Newbie graphics question

[Jones0610]

Installed FG V3.4 on Ubuntu 16.10. This is a fairly high end machine. ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Formula Mobo, Quad core CPU, 64 GB RAM, 27" HD monitor. FG installed fine and more or less runs ok.

In the first lesson of the tutorial, it shows how to adjust the engine throttle. However, the tach is out of view, below the bottom of the screen. I have no dedicated graphics card installed. I'm running the graphics off of the Skylake CPU Z170 chipset.

In the second lesson it shows how to adjust the altimeter. But after starting to perform the adjustment the software complains that I didn't do it fast enough and again puts the altimeter gauge out of view.

Now, since adjusting the throttle and altimeter are done on the ground I should be given all the time in the world to perform these actions, right? Especially in a tutorial!

I don't want to invest a lot of time in trying to figure out how to get this software to work just in case it's really too buggy to fool with. But I don't see huge numbers of people complaining so for the moment I will assume that it's "pilot error" or something lacking in my PC configuration.

I'm actually planning on taking a pilot training course and wanted to at least get past the sim stage before forking over $8k for the school. Any tips/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

[elgaton]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

My suggestion would be to uninstall FG 3.4, add the Ubuntu FlightGear PPA and install it again. (The default C172P was reworked during the last years - if memory serves me right, the new version should not be affected by the problem you described; if it's still so, I'll submit a bug report to the authors).

[Jones0610]

Thanks very much for the quick response and for your hospitality Eleton. That fixed it!
I had actually done more research after posting this and added that repo and did an update. But went to bed before seeing if that helped. To be safe I removed and reinstalled FlightGear as you suggested and it seems to work fine now.
I've seen a LOT of highly negative reviews on this software and this could be one of the reasons. The Ubuntu Team, which is usually five stars, apparently has some old, whacky version of FG in their OOB distribution. This must be causing you guys a lot of work.
A last question: The speech generator is truly awful. This may well be beyond the scope of this project and I haven't looked around for solutions yet. But you can save me some work by either steering me in the right direction to improve the speech or confirming that it is what it is.
I'm much obliged for your help. Looking forward to learning how to fly.

[sanhozay]

The speech generator is truly awful..

Don't forget that Flightear is GPL and the speech synthesis library and voices must be compatible. Free voices are few and far between, but if you can find more, please feel free to test them with Flightgear and ask for them to be integrated.

Flite+HTS

Having said that, someone running Debian did have a problem of substandard speech synthesis.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=30954

Maybe you could make a short recording of an ATIS broadcast and post a link to link to it to see if it's normal?

[elgaton]

You're welcome!

The Ubuntu Team, which is usually five stars, apparently has some old, whacky version of FG in their OOB distribution.

It seems strange to me since Ubuntu 16.10 should ship with FlightGear 2016.2 (which should include the C172 improvements I mentioned in my previous post).

In any case, I personally recommend installing FlightGear from the PPA. Since Ubuntu focuses on stability by design, the software you get is never updated to the latest version as it becomes available: after a distribution release is made, you get only bug/security fixes unless you upgrade Ubuntu (limited exceptions are made for programs in need of frequent security updates, such as Web browsers). This means you won't get FlightGear 2017 (and later) from the default repositories unless you install it from the PPA.

A last question: The speech generator is truly awful.

Do you hear multiple messages overlapping? In that case, the bug is known (the fix should be available in the next FlightGear version, 2017.3).

[Jones0610]

I actually prefer the conservative release model offered by Ubuntu LTS so not being on the bleeding edge release cycle is fine with me. However, the OOB Flightgear in the Ubunbtu software folder is V 3.4 with a copyright of 2015. So this means that anyone installing FG the way I did will have the same problem. Since I have no cred with the Ubuntu Team there is no way I can resolve that. In any case, the new install from the source PPA repo is a massive improvement compared to what I had.
@sanhozay I'll look at the thread and I don't believe I have rights to attach files on this forum yet. However, suffice it to say that the speech is quite unintelligible, as in worthless to me. I can probably get around this and I'll look around to see what other free speech stuff is available.
Much obliged for the help!

[elgaton]

I'll look at the thread and I don't believe I have rights to attach files on this forum yet.

There is no way to attach files here as this would require a substantial quantity of disk space, which would increase the server hosting costs. You can use Dropbox/OneDrive or a third-party file sharing site.

[Jones0610]

Understood and I appreciate the storage issue. Tried to listen to the audio sample links but they have expired.... the down side of using some of the cloud storage services.

Another question, probably not worthy of opening a new thread: The simulator response is VERY slow.... tried the taxi tutorial and operating the throttle with PgUp/Dwn is EXTREMELY slow to respond and there is a looooong lag...often so long that there is no reaction at all. I'm on a very high end computer as I mentioned so I doubt this is due to any resource issue. I am using a high end G.Skill USB Cherry MX blue keyboard. No joystick.

I don't know how to fly IRL but when I finally got the Cessna to move it was impossible to steer sanely. I was all over the tarmak and of course crashed. My expectation is that you can taxi this sim the same as you would a real plane.... slow but responsive throttle control... one depression of PgUp would increase the RPM by some small amount as soon as it's pushed. Instead you have to push it numerous times to get it to react at all and when it does the throttle goes redline. Ditto for the rudder control.

In the first tutorial I can work the throttle with the mouse wheel and it is very responsive as you would expect. So I'm obviously suspicious of the kybd although it has been working flawlessly for months for all other operations.

Any thoughts on what might be causing this?