767 owners,lately, some new technology, and aspects of old ones have resulted in totally fluid vc's. Two fighters you all know about has two different approaches: The RealAir Spitfire and ** Mustang. The Spitfire use new technology with all the essencial gauges merged into the model instead of just gauge entries in the panel.cfg. The Mustang has solved it by reducing the number of vc windows to one. Even the DSB vc gauges runs with the same framerate as the sim, due to the single vc window (pity about the cheap interior looks, could have been a nice plane with decent interior).Either of these approaches will eventually find it's way into commuters and airliners i guess. Espessially the Spitfire way, remember this technology don't eat framerates, on the contrary the Spit is easier on the framerates than most competitors. My wild guess is that PMDG's new B1900C and 747 will use that technology. My next wild guess is that one of the reasons we have to wait even more for the CS 130, is that they want to equip it with smooth running gauges

Its not very smooth for me, I would say not really smooth enough to fly exclusively from the VC.I get very good FPS (30+) but the VC gauge refresh must be around once every 1/2 a second, pretty jerky really, its very noticable if you are climbing and the ALT is spinning pretty quickly.Its a limitation that FS2004 has with the amount of VC config sections in the panel.cfg and the amount of gauges.The LDS767 has 8 ! sections, and around 50+ odd gauges, and the FS engine just cant render this amount of sections and gauges smoothly, I guess one could hack the panel.cfg around and chop out some gauges and sections.Dan.

Thank's for the answer! With 8 windows I suppose you loose too much by chopping out enough windows to get it smooth. Actually, I find even two windows to be too much ... Maybe in large clickable cockpits reducing the number of windows just isn't the way to go, and we have to wait for new technology like in the Spit.Even if I believe the LD is a very good ac, I think I'll pass this time and wait to see what PMDG is up to with the 1900C and 747. In the meantime I have lots of boeings, busses an dogs to enjoy :)Eagle

I was wondering why developers of these complicated VCs don't include an option where you can turn off the dynamic displays at first officer's position (or at the captain's position if you're riding in the first officer seat) and replace them with a static display of "typical" data. Wouldn't that cut down on the rendering load and/or the number of panels thus increasing refresh rate? It would be a good tradeoff for me because when I'm in the captain's seat (or in the first officer's), I don't spend a lot of time looking at the displays on the other side. I would probably not even notice that the display on the other side was statically displaying "typical" data only unless I looked at it (which I rarely do anyway).

I have often found that there even is a bitmapped panel behind many vc windows. Just try to comment out the panel you don

I really like what Feelthere did with their ERJ145, they give you a tool that allows you to set gauges refresh rate (PFD, ND, FMC, EICAS, RTU, etc) On my rig, I turned down FMC, RTU, etc... The PFD and ND are much smoother and allow me to fly the plane exclusively from within the VC. I suggested this on the levelD forum; I hope the developers will consider something like that for future updates....John

Smart

Heh, heh, kind of diffucult to compare when one is the publisher of the others product. But how is the ERJ compared to the CRJ. Yes, I know one is commuter and the other airliner, but is the ERJ better in terms of user friendliness, looks, behaviour and refresh rate?Eagle

I do not own the CRJ, all I can say is that the ERJ is pretty smooth (both outside FPS and gauge refreh rate). I recall reading threads about the CRJ not being that smooth in the VC.The ERJ is not up to leveld in terms of systems modeling but Feelthere did a pretty decent job (one major feature missing is Fire switch levers and tests not functional)John