Problem with Cockpitmaster

[GaryO]

Hi,

Santa Claus brought me a Cockpitmaster flight simulator and I've had problems getting it working. Their support staff have been very responsive, but we just haven't been able to pin the problem down.

I am running windows 98, v2, with a transmitter cord and an Hitec Eclipse xmtr. Problem is that the program will recognize the xmtr, allow calibration, but will not recognize the xmtr in the fly mode.

We're sort of out in the boonies in northern Arizona, so have had only a limited access to other computers. Have tried it on two laptops, behaves the same.

I know the sim works, so it's some strange combination. My video board maker has supplied the latest drivers, so that shouldn't be the problem.

Any suggestions?

GaryO

[Jar'sbuddy]

I logged onto their (Cockpitmaster's) website. There I found and downloaded "patch 1.3. This fixes joystick and interface recognition problems for the CD version." BINGO, after that it worked and has ever since. I sure like it.

[GaryO]

Thanks a bunch. Worked like a charm. Wonder why their support staff didn't point out the fix, but then I feel sort of stupid overlooking it in the first place.

GaryO

[Jar'sbuddy]

why wasn't that mentioned in the beginning stuff on the CD. Also on the web site, I found that I had to remove the transmitter crystal. I like the simulator.....but the lack of instructions SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad:

[poobs]

Mine works with the joy stick but it jiggles. Is there a fix for that?
Its very annoying? :(

[Jar'sbuddy]

but it's worse on some planes and less on others. And when I talked to the cust. service people, I asked if I replaced my celeron processer with a Pentium would that fix it, they didn't know. I'm wondering if other simulators quiver.

[poobs]

As far as contols jiggling they told me to calibrate the joy stick but this did not cure it.

I have a Pentium processor in my PC - what does that have to do with anything? :mad:

[Jar'sbuddy]

when I was researching what simulator to buy, I called my son, (my computer guru). He told me that because I didn't have a Pentium, I would not be able to use Real Flight because it needed tons of memory and a faster processer than my Celeron. I was wondering if the Pentium would prevent the shaky ness, but evidently it doesn't......but the folks at Cockpitmaster didn't know that either.

[poobs]

Guess I wont recomemnd the program to anyone. Especially when FMS is free. ;)

[Dereck]

Funny that - I got mine with a Futaba cord and it has always worked fine ! My machine was not too bad at 450Mhz when I bought CM, but is now somewhat museum quality.

Have played with an early copy of RealFlight - impressive graphics, but if there's a quarter scale Skywalker around that can take off, go near vertical and then do an outside loop from about thirty feet - can I have one please? Maybe they've gotten more realistic since?

[GaryO]

Some thoughts on the "jiggling"

It's not a function of what processor is installed. By the way, you can add as much memory to a Celeron processor as a Pentium or AMD, so someone has been giving bad advice.

When I was trying to resolve my interface problem, I ran across some comments in a forum related to the "jiggling". I'll try to locate them and give a post. Seems to me that they might have been on the Multiplex site, rather than the CockpitMaster site, but not sure.

Apparently Cockpitmaster is being sold by two folks, Multiplex and Todd's models and there are two sets of support folks.

Regards,

GaryO

[poobs]

Gary:

As a point of interest I think that I'm also getting the "jiggling" with FMS that I downloaded a few days ago.

[RRD]

I had the jiggling problem with both FMS and Cockpitmaster. Turns out it was radio interference picked up by my interface cord! Evidently my old PC puts out a lot of radio noise. I purchased a better quality shielded interface and all my problems went away. Can't remember where I bought the thing though.

Bob

[poobs]

I tried re routing the wire. I also added a ferrite bead but nothing changed.

[GaryO]

Is anyone using the same interface cable (parallel) on both FMS and Cockpitmaster?

GaryO

[tjcooper]

Gary,
I have both the parallel port PIC interface supplied by Cockpit master and a 4 axis joystick from Microsoft. I have several other joysticks. They all jiggle because the resisters inside the units are very high impedance and just thermal noise makes the joysticks bounce around. If you use different Soundcards/game ports, their internal electronics change drastically. Finding the right card (like the Soyo motherboards that have the gameport on the motherboard) really made a huge difference. When you go into the control panel and get to the TEST menu, you can see the red cross hairs jumping around. This is completely outside Cockpit master.

My parallel port PIC adaptor has not problems with a real buddy box. It is set to read pulses and not resistance. So the short answer is to get a different gameport card if your noisy tests always show on the gameport (both for joysticks and buddyboxes with joystick connectors). The other option is to bet a PIC type adaptor which reads the pulses directly.

Another point. If your processor is slow (less than 800 MegaHertz) and less than 128 Meg of RAM, CockpitMaster can do strange things. I had to replace a computer in my house for just that reason. The best AGP display card will also really help. Don't even consider running in "emmulator mode". The system stores up joystick commands while the program is starting. I have cases where it launches my plane upside down and going backwards on the field ( a great chance to practice live saving rolls). Get a faster processor and the problems went away.

I tried running another CPU intensive task in the background, the old problem returned. MORAL TO THE STORY: you need as much processing power, both CPU,video, and RAM, as you can get. When I use 1.4 GigaHertz systems with 128 Meg AGP video cards, I get superb performance. Less than that, I get flying that often looks like trying to control a trainer with an intermittent battery cable. Ouch!

Hope that gives you some background.

Ted

P.S. I have worked with Robert at CockpitMaster a great deal to solve the problems. He is helpful but the bottom line is that DirectX is totally in control of what happens in the program. If you have a machine that does Microsoft DirectX 8.1 well, then things are fine. If not, you may be quite unhappy.:D