I couldn't agree more! Fantastic work Tim! You're a freaking genius!

You should introduce a paid version sometime down the road, perhaps when MS Flight becomes available assuming it still supports SimConnect or whatever the SDK is called.

It would be nice to have an indicator on the status bar that told us when Plan-G was redrawing and when it was finished.

The test app works for me aswell.

Tom. Are you sure that you have installed the latest drivers for your video card?  ;D

Sorry. Couldn't resist!

Perhaps you are using a non-Aero or basic / high contrast Windows Theme as opposed to the out of the box one?

I reported the same problem aswell. Additionally, I can't size P-G's window by dragging the right or bottom borders.

Win 7 x64. ATI 5850. Everything up to date. If you exit FSX, Windows reverts to Aero mode and P-G's controls work again.

You may want to include a little bit of information about the PC you're running this on.

P-G speed is related to a number of things including your processor speed, number of cores and memory, the zoom level you are using in P-G (the further you zoom out, the more objects like airports, VORs and NDBs have to be displayed) and your internet connection to google maps.

What kind of processor do you have and how much memory is installed? What version of FS are you running? Is it sluggish when P-G is the only program open? What version of Windows are you using? What type of Internet connection do you have? How well does Google maps work with your system using your regular web browser?

For your second point, I suspect it would help Tim if you indicated what type of PC you are using. (Processor, memory, Windows version)

If you have the map zoomed out and there are lots of items for p-g to display (airports, VORs, NDBs etc) then things can get a bit sluggish whenever p-g has to repaint the display.

Also, by default, p-g updates your aircraft's position every 5 seconds (I think)

The tool window sizes and locations not being remembered on my copy of p-g.

I have AlwaysOnTop turned off if that makes a difference.

Plan-G Version 2.0.2.481
FSX Acceleration

I have confirmed that I have the latest drivers. I suspect / hope that there may be an update available soon as FSX does some weird and wonderful things if I overlap an IExplorer window over top of it. After the overlap, the dialogs that FSX displays (like the save flight (;) dialog for example) are partially obscured by a "chunk" of the intrument panel so it appears that there is something weird going on under the hood.

It's not a big deal as I can use the File menu to exit and right-click on the control box (top left corner of a window) to min/max/restore.

I just wanted to report it in case it had anything to do with the new version of p-g.

I updated to the latest version of ATI's Catalyst but am not sure the actual drivers were updated. The HP update system indicates there are no updates available for the graphics card.

The machine is brand new and I believe it was manufactured in the last 6 months.

I will continue to investigate.

This may have something to do with my new laptop (HP Envy 17, Core I7, ATI 5850, Win 7 x64) but the minimize, restore, maximize and close buttons in Plan-G's title bar don't work after FSX disables Win 7's Aero. I also can't resize the Plan-G window by dragging the right hand side of it. These problems go away when I close FSX and Win 7 switches back to Aero.

Plan-G Version 2.0.2.481
FSX Acceleration

Installing the acceleration pack did the trick. I wasn't paying close enough attention when I installed FSX Gold... I forgot about the Acceleration pack.

I wonder if it would be useful for Plan-G to detect that SP2 or Acceleration are missing and display a warning when trying to connect to FS.

No. Not yet. I was planning on doing that soon.

Just installed FSX Deluxe and PlanG 2.0.1.474 on a new Win 7 x64 laptop.

Installed PlanG to C:\Utils\PlanG

Saved and restored my PlanG Data directory.

PlanG loads but will not connect to FSX. I'm using PlanG's default FS connection settings.

Here's the relevent log entries:

09:54:43.4 RibbonButton_Click_ConnectFS
09:54:43.4 SimConnect.Connect
09:54:43.4 SimConnect.Connect - Remote. Mode = IPv4 Server = localhost Port = 0
09:54:43.4 SimConnect Connect failed: BeatlesBlog.SimConnect.SimConnect+SimConnectException: Open: iPort value is invalid
   at BeatlesBlog.SimConnect.SimConnect.Open(String strAppName, String strHostName, Int32 iPort, Boolean bIsIPV6)
   at FS._SimConnect.Connect()
09:54:43.4 FSUIPC.Connect
09:54:44.0 Error opening FSUIPC: FSUIPC.FSUIPCException: FSUIPC Error #14: FSUIPC_ERR_RUNNING. FSUIPC is not running.
   at FSUIPC.FSUIPCConnection.Open(FlightSim RequiredFlightSimVersion)
   at FS.FSUIPC.Connect()

Awesome!

It would be cool to be able to launch an external web browser to display Google maps with your aircraft location centred. You could then use street view to explore your destination.

You could also have an option to launch directly at street level at the closest available street view location.

Unless you can do something similar already.