January 10, 20206 yr Hi guys, I'm tring to improve my Situation awareness by adding a more fixed flight instrument under my main monitor. Since I use TrackIR, there are time I look around and loose scan on insturments and no peripheral vision could help as in reallife. Also, if I use correct FOV, as my setup, it would be 1.42 zoom in VC, thus I could only see the wind screen, even now I use 0.9~1.0 zoom, it's still cant get a good view on insturment, it actually very close to what it feels in real cockpit and Full Simulator, but again, to move view with TrackIR on a monitor is much different than just move eyes to scan between outside and panel. So, my concept is like this: add a monitor under my main one, This 7" monitor is a touch screen and I'm currently using it for CDU. And I'll made a better frame for it if I go for this. However it only works with some add-on with pop-up main display, and has a little performence impact on some birds, also PMDG says they won't allow both Pop up and VC to display at once. Well, with some search, I see it could be done with panel builder or air mannger, but it add a lot cost and complexity though..... So simpley put a Saitek/Logitech insturment panel seems a good alternate too... Anyway....Here is my list of considering, and the red one it what I need you to help me add some more information. Thanks. 7" monitor: +much cheaper than Saitek one, about 1/5 of it's price. +and still about 2/3 of saitek's price if I needed to also get a software (Panel builder or Air manager, and if anyone could provde me a freeware with just basic function I need?) +Much larger size. +I can also use it for sim racing and railway with other softwares (Simracing dashboard and ZusiDisplay is such I already know it well) -Could require some more setting works to get the software to work? -Some performence impact, The FAQ on Panel builder says it could be moderate, but it's from 2013, is it still hold? Saitek insterment panel: -expensive -small size, but i feel it could be enough. -can't use other than FSX/P3D and XPlane I guess? +Feels it could be simply plug and play? But I do not have pleasure memory with saitek's software and driver... +It should be no performence impact on the main computer, I guess? +I see it has 2 knobs and some buttons on it, could it serves as a controller as well? Could it works as HDG and ALT knobs with complex add-ons?
January 10, 20206 yr I would recommend the monitor solution, those Saitek gauges are limited, tiny and ridiculously expensive. I would strongly recommend Air Manager over Panel Builder. For many aicraft it will take minimal setup. MarkH https://www.youtube.com/@AlmostAviation AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D / 64Gb DDR5 / Zotac RTX 5070 Ti / 2560 x 1440 display
January 13, 20206 yr Author Thanks Mark, I agree that saitek gauges are ridiculously expensive..... I'll get another touchscreen see if I can get more use on Air manager.
February 20, 20206 yr Author Well, it turns out my 1080, while have 5 output port, can only output 4monitor at once... After search up, I got a Displaylink devide to connect the new monitor via USB3.0 After sorting out tings like driver conflic.... it all goes well now... Sim Racing and Zusi Display are also checked. For flight sim, the Demo version of Airmanager already cover what I need, at least covers what Saitek could do. Seems there is no module for PFD for jetliner, I feel no urgent to buy a license anyway... The only uncovered part it FS2004, since I only fly very limited plane on that now, maybe I could make a panel in panel.cfg for that anyway...
March 17, 20206 yr How much of a slow down did you notice by adding this panel? Flight Simulator's - Prepar3d V5/MSFS | Operating System - WIN 11 | Main Board - GIGABYTE X870E Aorus Elite WIFI7 | CPU - AMD 9800X3D | RAM - CORSAIR 64GB 6600Mhz | Video Card - EVGA RTX3090 FTW3 Ultra | Monitor - DELL 38" Ultrawide | Case - CORSAIR 750D Full Tower | CPU Cooling - CORSAIR H170i Elite LCD 420mm Push/Pull | Power Supply - EVGA 1000 G+ | Sound System - Definitive Technology ProMonitor 600 w/subwoofer
March 20, 20206 yr Author On 3/18/2020 at 5:42 AM, TurboKen said: How much of a slow down did you notice by adding this panel? The monitor itself have no effect, and Airmanager have no FPS impact at all. However, with PFD pop-ups, I noticed the Leonard MD80 will almost half my FPS, while FSL320\CS757 and RXPGTN750 have almost no impact at all. I've also asked if PMDG could make both pop-up and VC panel visible as the others, but they said it will have huge impact on performence so will not implant. I also wonder what actually determine this on different add-ons...
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