Microsoft(r) Flight Simulator 2000 Readme (c) 1999 Microsoft Corporation. ------------------------ How to Use This Document ------------------------ To view the Readme file on-screen in Windows Notepad, maximize the Notepad window and click Word Wrap on the Edit menu. To print the Readme file, open it in Notepad or another word processor, and then use the Print command on the File menu. SETUP ========================= -If you choose to install Flight Simulator 98 on the same machine to which you've already installed Flight Simulator 2000, you must install Flight Simulator 98 into a different directory. If you install both versions to the same directory, your Flight Simulator 2000 installation will be damaged. -When you install Flight Simulator, the Setup program may never ask for Disc 2 (and will not ask for Disc 3 for the Professional Edition). The discs required for installation depend on the installation options you have chosen. During game play, Flight Simulator will ask for these discs as necessary. -If you plan to take the flying lessons in Flight Simulator 2000, choose a Typical installation or select the "Install Adventures" checkbox in the Custom installation. If you did not install Lessons and later decide to install them, you must uninstall and then reinstall Flight Simulator 2000. RUNNING FLIGHT SIMULATOR ========================= -The default joystick button assignments have changed from Flight Simulator 98. Please refer to the inside back cover of the manual or the Help system for the current default settings. -After playing videos--either from Help or from the opening screen--make sure to put CD 2 in the CD drive before continuing to fly or starting a new flight. CD 2 contains the scenery files. CONFIGURATION ISSUES ==================== -In the event that you encounter display problems, please ensure that you are using the most up-to-date possible drivers for your video card, available from the manufacturer's Web site. In many cases, more recent "reference" drivers are available from the chipset manufacturer directly, rather than the board manufacturer. Popular examples include www.3dfx.com and www.nvidia.com. -Rendition V1000 video card A General Protection Fault may occur with this card due to driver bugs. -#9 FX Reality 334 Main window screen sometimes turns black in 1024X768 resolution. Updated drivers may resolve the issue or you may have to use a different screen resolution. -ATI Rage 128 If you have the ATI Rage 128 video card with driver version 4.11.1.2126, update your drivers before using Flight Simulator 2000 to avoid a possible system error. Updated drivers are available at www.atitech.com. -DCS 3D Pro If you are using the "DCS 3D Pro" video card, your machine may experience instability and hard hangs. If you have this card, you should run Flight Simulator 2000 in software rendering mode, which does not use your 3-D accelerator card. Click the Options menu, then click Settings, and then click Display. Clear the "Enable hardware acceleration" option. If you experience very slow performance, return to this dialog box and select "Low resolution mode". -S3 Inc. Trio3D/2X If you see an unacceptable amount of "flashes" or other errors in the scenery while using this card, you should run Flight Simulator 2000 in software rendering mode, which does not use your 3-D accelerator card. Click the Options menu, then click Settings, and then click Display. Clear the "Enable hardware acceleration" option. If you experience very slow performance, return to this dialog box and select "Low resolution mode". -9FX Reality 334 If you are using the 9FX Reality 334 video card from Number Nine Visual Technology, you should update to the latest drivers to avoid any problems viewing the scenery. Updated drivers are available at www.nine.com. -Matrox Productiva G100 AGP You might notice black boxes around lights when using this video card. -Diamond Viper 550 If you are using this video card, reboot your computer after you install Flight Simulator 2000. This will avoid a potential system hang when launching Flight Simulator. -Rendition V1000 When you start Flight Simulator 2000, the full screen resolution will be set to 320x200 even though the Display Setting dialog box (click the Options menu, click Settings, and then click Display) lists the resolution as 640x480. In order to get 640x480 resolution, you must first set the full screen resolution to 800x600 in the Display Settings dialog box and click OK. You can then re-enter the Display Settings dialog box and set your resolution to 640x480 if desired. To use Full Screen mode, press ALT+ENTER or choose Full Screen from the Views menu. -Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee If you are using the Creative Labs Voodoo Banshee, your machine may stop responding after playing Flight Simulator for a few minutes. If this occurs (or to prevent this from occurring), run Flight Simulator 2000 in software rendering mode, which does not use your 3-D accelerator card. Click the Options menu, then click Settings, and then click Display. Clear the "Enable hardware acceleration" option. If you experience very slow performance, return to this dialog box and select "Low resolution mode". -Video cards with Voodoo1, Voodoo Graphics, or Voodoo2 chipset by 3dfx The Kneeboard cannot be displayed when you are using a 3-D accelerator video card with the Voodoo1, Voodoo Graphics, or Voodoo2 chipset by 3dfx. This chipset may be included in video cards from other card manufacturers. There are two ways to work around this problem: 1) Access the information in the Kneeboard by opening the Kneeboard text files on your hard disk. For the locations of these files, see "Using the Kneeboard" in Flight Simulator Help. Click the Help menu, click Simulator Help, click Getting from Here to There, and then click Using the Kneeboard. 2) Run Flight Simulator 2000 in software rendering mode, which does not use your 3-D accelerator card. Click the Options menu, then click Settings, and then click Display. Clear the "Enable hardware acceleration" option. If you experience very slow performance, return to this dialog box and select "Low resolution mode". -TNT video card drivers Some TNT drivers (primarily those from Diamond for their V550) cause Flight Simulator 2000, as well as your system, to hang. You can modify the FS2000.cfg file to try to correct this problem, as follows: 1) Create a [HARDWARE] heading in the FS2000.cfg file. 2) Insert the following commands into the .cfg file under the [HARDWARE] heading, as shown: [HARDWARE] TextureAGP=0 TextureManagement=1 -Terrain appears to shimmer If terrain in the distance appears to shimmer, make sure that you have the MIP Mapping option selected in the Hardware tab of the Display Settings dialog box (click Options, then click Settings, and then click Display). If this does not solve the problem, your video card may not be able to handle MIP mapping. -Slow performance on Windows NT 4 with a 500 MHz Pentium machine If you are running Flight Simulator 2000 on a 500 MHz Pentium machine running Windows NT 4, you may encounter slow performance. Under this configuration, Image Quality is set to its highest setting (6). Try reducing the image quality if performance is a problem. Click the Options menu, point to Settings, and click Display. Then click the Image Quality tab and experiment with the settings. Click the ? button in the dialog box for more information about image quality and performance. -Ensoniq AudioPCI cards Owners of Ensoniq AudioPCI cards running under Windows 98 should make sure they are using the latest drivers. Updated drivers are available at www.ensoniq.com. -Sounds cut out or play inconsistently. With PCI64 sound cards there may be instances where sounds cut out or play inconsistently. Updated drivers may solve this problem. MANUAL ERRATA ============= The following errors appear in some versions of the Flight Simulator Pilot's Handbook. They may have been corrected in your version. -On the joystick diagram on the inside back cover of the Flight Simulator Pilot's Handbook, the lines pointing to buttons 7 and 8 are reversed. The button labeled Button 8 is the Kneeboard button. The button labeled Button 7 is the Gear Up/Down button. -In the section on "Starting Flight Simulator", the manual states that you always need Disc 1 in your CD drive when starting Flight Simulator. However, you may also start Flight Simulator with Disk 2 in the CD drive, which may be preferable if you did not install scenery on your hard disk. -Some of the Flights mentioned in the section "Take a Fun Flight" and some of the Adventures mentioned in "Have an Adventure" in Chapter 4 were not included in the product. However, you can access a large selection of Flights and Adventures from the Flights menu. -Under "Perform Aerobatics", the manual mentions that Patty Wagstaff's aerobatics videos can be found in Help. These files are not included in Help. -In Tutorial 2, Rod asks you to watch the Axes of Flight video. That video was not included in the final product, but you can read the Axes of Flight help topic, which you can navigate to from the Homework menu item on the Help menu. -Tutorial 6 states that you can see the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. This object does not appear in Flight Simulator. -In Tutorial 9, on page 112 a portion of a paragraph was omitted. The full paragraph reads: "With your OBS set to 030, you depart Whatzitz as shown by Airplane A. The VOR display in Airplane A shows a left needle with a TO indication. A right or left needle indication doesn't tell you on which side of the selected course the airplane is located. To determine this, you must physically point the airplane in the direction of the selected course (or at least imagine yourself pointed in this direction). Why? The VOR needle and flag indications are completely independent of the airplane's heading." -Tutorial 9, Situation 4 says to rotate the OBS until the needle centers, which it states should be around 305. In fact, it's closer to 315 degrees. Step 6 also says to track to 305; you should track to 315 accordingly. -Tutorial 14, Situation 2 states that the visibility is 1.5 miles in this lesson. The visibility in this lesson is actually 1 mile. The figure of 1.5 is mentioned again on the next page and there it should also read one mile. -In Tutorial 15, Figure 13 is missing the column header: "Angle of Descent (degrees)" for the leftmost column. -In Tutorial 15, the 200 ft decision height (DH) is not depicted in Figure 2. -In Chapter 8 of the Pilot's Handbook for the Professional Edition, and in the Aircraft Information section of Help, the following errors appear in the Concorde Flight Notes: - In the specifications section, the Maximum Range should read 4200 miles (6759.25 km). - Maximum fuel capacity should read 211,200 lbs (approximately 96,000 kg). - Fuel consumption figures (22.6 tonnes/h) are defined at takeoff, and are per engine. - In the "Takeoff" section, V1 should read 165 KIAS, Vr should read approximately 195 KIAS, and V2 should read approximately 200 KIAS. - In the "Supersonic cruise and acceleration" section, ignore the words "indicated by 0% on the Percentage Area gauge." The gauge that reads the position of the secondary engine nozzles is not implemented in Flight Simulator 2000. - In the "Autopilot" section, it should be noted that the use of Autothrottle during an approach to landing is mandatory in the real aircraft. -In the Glossary of the Pilot's Handbook for the Professional Edition, the following terms have been omitted, although their definitions appear: Flight Level (FL), Glideslope, International Standard Atmosphere (ISA), Maximum L/D. AIRCRAFT AND INSTRUMENT PANELS =============================== -Bell Helicopter key assignments In the Controls Assignments dialog box, events and key commands are listed for "Tilt landing light up/down/left/right" and "Center landing light." However, you cannot move the landing light, so these commands have no effect. -Slow performance with GPS If you experience slow performance when viewing the GPS receiver with the display zoomed out, try zooming in to show a smaller area. Or, show fewer types of features (such as airports, VORS, and Victor airways) on the display. -Using Concorde in the default Flight If you choose the default Flight (Meigs Field) and then change the aircraft to a Concorde, the Concorde starts with full fuel in all tanks and a full passenger load. This causes the center of gravity (CG) to be out of balance, which results in a warning annunciator light on the panel and affects the aircraft's performance. Because all tanks are full, you can't move fuel around in the fuel system to change the CG. To resolve this, click the Aircraft menu and then click Fuel, and edit the amount of fuel in the Concorde's "Center2" tank . A value of 75% (2625 gallons) works well under default conditions. (If you edited the aircraft's load via the "Weight and Balance" portion of the config file, this value will change.) -In the Flight Notes in Help for the Schweizer 2-32 sailplane, Lake Chelan (near Seattle) is listed as a good site to find thermals. However, there is no thermal lift near Lake Chelan in Flight Simulator 2000. VIEWS ===== -When saving flights on a multi-monitor system with view windows displayed on the second monitor, the view windows will not show up in the main window if you save the flight and move it to a single-monitor system. -In certain phases of flight, particularly on final approach to a runway, you may find it difficult to see the ground over the instrument panel. To get a better view, press Shift+Enter and Shift+Backspace to tilt your head up and down within the cockpit. To set your head back to the default tilt, switch away to a different view (with your joystick hat switch or with the Shift key plus a key on the numeric keypad), and then let the view return to "straight-and-level." WEATHER ======= -In order to download real-world weather from the World Wide Web, you will need to have Internet Explorer 4.0 or later installed on your computer. To install the free browser, go to the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com. Click Downloads and then select Download Center. Choose Internet Explorer from the downloads list and follow the installation instructions. -If the real-world weather shown in Flight Simulator seems to be incorrect, the data may have been corrupted on download. To correct the problem, simply click the Real-World Weather button in the Weather dialog box again. ADVENTURES/LESSONS ================== -The Dynamic Scenery should be turned off during the Lessons and Adventures to avoid Dynamic Scenery interference and/or collisions. To turn the Dynamic Scenery off, click the Options menu, click Settings, click Display, and then choose the Image Quality tab. Then clear the Dynamic Scenery box. FLIGHT PLANNER ============== -When planning a flight across the North Atlantic (such as from London to New York), choose Direct - GPS routing. Do not choose Jet airways, as you may be routed through unnecessary waypoints. You access the Flight Planner from the Flights menu. Click the ? button in the dialog box for more information about the Flight Planner. KNEEBOARD ========= -When you are using the Kneeboard to find the key command for a procedure, make sure to click the cockpit instrument panel before using the key command. If you use the key command when the Kneeboard has "focus", the key command will not have any effect. -The Kneeboard cannot be displayed when you are using a 3-D accelerator video card with the Voodoo1, Voodoo Graphics, or Voodoo2 chipset by 3dfx. This chipset may be included in video cards from other card manufacturers. See the listing for the Voodoo chipset under CONFIGURATION ISSUES above for more information. 3RD-PARTY COMPATIBILITY ======================= -The "See own aircraft from cockpit" feature has been replaced in FS2000 and so is not available for FS2000 aircraft. For compatibility with the "See own aircraft from cockpit" feature when using third party or FS98 aircraft in FS2000, you will need to add the following line to the [PREFS] section of the FS2000.CFG file: SEE_SELF=1 -Any third-party gauges or applications based on FS6IPC.DLL, or using techniques requiring variables to be in specific locations in memory will not work and may cause crashes. -Many third-party scenery areas which rely on elevated polygons to be resting on perfectly flat areas will look incorrect due to the variation in elevation caused by the new terrain system. Further information on how to avoid this problem will be forthcoming in updates to the Flight Simulator SDK. 3RD-PARTY SCENERY ================= -Some backward-compatible/add-on sceneries may not appear as expected in FS2000. The factors most commonly responsible for such problems are: a) Flight Simulator 2000 uses a digital elevation mesh terrain system instead of the flat "seed" system from prior versions, and b) Flight Simulator 2000 incorporates nearly every airport and published navigational aid in the entire world. FS2000 has two "switches" - Flatten and Exclude - that can be used in the Scenery.cfg file (located in the main FS2000 folder) to solve a great number of visual problems with backward-compatible/add-on scenery. The Flatten switch flattens a given four-sided area to a single specified elevation. The Exclude switch excludes the default Microsoft scenery (objects and/or navigational aids) in a given four-sided area from being displayed (or transmitted in the case of radio navigational aids). Both switches affect only scenery areas with a lower layer number than the scenery area they are added in. For example, if the switch is placed in layer 70, then only layers 69 and below will be affected. Switches are added to the end of a scenery area entry in the Scenery.cfg file using a text editor. Exclude and Flatten switches can both be added to the same Scenery area. ----------------------------- How to Use the Flatten Switch ----------------------------- The Flatten switch syntax is as follows: Flatten.X=Elevation,Latitude1,Longitude1,Latitude2,Longitude2,Latitude3,Longitude3,Latitude4,Longitude4 X is equal to a number between 0 and 9, but you must start with Flatten.0, then Flatten.1, and so on, up to Flatten.9. You are allowed a maximum of 10 Flatten switches per Scenery Area (thus the numbers 0-9). The Elevation is in feet above or below mean sea level (msl) and can be any number between -2000 and 99999. The Latitude and Longitude of points 1, 2, 3, and 4 must be entered in a clockwise or counter clockwise fashion about the four sided area such as: 1 +-------------+ 2 | | | | | | 4 +-------------+ 3 or 1 +-------------+ 4 | | | | | | 2 +-------------+ 3 and must be in the form of degrees and minutes. You do not need to add the * or ' symbols to indicate degrees and minutes, and the shape does not have to be a rectangle. Any four-sided shape will work. The maximum size of a flattened area is 90 degrees of longitude and 45 degrees of latitude. EXAMPLE: This example flattens two separate but adjacent regions inside the scenery area to an elevation of 1000' MSL. [Area.100] Group=Your Area ID=Your Area Title=Your Area Active=TRUE Layer=100 Local=C:\Your Area Flatten.0=1000,N45 30,W120,N45 30,W119 30,N45,W119 30,N45,W120 Flatten.1=1000,N45,W120,N45,W119 30, N44 30,W119 30,N44 30,W120 ----------------------------- How to Use the Exclude switch ----------------------------- The Exclude switch syntax is as follows: Exclude=North Latitude,West Longitude,South Latitude,East Longitude,category Exclusion happens only in a rectangular area such as: North Latitude +-------------+ | | West Longitude | |East Longitude | | +-------------+ South Latitude and must follow the form North Latitude, West Longitude, South Latitude, East Longitude. The Latitude and Longitude entries must be in the form of degrees and minutes. You do not need to add the * or ' symbols to indicate degrees and minutes. The category determines which default scenery type you choose to exclude in the defined area. There are 4 categories: objects - Excludes all default 3-dimensional buildings and objects as well as airports. vors - Excludes all default VOR and ILS navigational aids ndbs - Excludes all default NDB navigational aids. all - Excludes all default objects and navigational aids You can use 1 or more categories in an Exclude switch. The maximum size of an Exclude area is 90 degrees of longitude and 45 degrees of latitude. EXAMPLE: This example excludes all scenery types EXCEPT NDB navigational aids from a rectangular area. [Area.100] Group=Your Area ID=Your Area Title=Your Area Active=TRUE Layer=100 Local=C:\Your Area Exclude=N45 30,W120,N45,W119 30,objects,vors