EagleSkinner

A small and cautionary tale of woe: Sim Update 5 to msfs really riled me up. And then the almost instantaneous patch to ".14" - yes, I know .15 is out too. I was so disappointed by that update that I decided to uninstall msfs. While I was at it I put a 2TB M.2 card on the mobo for OS and "normal" software and added a 2TB ssd just for MSFS. I wasn't just disappointed by SU5, I was furious! So when I disconnected some of the old drives Ii failed to release the locking latch (press tab) on the SATA connector on an older ssd - that promptly broke the L shaped locating pin and even tore a connector loose: write off! Then I fumbled the graphics card out of the PCIE slot and it was only the price tag that held me back from rash action and it is lucky that I have a very deep pile carpet and only a one inch fumble... Then win 10 pro went T's up on me because it was no longer on c:\ and I fluffed around in uefi getting totally lost in the process. That meant the full reinstall of win 10 pro and the concommitant follow up actions of reinstalling all the other programs I use. But hey, a good wash every now and then is good for your soul, no? Now I have that year old problem of waiting for the mandatory data update on msfs before I can even test it using only default models. And even then I'll have the world updates to install before I can even think about a trip to the Orbx Central to recover my purchases. So the moral of the story - patience! Sleep on a problem first. Take a good deep breath before physically assaulting your PC. Stay your anger and remember, Asobo is a French company - the French are far better at cooking . Have patience, and even though Bobby McFerrin is no longer with us: "Don't worry, be happy"

Difficult, difficult... but in the end I had to toss a coin - Mikee's Iceland screenie does it most for me.

I just visited the msfs fora - there has been a lot of invective fired at msfs and the hotfix. I think that msfs/asobo have failed to grasp the principles of good quality management. I spent many years in real life as a quality manager. 6 Sigma green and black belts. Poka Yoka, ISO 900x. I even wrote books on the subject. There are a few aerospace companies using my quality management handbooks too. My favourite adage comes from when US industry helped to to build the Japanese car industry and told them that it would be a great goal to aim for 95% production quality; to which a wise Japanese engineer responded "So... we have to make five bad cars every hundred?" It does seem like msfs/asobo are employing a US quality mentality with their flight simulator. "Let's release an update and see what the public can find. Then we can rekease a hotfix to say 'look how good we are!' " Then they go away, loudly praising and applauding their efforts and patting themselves on their backs.

My cure - complete uninstall and removal of this w.o.t. I will spend the next day or two cleaning up my PC, moving C: to a new 2 TB SSD. Also installing a new 2+ TB SSD for the flight sim program. I may even not load msfs for a month or even a year - this has been one disastrous adventure after another. DESPITE the pleasure it has given me. It just isn't worth the hassle to have to rebuild my system every time msfs/asobo decide to release a downdate. I shall still hang around the fora though, because it will be nice to follow the adventures of simmers.

After extensive (and tedious... and time consuming!) my totals of CTDs and lockups/freeze ups reads something like a Rugby score... I had already updated drivers pre update by the way Post update with just the community deleted: 11 CTD 8 lockups somewhere in this lot I did delete community At this point I deleted community, rolling cache and content.xml - again, just to make sure After reinstall: 15 flights (default and shop-bought addons) I tally 12 CTD 0 freeze ups and only 3 flights registered in logbook (and as per usual there was one "no take off" and one no landing (that was deliberate field landing) Oh yes - at around the third flight with CTD I did check my payware update software - surprisingly, there was a graphics card update that had been uploaded by nVidia today - I OFFER THIS AS A TIP BECAUSE YOU MAY THINK YOU HAVE ALL NEW UPDATES - BUT SOMETIMES EVEN OTHER SOFTWARE HOUSES AND HARDWARE SELLERS MANAGE TO GET AN UPDATE OUT AT SHORT NOTICE I am now eagerly awaiting Zendesk to ttell me to delete rolling cache, community and content.xml or for them to tell me to update drivers - I don't expect Zendesk to actually help me here - they only seem to autorespond with off the shelf stock replies. So the reason I am grumbling here (and other non-msfs/Asobo fora) is in the hope that someone may have a useful sugestion

yep... I am now down to a full reinstall of msfs.

Dear Orbx, dear friends My experience with this “WORST. UPDATE. EVER.” - You will find a lot of users may have negative issues with the raw sim, let alone your addons - I bet that is already causing you to drink antacids by the gallon already. I hhave definitely experienced all your reported issues as well. Plenty of CTDs and total seize ups. I have removed ALL the community items (the simple way - take the folder out of the msfs directory) So starting with any default aircraft (15 new starts so far) I sometimes don’t even get past the “Fly Now” selection - those are mostly game freezes. The first issue was that all my own settings were reset to default - although the controller profiles with my own names were still there. Changing some of these also killed the sim. Also - I am a Stream Deck user and now I get the feeling that they have changed the keyboard shortcuts without telling us - there were a couple of CTDs using Stream Deck inputs. This should not be because all SD does is to send a keypress signal to msfs. Also - after this update the computer is running around 10-15 degrees hotter on the GPU and 5 + on the CPU. So it looks like this update will negatively affect performance of Orbx sceneries. Well, all addons using hi-res textures. When I do get to the parked up on ramp position I have had CTDs while setting the controls, tuning radios, taxying - I haven’t yet made it off the ground yet. No - I am not a noob. Ihavebeen using flightsims since Bruce Artwick was the name… So, dear Orbx friends, I reckon your plane making partners will have a lot to work on too, I will now shut down and wait until tomorrow - Of course I will drop a bomb on Zendesk. I also bet I will get a reply like "remove all addons in the Community folder".

Well deserved!

Ah yes, that famous preconception of English weather. "England is a foggy, damp, rainy country" Well, we do have nice summers here too - for the occasional week in May The screenies show the same live weather with different time of day, so the fog gets a yellow ish tint at sunset. Personally I think Asobo have made msfs clouds too yellow in dusk times. But generally I would say there are often inversion layers over the bigger towns which does make the warmer, denser air at ground level seem like thick fog from above. I don't think the screenies would be fog in real life if you were physically there. I have seen a lot of dawn / dusk pictures that make the msfs world look foggy and I think the effect is exaggerated in msfs. I look out of my window now and to the north I see 7/8 cloud, bases 3 to 5 thousand feet with visibility in excess of 15 miles. What it looks like in sim? hang on...

About 60 years ago that'd be a developing London smog... (pea souper). As this is today, I'd say London exhaust fumes trapped by an inversion.

I felt rather positive about my entry this month, so not many castaways this time. It looks a bit murky down there this evening, but not as murky as the pea soupers I can remember from my childhood living in Woolwich. Enjoy!

Okiedokie, here goes for me

Two of the texture sheets for the Optica paintkit have inconsistancies. Bearing in mind that msfs requires fully square textures, the Optica_Body02_A is 115 pixels too large left side and 3 px too large right side in x (4214 x 4096) and the Optica_Tail_A is 4 pixels too large downwards in y (4096 x 4100) Root cause is "Panel lines" layer in Optica_Body02_A and "Raised Panels" layer in Optica_Tail_A In the model liveries all textures are corectly sized at 4096^2 Question: Should the paintkit layers be shrunk, cut to size or moved to fit into 4096^2 ?

Adam Banks' flight over that NZ Mesh.

I love the monthly screenshots competitions, but finding the right shot is, as always, a work of great patience. Here are some of the ones I rejected for June...

OK, no problems. I was rather curious though - and RTFM is anathema to me

In cockpit view. Operation of pedal toe brakes - no pedal animation. EXCEPT double toe brakes and/or left toe brake cause the brake lever to lift. Right toe brake has no animation at all. Also, the hand brake lever does not lock unless ctrl "." is used. What is the RW brake system? Pull the handle? Seems wrong to me, but hey, I hve never seen an Optica IRL.

I don't think this nighttime skyline needs introduction...

Captainbluesky - Innsbruck dawn.

Thanks for cllearing that up Ed. I was rather concerned for a moment there.

'Morning all! I just had an e-mail from you describing "Staff Picks" special offers, I like some of them so I went to Orbx Central and imagine my surprise when I saw these. Her are just a couple of comparison screens showing the Orbx Central pricing for staff picks on the left and the e-mailed pricing for staff picks on the right. No further comment needed I hope.

Instead of something "normal", how about a collage? Zell, Caernarfon, Elstree, Stapleford, Booker and Shoreham all in one.

But if you do want to try the DH52 go to this page

Just like my dogs! It's been widdling down all day here in Sherwood Forest...

Places like Caernarfon, Elstree, Booker, Shoreham, Stapleford et al really have made msfs a truly georgeous environment. The scenery itself and the buildings, the airport life (especially when they are well visited, like Elstree - that seems to have the most AI so far), the atmosphere... So I decided to answer a question earlier: how far is it from Elstree to Booker. Well as the moth flies, around 20 miles - or a percieved lifetime with a strong headwind as it turns out. (OK, it's an FSX import of Ant's Tiger Moth that crashes msfs if you try it in VR, but...) We are getting to the stage where 100 dollar burger flights are really a possibilityand you still have time to fly home after lunch for a cream tea.