SP-1 CHANGES VIEW BEHAVIOUR!!! WHY??

[thesidewinder]

Ok, after a lot of testing I've determined that SP-1 is the cause of some views being "changed". By this I mean:

In Mini-Panel view (2-D cockpit, cycle thru sub-views until you get the 6 gauses at the bottom of screen), I used to be able to press SHIFT-2 to bring up the Autopilot, and the view did NOT change to Main Panel. NOW it changes to Main Panel view (IFR or Landing) if I bring up the autopilot!

ALSO, in "No Panel" view (next view after Mini-Panel) if I hit the hat switch I could look all around me, including backwards, WITHOUT the airplane's parts being in view. NOW you get the aircraft body blocking the rear and side views.

MS DEVS, WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE YOU THINKING?!??!!

And for anyone else, is there a .cfg file setting I can change to get the "old" display parameters back?

Thanks in advance.

M

[sfgiants]

I'm also having the same behavior. For myself, I enjoy flying with in 2s and max view. They should have emailed me, I would have tested this plus Photoscenery add-ons.

TJ

[Clyde]

One of the things you can do to fly in max view is to shut off the main panel. You can do this thru the view menu and turn it off or as I do by the Shift + 1 key for example. After that you can use the Shift + 2 or Shift + 3 keys to display the auto pilot or GPS without the main panel being on.
Clyde

[sfgiants]

I agree but the issue is looking left and right. We want the old view back where it won't show the co-pilot chair or window.

TJ

[Clyde]

I also agree with you on the left and right windows. Until that is fixed, I hold down the SHIFT + ENTER keys to make them disappear. You can use the SHIFT + BACKSPACE keys to go back to original windows.

Clyde

[BMG50]

>>I also agree with you on the left and right windows. Until
>>that is fixed,
>
>Clyde, this will never get "fixed." It was coded this way
>by design because of the new camera system. The
>behavior you saw in FSX RTM was because of "broken code;" it
>was never a feature... ;)
>
>
Hate to read that..Really used it alot...Gonna miss it....Lou BMG50

[Clyde]

Thanks Bill. Until you mentioned it about the design code and the new camera system, I never realized it.
Clyde

[thesidewinder]

The changes are "by design"?!?!?!

That sucks, in my opinion.

The views before SP1 are the *SAME* as FS9's. Why the bloody "L" did they mess with success? :(

M

[BMG50]

Well,I finally got around to re-installing Flight deck 4 yesterday, and guess what?...I have the left and right views back (without the plane body) with the FD4 planes!!!

[Stevdon06]

>Clyde, this will never get "fixed." It was coded this way
>by design because of the new camera system. The
>behavior you saw in FSX RTM was because of "broken code;" it
>was never a feature... ;)

I disagree with that statement above. This feature to have unobstructed views in all directions when turning off the panel was present in FS9 and in FSX. The new camera system did not change this.

If you say this was due to "broken code", can you provide a link or some other documentation that confirms your statement? If you can't point to any, then I'm afraid your statement is simply speculation, nothing more.

A lot of people used this unobstructed view to look in all directions, it was useful and made flying more exciting. I hope this is eventually fixed to return the FSX views to it's original behavior.

[JSkorna]

Because they do not have the fixed camera views.

Jim

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[JSkorna]

Would you believe it if the statement came from Microsoft?

Jim

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[Stevdon06]

>Would you believe it if the statement came from Microsoft?
>
>Jim


If the "broken code" explanation came from Microsoft, then absolutely that would confirm it. But no one has provided a link as of yet, hence the hesitation to blindly accept unconfirmed remarks.

[JSkorna]

If an NDA was involved would that make a difference?

Jim

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[napamule2]

Jim,
Sometimes I get confused. Are they (you all) talking about 'View view', 'Look view', or 'Eyepoint view'? Does anyone have a breakdown per AC panel views? It's all not only new, but not very well documented, and all mixed up due to 'types' of views all lumped together with even camera views. Arrrrveagh! It is hard to 'undo' things, as we well know, and then re-learn them. We should of gotten a heads up / tutoring docs or videos on 'VIEWS' from MS. Too late now. Those 'in the know' sometimes just won't help ('too busy'?).
Chuck B
napamule

[Stevdon06]

I have been turning off the panel to get a full view of the outside environment ever since my first sim, FS98. I've been able to do this in FS2000, FS2002, FS9, and FSX. That is I've been able to do it in FSX before SP1 came around and ruined it for the first time.

Why Microsoft would want to mess with success, I don't know. This seems to be an error in SP1 and not a deliberate attempt to change this particular feature. When someone removes the panel from the screen, they do it to get a full view of the outside - and this means from ALL directions, not just the front view.

After all, showing the panel or part of the cockpit when someone has pressed button on the keyboard for the purpose of removing it seems really illogical.

NDA or not, Micorsoft needs to fess up to what's going on here. Was this a deliberate removal of a long standing awesome feature, or simply an error in SP1 which will be fixed in the future?

[JSkorna]

Hi Steve,

I will try one more time: with RTM FSX everyone WAS NOT supposed to get full view, that is a result of A BUG from another part of the sim.

With SP1 THE BUG from another part of the sim was FIXED. This is the result.

If THIS BUG was not in the RTM version you WOULD NOT have had a full view.

If this is a feature you want RIGHT NOW, then uninstall just SP1 and full view will return.

If you wish to let Microsoft know your thoughts on this for the future then there is an e-mail address for that. Keep in mind that the next SP is called the dx10 patch, scheduled for Q4 of 2007.

Thanks,
Jim

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[bjhoff]

...found a workaround for me: Moved the eye point in the aircraft.cfg a bit forward. In my preferred Learjet from -16.xxx to -6.xxx. About the same feeling of beeing there as before, so I am happy again.

[Stevdon06]

>with RTM FSX everyone WAS NOT
>supposed to get full view, that is a result of A BUG from
>another part of the sim.

Hi Jim, you mean to say that a feature that had been present in previous versions of the sim and which was also a part of RTM FSX, but only a part of this new version because of a bug?

That is honestly difficult to fathom - a normal and great feature in previous Microsoft flight simulators, that is now just a bug in FSX that isn't supposed to be there? You see how difficult this is to accept? You may be right, but it really seems utterly illogical.

As I said before, it would be really commendable of Microsoft if they confirmed this, and if it truly was a feature they wanted removed, to explain the reasons behind removing this useful feature.

[vgbaron]

You're assuming that this was considered a feature in the first place.
Maybe the number of people who find this a "feature" is not as great as you think, including the developers. As the sim approaches more and more realism you will find things like this disappearing. You would never get that view in a real a/c so why include it in the sim?

Possibly using the camera sdk one might be able to kludge a similar view.

Vic

[esteiner]

There is a workaround that I have tried, and found to work. Try this:

Go to the aircraft.cfg file of your chosen aircraft. Open it in notepad, and scroll down to the section named Views. In it, there is an entry for eyepoint. There are three value listed and a remarks statement giving the meaning for each. The third value is the one to tweak. I first doubled the value, did a save, and started FSX. Almost right, but I had to do some more tweaking, save, and restart FSX. I finally was able to pan without seeing my airplane. I have done this to the Baron 58 and the Cessna 172 and had no problem. I hope that this will encourage others to experiment.

Emil Steiner

[Stevdon06]

>You would never get that view in a real a/c
>so why include it in the sim?
>


If that's the case, then in a real aircraft you never get the spot view, top down view, tail view etc, either, so why include it in the sim?

How is it possible to view your aircraft from the outside following 100 feet behind it while flying? You would never get those views in a real a/c. So if this can't be done in a real aircraft, then why did Microsoft include these views then in the sim?

See the argument? Microsoft includes these views because they are very useful to the simmer, even though they are not present in real aircraft. Many people found the views useful that SP1 obliterated, and naturally, we are a bit upset about this.

[Stevdon06]

> What I can report without
> violating an NDA I pass along whenever prudent.

Thank you for telling us what you know. I'm surprised however that Microsoft, being so forthcoming and open about performance issues in FSX by discussing it and their plans for a fix on forums, is not open about the View issue in SP1 and has slapped an NDA on its discussion. This strikes me as odd. I think they could be a lot more helpful in openly discussing this with us. I think they would find many of us that would like to take this "serendipitous" feature of pre-SP1 FSX, and make it a permanent part of the sim, as had been the case in previous versions.

[Stevdon06]

UPDATE ON THE "W" KEY ISSUE:

Apparently people are searching for the "W" key obstructed 2D view problem caused by SP1 and are still finding this thread and getting misled by reading the misinformation posted in it. I was led here again by a link from an innocent victim of this misinformation, who thought it was true. (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1084446&postcount=9)

The facts have been set straight by Aces who have confirmed that SP1 introduces a bug which breaks the camera system in FSX. Before SP1, you could hit the W key and make all the panels disappear to get an unobstructed view outside - that is normal FSX behavior, which you also saw in previous FS releases as well. After SP1 is installed, a bug in SP1 damages this in FSX and prevents you from getting this full clear view.

People reading the earlier posts in this thread are unfortunately given the wrong information from a few posters that Aces intentionally engineered SP1 to chop out unobstructed views of the outside. NOT TRUE! It was an unintended bug in SP1 that damaged the clear views, in no way did Aces ever plan for this to happen! The removal of unobstructed views was defintely not a result of Aces *FIXING* the camera system, SP1 was never coded to remove unobstructed views *by design* - as some would mislead you to believe.

Phil Taylor himself set the record straight on this - it was an unknown bug at the time in SP1 that broke the normal 2D view camera system.

Hope this helps to clear things up.

[thesidewinder]

Glad to know that my suspicions about the explanation at the time, were well-founded.

Can you provide a web-link to a article in which Phil Taylor and/or Aces says this?

*****EDIT: Never mind, I found the answer on Phil Taylor's blogsite, currently on Page 2.*****

And SP2 will NOT fix the problem. *sigh*


Thanks.
M