GTN 750 and have a few questions: mouse, popup, config

[Clorix 6]

First things first.  The RXP GTN 750 is so far absolutely amazing in just about every aspect.  I asked some questions a few weeks ago before purchasing and the answers I received led me to purchase it today.  Now that I've had a bit of a play around with it, I have a couple other questions, and a comment or two, if I may.

1. Is there a clickspot to close the 2D popup window?  Unless I'm missing it, I've had to either click the spot in the VC that opens the 2D window to close it again, or right-click the 2D popup to choose Close Window in the menu.  A clickspot on the 2D window itself would be very handy.
2. I read in the manual that you can import another aircraft's configuration by dragging and dropping its INI file onto the in-sim setup window.  That's a nice feature, but it would be nice to have an option in the setup window to select another aircraft in which the RXP GTN has been installed and import that configuration directly without having to mess with Windows File Explorer and whatnot.  Just a quality-of-life thing, really.
3. Is there an explanation somewhere of what each of the configuration options do exactly?  I'm not an avionics installer so I don't really know what V-Flag Declutter and a few of the other options actually do.  I've turned some of those settings on and off and noticed nothing different.  I feel if I had those options explained in the manual or something I would know what to look for.
4. The ability to configure the GTNs within the sim is genius.  The less I have to reload the sim, the better.  And your configuration utility does it beautifully!
5. I noticed that when I remove the RXP GTNs from an aircraft, the setup tool doesn't restore the panel config from the backup it made.  Is this intended?  I had to manually restore it by renaming the RXP backup file, which in all honesty isn't at all difficult to do of course.  Just another one of those quality-of-life things.
6. The performance of the RXP GTN compared to the competitor's version is incredible.  Theirs would lag around when zooming and panning (at least on my machine).  The RXP version has no such lag.  It's quite the difference!

I'm sure as time goes on and I play with it more, I'll continue to learn new things, which might bring about some new questions from me (sorry in advance!).

Thanks once again for such an amazing tool!

[RXP 2,336]

Hi,

I thank you for your kind words, these are much appreciated and a driver to better our products!

Let me try to answer:

1) The screen is the toggle popup click-spot. Since it is also interactive for touch, you'd have to use either SHIFT + Left Click, or Right Click only. Open the aircraft RealityXP.GTN.ini file and see the comments for "popleft" and "popright"

2) We've thought about this, but in the end, this would mean opening a File Browser window to select the source ini file to read from, which in turn, is the same as opening a File Explorer window to drag & drop.

3) All settings are generally self-explanatory and are nonetheless self-documented in the ini file which you can read with notepad.exe. The AFMS settings are considered "advanced" and unless you know what they are you most likely don't need to change them. Should you want to know more though, I'd suggest you go to the Garmin website, support, manuals, and find the GTN Installation manual which covers them (ref: 190-01007-02  - TSO Installation manual)

4) Thank you for your positive feedback!

5) Removing the GTN option does just that. This permits you selectively removing only the added GTN entries, while preserving the rest, should you've manually added other gauges or made other edits. However, the last option, "Restore Panel" does what you are looking for: it finds the latest backup file and copy it over the panel.cfg file!

6) Not only this, but you can see both in-panel and popup window displaying at the same time too! You can really push this harder and open 4 different popup windows of the GTN and see how it goes 😉 I used to say not all GTN are born equal...

 

 

[Clorix 6]

Thanks for the reply.

For #2, would it not be possible for the config utility to record those aircraft in which you've added the GTN, then display a menu that shows those aircraft and allow you to choose to import the settings of each of the GTN installations independently?  In other words, lets say I've configured two GTN 750s in my RealAir Lancair Legacy.  If I were to want to configure another GTN 750 in some other aircraft, I could load that plane and open the GTN setup as usual.  Except while setting up the GTN initially, and/or when configuring it after it has been installed to the panel, I can select from a drop-down menu my RealAir Lancair Legacy aircraft, and then choose which of the two GTN 750 units to copy settings from.  The utility could then fetch the INI files and copy the necessary entries into the current aircraft's config file and display the changed settings, allowing me to review the changes before applying them.  Just a thought, and maybe it isn't possible.  Maybe this explanation will help, who knows 🙂

As for #3, I have yet to look at the INI file to see the other options.  And I'll definitely check out the Garmin manuals, thanks!

And referring to #5, I probably just missed this option as I was messing around with the GTNs late at night.  Sorry about that!

[Clorix 6]

Another question, this time about item #1.  I've opened the INI file and I see the entries you're talking about.  The comments state to use GPS_PANEL or 225, but the window ident in the panel config file is something like 14401 and 14402.  Are those the numbers I use or do I actually just use 225 to enable the ability to close the popup window for each unit?

[RXP 2,336]

Maybe you can try the way around: open file explorer on Flight Sim folder, type "RealityXP.GTN.ini" in the search bar, there you have them all! Much easier and faster, especially if you have 'exotic' places you install your aircraft to, otherwise, this would add unnecessary complexity to the Assistant to try finding out (via N-number of XML files and panel redirections) where the aircraft really are.

The panel ident are user made. They are numbers most likely, but the FltSim panel system also supports keywords, like GPS_PANEL, which in turn correspond to values internally. Our configuration system supports both, the INI file comment is just an example, and you are free to use any matching number instead!

The reference that answers it all:
http://www.prepar3d.com/SDK/SimObject Creation Kit/Panels and Gauges SDK/Panel Configuration Files.htm

 

[Clorix 6]

I see.  Thanks!

[Clorix 6]

Another quick question, sorry.  If I open the Traffic page on the GTN Trainer, it gives me an interactive display where I can click on a target and get info about it.  In the sim, there is no such display.  It's just a normal TCAS display.  I am unable to click on any targets to get their relevant information.  Is this a bug or working as intended?

GTN Trainer Traffic Display:  https://i.imgur.com/WoB5ULE.png

In-sim Traffic Display:  https://i.imgur.com/qZk6TlF.png

On another note, I was flying offline when I took that in-sim screenshot, and I have no AI traffic enabled.  It was showing some traffic directly ahead of me.  My sim crashed when selecting an aircraft, so maybe that's just an artifact from that.  I don't think the crash was GTN-related.

[RXP 2,336]

The GTN trainer standalone simulates 'traffic' as seen via the ADSB interface (TIS).

The Reality XP GTN Touch embeds a Ryan 9900BX TCAD (Traffic Collision Alerting Device) simulation. At its core, it is an authentic TCAS II Mark7 simulation passing the 250 TSIM tests, configured in TA only, and interfacing with the GTN like the Ryan 9900BX TCAD would do.

The major difference is the Reality XP GTN TCAD computes actual threats like a real TCAD/TCAS, depending on several flight parameters and shield settings, it also takes in account vertical trajectory and reversals, whereas the TIS extrapolates trajectories only in a much simpler way.

The symbology is therefore different so is the on-screen interface.

As for the ghost, it uses the FltSim AI/multiplayer SDK so anything there will show up.

Edited October 31, 2018 by RXP

[Dirk98 354]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:38 PM, RXP said:

1) The screen is the toggle popup click-spot. Since it is also interactive for touch, you'd have to use either SHIFT + Left Click, or Right Click only. Open the aircraft RealityXP.GTN.ini file and see the comments for "popleft" and "popright"

Am I supposed to add the pop right mouse button like this:

popright = true?

or

popright = GPS_PANEL (or 225)?

 

Can I manually assign affinity to 2 trainers exe running when using 2GTN devices? I noticed that on my 4-core 8-trhead HT On system when I use GTN750 and GTN650 both trainers run on Logical Processor 7, but when using GTN750 and GTN750 in a panel trainers run on different Logical Processors, namely LP6 and LP7 which I like better.

Thanks.

[RXP 2,336]

@Dirk98 I'll copy the comments here for others to follow through.

The popleft/popright comments say:

; left mouse button popup ident  (ex: GPS_PANEL or 225) (disables touchscreen when set).
; right mouse button popup ident (ex: GPS_PANEL or 225).

 

You have to reference this to the very notion of panel ident, which is best explained in the FltSim SDK:

"Specifies a unique identifier to define the panel window. You must have an ident for each panel window. Valid entries are the following:..."

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/sdk/panels_and_user_interface/panels/panel_configuration_files.html

Please take the time to read through, this shall be clearer.

 

As for affinity, the comments are:

; sets trainer process CPU: 1 to 32 (0: last core, -1: automatic).

Should you let this on automatic (i.e. -1), it should take care of this automatically. However, it assigns the affinity based on unit#. Should you put a 750 #1 and a 650 #1 on the same panel, it will take the same CPU. Besides, putting 2 same number units on the same panel is not supported either and may introduce other problems. Always use a #1 and a #2.

[Dirk98 354]

16 hours ago, RXP said:

As for affinity, the comments are:

; sets trainer process CPU: 1 to 32 (0: last core, -1: automatic).

Should you let this on automatic (i.e. -1), it should take care of this automatically. However, it assigns the affinity based on unit#. Should you put a 750 #1 and a 650 #1 on the same panel, it will take the same CPU. Besides, putting 2 same number units on the same panel is not supported either and may introduce other problems. Always use a #1 and a #2.

Jean-Luc, I'm telling what happens with affinity assignment when using 750+650 or 750+750 in the same aircraft:

Case 1: 750+650 - 2 trainers run on the same LP (logical processor, #7 in my case), this is bad.

Case 2: 750+750 - 2 trainers run on 2 LPs(#6 and #7 in my case), this is good.

I don't change any settings, so something must be wrong in Case 1. 

You may want to look into it, try and see yourself.

Many thanks.

[Dirk98 354]

16 hours ago, RXP said:

You have to reference this to the very notion of panel ident, which is best explained in the FltSim SDK:

"Specifies a unique identifier to define the panel window. You must have an ident for each panel window. Valid entries are the following:..."

This is an old game adding RXP panels and messing with the ident numbers or using standard entries like GPS_PANEL since time out of mind. 

So I tried popright with my specific RXP GTN window ident number from panel.cfg. Unfortunately it works only for closing GTN pop up with RMB, but not for openning it to some reason. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[RXP 2,336]

2 hours ago, Dirk98 said:

750+650 - 2 trainers run on the same LP (logical processor, #7 in my case),

19 hours ago, RXP said:

Should you put a 750 #1 and a 650 #1 on the same panel, it will take the same CPU

19 hours ago, RXP said:

Always use a #1 and a #2.

Please make sure to re-read and cross check whether you have put twice same unit number in your panel.cfg. There should be in your example a 750_1 gauge and a 650_2 gauge for example.

 

2 hours ago, Dirk98 said:

messing with the ident numbers or using standard entries like GPS_PANEL

Our add-on supports both pre-defined names, and any number!

 

2 hours ago, Dirk98 said:

Unfortunately it works only for closing GTN pop up with RMB, but not for openning it to some reason. Any ideas?

Yes I have an idea! Each gauge entry in the panel.cfg is 1 instance of the same gauge. You can have multiple instances of the same gauge, each one with its own rendering settings referenced by name as the 5th gauge param in the panel.cfg file.

Just make sure to use consistent popleft/popright settings among all your instances.

Further to this question, using forum search with "popleft" gives:

also this:

 

 

Edited November 6, 2018 by RXP

[Dirk98 354]

Thanks, I'll go through one by one.