I recently started flying with FSX -- it's the only flying I can afford to do anymore! Fortunately it's so nice, especially with all the add-ons out there.Anyway, to start with I hopped in the mostly familiar Cessna 172 (without the glass cockpit). At first I couldn't find the GPS, until I read the manual -- seems it pops up a G500 as an extra window! I find this to be terribly immersion-breaking (the plane I learned on (a Piper Cherokee) had the same GPS model stuck at the bottom of the radio stack), and was wondering if there was a way to stick that in the virtual cockpit. It won't fit at the bottom of the radio stack, but there is a lot of panel space on the right not being used so it could be stuck there.I googled around for a while and couldn't find any way to just dock the window there -- I'm guessing I'm going to have to do some panel.cfg modification. To save the annoyance and just get back to flying though, I was wondering if:1) Is it correct that I'd have to modify the panel files themselves?2) If so, has anyone else been annoyed by this and already did the modification I'm looking for?3) If not, is there a good guide to starting these panel modifications? The panel.cfg file looks simple enough really, but I'm wondering if I have to edit the bmp references at all (perhaps widen them to the right) and what the GPS would actually be called in panel.cfg language.Thanks much for the help!

I recently started flying with FSX -- it's the only flying I can afford to do anymore! Fortunately it's so nice, especially with all the add-ons out there.Anyway, to start with I hopped in the mostly familiar Cessna 172 (without the glass cockpit). At first I couldn't find the GPS, until I read the manual -- seems it pops up a G500 as an extra window! I find this to be terribly immersion-breaking (the plane I learned on (a Piper Cherokee) had the same GPS model stuck at the bottom of the radio stack), and was wondering if there was a way to stick that in the virtual cockpit. It won't fit at the bottom of the radio stack, but there is a lot of panel space on the right not being used so it could be stuck there.I googled around for a while and couldn't find any way to just dock the window there -- I'm guessing I'm going to have to do some panel.cfg modification. To save the annoyance and just get back to flying though, I was wondering if:1) Is it correct that I'd have to modify the panel files themselves?2) If so, has anyone else been annoyed by this and already did the modification I'm looking for?3) If not, is there a good guide to starting these panel modifications? The panel.cfg file looks simple enough really, but I'm wondering if I have to edit the bmp references at all (perhaps widen them to the right) and what the GPS would actually be called in panel.cfg language.Thanks much for the help!

Hi,Surgo,welcome to the forums.... You may get a quicker responce if you post this in the "panel" forum...It is located just below this one on the forums page...Good luck..Lou

Oops, I missed that! (Was just looking in the FSX forums and subsets...).I'll run a search there, to avoid reposting could a mod please move this to the appropriate forum? Thanks you!

I have a small workaround for you. Did you know if you put the cursor on the sides or corners of the popup windows, you can re-size them? You can also drag and drop them anywhere you want on the screen. The only thing is when you pan around, the popup windows move with you, but you can "fake it" by making the GPS smaller and slide it into an empty spot on the panel. Virtual Cockpit files are not modifiable (as far as I know) to default aircraft due to hard coding, so I'm not sure if anyone could create a GPS Mod like you are suggesting.But, if someone finds out how to get into the developers files, your idea sounds good to me. I would also like someone to make all the panel lights/buttons to stay illuminated when you turn off the dome light like when you switch to the 2D cockpit view, that's another thing that has always annoyed me more than anything else in FSX.

Anyway, to start with I hopped in the mostly familiar Cessna 172 (without the glass cockpit). To save the annoyance and just get back to flying though, I was wondering if:1) Is it correct that I'd have to modify the panel files themselves?2) If so, has anyone else been annoyed by this and already did the modification I'm looking for?3) If not, is there a good guide to starting these panel modifications? The panel.cfg file looks simple enough really, but I'm wondering if I have to edit the bmp references at all (perhaps widen them to the right) and what the GPS would actually be called in panel.cfg language.Thanks much for the help!

Unfortunately, the default 172 does not allow you to put a GPS in the blank space on the right... the VC model is very restrictive that way.Couple of suggestions:Buy the Flight1 C172, it has an editable VC layoutorBuy one of the Carenado planes that already have the GPS in the panel (Piper Arrow would be a good choice).

Thanks Bert. The 172 from Flight1 looks marvelous (I didn't see that bit about the editable virtual cockpit on the page -- assuming you mean it's easy editable, not that I have to open it in a 3d modeler myself that is). Can't believe that the default aircraft with the game would come with such an obvious deficiency, argh! The default 172 is beautiful otherwise...

but you can "fake it" by making the GPS smaller and slide it into an empty spot on the panel.

Only problem is I use head-tracking to move around, so even if it was pretty small it would get annoying fast to follow me around.

Thanks Bert. The 172 from Flight1 looks marvelous (I didn't see that bit about the editable virtual cockpit on the page -- assuming you mean it's easy editable, not that I have to open it in a 3d modeler myself that is). Can't believe that the default aircraft with the game would come with such an obvious deficiency, argh! The default 172 is beautiful otherwise...Only problem is I use head-tracking to move around, so even if it was pretty small it would get annoying fast to follow me around.

The Flight1 172 is a port over from FS9 where the VC restrictions were less... but here two screenshots, both with theexcellent Reality-XP (payware) GNS 530.. The Flight1 172 and the Carenado C182Q.

-- assuming you mean it's easy editable, not that I have to open it in a 3d modeler myself that is).

That is correct, you can edit the panel.cfg file and not be too limited in where you can fitradios in the stack. If you ask around, there are often folks who have made the edits andare willing to share the info.

That is correct, you can edit the panel.cfg file and not be too limited in where you can fitradios in the stack. If you ask around, there are often folks who have made the edits andare willing to share the info.

Because the OP was talking about placing the GPS on the empty space in the default 172 it might be good (educational) to add to all the given information that you can ONLY place/replace gauges where other gauges are! The panels of any FSX-aircraft have (simply said) 'holes' in them in which gauges are placed (radiostack in a box shaped hole, speed indicator in a round hole, etc. etc.). These holes can NOT be edited! Usually the radiostack resides in a simple box shaped hole which makes it easy (when you know what you are doing, that is) to put something else in it, but beware: you can only put something inside that hole: you can not edit the shape or size of that hole! Bert is very right when he says that you can fit radios and what not in the stack space, but that's also the limit: you HAVE to remove other gauges to make place for the GPS! You only have that hole to put stuff in it so you when you want to add a GPS you will have to make choices what to leave out. I am just saying this so you know that when you see an (addon) plane with lots of empty space on the panel where a GPS would easily fit, then you can NOT simply put the GPS over there: the usual rule is that where you see working gauges THAT is where you can put other stuff (by replacing what was there).Another complication is that with some addon planes some holes are divided into smaller holes. A lot of Carenado planes have one big radiostack but still it's impossible to put a large GPS in it because almost all parts that are in there by default have their OWN hole... This is very annoying (imho) and makes changing gauges quite complicated... There is no way of knowing how the holes in panels are made: you have to buy the plane to find out or ask on the internet. And to make it all complete: some panels have 3D-knobs on them and quite often those knobs can't be removed, which means that when you replace a certain gauge that had 3D knobs on it in the VC, you will still see those knobs when you installed the new gauge... Very ugly.All in all (re)placing gauges gives a lot of possibilities but it's not as easy as one might think...P.S. About the Flight1 plane being easily editable: in theory every VC panel is 'easily editable', meaning you can simply open the panel.cfg and start editing stuff. This is the same for ALL aircraft, also the default ones (so that's the reason why this is not advertised on the page: it's nothing special). The thing that makes editing easy or hard is how the holes in the panel are arranged! In THAT case the Flight 172 is easy because the radiostack resides in one big hole. It's not the editing 'method' itself that is easier than with other planes, because that will always involve editing the cfg.

Thanks for the explanation, J Van E. I actually tried last night, before you made your post, going into the panel.cfg for the FSX default C172 and seeing what I could move around. I ran into exactly the limitation you were talking about -- first it seemed that the right-hand-side of the 3d model is not part of the virtual cockpit space you can put stuff on (argh, this is such an obvious and annoying limitation), then I tried diking out the autopilot and DME from the radio stack, moving everything down, and putting the GPS in the newly-freed space on top. And, argh! It just doesn't stretch well enough, the thing is just too long for that little space to work. And I also noticed those hard-coded buttons you were talking about...It'd be great if there was just some way to open those damn .mdl files. I could define a new space on the right that would fit perfectly...ah well.

P.S. About the Flight1 plane being easily editable: in theory every VC panel is 'easily editable', meaning you can simply open the panel.cfg and start editing stuff. This is the same for ALL aircraft, also the default ones (so that's the reason why this is not advertised on the page: it's nothing special). The thing that makes editing easy or hard is how the holes in the panel are arranged! In THAT case the Flight 172 is easy because the radiostack resides in one big hole. It's not the editing 'method' itself that is easier than with other planes, because that will always involve editing the cfg.

Great explanation which is indeed valid for most FSX planes, but in the case of the Flight1 C172, the situation is actually different..Possibly because of it's FS9 heritage (a guess on my part) the VC is more like a "canvas" which you can edit (the bitmap) and which you can place gauges on, pretty much at will as you can see from my experiment of moving the GNS unit to the right..

I recently started flying with FSX -- it's the only flying I can afford to do anymore! Fortunately it's so nice, especially with all the add-ons out there.Anyway, to start with I hopped in the mostly familiar Cessna 172 (without the glass cockpit). At first I couldn't find the GPS, until I read the manual -- seems it pops up a G500 as an extra window! I find this to be terribly immersion-breaking (the plane I learned on (a Piper Cherokee) had the same GPS model stuck at the bottom of the radio stack), and was wondering if there was a way to stick that in the virtual cockpit. It won't fit at the bottom of the radio stack, but there is a lot of panel space on the right not being used so it could be stuck there.I googled around for a while and couldn't find any way to just dock the window there -- I'm guessing I'm going to have to do some panel.cfg modification. To save the annoyance and just get back to flying though, I was wondering if:1) Is it correct that I'd have to modify the panel files themselves?2) If so, has anyone else been annoyed by this and already did the modification I'm looking for?3) If not, is there a good guide to starting these panel modifications? The panel.cfg file looks simple enough really, but I'm wondering if I have to edit the bmp references at all (perhaps widen them to the right) and what the GPS would actually be called in panel.cfg language.Thanks much for the help!

FS Panel studio. The learning curve is kinda steep but takes a few hours to figure it out.

FS Panel studio. The learning curve is kinda steep but takes a few hours to figure it out.

Isn't that only good for 2D panels? You still can't technically edit a VC with it correct?

Isn't that only good for 2D panels? You still can't technically edit a VC with it correct?

You can't create a [VCockpitnn] entry with FSPS, but you can most certainly edit one that already exists!There are essentially four methods that may be used by a modeler to create the virtual cockpit (explained in detail in two White Papers I wrote for Microsoft/ACES). They are:1. Large Projection Screen technique (either the entire panel width for small a/c, or several partial panel sections for large a/c). This method is "old fashioned" and has largely been abandoned, but the FS9 examples of Carenado's early FS9 a/c used this method. The good part is that it allows random gauge placement - anywhere there's space available, the gauge will be displayed. The bad parts are the potential for (1) horribile resolution and (2) poor performance.2. Cookie-Cutter technique. This is a set of "gauge shaped polygon projection screens" that are accurately placed in the 3d panel space on which FS "projects" the gauge's bitmaps. The major advantages are (1) high resolution and (2) high(er) performance than method #1. The major disadvantage is that replacement gauges must be reasonably close to the same size and shape as the original. You can't really display a "square gauge" such as a KI-225 on a "round projection polygon!"3. Peek-a-Boo technique. This is a panel with "holes" punched out that allow the projection polygon(s) to be placed spatially behind the visible panel, which masks the non-gauge area from view. This also is a mostly obsolete technique as it often suffers from the same disadvantages of method #1, with the added disadvantage of method #2.4. 3d Modeled Gauges. This is currently the most popular technique. The gauge's "code" is compiled into the model itself, and the textures used are contained in the a/c's ..\texture folder. The major advantages are (1) extremely high resolution and (2) extremely high performance. The major disadvantage is that aside from possibly doing minor edits to the textures, no other changes may be made by the end user. They also cannot be replaced by any "conventional gauges."Obviously there are examples of a/c that have combined one or more of the above techniques into their final model, but that's not all that commonly done.I hope this brief explanation of the various techniques for virtual cockpit gauge creation is helpful! It is an area of development that's frequently misunderstood by modelers, so it's no great surprise that the average simmer is also confused!