VC Gauge refresh

[Guest]

My guess is they combined those gauges into a smaller number of metagauges (clusters of gauges).So you have one entry which controls what on screen looks like a number of different switches and dials.

[ORN 1]

Thanks' a lot friends!This actually Made a great improvement to two of my (at the moment) most used planes, the Flight1 172R and the Aerosoft Beaver (I'm doing Misty Fjords right now). I just threw out the vc windows I don't need from the vc's (using popups instead). In the 172R that left me with the main instruments and radio whitch is ok by now.BUT PLEASE 3d PARTY DEVELOPERS! Don't give us more of those stuttering gauges, and to the good people at Flight1 (outstanding addons and service really!): Would you consider reorganising the vc to get the smooth gauges? It really would make this Cessna complete!brEagle

[Guest Dianne_S]

Just experimented with the Realair Decathlon and commented out all of the VC windows except for the primary one as mentioned in this thread - works great, completely fluid gauge movement in the VC this way now. I still see microstutters in the scenery rate when the virtual cockpit is in high quality mode but the gauges themselves are completely smooth. Turning down the VC quality everything is smooth but gauges get blurry but still readable. Very good information here guys, thank you so much!

[n4gix 4,947]

The primary reason for RealAir's Spit having such a nice, fluid VC is that the majority of the gauges are coded in the .mdl file... which, of course, explains why there is no 2d panel, and cannot ever be a 2d panel, unless someone replicates the VC gauges as "normal" C or XML gauges... ;)

[Guest JeanLuc_]

I'm glad to have been of help Diane!

[Guest secks]

>BUT PLEASE 3d PARTY DEVELOPERS! Don't give us more of those>stuttering gauges, and to the good people at Flight1>(outstanding addons and service really!): Would you consider>reorganising the vc to get the smooth gauges? It really would>make this Cessna complete!>>br>EagleThere's only one future a/c which will have smooth VC gauges (3d gauges, like the spitfire) that I know of, and it's an upgrade to an existing product. Interestingly, it has _both_ a 2d panel and smooth 3d VC gauges. I'm not sure if the resistance to this new VC technology is the result of few FS programmers being skilled in this technique, the difficulty of it, or what. But one thing's for sure .. it needs to become common practice for future addons.Carl

[ORN 1]

And, would you mind telling us which future upgrade that is, hopefully I already have it in my hangar :)brEagle

[Guest Slacktide]

>>>BUT PLEASE 3d PARTY DEVELOPERS! Don't give us more of those>>stuttering gauges, and to the good people at Flight1>>(outstanding addons and service really!): Would you consider>>reorganising the vc to get the smooth gauges? It really>would>>make this Cessna complete!>>>>br>>Eagle>>There's only one future a/c which will have smooth VC gauges>(3d gauges, like the spitfire) that I know of, and it's an>upgrade to an existing product. Make that two, and this one's freeware.

[Guest Milton]

I am certain most designers understand the implications of multiple vcockpit sections, hundreds of gauges and high poly counts to FPS and gauge refresh. My testing shows the number of vcockpit sections has the greatest influence on gauge smoothness.All the examples above reference small aircraft panels. So, now is decision time for larger aircraft and their 2D and 3d panels.We are currently well along with the Dash 7 with VC (as of October 2004 actually). I have held the vcockpit sections to two to maintain good refresh rates. I have forgone ancillary gauges in places where there might be other vcockpit sections to handle them. I have left out the passenger and cargo areas of the fuselage to achieve lower poly counts. I have sacrificed VC resolution (but not gauge) a bit to reduce texture sizes. All this was done to keep refresh rates fluid.There are over 400 gauges and switches in the 2D and VC panels. These are the compromises designers must make to address concerns and threads like this one. 12-18 months ago the interest was clarity and realism of the VC so that is what has brought us to this juncture.The Howard 500 has 9 vcockpit sections and though the panel and gauges look okay, the refresh is horrible. That aircraft has over 350 gauges and switches. We could dumb it down, eliminate a lot of stuff, use dead bmps and more but that one is history. Feel free to yank sections from it if you wish. :-)

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

This is quite amazing advice!I find that I can keep the first three VC windows in the Decathlon and still have very good VC gauge updates.This makes a BIG difference to the overall flying experience!Probably deserves to go into the MSFS Tips and Tricks section...

[clayton4115 56]

any chance on deleted some guages in the PMDG ac?

[JMR 2]

Has anyone taken a stab at the Dreamfleet 727 panel.cfg? There's a bunch of different panel folders and I have no idea on where to begin. I really love flying that bird from the VC with Track IR and 6DOF but the refresh rate is a bit low for my liking. If I could kill a few things to speed up the updates for the primary flight instruments I'd be happy.

[robert young 2,897]

Hi Everyone,The removal of some of the VC entries in the panel cfg does indeed smooth out the Decathlon and Scout gauges, albeit with slightly reduced functionality in some views.But folks, and I talk no doubt for some other developers here too, please give us a chance.The discovery of new gauge techniques has taken time to be implemented and to filter through to new aircraft. They cannot be retro-fitted to all other aircraft overnight! And there is a slight problem that smooth gauge technology of this type is not applicable as yet to more complex gauges, and if you wanted 2d AND 3d panels, as Bill points out above, you will need two seperate sets of gauges....all of which add to the already time consuming development process.As with all new innovations I suppose it is understandable that everyone suddenly wants it NOW just because it has been seen on a couple of NEW products, but stamping your feet and demanding it today, tommorow or yesterday when many of us have only just sorted it out for our latest addons is, if I may respectfully suggest, being a little unreasonable.Like all new innovations, their implementation does not mean that everything that came before is suddenly useless. If we and others hadn't bothered to find new ways of doing things no one would have been the wiser. Sometimes you can't win. We work our butts off to produce something new and now everyone automatically assumes we can magic the same for every aircraft designed since 2000. Please give us a break and a bit of time to find our own pace.Thanks very much.Kind Regards,Rob Young = RealAir Simulations

[cat 2]

test

[Guest christianholmes]

I'm guessing here since I'm not an aircraft designer- but I am a programmer- I would think the complexity of the gauges, and the techniques used to render them has an impact too. For instance, if you had a cluster of analog gauges- say twenty- you simply draw the hands over a bitmap of the background. Like an altimeter. So if each instrument has two hands, that's forty lines or small polys. Most of the time they aren't anti-aliased either. If you then look at the PMDG 737, which uses GDI+, it's a whole different story. There is no background to render- each line and polygon in each CRT has to be drawn. So between the NAV display, PFD, and EICAS, you are looking at hundreds of lines/polygons. And look at the equations for drawing a NAV display that is showing airports. It has to translate and rotate each airport in the database, and then sort by depth. It's not suprising you see a framerate drop with these options on. On top of the overhead for that, they are rendered to textures, and THEN pasted as textures onto the VC model. Remember, that this is happening while the plane is flying. I'm sure you guys who know what you're talking about are correct in saying there are ways to improve it, but I think the sheer overhead imposes some limitations that can only be overcome by processor power. I agree it is frustrating to see some planes that work well and some that don't but we all have to admit this is not intentional. Unfortunately, developers don't tend to share their techniques, so each one of them spend several years reinventing the wheel. On that topic, wouldn't it be cool if someone started a "developer's guild" where they all shared their secrets? Maybe to gain entry you would have to contribute a tip/technique that you've invented.