I do, too. On Sunday I flew the -800 from SLC to SFO. I use random settings in Simbrief so I don’t always have the same payloads, etc. For this flight, Simbrief showed me a heavy aircraft: 183 pax, and just twelve hundred pounds under MZFW. GSX loaded like 196 or something per the on-screen status messages. Clearly some kind of disconnect between how much weight Simbrief is allocating per passenger and what GSX thinks.
Weird. It should be synchronised. Maybe something in the GSX settings? I will check later on today and will share my settings.
There are several reasons why the PMDG appears not to sync the passenger number correctly:
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You used a custom airplane profile in Simbrief that has specified a weight per passenger different than the PMDG default. If GSX detects this, it will switch to a “by ZFW” calculation, which of course is the more important factor, with the side effect the passenger number won’t match between GSX and PMDG. Clearly, between having a “wrong” passenger number (which is just cosmetic) and a wrong ZFW (which affects flight dynamics), it’s best to give priority to ZFW IF you decided to set a different passenger weight than the default. The manual explains all of this, at Page 109 in the chapter dedicated to the PMDG integration, explaining the difference between setting “by passenger number” (if the profile is standard) or “by ZFW”, if it’s not.
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Your Simbrief flight plan hasn’t been loaded or the airplane variant hasn’t been recognized. All of the above cases can be easily verified by checking the GSX log, if you enabled logging.
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You changed the cabin layout in the FMC during the flight (from two classes to single classes or vice-versa), even if in recent update, we verified this by checking the internal L: variable used by PMDG to control that, if you change the layout in a session, you must be sure you regenerate the flight plan on Simbrief with the changed cabin config AND restart GSX too and reload the flightplan.
Wow! So you mean that it will be possible to see passangers inside the cabin?? That would be great!
Regarding Simbrief I agree, there is as of today really no alternative. Until MS/Asobo implements a better flight planner directly into the sim itself, we probably have to continue to use Simbrief. It is now so widely adopted by all the aircraft makers so it will probably live for a long time.
Same thing is true for GSX, you see integration with it in several aircraft, also an indicator of that GSX will probably have a long life time unless of course MS/Asobo change everything by implementing something similar directly into the sim but they seem to be more focused on carrier mode and missions so they maybe don’t have the time to develop such things?
Yes, it was announced almost a year ago. Glad they still working on this, it’s been so quiet I thought they cancelled it.
Welp, I tried several loading the same basic flight plan several times today in the PMDG 737-800. I manually specified 183 passengers in Simbrief before generating the flight plan. Loading into the aircraft, starting up GSX and requesting boarding, each time GSX tries to load 175 passengers.
I generated the flight plan twice, once using the Simbrief default PMDG single-class configuration, and one using the MSFS-specific profile (available on Flightsim.to from user “Awemeter”). Same results both times, and same result whether I selected “Estimate passengers” in the GSX Settings or left it unchecked.
Since I don’t know how GSX actually interfaces with Simbrief, I don’t know if GSX parses the OFP or if it gets the specified passenger number directly. If it parses the OFP, perhaps because I use the Southwest format, which does not include passenger numbers, it just drops back to estimating?
Use simbrief profile for PMDG 737-800 made by Awemeter. You probably used one with non standard passenger weight. GSX assumes it’s 190 lbs (86.2 kg), if it’s different GSX calculates passenger numbers to match ZFW. More on page 109 of the manual.
As I’ve stated twice (three times now) that is the profile I’m using. In fact, I stated that in the post to which you replied.
■■■■. I read your post twice to see if you mentioned the profile you are using and didn’t see it!
edit: check again your simbrief profile if passenger weights are correct. I just tried it and GSX enters into FMC the same number of passengers as simbrief says:
Pax number automatically generated by simbrief
Manually entered 184 paxes into simbrief flight plan.
How long should I expect to have to wait for “Your account is still awaiting admin approval” on the FSDT forum?
Edit: Thanks for letting me in. 
Okay, following up on this, I think I figured out why GSX always wants to load some different number of passengers than I have listed on my Simbrief flight plan. It has to do with the procedure I’ve been using. Basically, what I have generally been doing since at least last winter when Simbrief route/weather integration was added to the EFB app in the PMDG 737 lineup is this:
- Power up the aircraft (I start from C&D)
- Start IRS alignment
- Open the EFB app on the tablet and download my Simbrief plan
- Go to the FMC and do a POS INIT
- Go to the RTE page of the FMC, enter the Company Route field (e.g., KSLCKSFO):
- Select the Simbrief route I just downloaded using the EFB:
7. Set Payload in the FMC using Simbrief data:
- Set Fuel in the FMC using Simbrief data
- Call GSX to Request Boarding
I believed GSX would use the information set by the above process to simulate loading the same number of passengers after I used the FMC to set Payload using the Simbrief data accessed by the EFB, but it does not.
The way to get it to respect the specific number of passengers set in Simbrief is to skip step 7 above, and instead jump straight to step 9: Request Boarding through GSX at this point.
Further, as I discovered in attempting to replicate my finding, it’s best to have “Ignore Time” checked next to your Simbrief username, because by the time I quit my test flight and restarted it to confirm the results, enough time had elapsed that GSX threw an error into the Couatl.log file (not displayed on screen) that my plan time was invalid. So all my subsequent attempts showed GSX attempting to load 213 people into my 737-800 per its internal estimate. Even more further, in these tests, GSX never changed the Payload page on the second FMC. It simply started simulating loading pax and bags but not changing the aircraft payload weight.
However, once I checked the box to ignore time and tried yet another test (about my 5th or 6th in a row using the same Simbrief plan), then GSX properly loaded the payload page of the second FMC and did in fact then begin simulating the correct number of passengers specified in my Simbrief plan.
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Yeah, I’ve never used “Set payload” and “Set fuel”. It’s useful when GSX is not used for refuelling and boarding.
But also note the bit about “Ignore Time” - if you try to use a Simbrief plan that GSX considers too old, it’ll default to its internal estimation again, without displaying any on-screen error message (I found it in the .log file, AFTER I enabled logging in the Troubleshooting page of the GSX Settings). And it further does not actually load the Payload page in the FMC. So that might bite people who don’t realize it.
I turned that off the moment it came to the GSX settings. But it’s great that you did that investigation and shared the results as it can be a guide for some other people trying to figure this out.
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Well, it still seems to me - and maybe I’m just an idiot for thinking so - that if you’ve already set the payload values in the FMC, either manually or via the SET PAYLOAD screen in the FMC during route loading, that GSX should respect the value that’s already been input into the FMC when it generates the crowd of randos to walk into the aircraft. If the FMC has 124, then GSX should display “xx of 124” during the progress updates, and a total of 124 figures should walk in. If it says 184, then we should see “xx of 184”, and 184 figures should walk in. Etc.
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How will GSX know those values that have been set in the aircraft?
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How does it know how to access anything else in the aircraft? Through the PMDG SDK. If that value is not available, why not default to using the actual numbers of passengers already included in the Simbrief data?
Because if you have non standard passenger weight in airframe profile ZFW of your plane will be different to what Simbrief calculated. I show you two videos where GSX loads passengers correctly. Sort out your simbrief profile and GSX will work as you wish.
This is now the FOURTH time I’ve mentioned it, but since you keep bringing it up: I am using the correct Simbrief airframe profiles for the PMDG 737 lineup. They all specify 190 pounds per passenger, plus 50 pounds of baggage.
If you would take time to read what I’m writing, you’ll see what the issue is: GSX does NOT respect the Simbrief profile passenger number if you do not use GSX’s own functionality to request boarding initially. If you use PMDG’s own integrated functionality as shown in my screenshots in an earlier post, GSX simply ignores your SImbrief data and guesstimates (incorrectly) passenger numbers. Worse, in a heavily loaded aircraft, it comes up with flatly impossible numbers (213 passengers for an -800, for instance).
Apologies, I wrongly assumed you know how to use GSX but apparently was wrong. If you don’t use GSX own menu to request boarding and expect miracles, then I have nothing else to say. EOT.