PMDG 747-400X FAQ

From PMDG Ops

Contents

Installation

FS9 updater

As we developed the PMDG 747-400X, we found that many of the fixes and optimizations that were designed into the FSX version of this software would also benefit the FS9 version that many of you already own. Since we want to provide you with as much value as possible for your purchase price, we decided to build an update to your FS9 747-400 Queen of the Skies so that you can benefit from the optimization and changes we made even if you elect to fly your FS9 platform occasionally!

When you run the PMDG 747-400X installer, you will have the option to install a COMPLETE installation, or a CUSTOM installation. If you select COMPLETE installation, you will notice that a second installer launches near the end of the FSX installation process. This installer is the FS9 747-400 Queen of the Skies updater, and it will bring your FS9 version up to the most current standard.

You can prevent this installer from launching by selecting a CUSTOM installation, and de-selecting it from the list presented If you wish to run this installer later, you should re-run the PMDG 747-400X installer, select CUSTOM and re-select this option. The installer will then drop the file into your FSX/PMDG directory and you can run the updater manually.

Please note that the FS9 PMDG 747-400 Queen of the Skies updater will require you to validate your ownership of the PMDG 747-400X, as it is a requirement of ownership.

Also please note that most of the new features contained in the FSX PMDG 747-400X are not available within FS9, as they are based upon behaviors that are native to FSX that are not possible within FS9. Please see the README file displayed by the installer for more details.

Avira AntiVir reports a TR/PSW.Online.BX.15 trojan virus in PMDG_SimConnect_Ldr.dll

This is a FALSE POSITIVE. We scan all of our files with commercial grade payware Antivirus software and we are quite sure our files are clean. Ignore the warning.

Error Number: 0x800C0005 during install

Before delving deeper into registry setting tweaks and the like, make sure that if you are running Windows Vista, you run the setup installer AS ADMINISTRATOR (right-click on it and "Run as Administrator" should suffice).

If that doesn't work:

Information from Microsoft:

This behavior may occur if certain dynamic-link library files (.dll files) are not registered correctly or if there is a firewall between the computer and the Internet that does not allow HTTPS (SSL) connections. RESOLUTION

To resolve this behavior, use the regsvr32 command to reregister several .dll files:

  1. Click Start, click Run (or just type into the search bar in Vista), type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
  2. At the command prompt, type the following commands. Press ENTER after each line:
    regsvr32 Softpub.dll
    regsvr32 Wintrust.dll
    regsvr32 Initpki.dll
  3. Click OK.
  4. Restart your computer.

Some have reported that simply re-registering the MSXML3.DLL seems to fix the problem.

  1. Click Start.
  2. Choose Run.
  3. In the Run box, type:
    regsvr32 MSXML3.DLL
  4. Press okay

If that hasn't helped you may need to re-registered some more files:

  1. Click Start.
  2. Choose Run.
  3. In the Run box, type (pressing okay after each one) :-
    net stop wuauserv
    regsvr32 wuapi.dll
    regsvr32 wups.dll
    regsvr32 wuaueng.dll
    regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll
    regsvr32 wucltui.dll
    regsvr32 wuweb.dll
    regsvr32 MSXML3.dll
    regsvr32 qmgr.dll
    regsvr32 qmgrprxy.dll
    regsvr32 jscript.dll
    net start wuauserv

What are all these dialog popups I see after running FSX?

These are perfectly normal and are part of Microsoft’s new software signature checking system. After installing the PMDG 747-400X, you will see three pop-up alerts asking if you wish to run dlls that are signed by PMDG. These are the PMDG modules files. You will then see four more when you actually load the PMDG 747-400X aircraft for the first time. These are the gauges. Just select ok/allow for all of them and everything will work.

If you select NO to any of them your PMDG product will not work and you may be required to uninstall the PMDG 747-400X and re-install in order to use this product.

I see a blank bitmap with no gauges loaded when running the PMDG 747-400X for the first time

This can happen when SimConnect fails to properly load all the gauges in a fast enough sequence (due to having to click on all the popup gauge/module validations). Simply close and restart FSX and all everything should work.

How to fix corrupted gauge/module dll validations (ADVANCED USERS ONLY!)

When the first run gauge and module pop-ups are clicked through, they actually add entries to two FSX configuration files – fsx.cfg and dll.xml, both found in 

<drive>\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX

under Windows XP.

Under normal circumstances there should be no problems, however if you do need to “clean out” these files, here’s how:

fsx.cfg

Simply delete the entire [Trusted] section of the cfg. Everything will be rebuilt automatically the next time you run FSX.

dll.xml

The PMDG 747-400X places the following three entries in your DLL.XML file. These entries should be located above the last line of the DLL.XML file, and should not be located at the top of the file ahead of the file headers. 

 <Launch.Addon>
   <Name>PMDG Options</Name>
   <Disabled>False</Disabled>
   <Path>PMDG\DLLs\PMDGOptions.dll</Path>
 </Launch.Addon>
 <Launch.Addon>
   <Name>PMDG Events</Name>
   <Disabled>False</Disabled>
   <Path>PMDG\DLLs\PMDGEvents.dll</Path>
 </Launch.Addon>
 <Launch.Addon>
   <Name>PMDG Sounds</Name>
   <Disabled>False</Disabled>
   <Path>PMDG\DLLs\PMDGSounds.dll</Path>
 </Launch.Addon>

If your DLL.XML is missing these entries, or if the entries appear outside of the <SimBase.Document> tag, or at the very top or bottom of the file then please read how to fix your DLL.XML file.

Recommended tweaks and settings

Settings

There are a few settings under the graphics settings within FSX that we have found can have a very serious negative impact on performance. These items are known to Microsoft, and while some effort has been made to mitigate their impact with SP1 and a future SP2, they are still problematic in our experience.

Advanced Animations

You MUST select this option ON when using the PMDG 747-400X. If you do not select this option to ON, your 747-400 will not have leading edge devices, the wings will not flex, the landing gear will not animate properly, and many other visual aspects of the 747 will not be present. If the 747-400 appears to be missing pieces, CHECK THIS SETTING. It is most likely the culprit.

Autogen Density

We strongly encourage you to leave this at SPARSE. Settings higher than sparse have a tendency to erode performance over long periods of time.

Vehicle Road Traffic

This is one of the neater items added to FSX, but our experience has been that for those flying higher than VFR altitudes, road vehicle traffic has a tendency to soak up massive amounts of computer resources. For example, we have found that at certain airports surrounded by highways, FPS can drop into low single digits if the vehicle road traffic is set too high. We recommend you experiment with your system, but if you aren’t entirely interested in road vehicle traffic, turn this item off for best results.

Aircraft Casts Shadows on Self

This is a VERY processor intensive option, and we recommend leaving this off for most all users. The shading makes for some fantastic screen-shots, but if you are planning to fly in and out of high density scenery, this option will rob you of much needed computing resources!

Water Effects

FSX has some very nice animated water effects that were not present in FS9. Many users are tempted to crank this setting up, as the water effect is very attractive! This is another “discretionary setting,” however, so let's just face the fact that most 747-400's aren’t flown in low altitude VFR conditions. Setting the water animation to greater than 1.X Mid will sap some much needed resources from your machine. You will find this to be true even if you are flying over dry land because the simulation must make many additional drawing passes even for small rivers and lakes that might be almost invisible to you at altitudes above 10,000MSL. Experiment by turning this to various settings while sitting on the ground in the cockpit, and you will see why we recommend keeping this setting at a modest position.

Known Problems Within FSX

PMDG 747-400 fails to reload

FSX has a problem in the way it loads custom animations for the visual models. PMDG relies heavily on custom animations in order to do everything from flaps and slats to allowing users to de-select the winglets or open and close the cargo nose of the 747-400F. For this reason, the PMDG 747-400 is susceptible to a quirky fault within FSX that is generally relatively easy to avoid:

If you have selected a PMDG 747-400X, then re-enter the aircraft selection menu and select a PMDG 747-400X of the same engine type, you MIGHT trigger this quirky little bug in FSX, and the PMDG 747-400 will fail to load properly and be unflyable within the simulator. If this happens, simply close the sim and start over again.

We identified this failing to Microsoft but there simply wasn’t sufficient time for them to address the issue, although they were able to find the cause of the problem. Hopefully for a future update we will see a fix!

Sometimes it is not obvious that you have been bitten by this bug- so here are a few things that are SURE signs that it has happened:

  • The cockpit backlighting is ON and the displays are blank
  • The cockpit switches won’t animate correctly
  • The visual model appears rigid and is not animated correctly
  • There is smoke pouring from the engines and the model won’t animate.

This bug should rarely affect you- and can be avoided by one simple rule: Don’t reload the same engine type airplane. (You can switch between engine types with no problems.)

FSX crashes with an error in ati2vdag.dll

This is caused by the "Catalyst AI" feature of ATI’s drivers. Disable it in the driver control panel globally or in your application profile for FSX.

The aircraft model is a see through skeleton

This appears to be caused by an as of yet unknown file corruption problem within FSX. A full uninstall and reinstall of FSX and the 747-400X has fixed it for most who have reported the issue.

Here's how to accomplish the reinstall:

  1. Uninstall the PMDG 747-400X from the Control Panel. (Add/Remove Programs in XP or Programs and Features in Vista)
  2. Uninstall any other third party addons for FSX, if you don't do this it can corrupt their uninstallers when you delete their installed files later on.
  3. Uninstall FSX from the control panel along with any FSX updates or addons. (Acceleration, SP2 etc)
  4. Manually delete the FSX folder that remains on your hard drive after uninstalling. By default this is \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X
  5. Manually delete the FSX user data folder. In XP it's at \Documents and Settings\(Your User Name)\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX and in Vista it's at \Users\(Your User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX. Note that you will need "Show Hidden Files and Folders" checked in Windows Explorer's Folder Options in order to see these folders.
  6. Ensure you're running under an Administrator account. This is extremely important if you're using Vista.
  7. Reinstall FSX, run it, then install SP2 or the Acceleration expansion pack. Run the sim again.
  8. Reinstall the 747-400X and the latest update.
  9. Run FSX, answer yes/run to all the dll popups.
  10. Select the 747-400X and load it, answering yes to the gauge popups.
  11. Reinstall your other third party addons after verifying that the 747-400X is working.

This should solve the issue. If it doesn't please contact support for further troubleshooting.

Can't find PMDG dll files CTD

To clear up the problem, please try the following:

  1. Delete your dll.xml and fsx.cfg files. You need to locate your dll.xml file associated with FSX. In XP it's at \Documents and Settings\(Your User Name)\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX and in Vista it's at \Users\(Your User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX. Note that you will need "Show Hidden Files and Folders" checked in Windows Explorer's Folder Options in order to see these folders.
  2. Uninstall the PMDG 747-400X from the Control Panel. (Add/Remove Programs in XP or Programs and Features in Vista)
  3. Manually delete the PMDG folders that remains on your hard drive after uninstalling. By default these are at \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\PMDG and \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes Within the Airplanes folder, remove the PMDG747-400 and PMDG747-400F folders.
  4. Reinstall the 747-400X and the latest update.
  5. Run FSX, answer yes/run to all the dll popups.
  6. Select the 747-400X and load it, answering yes to the gauge popups.

This should solve the issue. If it doesn't please contact support for further troubleshooting.

General

Aircraft Operation

Please see the already existing PMDG 747-400 FS9 FAQ for issues concerning the operation of the aircraft. These will all still apply to the FSX version.

Navdata & SID/STAR

The 747-400X uses the same navdata files as the FS9 version. Richard Stefan/Navigraph's installer is already updated to work with the 400X, (there's a radio button to choose between FS9 and FSX) and sources like Terry's Planepath files or Dan Downs' custom files available at AVSIM should work just fine too.

One for sure way to do it is just copy over the files from your FS9 SIDSTAR folder after performing whatever update... Be aware though that the location of the AIRAC has changed for the FSX version - the files are now in: 

<FSX root folder>\PMDG\NavData

Change List

Producing the PMDG 747-400X has been a long process. It was anticipated that we would simply port the existing FS9 747-400 Queen of the Skies product into FSX and be finished within three months.

This process has taken eighteen months and represents a complete rebuild of the product from the inside out. The following is an incomplete list of things that have been changed, updated for FSX, added or tweaked:

  • Replaced the core of the simulation to use an event-driven, non polling FS connectivity mechanism (sim-connect) that removes the need for dependency upon external software such as FSUIPC. (Note to user: this was a 15 month enterprise...)
  • Replaced sound handling process to eliminate distortions on certain sound cards and improve performance
  • Changed all menus / options / dialogs to match FSX UI style
  • Improved AIRAC database loading code - performance increase / load time decreased to almost instant
  • Allowed user selectable optimization to show/hide VC F/O display gauges depending upon user preference.
  • Added user configurable selection for external Antennas on the visual models. (controlled by aircraft.cfg entry)
  • Implemented custom engine contrails and associated behaviors.
  • Implemented code to control wingtip and flap vapor vortexes in specific atmospheric conditions and wing configurations.
  • Increased flap animation control to provide a smoothness of 3000 key frames - no visible frame steps shown anymore
  • Improved takeoff trim display gauge clarity
  • Change in Lower EICAS ENG page automatic display logic (only when fuel set to CUTOFF in flight)
  • Correction in Spoiler handle position detection logic to improve response and correct control.
  • Optional use of FSUIPC for online flying when FSUIPC detected
  • GPWS code to allow disabling of specific altitudes depending on configuration
  • "Approaching Minimums" callout added
  • Fuel add/remove logic improved to allow user to directly type entry of fuel quantity in PMDG Options menu.
  • EICAS Target N1 / Ref N1 indications removed when in REV mode
  • Reversers logic altered to prevent REV lockout when NAI active.
  • Load Manager now handles payload / fuel directly when FSX / 747-400X loaded and running
  • Load Manager has option to remove VC model and panel (requires restart of FSX)
  • Modified Cost Index Equation: The equation is a differential equation solved by successive iterations. This is a very CPU intensive operation. The element of the numerical procedure has been optimized, yielding a factor of 5 speed up with minimal effect on result accuracy, thus reducing the required load on the CPU for the mathematics involved.
  • CDU Legs page - predicted Alt Improvements: Above / Below type (e.g. 6000A8000B) soft constraint both vertical flight path prediction and VNAV mode bug corrections and predictive improvements. Also UNABLE NEXT ALT message will appear in all cases referring to soft altitude constraints.
  • CDU N1 page - flight phase improvements: Regular thrust limit page (instead of TO limit page) will appear now below flap retraction altitude.
  • CDU Fix page - changes to RAD/DIS to be BRG/DIS
  • CDU Cruise page - change in step alt code: At 2R the last step altitude target would not appear when step climb was not possible. It does now above the NONE header.
  • FMC: Various small and large behavior corrections.
  • GA thrust limit will automatically be set now only if ToD is sequenced and flaps are out (or GS is captured as before)
  • Retuned the entire pitch channel of the autopilot to accommodate flight modeling changes within FSX. The This includes all related pitch modes (VS, FLCH etc). The main target was to improve mode stability even at high sim rates and in connection to idiosyncratic FSX "real" weather handling. The pitch channel in some places was enhanced with a secondary control routine to improve effectiveness in pitch sensitive roles such as glideslope tracking.
  • Modified air file related to new aerodynamic center definition for FSX
  • Various cosmetic changes to CDU display and text handling.
  • Adaptive refresh rate control for CRTs / LCDs based on target and actual frame rate (order is PFD, ND, EICAS, sby instruments)
  • Added Bump Map Textures to all 400/400F models.
  • Added additional fuselage detail to all 400/400F models.
  • Updated PMDG House Livery for FSX version.
  • External models rebuilt to take full advantage of new FSX features such as self shadowing, specular bloom, normal maps, vertex animation and more.
  • External and VC models rebuilt to take full advantage of FSX materials: allows for more realistic reflections, specular highlights and normal maps (bump maps)
  • Conversion of bitmaps to DDS: allows for faster loading times, and cleaner bitmaps with less compression artifacts.
  • Smoother animations: Used new FSX animation techniques to smooth out the model animations. This is especially noticeable with the landing gear extension/retraction sequence, and the deployment of the flaps.
  • Vertex animation: Wing flex and control surfaces now driven by a complex skeletal system, which allows for smooth bending and deformation without visible segments. Wings now flex smoothly and seamlessly, and the variable camber leading edge flaps are now a single piece which smoothly deforms as it extends. The wing structure including flaps and leading edge devices now bends fluidly reflecting the flex tendency of the materials from which the wing and devices are constructed.
  • Updated external lighting: You will notice higher quality lighting effects for the tail illumination of the logo lights. Navigation, position and strobe lights are brought up to FSX standards.
  • Updated all models to include the ability to display various external dorsal antenna configurations.
  • Virtual Cockpit fully compatible with FSX
  • Great care has been taken to bring the cockpit up to FSX standards and improve realism. Now present are self Illuminating (emissive bitmaps) during daylight hours. Indicator lights now illuminate properly in both day and night environments. Daytime backlighting is fully functional. Glass displays are bright and easy to read even if the aircraft is in shadow, or during dusk/dawn operations. (Use your display dimmers when transitioning between bright and dim lighting.) Together with normal maps (bump maps) and the cleaner compression of DDS bitmaps, these effects bring a higher level of clarity and realism to the cockpit.
  • Controls and animations updated to conform to FSX specifications.
  • Modified control and animations techniques used in the FSX VC's in order to reduce processor load on FSX.
  • Numerous performance optimizations of display and computational code to reduce processor load on FSX.
  • Various other assorted minor fixes along the way.
  • Improved wing flex and wing flight path distortion model.
  • Significant re-tuning of landing gear animation to accommodate changes in the way FSX handles ground contact.
  • Flap and wingtip vapor vortexes that appear in rain/snow conditions when appropriate.
  • Added engine and APU fire effect.
  • Added Fuel Dump effect.
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