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Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

Kilonum posted:

If you're in the US, RealSimGear make a button box that is also a standalone display for the GNS430/530, G1000 and some other stuff.

Yeah RealSimGear make really nice stuff. I'd just want the buttons, though, and part of the fun would be that you could do it yourself.


e: seems that someone wrote a book on that very subject, tempted to just buy it in case there's something useful in it:
https://www.amazon.com/Almost-Aviation-Building-beautiful-simulator/dp/1519048718

Lord Stimperor fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jan 3, 2021

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Mailer
Nov 4, 2009

Have you accepted The Void as your lord and savior?
I have barely, but successfully, landed using a hotas. I'm basically a pilot now, right?

In case anyone is wondering the t16000 throttle is sticky as hell. Something something rip your hardware apart and insert grease something. I've got twist mapped to rudder as default but it's got the same binary on-or-off problem as the ds4 controller I was using previously, so I assume stuff is just broken. The single best part is the wheel on the throttle for trim, but you have to bend the poo poo out of the curve because the default will nosedive/stall if you breathe on it.

Still many hours and a bunch of config changes before I feel comfortable with OnAir or whatever the new hot equivalent is.

slidebite
Nov 6, 2005

Good egg
:colbert:

INTJ Mastermind posted:

I bound keyboard keys to Comm and Nav radio standby freq up and down:

Com1: 1/2/3/4
Nav1: Q/W/E/R
Nav2: A/S/D/F
Com2: Z/X/C/F

The outer two keys (i.e. Q/R) control the whole digit up/down, and the inner two keys (i.e. W/E) control the decimal part up/down. This replicates the inner and outer knob function of the real radio knobs.

I also bound F1 - F4 for swapping Active and Standby Frequencies for each Com and Nav radio.
I never considered binding keys :doh: I'll try doing that. I wish you could just type it once "selected"

The switching between standby/active isn't a big deal but tuning drove me looney. Flying a 172 in rough air (west coast of Canada was going through a hell of a storm late yesterday) and getting thrown around in the cockpit, it was not fun.

And I'll check out realsimgear. Thanks!

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

I'm just shouting this into the room, but would anyone be interested in collaborating to design a control panel for MSFS 2020?

I've built a few earlier, one of them using laser-cut materials and a pro micro controller. I expect that if we put our heads together we could come up with a kit that's robust, useful, and can be easily replicated by others.

Shine
Feb 26, 2007

No Muscles For The Majority

Mailer posted:

I've got twist mapped to rudder as default but it's got the same binary on-or-off problem as the ds4 controller I was using previously, so I assume stuff is just broken.

Did you map the twist to the Rudder Left and Rudder Right controls, or did you map it to the singular Rudder Axis control?

zedprime
Jun 9, 2007

yospos

Lord Stimperor posted:

I'm just shouting this into the room, but would anyone be interested in collaborating to design a control panel for MSFS 2020?

I've built a few earlier, one of them using laser-cut materials and a pro micro controller. I expect that if we put our heads together we could come up with a kit that's robust, useful, and can be easily replicated by others.
Someones already done all the hard work by actually making plane control interfaces so you can just reap the benefit and stencil a Garmin or your favorite MFD.

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

I need help with trouble shooting VR in Flight Sim. I have a HP Reverb G2, playing Flight Sim on Steam. When I switch over to VR mode, the headset just gives me a blank yellow screen. I restarted my computer, and now switching to VR mode in Flight Sim from the options menu, crashes me back to desktop. It use to not do this, I have been able to successfully play Flight Sim in VR just fine. Now it just isnt working at all. I am unsure what to do.

Rot
Apr 18, 2005

Not nearly as realistic as the RealSimGear stuff but definitely not nearly as expensive (I paid less than $100 CDN), is to use a midi controller like the X-Touch Mini and an app like AxisAndOhs.

8 rotary dials, each with a button function, plus 16 buttons and dual layers means lots of functions can be handled. Through RPN scripting and button combos in AxisAndOhs you can expand even further.

This is my current layout, I use it in MSFS all the time and do 90% of my flights never touching the keyboard or trying to mouse around on a bouncing instrument panel.



For example, if I want to change the target altitude by 100ft, I turn the ALT encoder. But if I want to change the alt by 1000ft, I press and hold in the dial as I turn it. Similar to the nav radios and switching between MHz and kHz.

The author of AAO has added the ability to map to MSFS HTML_event variables, which means the MFD and PFD functions are now available.

This will be my new template, once I get the kinks worked out:



I started writing a bit of a guide to AAO + X-Touch Mini on the MSFS forums but it almost immediately got out of date, plus the users on that forum make me grumpy and saps my good will. I've since been working with the author of AAO to improve and expand some features. Hopefully things will get to a point where I can get down to writing a proper guide.

Rot fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jan 3, 2021

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

I hadn't thought about MiDI controllers at all. The one you mentioned goes for €47 here. Strongly considering that right now, even if it does take some pictures of the fun away of building something from (almost) the ground up.

I presume that app you mentioned turns midi input into keystrokes?

Rot
Apr 18, 2005

Lord Stimperor posted:

I presume that app you mentioned turns midi input into keystrokes?

Not quite. It talks to MSFS (and other sims) via Simconnect.

To pick an example, I think default MSFS kb mappings has Z as the autopilot toggle.

Instead of AAO sending "z" when you press the button assigned to AP, it will toggle the AP_MASTER Simconnect Event ID.

slidebite
Nov 6, 2005

Good egg
:colbert:

That looks pretty sweet. I see Garmin actual makes a remote keypad as well - if one of these could be simmed as a pop-up it would probably be a big improvement right there.

Link is a PDF from Garmin

http://static.garmin.com/pumac/GCU475_GCU476_InstallationManual.pdf

Cojawfee
May 31, 2006
I think the US is dumb for not using Celsius

slidebite posted:

That looks pretty sweet. I see Garmin actual makes a remote keypad as well - if one of these could be simmed as a pop-up it would probably be a big improvement right there.

Link is a PDF from Garmin

http://static.garmin.com/pumac/GCU475_GCU476_InstallationManual.pdf

https://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/sep/13437

hannibal
Jul 27, 2001

[img-planes]

Rot posted:

MIDI controller stuff

This looks really great, please keep us informed. (browsing for X-Touch Minis now...)

Shipon
Nov 7, 2005

Rot posted:

Not nearly as realistic as the RealSimGear stuff but definitely not nearly as expensive (I paid less than $100 CDN), is to use a midi controller like the X-Touch Mini and an app like AxisAndOhs.

8 rotary dials, each with a button function, plus 16 buttons and dual layers means lots of functions can be handled. Through RPN scripting and button combos in AxisAndOhs you can expand even further.

This is my current layout, I use it in MSFS all the time and do 90% of my flights never touching the keyboard or trying to mouse around on a bouncing instrument panel.



For example, if I want to change the target altitude by 100ft, I turn the ALT encoder. But if I want to change the alt by 1000ft, I press and hold in the dial as I turn it. Similar to the nav radios and switching between MHz and kHz.

The author of AAO has added the ability to map to MSFS HTML_event variables, which means the MFD and PFD functions are now available.

This will be my new template, once I get the kinks worked out:



I started writing a bit of a guide to AAO + X-Touch Mini on the MSFS forums but it almost immediately got out of date, plus the users on that forum make me grumpy and saps my good will. I've since been working with the author of AAO to improve and expand some features. Hopefully things will get to a point where I can get down to writing a proper guide.

Holy crap that's awesome, I'll definitely be on the lookout for one of these things. I bought a Streamdeck thinking I could use that with one of the event handlers but it's definitely more annoying to use.

Helter Skelter
Feb 10, 2004

BEARD OF HAVOC

Shipon posted:

Holy crap that's awesome, I'll definitely be on the lookout for one of these things. I bought a Streamdeck thinking I could use that with one of the event handlers but it's definitely more annoying to use.

AxisAndOhs appears to have Streamdeck support as well, so you may still be able to get some good use out of it.

Bedurndurn
Dec 4, 2008
You can't actually control the garmin stuff in MSFS can you? I haven't flown anything since October, but last I'd played there weren't actually binds in the sim for the Garmin specific controls. So you can adjust the AP stuff (heading, alt, etc) and radios, but not like pages on the MFD or the knob that does the airport code input for your flight plans.

Shipon
Nov 7, 2005

Bedurndurn posted:

You can't actually control the garmin stuff in MSFS can you? I haven't flown anything since October, but last I'd played there weren't actually binds in the sim for the Garmin specific controls. So you can adjust the AP stuff (heading, alt, etc) and radios, but not like pages on the MFD or the knob that does the airport code input for your flight plans.

There aren't direct binds but there are API hooks in the game that let an external app directly manipulate those variables, IIRC.

slidebite
Nov 6, 2005

Good egg
:colbert:


yeah like that, but even as software emulated popup window would be an improvement.

Bedurndurn
Dec 4, 2008

Shipon posted:

There aren't direct binds but there are API hooks in the game that let an external app directly manipulate those variables, IIRC.

That would still be new actually. The API hooks weren't there at launch.

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

I said come in! posted:

I need help with trouble shooting VR in Flight Sim. I have a HP Reverb G2, playing Flight Sim on Steam. When I switch over to VR mode, the headset just gives me a blank yellow screen. I restarted my computer, and now switching to VR mode in Flight Sim from the options menu, crashes me back to desktop. It use to not do this, I have been able to successfully play Flight Sim in VR just fine. Now it just isnt working at all. I am unsure what to do.

Found the problem, HDR has to be disabled. Not sure why this is relevant, but Flight Sim is a very broken game.

Rot
Apr 18, 2005

Helter Skelter posted:

AxisAndOhs appears to have Streamdeck support as well, so you may still be able to get some good use out of it.

There's also a demo version to try out to see if you get along with AAO or not.

It's a bit of an odd program and at times not very intuitive. But the documentation is good and the developer is very good at support.

Rot
Apr 18, 2005

Bedurndurn posted:

You can't actually control the garmin stuff in MSFS can you? I haven't flown anything since October, but last I'd played there weren't actually binds in the sim for the Garmin specific controls. So you can adjust the AP stuff (heading, alt, etc) and radios, but not like pages on the MFD or the knob that does the airport code input for your flight plans.

With my set up above I can control almost all the functions of the MFD and PFD in a G1000 plane. It's still a work in progress but I can use the FMS dial to swap between the map and Wx, or bring up a list of nearest airports, check out the ILS freq, and plot a DirectTo course. The softkey buttons are there too but it takes a bit of fiddling around with the XTouch Mini for all that to work.

Also, I highly recommend the Working Title G1000 (and G3000 and G3x) mods, they can be found on Github.

Trillhouse
Dec 31, 2000

I just got into DCS for the first time, after playing IL-2 for a million hours and wanting a stronger fix. That, and I heard they're working on the AH-64D, which is my dream sim.

So I've been playing over the holidays and having a blast. I figure if I master the Huey and the A-10, I'll have a good head-start for the Apache. The Huey is rad and I've had way more fun with it than I thought I would. I love that you can hop-in and get started without much fuss, and even hovering is challenging and fun.

The A-10 is fun too, especially with track ir. It feels badass to set a targeting point by just looking at and pressing a button, like you're the terminator or something.

I spent some time with the WWII planes too, but with so few systems to fiddle with, it doesn't offer enough over IL-2 for it to be worth it for me.

Edit: I really wish some peripheral company would release a reasonably priced collective. It looks like your only options are pay $500+ or DIY, and I'm not that handy with electronics.

Trillhouse fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 4, 2021

Trillhouse
Dec 31, 2000

Mailer posted:

I have barely, but successfully, landed using a hotas. I'm basically a pilot now, right?

In case anyone is wondering the t16000 throttle is sticky as hell. Something something rip your hardware apart and insert grease something. I've got twist mapped to rudder as default but it's got the same binary on-or-off problem as the ds4 controller I was using previously, so I assume stuff is just broken. The single best part is the wheel on the throttle for trim, but you have to bend the poo poo out of the curve because the default will nosedive/stall if you breathe on it.

I have a t16000 throttle too. I used Froglube and it made a big difference. Plus it smells minty.

Squiggle
Sep 29, 2002

I don't think she likes the special sauce, Rick.


God drat it, I just want MFS VR to be less finicky and to goddamn run better. I really hope they make some passes at VR performance (or performance in general I guess since it's apparently a dog in the first place). The 2070 VR post everyone references is extremely helpful, but still.

EDIT: And of course, I've now found a pretty good mix of settings.

Squiggle fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jan 4, 2021

0toShifty
Aug 21, 2005
0 to Stiffy?

Rot posted:

I started writing a bit of a guide to AAO + X-Touch Mini on the MSFS forums but it almost immediately got out of date, plus the users on that forum make me grumpy and saps my good will. I've since been working with the author of AAO to improve and expand some features. Hopefully things will get to a point where I can get down to writing a proper guide.

This looks so awesome.

I had bought a Loupedeck Live thinking it would be similar, but it very much is not. The loupedeck emulates keystrokes and does macros, so I was just mapping keyboard controls. The delay is not adjustable at all, so MSFS was not detecting all keypresses, especially from the encoders. It was a darn cool looking setup though, you can put images on the touchscreen buttons, and near the encoders. I made it look like the amber LCD text in the A320's FCU (AP Panel). Apparently they have just added a MIDI mode, so it might eventually be possible to get it working via simconnect.

Rocko Bonaparte
Mar 12, 2002

Every day is Friday!
Regarding altitude artifacts after the US update: I noticed a few scary ones around Aspen. There isn't a lot of wiggle room there in the first place, and the death towers made it much more imposing.

hannibal
Jul 27, 2001

[img-planes]

Helter Skelter posted:

AxisAndOhs appears to have Streamdeck support as well, so you may still be able to get some good use out of it.

There's other Streamdeck solutions out there too, like plugins using the Streamdeck API (multiple ones from what I can tell - some free, some paid) but the thing for me that sets the MIDI controller apart for me are the knobs.

There's also some good touch tablet/iPad etc. solutions like https://www.simionic.net/WordPress/g1000-apps/ - for a while I was propping an old iPad Mini up under my monitor and it worked really well.

Fayez Butts
Aug 24, 2006

I said come in! posted:

Found the problem, HDR has to be disabled. Not sure why this is relevant, but Flight Sim is a very broken game.

The good news is HDR is broken anyway and the game rarely looks better with it on.

Lord Stimperor
Jun 13, 2018

I'm a lovable meme.

I didn't actually consider that the Garmin input would.only be available through API hooks. That would have made my homebuilt box substantially more difficult.

I'm deffo getting the Behringer X touch mini, but the idea of building another panel is still in the back o my mind.


Is there any difference between the x touch mini ad the x touch mini ultra in regards to it's usability with a&o? The ultra version seems to.... Be black and glow in a different color?


And would any MIDI controller work, such as for instance the Akuria BeatStep (has more encoders so might be more convenient)?

Lord Stimperor fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Jan 5, 2021

Shipon
Nov 7, 2005

Fayez Butts posted:

The good news is HDR is broken anyway and the game rarely looks better with it on.

isn't HDR on PC pretty much broken anyway, windows apparently just does a poor job of it

Dr. Video Games 0031
Jul 17, 2004

Shipon posted:

isn't HDR on PC pretty much broken anyway, windows apparently just does a poor job of it

Certainly doesn't help that monitor standards are all over the place and are mostly much worse than the TV standard.

Rot
Apr 18, 2005

Lord Stimperor posted:

And would any MIDI controller work, such as for instance the Akuria BeatStep (has more encoders so might be more convenient)?

As far as I know, any midi controller would work. Just make sure that the encoders can be turned continuously, some have stops. There's a new version of AAO coming up that can work around this but it won't be as nice as being able to spin the knobs freely.

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

Fayez Butts posted:

The good news is HDR is broken anyway and the game rarely looks better with it on.

Yeah HDR has turned out to not be the game changer that it was suppose to be. The only time you see good use of HDR is in tech demo's designed for it. My monitor would be pointless if it wasn't for the 144hz mode it also has.

Anime Store Adventure
May 6, 2009


I've been crazy ready to fly but I have been holding back because my Honeycomb Throttle is finally shipping and should, probably, be here tomorrow (though I am mentally kind of preparing for Thursday.)

Very psyched to finally try all of my new flight sim things together. I wish I could say it was with a new 30x series card but ya know, stock and all that. I've barely touched my Honeycomb yoke or reverb since I got either because I've been waiting for this.

EngineerJoe
Aug 8, 2004
-=whore=-



Is hdr as broken on consoles as it is on Windows? I don't really understand why it's so bad. HDR content on youtube looks great on my computer but games looks like washed out garbage. FS2020 actually looks the best and I *think* it may look better than non hdr. Everything else is bad though. Pretty sure I have it set up correctly too.

Dr. Video Games 0031
Jul 17, 2004

EngineerJoe posted:

Is hdr as broken on consoles as it is on Windows? I don't really understand why it's so bad. HDR content on youtube looks great on my computer but games looks like washed out garbage. FS2020 actually looks the best and I *think* it may look better than non hdr. Everything else is bad though. Pretty sure I have it set up correctly too.

No, HDR is great on consoles. PC is just really behind on this front for some reason. I blame bad windows support and monitor standards that are all over the place.

hannibal
Jul 27, 2001

[img-planes]
Boy those X-Touch Minis are hard to come by, unless I want to pay >$100 on ebay, I guess.

I also found this as another option for using it with MSFS2020: https://github.com/maartentamboer/X-Touch-Mini-FS2020

0toShifty
Aug 21, 2005
0 to Stiffy?
I play MSFS on a Surface Book 2 15" (GTX1060). HDR works and it's pretty awesome. I guess it's easier to implement on a self-contained system. I don't use external monitors. Naturally Microsoft has to understand its own Windows 10 HDR implementation.

I play at native resolution with 50% render scaling. Other settings are mostly on medium/high, and using TAA. I get 20-25 FPS in the cockpit, and around 30 outside. In a complex city and a custom airport, it's only around 12-14 FPS. It's hell, but until the game is running better for people with higher-end systems, I don't know if I have a clear upgrade path yet. Besides - it's impossible to buy any new generation video card still.

For some reason I have a long history of playing games on laptops that aren't meant for gaming. I live my life one frame at a time.

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Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
DC Designs is gonna release their F-15 in roughly two weeks, as stand-alone because the MSFS store takes a while. And they're working on a F-22, too. Neat.

Definitely do want the F-22.

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