>The slow refresh rate of the gauges is precisely what allows>all of them to be displayed at once in the VC, not the other>way around.I think the slower refresh rate in VC has more to do with the displays of more gauges (and the sizing of the gauges in VC) and other bitmaps, etc in the VC that are not in the 2D panel. The VC generally has more detail than the 2D panel and should affect display rates accordingly.I don't really believe the VC gauges refresh at a slower rate all other things being equal. (But it will probably take an experiment to find out for sure)> I'm not sure if simply removing gauges will fix>the problem either since this disparity occurs in every>aircraft I've flown.Removing some gauges will almost certainly improve frame rates, as that is less code to process. The gauges don't all refresh at the same time, each gauge is given a turn and updated separately, its code run separately, then control is given to the next gauge, and so on. So removing one complex gauge with a fair amount of code (or several less complex gauges) will almost certainly result in some improvement in frame and refresh rates. Its just one less gauge or gauges that have to get a turn.Regards.Ernie.

> Gauges use>very much resources in FS9 (I opened all the 2D panels in VC>View and notice a heavy hit to FPS). Microsoft should replace>its Panel Engine to process gauges in some other way like in>most military sims that only use VCs. But the problem exist>since FS2002 or 2000 i dont remember if in 2000 we had VC yet.> I think yes because even in FS5 (1995 or 96)there was some>kind of VC without gauges and textures. (Oh my, the good old>FS5 days when i started with simming)>Now that the problem has not been fixed since 3 Versions of>FS, it seems that microsoft dont know about the importancy of>a good working VC. Comeon MS those 2D Panels are definitely a>thing from the past if not to say a fossile from Pentium 90>DaysWRT to the Eaglesoft CX, I don't think the gauges are as big an effect on the display/refresh rates.I compared the ES CX Deluxe version with the standard and light versions, and the Deluxe version takes the biggest hit display/refresh rate wise. The up front panel parts of the VC's in all 3 versions appear to look exactly the same. The difference I notice is the animated pilots and woman in the cabin are turned off in the standard version. And the Cabin scenery is not available in the light version.Regards.Ernie.Regards.Ernie.

In my opinion and experience, this is wrong. Here is why:in 2D, each gauge is updated in turn, one after the other, sometimes in batch ( a couple or more at a time), then, they are "displayed" on the screen on the 2D window, one at a time, or in batch. This calls for simple 2D bit blit functions.in 3D, they all need to be refreshed at once, in order for the display system (which is in 3D a texture, composited in memory from the individual gauges and the panel texture, then updated in the video card for display) to render the 3D panel texture. In this case, the 3D card has to discard the previous texture, load the new one, do whatever it needs to make this texture linked to the 3D polygons, then display it.Given the speed of any computer above 1Ghz, unless you do extremely complex things, the main bottleneck in FS is the rendering stage (the code which actually displays something on the screen). Take any complex panel, put all the gauges out of view in 2D (add 2000 to all x coordinates of the gauges), and run FS. The FPS will boost, but the same computations take place.It looks like for a particular internal reason in FS I won't document here, the XML gauges are refreshing faster than the C gauges. There is also something interesting with XML gauges, in that the "bitmap rotation code" is more precise than the one involved for C gauges (compare a C gauge ADI and XML gauge ADI when banking the aircraft).In my opinion, VC was a customer driven feature to appeal for the demand of the masses it sells to, and unless the whole system is recoded from the ground up, it will only be faster with faster hardware, not rethought software.Hope this helps!

So if i understand right this means that: That if the gauges of the VC are processed the same way than the 2D Gauges the refreshrate would be better (If i display a 2D minipanel in VC they refresh normally)So i have another question, if i replace unused Co-Pilot gauges with a static bitmap does this have an effect on the VC gauge FPS?And your tip to turn off all 2D gauges (add 2000 to all x coordinates of the gauges), boosts up VC gauge FPS or only overall FPS?Thanks for your time