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afbecker

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    Sheboygan, WI, USA
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    Architect- Retired

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    Electronics, RC Flying, Model Building, Computer Programminig

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  1. Thanks Mark. The board you reference was going to be my go-to solution. Thanks for links to your YouTube work. I'll look in on them soon A.
  2. System Summary: Desktop PC running Windows 7- 64 bit, S.P.1, FSX-SE, FSUIPC4 Registered My proposed project is like many others I have looked at on the 'net. I wish to free myself of the mouse when using the various GPS panels in FSX stock aircraft. Many projects I have seen both D.I.Y and commercially available claim to do the job (I am referring to the ones using the popular USB button/switch circuit boards.) I find info. on the 'net that seems to be contradictory. As recently as 2020 dated posts elsewhere people have said this is not possible. I have read that the GPS panel buttons are only clickable regions on the panel that do not have (for lack of a better term) command codes. Of course I understand there must be some sort of command sent to FSX to affect the needed function. I have been searching endlessly on the 'net for the programmable numeric codes or "handles" that I can use within my licensed FSUIPC4 to which I can associate a joystick and button with each action on the GPS panel. So far the only choices I can see are the FSUIPC "Buttons" tab drop-down list box which offers up some 20 or so GPS related commands. This list doesn't appear to represent all the possibilities on the 2 GPS types of panels offered in the stock aircraft in FSX. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I have observed that the "Button Board" products for D.I.Y. sim builders have software associated with them that allows them to function in the sim. but as of yet I do not understand how those physical devices (buttons, encoders, etc.) get mapped over to all the button functions of the GPS panel since a mouse click on a panel image is not detected by FSUIPC like a Keyboard and Joystick buttons are. I am reaching out to successful D.I.Y. builders of such a switch bank that operates the GPS panels in FSX. Would someone confirm if there is a solution to this problem and what the key concepts are here. Lacking that, could you direct me to an explanation on some website or forum? If this message looks familiar I have posted it on other sim forums because there seems to be limited activity on other sites I have searched.
  3. I looked around on the Internet and could not find a reference to the program/application you mentioned. Have you any source information on it?
  4. Thanks stinger and Kenneth for your suggestions. The last time I did work on this (a few years ago) I did discover the way to make the window size custom tailored for my secondary monitor. I think at this go around, I will resort to that solution again even if it means duplicating the aircraft file with a new name. I will keep the single monitor version as well. After a little more hammering at the problem I did find I could "Save" a flight on the ground or in the air and it appeared to keep my undocked windows in place at least during numerous "resets" of the flight. I also did some fresh loads from the previously "saved" two monitor flights and sometimes I got good results and other times it all reverted back to the large screen. This I thought was odd because in Windows I designated the smaller one as my primary. So in short, this go-around with FSX I have had acceptable results only in that I did not have to drag/resize in between resets of the same flight. That is some progress I suppose.
  5. I have been searching the forum for the above noted subject but I can't seem to come upon the right search terms. I simply want to save the 2D instrument panel to a smaller monitor and the view out of the window on a larger monitor. I have seen one suggestion to simply save the flight but I haven't found this works. As we all know even when a flight is simply reset, it is necessary to resize, undock and drag the instrument view onto the secondary monitor. That is really tedious. I've seen suggestions elsewhere to use "ezdok" or "chaseplane" software but these things and all their complicated settings are really over-kill for what I wan to do. I am not interested in "aircraft physics" applied to my views or strolling around airports. I just want my display setup to persist within my FSX session or better yet in a configuration saved to disk. I should mention that I run a licensed version of FSUIPC and have a dozen aircraft configured with 5 profiles. It looked to me on a "chaseplane" video that it only offered the virtual cockpit for configuration as interior view go. This would be of no use to me at all. Does anyone know of an addon or a hack to FSX that would get me results?
  6. That is a very nice rendering of Montmartre and the Basilica. If I can get that by implementing your suggestions I will consider it a great success. Cheers!
  7. Thank you Tim. I'll have to polish up on my Francais. I'm not sure about the significance of the terrain mesh comment you made. What are the benefits of an increased Mesh resolution value (or drawbacks?) Is that to say the polygons that the terrain is mapped to are smaller polygons in the extents of the view? I can see how this might make the butte a smoother geometry but at the cost of FPS. Is this a correct understanding?
  8. It seems the screen capture I provided was possibly in the wrong location because I finally found my subject while slewing close to the ground at N48d 52.89, E2d 29.32. You can see from the new screen capture how it is rendered on my system. It is completely diminished and has none of its intended grandeur. Compare the size and scale to the GE aerial photo that I attached. Furthermore it looks a though the Butte itself has been reproduced at a higher elevation which is a welcomed discovery. If I were to correct this on my own system, I would delete the buildings with red X's and move S.C. to the top of the butte. This is how I remember it from flights in earlier FS versions. Could someone tell me- If I worked to acquire the skills, could I edit the scenery file (backing up the original of course) with all the software included in the FSX "Gold Edition"?
  9. For all the past years I have flown in Paris in FSX I wondered about the disappearance of Butte Montmartre and the iconic Sacre Coeur. As a Francophile and a simmer I recall being fond of circling the very nicely modeled Basilica and appreciated the effort that went into modeling it. It seems however that the last time I saw it was in my "Century of Flight" edition. It was a complete mystery why and when the Butte which dominated the topography and the Basilica then shrunk down to almost nothing. I have reinstalled FSX from the source disks maybe three times while setting up newer flight computers. The only Paris changes I made were a highly detailed airport add-on of LFPG Paris De Gaulle. Today I finally flew the Bell206 right up to the known Latitude (48d 53' 12") and Longitude (2d 20' 35") and took a pic. I was amazed to find that the fine model that I remember was replaced by this non-descript building (see attached screen shot.) The Butte on which the building sits is incorrectly represented in the terrain model as flat as a pancake! How could this be? Have other other Francophile-Simmers out there encountered the same unforgivable error?
  10. Thanks for the additional info Phantom. I have been creating my own apps in Visual Studio C Sharp for years and more or less understand what .dll's and .cab's are even though I've never had to compile them. I'm curious, how does one open view and extract the various gauges in a .dll or .cab file. Is there a software tool to do this?
  11. Hey thanks for the reload/reset tips you guys!
  12. Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Actually I don't have a source for older gauges on my system. All my old versions of FS have been long since discarded. I only have .dll's and .cab's as delivered with the FSX "Deluxe" edition. This whole experiment started when I downloaded "cfgedit.exe" after reading one of the panel tutorials in the "Articles" section of this site. I opened my experimental (copy) of the Bell 206 2D panel.cfg in the cfgedit application and I suppose I was not surprised that it could not find any .gau files. Since then I accepted the fact that it was an application written for earlier FS versions which could not easily be "tricked" into working on my project. I was hoping that application would help me position the gauges in my scaled up version of the 2D panel. In the end I have had pretty good results editing the panel.cfg manually to achieve the desired up-scaling results but it took a lot of trial and error and shutting-down restarting and reloading FSX between each edit. A graphic interface application for panel layouts would have been a time-saver. If I was to do this more frequently, I would consider a reasonably-priced panel editing application.
  13. So if I understand what you said: ".gau" files may not work in FSX so it is best not to use them- check. Aircraft available as "FS2004/FSX" are delivered with the ".cab" or ".dll" file types which are compatible and are to be placed in the "Gauge" folder or aircraft specific "Panel" folder- check. Unless I want to spend some money on a panel editor application, my only other choice is to roll up my sleeves and edit the text in the "panel.cfg" file within the aircraft's "Panel" directory- check. Correct me if I'm wrong.
  14. Sim= FSX"Gold Edition"with Acceleration on Windows 7- 64 bit O.S. I have been away from working on my simulator setup for a while and fear that my knowledge has been superseded. I use a 27" lcd display for view out the Bell 206 window and a second 17" to display the instrument panel. I have built full size controls. At one time in the past I had scaled up a copy of the 2D instrument panel to more or less fill the 17" display and I was able to drop it as a new view on that device without having to resize it with the handles. I had to manually edit the panel cfg file to move and scale all the gauges and the background, a bit tedious but I got it done. Now I am back to trying to get this working again. I have seen that FSX now uses .cab files instead of .gau files which I assume the gauges are extracted on demand when a flight is initialized. This leaves me with a few questions. I see some aircraft files available in the download section of this site have gauge files included wherein the instructions recommend copying the gauges into the GAUGE directory. Does this mean that FSX will still read them if they are called for in the aircraft's panel.cfg file? I don't have my FS2004 disks anymore so I really can't experiment with custom built panels using .gau files. I thought I would try to use "CfgEdit.exe" downloaded from this site to use it to experiment and tweak my scaled up panel. There being no .gau files anywhere on my system anymore has left me with countless missing file errors regardless of where I point the base directory. I have read the related article in the "Articles" section of this site. At the present is the only FSX solution to manipulate panels to buy panel editing software? I assume I can manually modify the text in the panel.cgf as I did the last time I worked on this project. It would be nice to just drag and drop stuff and have the gauge coordinates/size data update in the .cfg file. Your replies and tips are appreciated.
  15. The KingAir and the Baron. For that matter any aircraft that opens from a static condition. Are we expected to have the POH or Manual for aircraft in the menu? At this point I'm guessing that there is no option to begin a session with the engine already running? Also I prefer to fly without the 3D cockpit so are all the required controls/switches available by muse-click in the 2Dwindows? I should have mentioned I am running X-Plane 10
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