Good morning,
I was a little disappointed with my latest purchase. It's a Virtualcol aircraft, the Jetstream31 for the eternal FS2004. It's well made, except that the cockpit instruments are not round, but oval. They are compressed and distorted. I wrote twice, but I didn't receive a reply. Probably because it's inexpensive. Does anyone have any suggestions? Can its unpleasant appearance be modified?
Thanks anyway.
Chiastra Andrea

10 minutes ago, chiastra said:

Good morning,
I was a little disappointed with my latest purchase. It's a Virtualcol aircraft, the Jetstream31 for the eternal FS2004. It's well made, except that the cockpit instruments are not round, but oval. They are compressed and distorted. I wrote twice, but I didn't receive a reply. Probably because it's inexpensive. Does anyone have any suggestions? Can its unpleasant appearance be modified?
Thanks anyway.
Chiastra Andrea

It's probably due to the aspect ratio of your FS2004 installation ... if the panel was designed for 4:3 and your computer is running in 16:9 (fairly normal these days) the dials can be distorted width-ways.

There may be alternative choices on the aircraft menu within FS2004 for "normal" and "wide", or possibly alternative choices at install time.

The symptoms may be less apparent in the virtual cockpit, if the model has one, else it may be possible to modify the background bmp for the 2D cockpit and re-write the panel.cfg to reflect the changes.

Unfortunately there's probably no "one solution fits all".

Good luck

I have this plane, but I haven't used it in the last 12 years. As far as I remember, the 2D panel was done for 16:9 screens (resolutions such as 1366x768 or 1920x1080). What screen resolution do you have?

I remember you. We wrote to each other a few years ago about a HUD that I couldn't install. The Virtualcol aircraft seems, as you say, to have been designed many years ago... but at the time, 12:9 screens probably didn't exist yet. I use 4:3 because I like it better. I need to check my resolution, and then I'll write back to you. What I regret is that Virtualcol didn't reply to me.

Chiastra,

Do any of your default FS2004 aircraft panels display the same problem ?

I strongly suspect that your answer will be "no" and in that case I suggest you go for the simplest solution by finding, downloading and installing a more modern replacement panel for your problem aircraft. There are many freeware ones to choose from.

Good luck and happy landings.

Hans

16 hours ago, chiastra said:

The Virtualcol aircraft seems, as you say, to have been designed many years ago... but at the time, 12:9 screens probably didn't exist yet. I use 4:3 because I like it better. I need to check my resolution, and then I'll write back to you. What I regret is that Virtualcol didn't reply to me.

Unusually for its time, Virtualcol released the Jetstream 31 with a widescreen panel (back then, 16:9 displays were a novelty). I can't remember many developers releasing panels for 16:9; it was usually 4:3 or 16:10. If you don't care about the VC, you may consider Hans' suggestion and look for the Matthias Lieberecht panel. It's actually older than the Virtualcol one, but it was very good. It used to be available at http://www.baepanelproject.com/Jetstream31.htm. Hope the Wayback Machine can help. I remember that one was more suited to 4:3 screens.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Luis Hernandez

Many thanks at all for answers : ( CHRIS_EVE , HANS J , HERNANDEZ )

I have 1366 x 768 resolution video, but nothing changes. Unfortunately the "baepanelproject" link is off.  Now I am waiting the virtualcol answer, but I think my aircraft that's how it is.

 

 

Strange, with that resolution, the Virtualcol panel should be ok. See the product page: 

https://www.virtualcol.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=58

Images 15 and 16 show the 2D panel with a 16:9 aspect ratio, just like your monitor. Is that 1366x768 your native screen resolution?

Finally, virtualcol replied and sent me a link where I could download a version of the aircraft that should be compatible with FS2004. I downloaded and installed it, but nothing changed. The panel was still distorted! Fortunately, the aircraft was inexpensive, but I'm disappointed because it was a nice aircraft, within the limits of FS2004. My 4:3 monitor has several possible resolutions, but I can't say which one is native. However, I think the issue with the 16:9 panel should have been disclosed: I wouldn't have bought it. Redoing a panel is only for professionals, and that's not my case.  Bye

 

The distorted panel only occurs with Jetstream31 from virtualcol.        

6 hours ago, chiastra said:

My 4:3 monitor

That's the problem: you need a 4:3 version of this panel and Virtualcol didn't ever make one. There are three possible solutions:

1. The quickest one, but hardest in FPS: use the VC

2. The hardest one: edit the panel. You'll need to crop the image (just removing the rightmost pixels will do fine) and edit the panel.cfg accordingly. Not exactly for pros, but you'll definitely want to study a bit about panel configuration files.

3. What I did back then: get another panel. In this case, the one I recommended. The links are now dead, but the Wayback Machine can help you: https://web.archive.org/web/20120103210422/http://www.baepanelproject.com/Jetstream31.htm. The two latest files are for FS9. I hope you know how to merge aircraft (so that you can keep the visual eyecandy from one plane, but the flight dynamics of another one), though.

6 hours ago, chiastra said:

My 4:3 monitor has several possible resolutions, but I can't say which one is native

Can you list them here?

Edited February 4Feb 4 by Luis Hernandez
Spelling

Hi Hernandez
Thanks for the link you sent, which works. It seems to me that the only solution is the one in point 3 of your last reply. The difficulty will be the merge, which I tried a while back when merging a 767-757 with a nice panel made by Colacicco. The result was a disaster because there was no step-by-step explanation. The author forgot that an amateur couldn't handle it. Now I'll try choosing the right panel from your link, and I'll try patiently. If that fails, I'll turn to the forum again, hoping someone with experience merging panels can help. But I don't understand why Virtualcol did it in 16:9 when 4:3 was the standard back then.
Ciao
 

 

My PC is a bit old, it's a Pentium D 820 with 4 GB DDR2 RAM. The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GT 1030.0 The possible resolutions are 34, from 800x600x32 to 1920x1080x16 with 32 intermediate values. But I noticed that by setting a different resolution, the FS2004 screen remains the same. Regardless of the value set. It seems a bit strange to me.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, chiastra said:

My PC is a bit old, it's a Pentium D 820 with 4 GB DDR2 RAM. The graphics card is an Nvidia GeForce GT 1030.0 The possible resolutions are 34, from 800x600x32 to 1920x1080x16 with 32 intermediate values. But I noticed that by setting a different resolution, the FS2004 screen remains the same. Regardless of the value set. It seems a bit strange to me.

 

 

 

But what are your resolution settings in FS2004 itself?

Choose "Settings | Display | Hardware" from your FS2004 start-up screen and change it there 😉 

Hi Hernandez, I tried merging the panel you found, but it was another disaster. I'll try again, but I'm not optimistic. With patience.