[Closed] Time inaccuracy on long flights

[advancedcapfs04]

Hi,

Just a quick wuestion to try and get the "411" as it were on an issue I've noticed on all flights with FSPassengers,
particularly long ones.

I find that FSPassengers counts time too slow. Today for example I took off from Madrid at 13:15 real time and now it is
11:32pm real time, I have not sped up the flight or anything, but FSPassengers says that I have been airborne for 8hrs and 57
minutes, which is over 1 hour shorter than the flight has actually been going. As a result of this FSPassengers also feeds
back an inaccurate (too high) average ground speed, at the moment it says the average is 451kts but it has not even been over
that once, and has averaged 390kts so far given the en-route headwinds. Oh yes an edit here the destination is Denver CO and
we are just getting there, will be starting descent soon.

My question is, is there an explanation why FSP counts time too slowly? It only becomes noticable on longer flights. I also
have a time logger with
FSACARS which I used on my virtual airline. That counts flight time correctly however, and puts this flight's time at 10:10
minutes airborne so far,
which is definately correct as I remember it being 13:15 when I took off!

I can't be the only one who's noticed this can I? Sorry if I've wasted time by bringing up an obvious issue but it's
bamboozled me for some time.

If you think about it my 5,400hrs flight time should really be more like 6,000hrs given all the missed hours FSP has
mis-calculated!



Post Edited ( 09-09-08 00:41 )

[advancedcapfs04]

Does anybody care to answer?

[andrei91]

Well you play Flight Simulator because you like planes and flying no? So why do you care about some hours minus in your FsP registry?

[poden]

I haven't noticed that before, but then I've never checked for it. FSP does have some bugs related to time though.

[Cydon Prax]

You must also consider the difference in real time to FS time. In reality, we can measure time down to trillionths of a second. In flight sim,
it's more like 5-20 freames or instances per second. Reality has no instances.

Due to this, we get a much slower rate of time in FS. (Picture a PMDG 744 approaching LAX with frames at about 5-10, then add in all the
screen changes and other things which pause the simulation momentarily. A real life 5 minute landing can quickly be turned into an FS 7-
10 minute landing due to the delay of the sim.) On an five hour flight in FS, the same conversion can turn to a 7 hour flight in reality.

Ofcourse, if your PC/Laptop isn't suffering from FPS lower than 20; then it might do you good to compare FSPax time to FS logged time
when your flight is done. If there is an hour discrepency, then you know your problem is real.

[poden]

Cydon Prax wrote:
You must also consider the difference in real time to FS time. In reality, we can measure time down to trillionths of a second. In flight sim,
it's more like 5-20 freames or instances per second. Reality has no instances.

Due to this, we get a much slower rate of time in FS. (Picture a PMDG 744 approaching LAX with frames at about 5-10, then add in all the
screen changes and other things which pause the simulation momentarily. A real life 5 minute landing can quickly be turned into an FS 7-
10 minute landing due to the delay of the sim.) On an five hour flight in FS, the same conversion can turn to a 7 hour flight in reality.

Ofcourse, if your PC/Laptop isn't suffering from FPS lower than 20; then it might do you good to compare FSPax time to FS logged time
when your flight is done. If there is an hour discrepency, then you know your problem is real.

That makes perfect sense. At normal 1x time rate, the sim will lag clock time due to pauses, etc. I hour longer for an eight hour flight might be
about right; I'm sure it can vary a fair amount too.

[xhado13]

Cydon Prax wrote:
You must also consider the difference in real time to FS time. In reality, we can measure time down to trillionths of a second. In flight sim,
it's more like 5-20 freames or instances per second. Reality has no instances.

Due to this, we get a much slower rate of time in FS. (Picture a PMDG 744 approaching LAX with frames at about 5-10, then add in all the
screen changes and other things which pause the simulation momentarily. A real life 5 minute landing can quickly be turned into an FS 7-
10 minute landing due to the delay of the sim.) On an five hour flight in FS, the same conversion can turn to a 7 hour flight in reality.

Ofcourse, if your PC/Laptop isn't suffering from FPS lower than 20; then it might do you good to compare FSPax time to FS logged time
when your flight is done. If there is an hour discrepency, then you know your problem is real.

Agreed. It's not just FSP, happens on all aircraft with a timer. I usually set my time on FS to about 5-7 minutes ahead of real time, and almost
everytime I land about 2-3 minutes within the timed range (depending on the length of flight, it's not always perfect) and sometimes I even land in
the correct minute.

[PaulAH]

Try using FSRealTime. It corrects for a known temporal bug in FS.

[xhado13]

PaulAH wrote:
Try using FSRealTime. It corrects for a known temporal bug in FS.

Thats right, I've heard about that. Ill give it a try, thanks Paul.

[advancedcapfs04]

andrei91 wrote:
Well you play Flight Simulator because you like planes and flying no?

It goes without saying. So much so I even invented my own types of plane on FS2004 but I'm hopeless at creating visual models.

andrei91 wrote:

So why do you care about some hours minus in your FsP registry?

I don't. Notice the exclamation mark at the end of my comment, I was jesting. As if I really care how many hours I've got on FS2004. Though if it measured time "Normally " it would be more representative of the real time the sim was running.

Something about a time bug in FS2004 does ring a bell with me, perhaps this is it. An example I can give now is that I am flying a flight with Delta
Virtual at the moment, and the ACARS program says I have been flying 4:04 hours/minutes. FSP says 3hr 23 minutes. If FSP is simply in synch with the
FS2004 (which without use of increased simulation rate should be real time) then I know it's the FS2004 bug. DVA ACARS is extrenal but detects the
takeoff, and measure things about the flight from outside the simulator. It counts real time, and it's correct because the time is now 21:04 here and
I took off at 17:04. According to FS2004/FSPassengers though I would have taken off at 17:45.



Post Edited ( 09-16-08 22:10 )

[StevieViper]

Isnt there an option in FSUIPC which syncs the counter of FS Time to the Real Time?

[xhado13]

StevieViper wrote:
Isnt there an option in FSUIPC which syncs the counter of FS Time to the Real Time?

Probably on the registered version though?

[StevieViper]

Yeah, that's possible. My version is full registered. Can someone with an unregistered Version control if there is an option "Keep FS sync to Real time"? The
FSUIPC-Manual says this about FS Time:

"- Keep FS clock synchronised to real time: This facility, kindly donated by José Oliveira, compensates for the odd phenomenon of FS2002 losing time. It just
synchronises the seconds values with that of your PC‘s system clock. Provided you always keep to the normal 1x simulation speed this should stop FS time
running slower and slower compared to real time (or, rather, PC time, which may not be quite the same as real time either). At other than 1x simulation speeds
the facility is temporarily disabled to avoid odd things happening on the FS clock."

I use this option, but my flights are rather short, max 1 - 2 hours and i don't stop the times. Perhaps i can get time for a time stopping session.

Stevie