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Hans_Petter

I found it!

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For the last couple of weeks we've been discussing how to make FU III work under Vista / with an Nvidia card. I noticed that the anomalies coincided with recs and put Cockpit Designer to work an hour ago. This was the first time I'd used this app under Vista. It wouldn't run since it was missing msvcp50.dll. OK Vista, here we go again! The "check for a solution online" told me that the application was incompatible. However, a quick web search got me to a site that said that I'd simply have to download msvcp50.dll and put it inside the folder of each program that required it. I did and Cockpit Designer worked as a charm.Now to the point, all we have to do is to forget all we used to know about elaborate recs. Make the 3D window 0, 0, 800, 600 and make Rec1 identical. Delete all other recs. When every defined area is as big as the image there are no anomalies.Here's a couple of screenshots (the old fashioned way, cntrl - alt - P) of todays climb in a Beechjet. I see some jaggies along the windows / along the wing that I may be able to smooth through Nvidia PhysX or nHancer.So, all of you with broken cockpits -- Change the recs of every view to 800 by 600 and Nvidia won't break it anymore :( Hans Petter

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Congrats Hans Petter, thats a big step ahead :-)The only reason for the rects are the speed up of the cockpit screen, a must for 400MHz computer of 1998 but not needed for todays hardware.As I looked to you last posted picture in the other tread I noticed the failure at the recs limits, the center was ok, but not the borders.Now your way is easy to use and can help all with Vista and new hardware.

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Stuart mentioned that some of his aircraft looked all right. That would be the ones with "lazily" defined rects where the 3D area isn't being contained and limited to defined parts of the image. Those are the ones we want for all aircraft now and I have started to convert my entire plnpile. Do we need rects at all? I have made everything into 800 x 600 so far but it would be even faster to delete all rects.I mentioned the jaggies along the transparent sections. I tried to fix these through a PhysX transparency AA setting but it probably won't work unless nHancer can be set up to handle this. Maybe future versions of nHancer will. If anyone doesn't understand what I mean, the transparency cut-out leaves some jaggies along the edges since we're working with pixels -- any slanting line will be jagged and the cockpit 2D areas will have slanting lines along the cut out sections. Most of it can look quite good if the designer is careful to avoid any two pixel transitions but it would look even better if AA could be implemented along the perimeter of the 3D area. Modern 3D applications can implement transparency AA but FU III won't smooth the edges of 2D areas unless nHancer tells it to do so.In any event, ddfix is certainly not needed for this job anymore. The standard flight3.exe makes it all look prettier as long as we avoid the Nvidia anomalies by dropping the rects definitions. In retrospect, the need for a one pixel overlap was really the same kind of problem. When Nvidia drivers "see" rects they will tend to process the defined limits as the transition between 2D and 3D, in effect letting the outside 3D terrain show where we should have had a solid 2D section of the cockpit view bitmap. The Nvidia line was really a one pixel line of 3D region running across the panel.Hans Petter

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Just finished a test flight with my Mooney version HB-DIL now all recs 0,0 799,599 and 3D, Rec1 and when defined outside rect all to the same values.The NVidia line is away and all views are ok and view transitions are as fast as ever.So we never need other rects again :-)The jaggies along the transparent sections are from the low res 800x600 cockpit pictures.This kind of steps making the border to transparent area was never corrected by AA settings :-(Andre

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I've tried 0,0,799,599 as well as 0,0,800,600 and it seems to make no difference. What is the reason for keeping it one pixel width inside the edge of the image?Regarding the size of the image, would ResViewer accept a larger one? Unless the size is hard-coded or limited we could make some or all cockpit images twice as large, smooth the edges and replace the original ones.Hans Pettter

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I've tried 0,0,799,599 as well as 0,0,800,600 and it seems to make no difference. What is the reason for keeping it one pixel width inside the edge of the image?Regarding the size of the image, would ResViewer accept a larger one? Unless the size is hard-coded or limited we could make some or all cockpit images twice as large, smooth the edges and replace the original ones.Hans Pettter
Pixel 0 to pixel 799 = 800 pixels so this is the size and this size of cockpit is accepted by ResViewer/FU3 only.Andre

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All right, but 800 and 600 work too. Actually I found one that was way above the image size as I converted aircraft in my plnpile. So, it seems FU III will accept rects that are larger than the image.Regarding larger images, ResViewer will not import anything larger than 800 x 600. That's to be expected. However, it just might be an imposed ResViewer limit rather than an FU III limit even though I doubt it.

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All right, but 800 and 600 work too. Actually I found one that was way above the image size as I converted aircraft in my plnpile. So, it seems FU III will accept rects that are larger than the image.Regarding larger images, ResViewer will not import anything larger than 800 x 600. That's to be expected. However, it just might be an imposed ResViewer limit rather than an FU III limit even though I doubt it.
1024x768 is just an internal resize of FU3, have take a short test with larger screen using ddfix last year and the results war just crashes :-)Andre

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1024x768 is just an internal resize of FU3, have take a short test with larger screen using ddfix last year and the results war just crashes :-)Andre
All right, that means that carefully made 3D cutouts is the only way to limit 2D jaggies. In practice this means to avoid 2 step pixel transitions.I suggest that the rects issue will be posted as a pinned topic on top of this forum. We have lost quite a few users during the last year due to broken cockpits. Thus, the editing of the rects to make them compatible with modern Nvidia cards is as important today as as it was to apply the patch a long time ago.Here's a suggestion for a pinned message,----------------------BROKEN COCKPIT FIXModern Nvidia cards / drivers are incompatible with the original cockpit definitions of FU III. Looking Glass used "rects" to define limited areas in which the 3D terrain was allowed to show. This saved some processing power but it's no longer required for modern computers. Further, since later Nvidia cards misinterpret the "rects" we end up with broken cockpits -- 3D terrain shows through the 2D bitmap where it's not supposed to show. The solution is quite simple. We need to redefine all "rects" to 0, 0, 799, 599. Each and every cockpit view should have no more than two "rects" definitions -- one for 3D and one for 2D and they should both be as large as the cockpit image. Delete all redundant "rects". You will need Cockpit Designer (http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=7587) to edit the "rects" and it will take no more than a few minutes to make each of your aircraft Nvidia compatible.------------------PS Currently the Cockpit Designer isn't available from the Avsim library link but it may be back. Another download link may be better.

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Hi Hans,Chris Lowe had repaired all the stock airplane cockpits that were showing lines when using anti aliasing; is that the same fix as you recommend? Also, Cockpit designer (v.2 + patch to v.4) is available at Gideons site: geocities dot com/alive dot geo/downloads dot html jimb


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Hans,I return from a week in Greece and to no surprise, I find that you have solved the problem.This really is great news for the future of FU3 and I know that it will re-ignite the interest of many who may have been frustrated by the lack of a readable 2D cockpit.I am no 'techie', but I think I can alter the recs with the aid of your post on this thread, and a careful read of the Cockpit Designer tutorials.I notice that this subject had been viewed by very many more people than post on this board, so perhaps I can thank you on their behalf.I do agree that your 'Broken Cockpit Fix' message to present/ future / lapsed users would be very worthwhile.Ok I'm off to do some reading.Regards............Stuart :(

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Just a general update re this issue,it is not only confined to Vista users. I have XP [sP3] and Hans' fix obviously applies to both.I have easily altered the recs as per the advice of Hans, and if I can do it anyone can ! Just make sure you carefully read the HTML doc that is packaged with Cockpit Designer.I now have FU3 looking as good [ actually better ] than it ever has, with full AA and AF.I am now trying to discover why I get an MS error message when I touch down .I'm sure this has nothing to do with the cockpit issue- probably an add-on plane or scenery.I can live with it, but I will report back if I find the culprit.I am like a kid in a sweet shop now that my toy has been fixed ! :(

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Hi Hans,Chris Lowe had repaired all the stock airplane cockpits that were showing lines when using anti aliasing; is that the same fix as you recommend? Also, Cockpit designer (v.2 + patch to v.4) is available at Gideons site: geocities dot com/alive dot geo/downloads dot html jimb
Chris fixed the Nvidia line across the panel. In retrospect the "Nvidia line" was the beginning of the problem -- Nvidia driver development was moving in a direction that made FU III rects ("rectangles" I assume) incompatible. First we got the line and that was fixed by ensuring an overlap between 2D and 3D rects. Later a lot of us experienced totally broken cockpits as we bought new Nvidia graphics cards / updated the drivers. The one-pixel-overlap that fixed the line across the panel was no longer enough. Basically, what we need to do now is to abandon rects altogether. We need to get rid of any delimited areas of the cockpit bitmaps since recent Nvidia cards fail to interpret these definitions as intended. The rects were meant to speed up the processing. This was a good idea in 1998 but cockpit views are hardly a bottleneck anymore. While rects were a good idea in the age of Pentium IIs and IIIs they are not needed today.Anyone experiencing this problem will be using a recent Nvidia card, which also means he/she has a fairly new computer. So, Chris fixed the precursor of the full-fledged problem. If your display anomaly is limited to a line across the panel this will do. However, for a totally mangled cockpit we need to "open up" the rects and in effect disable them altogether.

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I really should have thanked Chris also for his part in solving this problem, particularly after he took the trouble to upload the 'one pixel fix' aircraft for us all.BTW , I have solved my CTD problem, by reading [ properly this time ] Chris' install instructions for his San Fran/ Seattle packs, I must have exceeded the airport icon limit. :( Regards...........Stuart

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