Author: Tom Tsui

News: No More FTX Region Switching

| Tom Tsui

With the release of its latest Library 160528, Orbx announces its soon-to-come unified lclookup (landclass lookup) update, which will completely eliminate the need of switching regions via FTX Central anymore.

No doubt it’s a good thing.  But since regions and scenery will all be active under the new environment, will the startup loading time be prolonged proportionally or even significantly is yet to discover, not to mention any unknown potential performance hit?

The size of the library is now triple of previous versions.   Let’s hope for the better, nevertheless.

EDIT 1: The new FTX Central is already available.
EDIT 2: Just had a quick flight and didn’t see any performance hit. 

News: Prepar3D v3.3 is Here

| Tom Tsui

Similar to the last two cases in which I needed to have my system fully reinstalled many months ago, Lockheed Martin released another update of its Prepar3D after I have everything restored.   The Prepar3D v3.3 is here, just in case you are not aware of it.

Don’t tell me there’s a psychic connection between my system crash to the launch of its update.  ;)

361: GaugeSwitcher Update

| Tom Tsui

During my recent system recovery, many trivial issues found on my computer before the crash are also fixed.  That’s a good thing.  But unfortunately, there are new little issues coming up that didn’t exist before.

For example, I used to leave my Switch Panel, Radio Panel and Multi-Panel with power-on all the time, so that whenever I start the simulator, they could be put in operation immediately.   But now, I have to load the simulator first and then plug in the USB hub on which the Panels are connected.  Otherwise, the display on the Multi-Panel won’t turn on.  Fix is yet to come.

Another issue is also Saitek related. Continue reading →

360: Skipping Orbx Online Verification

| Tom Tsui

TechLevel01W
Besides backing up my system images, I also make individual copies of important files on my computer regularly.   Orbx addon registry is certainly one of them.

During installation, Orbx addons firstly performs an online-store verification and then creates a corresponding entry containing the serial of the product in the registry.   With this information in place, the verification process is no longer needed, no matter how many times the product is again reinstalled onto the same computer.

This principle similarly helps in my recent system break-down incidence.   Continue reading →

359: The Cause of My PC’s Death

| Tom Tsui

Although there are still some fine-tunings to do, my computer is in general up and running again after a few days’ reinstallation and updating.

Over the rehabilitation process, I had a chance to tidy up my system a bit and get rid of many useless stuffs from my SSDs.   I guess it is one of the good things I get from the broken computer.

Like many others, I have Multicore Next and P3D Fiber Accelerator from FSPS (Flight Simulator Platform Solutions), which I occasionally use for testings and other purposes.  During a recent search for Continue reading →

News: System Down Notice

| Tom Tsui

After my car was hit a few weeks ago.   My printer broke down last week.   Today, my computer has crashed unrecoverably as well.   I have to reinstall everything.  I guess it will take a couple of days to a week at least to revert everything back to normal.  During this period, my response will be slow.

Misfortunes never come singly.   Even though I am trying to look at all these unhappy things from the bright side, I still can’t help yelling “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

358: A New Blog worth Following

| Tom Tsui

I’ve been (still am) focusing a lot on developing new gauges for FIPs in the past 12 months, which inevitably reduces my already limited time on exploring new fun to add to flight simulation.   A friend, probably he doesn’t want to be named here, has created a pretty nice blog — On The Glideslope — that in a way supplements what I’ve missed.

He says, “You can learn an awful lot from the people who have come before you.”    Actually, it’s also true to learn from others who come after you as well.   We, individually, are too small to cover all aspects in the flightsim world.

 

357: Get Rid of the GeForce Experience

| Tom Tsui

Updating driver regularly is a good practice, especially when it comes to video cards.  However, doing so may risk us to install unwanted features that come with the driver as well.  One of these is the Nvidia GeForce Experience.

GeForce Experience is Nvidia’s proprietary software in which separate applications, including Game Optimization, GameStream, ShadowPlay, Battery Boost and LED Visualizer are included.  They are designed to automatically adjust the configuration of the GeForce graphics card based on the games we play.

It sounds good, doesn’t it?

Continue reading →

356: My Cockpit Got Aligned

| Tom Tsui

I have a spare FIP sitting around for quite some times, which is only used occasionally for various testings via my network computer.   Yesterday, I decided to throw in the underused FIP to the system to see how it effects.
Cockpit-Centered-GIF
Actually, the main reason for me not including the spare FIP to my system in the past was because the “6 FIPs + 1 Radio Panel across the top roll” and “1 Switch Panel + 3 FIPs + 1 Multi Panel” on the bottom constituted a pretty symmetric appearance in my 2-stack instrument setup already.   And I’ve been using this setup for a very long time. Continue reading →