Different folders for gauges

[Guest JollyRoger]

Hi fellow simmers!I noticed that some addon aircraft have their gauges in the main FS9Gauges folder and others in their own panel folder (i.e. FS9AircraftTomcatPanel).What's the difference?Does it change anything when I put the gauges of a specific plane in its panel folder insted of in the main gauges folder?Thanks for your answers.J.R.

[RFields5421 1]

No - it really does not change how THAT aircraft flies/ works.It does not even cause issues to split the gauges - like Microsoft does with the default FS2004 classic aircraft. For most of them the unique gauges for that aircraft are in the individual panel folder, but they all use other common gauges in the main gauge folder - the GPS for one.There are a lot of aircraft which use gauges from other aircraft packages - both freeware and payware. So if you go to move a guage from the main folder to an individual aircraft - be aware that you might mess up the panel in a third aircraft.Back when hard drives were expensive - people were concerned about wasting file space by having duplicates.That is less of an issue now, and I will also say it is much easier to move aircraft to a new computer when the gauges are in the panel folder.

[Guest JollyRoger]

Many many thanks for your great (and very fast) answer, Reggie.And what about the visual (FS9Effects) and the sound effects (FS9Sound)? Can they also be placed in a specific aircraft folder?J.R.

[RFields5421 1]

I'm pretty sure effects need to be in the main effects folder - at least that is how I read the FS2004 Aircraft Container SDK documentation.Sound can be aliased to other folders. Sounds can be in the main sound folder or the aircraft sound folder in my experience.But I know a lot less about Effects and Sound than about panels.

[mgh 89]

Surely, a key point is how thye gauges are referenced in panel.cfg. that if wheteher or not thre is a "path" associated with them that indicates where they are to be found.

[Guest JollyRoger]

Many thanks for your helpful answers.That should solve my problem.GreetsJ.R.

[jerryuscg 1]

I have a new computer with FS2004 on it. How can I find what gauges go with a certain aircraft so I can copy a aircraft from my AIRPLANE folder and move it over to my new computer ? Thanks jerrycwo4

[Opa 6]

>I have a new computer with FS2004 on it. How can I find what>gauges go with a certain aircraft so I can copy a aircraft>from my AIRPLANE folder and move it over to my new computer ?>Thanks jerrycwo4If it is an aircraft which you added (such as a freeware one you downloaded) it would probably just be simpler to download it again and unzip it to a temporary folder and see if has any gauges which are to be added to your gauge folder.That will show you what to look for on your "old" setup.You can also go the the panel.cfg file of your present aircraft and write down all of the gauge names but many of them are likely to be default gauges which are already in the gauge folder.The first method is how I would do it.Hope that helps.