Good Morning,

 

I have a question for all of you. I currently have the PMDG 737NGX and I love it. I am building a home cockpit and have been mulling the questions of whether to go the whole Triplehead2go route or network computers route. Ideally I plan on having 3 monitors up top for my external views then I was thinking two monitors for the glass cockpit. I came across IFLY737NG Cockpit Builders Edition the other night and it does exactly what I want it to (network pc's to display the gauages in any configuration I want and let the maind FSX pc handle the external views). So here are my questions. Is the flight characteristics of IFLY737NG similar to PMDG737NGX? Second does PMDG have a product similar to the IFLY737NG Cockpit Builders Edition? Thanks For any help you can provide.

 

R/ Pete

Second does PMDG have a product similar to the IFLY737NG Cockpit Builders Edition?

 

Hello

No, PMDG are not in the slightest interested in folks with good external hardware.

Sad but true.

 

Glyn

Hi Pete,

 

I am on the same journey you are. Building a 737 cockpit.

The good news is that with the NGX SDK available you are able to interface switches, annunciators, indicators (brake press, yaw, flaps indicator etc) to the hardware of your choice.

 

For outside view i have choosen to go with a eyefinity triple monitor display (5760x 1080) which is currently working flawlessly and with great performance on my main fsx pc.

 

However, unless things have changed recently, it is not (yet) possible to put your displays (PFD/ND/CDU/EICAS etc) on a separate networked PC with the NGx.

 

For me this is a showstopper as i want to set it up with too many displays to want it to be attached to one single PC (i am buidling a dual seat trainer, so i will need a display for captains PFS/ND, F/O's PFD/ND, Upper eicas, Lower Eicas and then also still 2 times CDU.)

 

I have yet to decide what route to take but for now i believe the best solution is to go for Prosim737 with additional the jetstream fly model. This looks like a nice package at a decent price (lower than the ifly cockpit builders edition and more functionality like instructor station and also more supported hardware and future development).

But this package does not work with the PMDG 737NGx as PMDG had to do some very high level direct programming to get this beauty to work the way it does.

 

I do not own the IFly 737 so i can not comment on the flight characterics of this bird. I have used it once at a friends place and couldn't get used to handling the switches and knobs but that is not so important for a cockpit builder of course.

 

Good luck in your research and decisions.

^{Mad Dog,}

 

^{Thanks for the response. I was hoping PMDG did have such a product. But oh well. There loss.}

 

^{R/ Pete}

 

_Fred,

 

_{Thank you for the response. I am going to go do some reading on Prosim. I would be interested in hearing about how your flightsim cockpit is turning out. Do you have a website that I can follow on? I would like to add you as a friend this way we maybe able to bounce idead and mistakes learned off one another. If your game. Let me know.}

 

_{R/ Pete}

Pete,

 

i do not have a website (yet). I am thinking of setting one up but need to study how to do that first.

 

You can find my progress on mycockpit.org

 

http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/where-start-building-home-cockpit/23649-starting-build-737-ngx-cockpit-6.html

 

i am not on facebook or any other social media

Hello

No, PMDG are not in the slightest interested in folks with good external hardware.

Sad but true.

 

Glyn

 

First off - we produced an SDK for the first time with the NGX - there are users with "good external hardware" using it to great effect. Not sure how you can take the fact that we don't support networked gauges running on separate computers to mean we "are not the slightest interested" when 99% of hardware stuff can work with the SDK.

 

We have a business to run and people doing the networked gauge stuff are a tiny tiny fraction of an already tiny market. This would take an inordinate amount of time to do and we'd only sell a handful of copies - look at iFly's support forum for it - 120 topics in 1 year made by the same handful of people mainly. NGX forum here - 11,228 topics in just over a year...

Hi, PMDG

Most request here have been for no-networked 2D panels for simpler home cocpits that run off of one computer and as I understand the T7 will have them but that will be the last. Is that correct,thank you

percy lee

First off - we produced an SDK for the first time with the NGX - there are users with "good external hardware" using it to great effect. Not sure how you can take the fact that we don't support networked gauges running on separate computers to mean we "are not the slightest interested" when 99% of hardware stuff can work with the SDK.

 

We have a business to run and people doing the networked gauge stuff are a tiny tiny fraction of an already tiny market. This would take an inordinate amount of time to do and we'd only sell a handful of copies - look at iFly's support forum for it - 120 topics in 1 year made by the same handful of people mainly. NGX forum here - 11,228 topics in just over a year...

 

 

Ryan, although it wasn't me quoting the above i do want to react. Thanks first of all for your clear and to the point answer. I am dissapointed that PMDG is not making it possible to run the screens networked but i do agree this is a business decisions and it is PMDG's right to make this decision. You are absolutely right that you deserve it to make money on your investments.

 

I do wonder however what market there would be if PMDG would make a cockpit edition. I for one would certainly buy it but i also understand this is not a proper marketresearch answer. So with regret but with the utmost respect for your decision i will now go ahead and focus on prosim for my cockpit build.

 

i bought many of your products and stil believe you produce the highest quality plane addon's out here. Perhaps in due time the market for this cockpit builder version is increasing and i hope (and i think you will, but again you rightfully first need to be convinced of a proper roi) PMDG will enter this market when viable.

 

Until then: Thanks for all the hours of fun you delivered to me with your products.

 

regards

 

Fred Koch

I'll be interested! 

 

I hope somewhere down the line PMDG can decide to output gauges over the network -- will it be difficult to implement? 

 

Right now, some good options available for cockpit builders, but just too expensive for me (at this time) to justify the spending. The money will go to hardware first, but I'm' sure if PMDG can put out the NGX at a reasonable price, they will have no problems with an affordable cockpit builders edition. 

Hi,

There is this phrase from Ryan echoing in my mind:

"We're looking into doing this - no guarantees as always, but it is on the list. And we're not going to charge you $500 for it either."

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370844-777747-v2-on-a-remote-pc/?hl=charge#entry2346043

I hope that the shared codebase for the NGX-T7-?? still makes this feasible considering the larger userbase for the combined products. Personally I wouldn't hesitate for a moment buying it if this feature would be available for the ngx even if it were priced $500.

Until now I am using FsxSpy but that takes an extra screen (besides the 3 1690x1050 for the outside views) and that drops my framerate by about 25%. Not that I need much more than the average 25 that's left on my system, but I could turn up the sliders for more realism.

Btw: the above mentioned forum topic figures of 120/11,228 is 167/12,256 at the time of this writing. So that is a 40% increase for the cockpit builders versus 9% increase for the vc pilots, speaking of an emurging market .

Here is an idea on how pmdg could still make this possible with probably a minimal effort.
And that is that the pmgd-sdk just exposes the handles of the (off-screen) surfaces, or textures or however it is designed, so a third party could make an opensource server/client tool like FSXSpy that bitblt's the frames over the network. I would be the first one to implement it and considering the number of downloads it would make a lot more than just 120 people really happy.

Regards,
Johan
 

What is FSXSpy Johan? I did a google search and only came up with gamespy and nothing related to networking modules.

The first 2 items at: http://www.google.com/search?q=fsxspy

 

But in case google sends you somewhere else:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/365861-viewing-instruments-on-remote-computer/

 

Hth,

Johan

I am afraid FSX only has the GDI+ code ran when gauge is in view. (which might or might not include out-of-sight-but-there in VC).

 

I suppose it would be possible to pipe the variables read and run the actual GDI+ code externally.

Hi,

 

There is this phrase from Ryan echoing in my mind:

 

"We're looking into doing this - no guarantees as always, but it is on the list. And we're not going to charge you $500 for it either."

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370844-777747-v2-on-a-remote-pc/?hl=charge#entry2346043

 

 

 

That was April 2012

 

This is Nov 2012

 

"We have a business to run and people doing the networked gauge stuff are a tiny tiny fraction of an already tiny market. This would take an inordinate amount of time to do and we'd only sell a handful of copies - look at iFly's support forum for it - 120 topics in 1 year made by the same handful of people mainly. NGX forum here - 11,228 topics in just over a year..."

 

So don't hold your breath.

 

500.00 dollars is now the cheapest fully featured cockpit suite you can get. Even Prosim realized they couldn't keep their price at the 300 dollar range. Like TABS mentioned it takes alot of resources to support a cockpit building suite. You're not going to sell many copies so yes, the price will be higher. PMDG could sell an addon suite for the NGX for sub 500 dollars as they have established a large userbase. Will they do it...doubtful. More revenue in adding newer planes.

Aerosoft Australia is around 70 but it is missing some functionality 

 

I think ProSim is closer to 800 euro now with tax? 

 

I wish they would lower the price so more people would transition from a desktop cockpit to well, a cockpit builder. I think the software cost (and hardware) is the biggest hurdle, but whoever said this hobby was cheap huh?