 1.4MHz microprocessor is there a common sense limit as to the power of the graphic card, or I can take the most powerful with no risk of unbalanced hardware and potential crash due to the graphic overloading the main processor with demands it can't handle?

With current card I tried to reduce all settings to minimum and was able to fly a complete return trip of close to 3 hours over Nepal (special scenery) without the video card quiting.

Detail was not great, but anyway I had my hands full flying a Mooney, which I found very sensitive, and checking the mountain on the sides. Not good for enjoying the scenery though with these low wings. Would be great if FS2006 showed side views from the rear seats if they have better view (as a toggle option so that one still has pilot view)

Where can I find a high wing aircraft that can fly at high altitude and land on short strips like there are in Nepal. Like a Pilatus Porter or something, preferably single engine???

Thanks,

Pierre