RCU Forums - Windows 2000 and G2 ?

I agree, it's the series 30 and above Nvidia drivers, below is what I sent back to the support folks:

Mary,
Thanks for the help, but I’ve nailed it down to what sure looks like a video driver/RealFlight conflict. This isn’t cool, as I (as well as most of the world that runs games) use Nvidia products which have become the defacto standard, in my case a Gforce 2 Ultra. As you may probably know, this card is several generations old, but it is more than fast enough for this application. I originally thought that the problem was with Win 2K Service Pack #3, but it appears that I was mistaken. I made the classic mistake on any project, I changed more than one thing at a time; I also upgraded to the 30 series Detonator driver when I installed SP #3. That being said, I haven’t seen a video driver/application conflict like this since about 1999 or so; I specifically went to Nvidia products for stable drivers, and have tried to use WHQL certified drivers, which the 30 series is. Let me recap what I’ve done from the start of this process:

1. RealFlight G2 ver. 570 working, series 12 Nvidia driver.
2. Installed series 30 Nvidia driver.
3. Installed Win 2K SP #3.
4. Used machine, all working except for RealFlight.
5. Check the rest of my Sims/games/software apps, all are ok.

Now the fun begins…………………………………

6. Reinstall RealFlight with patches, no joy.
7. Start reading the message boards for the product, notice others having the same problem, no solutions, however.
8. Blow RealFlight away completely (all folders) and reinstall, no joy.
9. Uninstall SP #3 from Win 2k, and still no joy. This should have been a tip-off, but I hadn’t had a video driver conflict in soooooooo long, it didn’t register as a problem.
10. E-mail you folks with this problem (Knife Edge, too), which was responded to (Thank you !)
11. Reformat my machine and reload Win 2K, still using the 30 series driver. Also reload all the rest of the usual suspects (Norton Anti-Virus, Office suite, IE #6, etc.).
12. Purchase RF G2 USB update, installed same, still no joy.

At this point, I’m more than a little frustrated (walk AWAY from the machine……………………). Several days pass doing nothing but reading the product boards, and doing what comes naturally, fixing problems. FWIW, I’m an Engineering Specialist with Northrop/Grumman, and deal with problems like this on a daily basis. A memory gets triggered at work, and it gets confirmed on the message board: Video Drivers.

13. Now the hunt begins. I load up RF Deluxe, do the web upgrade, and it sees the I-controller, my attached joystick, and the parallel port TX interface. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……………………………………
14. Lets go back to the 40 series driver, since that’s Nvidia latest, and see what happens; same as #12.
15. Load up 30 series driver for a sanity check, same as #12.
16. Now, lets do the RF G2 Upgrade, and we’re back to no joysticks, period, with the 30 series driver.
17. Load the 40 series driver, no joy.
18. Load the 20 series driver, and I’m back to seeing a joystick (I-controller), but can’t start the program; am informed that the drivers for the controller aren’t installed (no kidding). This is G2 latest version, by the way.
19. Install the USB upgrade disk with the 20 series drivers, and all is well with the world (finally).
20. Sanity check, the 30 and 40 series Nvidia drivers still send RF G2 USB out into la-la land, all other programs work just fine, thanks for asking.
21. Load up the series 20 Nvidia drivers, RF G2 USB is happy, along with everything else in the machine.

Conclusions:

1. RF Deluxe and all three add-on disks are driver agnostic, i.e. work with all versions of the Nvidia drivers.
2. RF G2 is one unhappy camper with anything later than the 20 series Nvidia drivers. This is less than amusing since there is a 5-10% performance increase in the later series drivers as evidenced by the frame counter.
3. You folks are going to be answering a bunch of questions in the near future from customers who upgrade to a Gforce 3 or 4 video card that come supplied with the series 30 or above drivers on the installation CD. If the card comes with 20 series, you’ll skate for a while. However, as soon as the upgrade cycle begins………………………………
4. If you were a vendor to my company, and a problem of this type reared it’s ugly head with the supplied product, you’d be getting a bill for about $2000 worth of engineering investigation/troubleshooting time. We charge $100 an hour (and that’s cheap!); I’ve easily blown 20 hours sorting this out. When can I expect payment ? :) :) :)

Pass this along to the customer service folks, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’ll need it. Again, thanks for the reply and the suggestions, it gave me someplace to start. Any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at [email protected]; take care,

Larry V.

-----Original Message-----
From: RealFlight Tech Support [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2002 11:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: FW: Realflight G2 w/USB Controller

Hi Larry,
I have reviewed your problem description and the attempts we've made thus far to provide you with a solution. I regret that our efforts have not yet been successful. Since your problem appears to be more complex than average, I offer the following recommendation: Please try calling our Software Support Line at (217) 398-8970 and we can address your problem in person. If you are concerned about the cost of the call, please email us a phone number where you can be reached and a time you can be reached at (during our normal business hours) and we will call you when we have a technician available to do so. Please note however that the customers holding on their own expense to talk to us must be answered first, so it may be as much as 3 to 5 business days before we are able to contact you, and as such exact call times cannot be promised, but we will make every effort to contact you as close to the time you specify as possible.

Again, I sincerely regret that we have not yet been able to provide you with a workable solution via e-mail. Troubleshooting through e-mail can be a fast and easy way to provide solutions to the most common problems user's encounter, but if the problem is complex or the cause cannot be easily identified, in many of those cases the best and fastest way to provide a solution is to address the problem with a Software Support Representative in person, in real time. We are sorry for the inconvenience you have experienced, and we sincerely desire to provide you with a solution as soon as possible.

We look forward to your call and to helping you in person.
PLEASE REMEMBER to attach all previous correspondence (and DXdiag information if previously requested) with our responses to any follow up e-mail you may send. This will allow us to better track our attempts to troubleshoot your problem. Unfortunately, due to the volume of e-mail we receive, we are unable to save or remember e-mail messages once we have sent a response.

Sincerely,
Mary
Product Support
Great Planes Model Distributors

From: Larry R Viola
Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2002 1:19 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RealFlight G2 w/USB Controller

Sirs,
I'm about out of ideas on how to get this blasted product to work; it all started when I updated Win 2K to the SP #3, and now regardless of what I do, it flat wont find the TX adapter, which worked just fine under SP #2, thank you. This is the ONLY app that won't work with SP #3, by the way. I have many other flight Sims (Janes, Novalogic, et. al.) that work just fine with SP #3, and they recognize the I-Link controller. So, I spent $80 to get the I-link controller and S/W, and guess what, RealFlight WONT FIND THE I-LINK, EITHER ! I've blown the install away (twice) and re-loaded all the disks, no help. Before I started the program up, I connected to the RF web site and got all the updates, then started the program, no help. I've re-loaded Win 2K, then loaded the RF S/W as above, no help. I did the S/W load before putting Norton’s Anti-virus, Adaptec Direct CD/CD Creator on, etc; it was a pristine Win 2K load. I absolutely do not want to re-load Win 2K again, as it is a royal pain in the drain to get the machine set up with all the above software. I also do not want to go back to SP #2, as there are some security/networking/compatibility updates that I want on the machine. Besides, why should I not have the latest and greatest on the machine; because one (rather expensive) app won't run ? I think not. I haven’t had this much trouble since Win 95a and the Walt Disney World Explorer CD that my wife used to kill Win 95a (repeatedly)…………………… but I digress. It’s almost 1:00 AM and I’ve been fighting this thing since about 4:00 PM yesterday, and I’ve about had it with Windows, this Sim, and computers in general (yeah, I’m frustrated). When it works, it’s wonderful, but it shouldn’t be this kind of a pain in the drain to get working. Below are a couple of screen shots showing the controller is functional:

The whole world can see the I-Link, why can’t the fritzen program ? HELP ! Any ideas will be appreciated…………………….. Thanks. LRV