FSX Spy User

Hi Johan, sorry to bombard you with questions: It does, at least when the FSX Spy server is started. But if I later change the FSX flight then it appears that FSX can mess up the window positions? I'm using the Panel Position utility to correct this when it happens but it would be easier to do everything from one application. I'll see if I can replicate this, if so I'll tell you the precise sequence of actions to make it happen. I'm running in windowed mode if that helps. Also it appears that the FSX Spy server window and client channel window can appear at different positions between runs? Assuming that's not something to do with my system it would be great if they could remember their screen positions too. RLE would probably work very well for the black / green screens I mentioned. Will the next version offer jpeg / motion jpeg as options? I ask because I'm not sure how my system will handle motion jpeg, it would be good to maintain backward compatibility with the current version. My question is really this; are you capturing the whole screen once per cycle and then taking the undocked window images from this single sample (subject to their configured rates), or are you capturing the undocked windows individually via multiple captures per cycle? I ask out of interest really, it would seem to me that one sample of the whole screen per cycle would be the most efficient but I haven't written my own capture program so it may not work quite as I expect? What are your thoughts on capturing multiple channels from the same window? Regarding the client, it appears to me the window positioning isn't quite as convenient as on the server. I really like the server's numeric inputs for window adjustment, if this could be replicated on the client end I would be very pleased. Especially if the windows could be adjusted like this with their borders hidden, I'm finding precise window positioning on the client to be difficult. I really like how the server part does these things! Finally might it be possible to overlay (as an option) the actual frame rate being achieved by any client window? That would help greatly with performance tuning. Thankyou! Oh, one more thing: On my system I'm using an FSX Spy server and client on the same machine. Are there / could there be any optimisations available in this situation, e.g. not doing any sort of compression / decompression, rather just blit the image more-or-less direct? Thanks.

Hi Johan, thankyou for sharing this, it's brilliant! I was on the verge of writing something like this myself, so glad I found this first. I'm using this to build a dedicated cockpit computer for an F/A-18. I have lots of channels for the various cockpit displays, including external views for rear view monitors (the horizontal flip ability is required here, thanks for including it). I'm currently experimenting with functionality, will soon look at performance tuning. In particular I'm wanting to run some of the displays using channels of 600x600 pixels at 30Hz+, what do you think are my chances? These high-rate displays are simple black and green, I'm wondering if the transmitted imagery is 24/32-bit full-colour and if so, would performance be increased by offering the option of 8-bit transmission, perhaps by the selection of a single colour channel? This might also help with HUD extraction, if for example only the pure green parts of an image could be captured? Also would it be possible to add a button to re-position the channel windows without re-starting the server? FSX seems to like to mess these up when switching saved flights. And a question, if I may. Does the program capture the whole screen at once then pick out the channels, or does it capture each window separately or individually?