Some questions

[SlicerGuitar]

I have some questions about the program.

1. What does the "Exp" function do in the calibration window? I can't see any difference when I check and uncheck the boxes.

2. I use beta 7. Why doesn't the "smooth textures" function work, when it works fine in beta 6?

3. I have an AMD Athlon MMX 3DNow 1400 mhz, 256 mb ram, GeForce 2 graphics card, running Win98 and DirectX 9. But when i run the program (beta7) in 800x600 full-screen mode, I only get 7 fps! Is that normal??
If I use the 1024x768 full-screen mode, it runs even slower.

4. When I have booted up my computer and try to run FMS, it won't start. It just reads from the harddrive for a few seconds, then nothing happens. But the second time I try to start FMS after a boot-up, it works fine.
It's the same thing with both beta 7 and beta 6. This isn't really a problem since I always can get the program to run the second time I try to start it, but it's strange that it's acting this way.

Finally I would like to say that I have built myself the serial version of the interface and connected it to my Futaba FC-16. The FC-16 has no "trainer-out" socket, so I had to connect the cable directly to the IC-circuit inside the transmitter. But it worked fine!

[outlawflier]

SlicerGuitar,

First, I'm not sure about non-ATI cards. But I don't think your card is Direct X 9 compliant. I would try to roll your Direct X driver back to 7. or 8. Two months ago only "newer" ATI cards were fully Direct X 9.0 compliant and most other cards were still trying to catch up to 8.0... This could possibly fix most of your issues. (computers are a second hobby and I was certified in 2001)

What does EXP mean? EXP stands for exponential. It is available in most good computer radios, and is very important when flying a "sensitive" setup. Exponential "softens" the control input near the stick neutral, and in trade makes it more sensitive towards the endpoints. You probably didn't notice considering the video card issues you probably have.

I suggest rolling back the DX driver as said above. Set exponential for tail, nick, roll, and pitch. Hover the Three Dee helicopter with and without exponential. I promise you'll notice the difference. Even with some real helicopter flight experience, I had REAL trouble flying it without EXP! If you can't fly helicopters, try a snappy aerobatic plane like the caps and see how fast it rolls with the same stick input with and without EXP near neutral. I really doubt it, but there is also a very slim possibility that your interface might interfere with EXP. (I also tinker with electronics)

Whatever happens let me know, I'm at outlawflier@yahoo.com and I would like to know if this helps. Could maybe help others.

Outlawflier (Shawn)

[outlawflier]

SlicerGuitar,

Hey! by the way, you might like rcuniverse.com for it's vast resources. It is the largest R/C forum site around. Much can be learned from this site. It happens to be where I discovered FMS. Log on to the site, click on the airplane or helicopter icon in the forums section in the middle, near the top of the front page. There is a flight sim section under the "Planes" section. For interest, simply search for "wig", or "vtol", or "FMS". Some very interesting stuff! Pick any icon under forums and you can do a search for any key word and it does a sitewide search. When I last checked, the site had 391 members and 650 guests logged on.

Outlawflier (Shawn)