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P3D V4.0


Eton Wallace 1387140
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Eton Wallace 1387140
Posted
Posted

Hey! I bought P3D V4 yesterday and I was so exited to fly on Vatsim! But when I opened vPilot, I received this message: "Error: Unhandled exception: SimConnect not found." Is this a problem on my end or is there an update for vPilot coming soon? Thanks!

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Evan Reiter
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With the previous version of P3D, you needed to run the SimConnect installer in order for vPilot to function. Have you tried that?

 

Here are instructions for P3D v3. I don't use v4 yet, so I'm not sure how well this will translate. Let me know!

If P3D is the only flight simulator installed on this computer, you'll need to manually install the FSX version of the SimConnect library. To do so, run the installer, located by default at C:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D\redist\Interface\FSX-SP2-XPACK\retail\lib\SimConnect.msi. This installer will run very briefly.

 

If you have FSX SP2/Acceleration installed as well as P3D, then you do not need to run the SimConnect installer.

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Evan Reiter
Boston Virtual ARTCC/ZBW Community Manager

 

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Eton Wallace 1387140
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Ok, I ran the installer and launched vPilot and got another message saying: "No supported flight simulators were detected! Please ensure you have FSX or Prepar3D installed correctly." And I did install P3D in my Program Files, not Program Files (x86).

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Ross Carlson
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vPilot does not yet recognize P3D v4. That's coming in an update, not sure when.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Norman Blackburn
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[Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you have vPilot installed you then need to go to your redist folder and run all of the simconnect msi files

Norman

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Ross Carlson
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What Norm says is true, but that won't help vPilot recognize V4 as a supported simulator type. A vPilot update is required. The problem is that Lockheed decided to allow users to install multiple versions of the sim on the same computer, so they each use different registry keys, different installation folders, and different configuration files. vPilot needs to know all of those things in order to scan your models, so I need to update vPilot with the new set of locations for v4 before it will be usable.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Norman Blackburn
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Stop slacking Ross

 

(You know I'm joking of course!)

Norman

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Ross Carlson
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I will *never* stop slacking ... it's part of my religion.

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Bradley Grafelman
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I need to update vPilot with the new set of locations for v4 before it will be usable.

Out of curiosity... and [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you've already considered but rejected this option... why doesn't vPilot just ask the user to browse to their installed simulator's location? Sure, digging through the registry for known keys in an attempt to guess the correct location is an excellent convenience, but it seems odd to not let the user simply specify it in the end (especially since the failure to find the location is treated as a fatal error).

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Matthew Bartels
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What Norm says is true, but that won't help vPilot recognize V4 as a supported simulator type. A vPilot update is required. The problem is that Lockheed decided to allow users to install multiple versions of the sim on the same computer, so they each use different registry keys, different installation folders, and different configuration files. vPilot needs to know all of those things in order to scan your models, so I need to update vPilot with the new set of locations for v4 before it will be usable.

 

 

Maybe I did something very wrong, but vPilot is working for me in V4. All my AI models on the other hand... not so much

 

Can confirm that most FAIB models work, but most of the legacy AIA and TFS models are not working.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Forever and always "Just the events guy"

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Ross Carlson
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I need to update vPilot with the new set of locations for v4 before it will be usable.

Out of curiosity... and [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you've already considered but rejected this option... why doesn't vPilot just ask the user to browse to their installed simulator's location? Sure, digging through the registry for known keys in an attempt to guess the correct location is an excellent convenience, but it seems odd to not let the user simply specify it in the end (especially since the failure to find the location is treated as a fatal error).

 

Mainly because the install directory isn't all that's needed. The main thing that's needed is the location of the file that contains the list of SimObjectsPaths that vPilot needs to scan. Depending on the simulator, those entries are either contained in the FSX.cfg which is stored in the ApplicationData, or in the case of P3D V1, they are in the main Prepar3D.cfg, or in the case of P3D v2+ they are in a separate file dedicated to that purpose called SimObjects.cfg which is found in the CommonApplicationData folder.

 

vPilot needs to p[Mod - Happy Thoughts] out that list of paths because they can either be relative to the sim install folder, or they can be absolute paths pointing somewhere else on the system. And starting with (I think) P3Dv3, those paths can have an "active" flag, so that a set of models can be installed but not actually loaded by the sim, so vPilot needs to know not to use those models for model matching.

 

So I could certainly ask the user to specify their install folder, but I would also have to have the user specify the location of the file that contains the SimObjectPath definitions, and that's getting a bit more advanced, given that these files are usually in the hidden AppData or CommonAppData locations.

 

One possibility would be to automatically scan the AppData and CommonAppData folders to see if there are any subfolders matching a given set of patterns, such as "Microsoft\FSX-SE" or "Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D V*" and present the list of matches for the user to choose from, but that just seems ugly and error prone. I think the best option is to just require that the user have a properly installed sim with the correct registry entries and that's going to work perfectly for 99.99% of the user base. It just has the unfortunate side effect that when LM releases a new major version of P3D, vPilot needs an update in order to find it, because they change their registry keys and folder structure each time, to include the major version number, so that you can have multiple versions installed side-by-side.

 

One thing this has led me to consider is having the database of known simulator paths downloaded from the vPilot server each time, so that I can just add a new version of a sim without releasing a new build. This would help for P3D major version updates, and also for if the FSX Steam Edition changes its paths.

 

Maybe I did something very wrong, but vPilot is working for me in V4. All my AI models on the other hand... not so much

 

I'm guessing you still have an earlier version of P3D installed, and vPilot is finding that. vPilot doesn't actually validate that the sim you are running is the same one you told vPilot you're running in the settings.

 

Can confirm that most FAIB models work, but most of the legacy AIA and TFS models are not working.

 

What do you mean by "not working" here?

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Ross Carlson
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vPilot 2.1.5 is now available, with P3D V4 support. You can get it through the automatic update function built into the client, or download from the website:

 

http://vpilot.metacraft.com/Download.aspx

Developer: vPilot, VRC, vSTARS, vERAM, VAT-Spy

Senior Controller, Boston Virtual ARTCC

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Matthew Bartels
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Can confirm that most FAIB models work, but most of the legacy AIA and TFS models are not working.

 

What do you mean by "not working" here?

 

The models will show up in P3D v4, however you run into all sorts of problems, black textures, missing items, invisible airplanes, etc.

 

Whatever LM did in V4 broke the native FS9 models, which is understandable since they're almost 15 years old. Native FSX models are working fine for now. Still have more testing to do.

 

I can confirm that FAIB 737s / Airbuses / and 747 are working correctly. The AIA FSX native models are working correctly as well, albeit with the issues they describe in their readme. (lightmaps slightly off, no turning engine blades)

 

As of now, The Fruit Stand, AI Malcontent, and Alpha India models are incompatible.

 

The big aircraft missing are All B777 / A330 / A340 and most Regional jets / turboprops. (AIA E170/75/90/95 is working)

You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Forever and always "Just the events guy"

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Martin Stockzell 1294494
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Yep. Model matching is nerfed in P3Dv4 I'm afraid...

 

Tried both the old IVAO_MTL (yes yes yes I know...) and WOAI and both with same result. Black fuselages or completely invisible. Although when I was zoomed out max they did appear for a while.

 

The problem with invisible planes was present with FSX as well, if you unticked "aircraft cast shadows on the ground" they appeared. But this time it seems like it's something more...

 

More info regarding coming solutions here https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/511351-woai-traffic-in-p3d-v4

Martin Stockzell

Director - ACCSCA1 | VATSIM Scandinavia

VATSIM Network Supervisor

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Bjoern Helge Smaavollan
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Yep. Model matching is nerfed in P3Dv4 I'm afraid...

 

That is kind of a wrong statement as it isn't the modelmatching, but the models themselves that are causing problems.

 

AIG have started updating some models. You can get them at their forums

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Peter King
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Can confirm that most FAIB models work, but most of the legacy AIA and TFS models are not working.

 

What do you mean by "not working" here?

 

The models will show up in P3D v4, however you run into all sorts of problems, black textures, missing items, invisible airplanes, etc.

 

Whatever LM did in V4 broke the native FS9 models, which is understandable since they're almost 15 years old. Native FSX models are working fine for now. Still have more testing to do.

 

I can confirm that FAIB 737s / Airbuses / and 747 are working correctly. The AIA FSX native models are working correctly as well, albeit with the issues they describe in their readme. (lightmaps slightly off, no turning engine blades)

 

As of now, The Fruit Stand, AI Malcontent, and Alpha India models are incompatible.

 

The big aircraft missing are All B777 / A330 / A340 and most Regional jets / turboprops. (AIA E170/75/90/95 is working)

 

So can I confirm then it just causes blank textures and doesn't ctd the sim like p3d v2.x did with the old native models??? thanks in advance

Pete King - REAL WORLD AIRLINE FLIGHT OPS GUY 

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marcus holmes
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Will there be an update to Vpilot AI models? as I am also getting a lot of black models.

815851

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Trevor Hannant
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Will there be an update to Vpilot AI models? as I am also getting a lot of black models.

 

vPilot doesn't have AI models, it uses models installed in your sim. The issue is with those. Some of these AI models were originally made for FS9. Some model developers are already trying to update these for P3Dv4 - AIG have started releasing updates on their forums for example.

 

You will need to check with the developers of the AI models you use for updates for these.

Trevor Hannant

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Bradley Grafelman
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vPilot doesn't have AI models

I think he might be referring to "vPilot AI" - the name that was stolen... er, borrowed... from vPilot for the re-packaged models stolen... er, borrowed... from various developers.

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Thiago Braun 1311584
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I have noticed somewhat of an FPS impact when using vPilot with v4. I don`t have any extra models, just the basic Prepar3D aircraft, but whenever I turn on vPilot, the FPS start jumping like crazy. From a stable 30-40, I start getting weird jumps from 11 to 40. Is anyone having a similar issue?

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marcus holmes
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I have noticed somewhat of an FPS impact when using vPilot with v4. I don`t have any extra models, just the basic Prepar3D aircraft, but whenever I turn on vPilot, the FPS start jumping like crazy. From a stable 30-40, I start getting weird jumps from 11 to 40. Is anyone having a similar issue?

 

Thiago I think the reason you are having a drop in frames is because you are using the basic P3d models as your AI, these models have relatively high detail and if you have many of them spawn up in your sim it will reduce your frames a lot. Where as a AI model package like WOAI will prevent any frame drop as the models are very basic.

Your best bet is to download a AI package and get Vpilot to utilise that pack rather than getting Vpilot to use the basic model within P3D.

815851

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  • 6 months later...
Mike Willey
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Posted

Any update on the P3DV4 Models.. I am just finishing a new sim build and am using the BVA WoA models but still getting th anomalies that are discussed here..

MIke Willey

vZBW Mentor / Controller

 

 

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