Airliners - Can you read PFD? How do you fly?

[robert young 2,897]

A rarely discussed subject is the difference between clarity of even the highest res PFD/MFD displays in MSFS and the best youtube examples of similar displays in real aircraft. What it tells me is that there is still a long way to go. Anyone who has seen a real G1000/G3000 etc, or a Boeing/Airbus display can attest to the amazingly clear and crisp images (particularly text and essential readouts) in the real aircraft.

MSFS still has not solved this. Ideally the displays should be sharp, crisp and readable from some distance. That most definitely is not the case even with highest settings, unless you are 20 years old and have 20/20 vision.

[diajohn 164]

59 minutes ago, robert young said:

A rarely discussed subject is the difference between clarity of even the highest res PFD/MFD displays in MSFS and the best youtube examples of similar displays in real aircraft. What it tells me is that there is still a long way to go. Anyone who has seen a real G1000/G3000 etc, or a Boeing/Airbus display can attest to the amazingly clear and crisp images (particularly text and essential readouts) in the real aircraft.

MSFS still has not solved this. Ideally the displays should be sharp, crisp and readable from some distance. That most definitely is not the case even with highest settings, unless you are 20 years old and have 20/20 vision.

That has been a while!!!!!

[ianb2469 55]

10 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Getting  4K 55" TV for MSFS solved this issue for me.

 

I run in 4K on a 32” monitor with good performance. Would I see the same performance on a 55” do you think?

Also, I run at 30hz refresh rate which makes things nice and smooth, finding a TV that specifies that option in the spec seems hard! 

[RJC68 823]

8 minutes ago, ianb2469 said:

I run in 4K on a 32” monitor with good performance. Would I see the same performance on a 55” do you think?

Also, I run at 30hz refresh rate which makes things nice and smooth, finding a TV that specifies that option in the spec seems hard! 

From my understanding the size of the screen has no impact in performance running the same resolution. I know Samsung TV's can run at 30Hz as can my Sony X90K. A few people on AVSIM are running TV's at 30Hz with the motion settings turned on which helps smooth out the image when panning the camera.

Depending where you are in the world I would look at purchasing a TV from a store that has a no quibble return policy like Best Buy here in Canada. You could try it and if it doesn't work out return it.

[ianb2469 55]

That’s good news. I’ll do some more research then!

[RJC68 823]

13 minutes ago, ianb2469 said:

That’s good news. I’ll do some more research then!

One thing to consider is that most TV's when run in Game Mode will disable all motion settings so you would have to try different HDMI settings. On this Sony TV if I select the HDMI as enhanced with VRR game mode turns on automatically and cannot be changed. If I select normal HDMI mode I can change to any of the picture modes and select a number of different refresh rates like 30Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 100Hz & 120Hz. I did play around setting the refresh to 30Hz with motion turned on and while it did work well to smooth out panning the camera, 30Hz on a 55 inch TV the mouse lag was just horrible and made it a real chore to move the mouse around the screen. Other brand TV's may not exhibit this behavior.

I have settled on running at 100Hz on the TV then in sim I run Vsync on at 50% (50FPS) with Riva capping the FPS at 50 also. I run mostly ultra settings with a couple dropped down a notch and with my PC can maintain 50FPS 95% of the time. 

The main thing is adjust the in sim settings to reflect what you can achieve with your hardware

Good luck 

Edited March 1, 2023 by RJC68

[ianb2469 55]

Fair point re the mouse lag. Thank you!

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

54 minutes ago, ianb2469 said:

I run in 4K on a 32” monitor with good performance. Would I see the same performance on a 55” do you think?

Also, I run at 30hz refresh rate which makes things nice and smooth, finding a TV that specifies that option in the spec seems hard! 

What you have to consider is pixels per inch. A 32” UHD monitor has 138 per inch. A 55” screen at the same resolution has 80. Both will give the same frame rates.

A 28” 1920*1080 display also has a PPI of 80.

A larger display gives you immersion. A smaller one gives you a crisper image. You can’t have both. Only you can decide what’s more important.

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technology/ppi-calculator.php
 

For the record I run a 32” BenQ PD3200U at 30Hz and love the quality and smoothness.

[g-liner 388]

3 hours ago, robert young said:

A rarely discussed subject is the difference between clarity of even the highest res PFD/MFD displays in MSFS and the best youtube examples of similar displays in real aircraft. What it tells me is that there is still a long way to go. Anyone who has seen a real G1000/G3000 etc, or a Boeing/Airbus display can attest to the amazingly clear and crisp images (particularly text and essential readouts) in the real aircraft.

MSFS still has not solved this. Ideally the displays should be sharp, crisp and readable from some distance. That most definitely is not the case even with highest settings, unless you are 20 years old and have 20/20 vision.

This is absolutely correct, I fly a B787 irl and it’s easy to get a seating position where you have all the HUD clearly in front and just by looking slightly down you can read all the PFD or even over to the EFB on the side of the aircraft. FS doesn’t seem to come close to replicating this even in VR or in any displays. In fs2020, I just end up saving a lot of different views and swapping between them on approach. Or even using the unrealistic in game extra displays (can’t remember what it’s called, maybe the hud) for speed altitude and vs. 
 

TBH I think it’s just limitations of the sim and the difference between actually sitting in an aircraft or the way the sim represents it, 

[VFXSimmer 1,310]

45 minutes ago, Gstove said:

This is absolutely correct, I fly a B787 irl and it’s easy to get a seating position where you have all the HUD clearly in front and just by looking slightly down you can read all the PFD or even over to the EFB on the side of the aircraft. FS doesn’t seem to come close to replicating this even in VR or in any displays. In fs2020, I just end up saving a lot of different views and swapping between them on approach. Or even using the unrealistic in game extra displays (can’t remember what it’s called, maybe the hud) for speed altitude and vs. 
 

TBH I think it’s just limitations of the sim and the difference between actually sitting in an aircraft or the way the sim represents it, 

It’s not a sim issue really.  Unless you are pushed until the g3000 fills your monitor, the number of pixels that the instrument fills in your monitors screen space is less than the resolution of the actual device.  Wouldn’t matter what MSFS does, it’s the best the monitor can do.

WT could even generate an image for the Garmin display to use that is a 1 to 1 with the real thing.  The problem will be that it has to then be re-sampled with only the number of pixels that the window fills in screen space in your current view of the cockpit.  It would be the same thing if you stepped onto the deck of the real thing and took a photo the zoomed into the Garmin display.  The zoomed image of the photo will never look as sharp as what you would see with your eyes if you were viewing it in person.

Not only that, but in the real world you would probably lean in a little closer to read things anyway .. something you can do easily in VR 😉

[CapnCrunch 89]

On 3/1/2023 at 4:33 AM, Jazz said:

The seating positon looks alright but the zoom is way wrong.

Well that's it, the basic problem. As a default starting point (e.g. the first time you load a newly installed aircraft), it's the set-up 99% of the time. Like looking through binoculars the wrong way.

I set a custom view that balances readability with forward view over the panel. As Dominique_K mentioned, Right-ALT click is a simple, useful workaround after that. I just scale the new PFD window to my liking and park it down in the lower left of the screen. You can minimize/restore as needed. May not be a solution for everyone but it works well for me in the PMDG 737, CJ4 etc.

[Bernard Ducret 790]

If you have this sort of difficulty in a real cockpit,you lean your head a tad closer to the instrument, and this is what head tracking devices are made for i.e. Track IR or similar and of course VR.

Even on a very large screen providing life like dimensions you still need to focus somewhere and although there are ways to enlarge artificially what you need there is no substitute to these devices for real immersion.

[MattNischan 3,778]

On 3/1/2023 at 4:02 PM, VFXSimmer said:

WT could even generate an image for the Garmin display to use that is a 1 to 1 with the real thing.

This is already the case. The pixel resolution of the displays matches their real life counterparts.

Gotta disagree with Robert here. I stare at avionics YouTube videos every day and rarely are they something I would call "clear" or "readable" (my life would be so much easier if they were). This is just a simple case of not having sufficient pixels in the view. In a 1080p screen at a normal seating position you might only have 400px or less of screen.

Of course, you can still set your view like the old FS 2D panel views and smash your virtual face up against the screens with a sliver of windscreen at the top, and then I think you'll find they're just as clear as the old days. 😉

Edited March 4, 2023 by MattNischan

[Noel 4,492]

The only plane I have trouble with is the AS CRJ.  It's altitude indicator is so small you need a magnifier to read it.  So that's what I looked for:  an ultra simple little round digital magnifier I could bring up and hover over--near as I can tell there isn't any for Win 10!

[duckbilled 310]

48" OLED in 4k. Works like a charm. My 32" in 4k was fine as well.

I hooked my my rig to my 65" 4k TV and it looked great as well.