Hi All,
The mission compass display was designed back when monitors had standard 4:3 aspect ratio displays. Most everyone now has a widescreen monitor, so the mission compass appears stretched horizontally. With some detective work I have found a way to correct it.
In your FSX gauges folder, look for the file "missionpanels.cfg" and make a backup. Open it in notepad and scroll down to the [Window00] section. Despite rather standard-looking entries, many are overriden by FSX internal code. For example, the 'window_size' and 'window_pos" entries are totally ignored. So no help in fixing the problem. I also discovered the "size_mm" value can be commented out completely with no effect. In fact, the easiest way to change the aspect ratio of the gauge00 in this window I found is to remove it (comment it out).
Then I was able to change the compass display's aspect ratio simply by changing values on the gauge00= line. The third and fourth parameter then directly control the width and height of the gauge. For my 16:10 apect ratio monitor I made the following changes:
[Window00]
;size_mm=98,123 // this line is commented out
...
;gauge00=Missions!POI, 0, 0, 98, 123 // original
gauge00=Missions!POI, 0, 0, 82, 100 // My settings for 16:10. For 16:9 displays, try 75 instead of 82
I haven't tested this fully in other missions but in simple ones with just the mission pointer it looks much better.
David CYXE