Jump to content

Gauge Woes


afbecker

Recommended Posts

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I have been away from working on my simulator setup for a while and fear that my knowledge has been superseded.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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can edit the panel.cfg manually.

 

No need to examine gauge files, all you need (to edit) is the info in the panel.cfg file.

 

Gauges can be in either location.

 

Most .gau files don't work in fsx. Stop trying to get your aircraft from fs9 to run. It sounds like you copied your entire aircraft folder from an old fs9 install into fsx. Bad idea. Switch to using fsx aircraft. Or download fs9 planes that are in the library as "FS2004/FSX" as those are (usually properly) converted to be able to run in fsx.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You could try using msvcr70.dll, install it in your FSX root folder, I found that this got the Boeing777-300.gau from FS9 working in FSX, if you have trouble finding the .dll file I have uploaded a few complete Posky 777's to the library with this file included, search for Paul Craig 777, hope this helps.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some .gau files work, some don't.

 

Panels made for fs9 often have many gauges that don't work in fsx.

 

Again, you don't need to even look at the gauge files themselves. All you need to place the gauges on the panel is the panel.cfg file. The gauge size you set in the panel.cfg file as well.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

FS98 and earlier .gau files don't work in FSX, FS2000 and later ones do, except for the GPS.gau.

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

Xbox Series X, Asus Prime H510M-K, Intel Core i5-11400F 4.40GHz, 16Gb DDR4 3200, 2TB WD Black NVME SSD, 1TB Samsung SATA SSD

NVidia RTX3060 Ti 8Gb, Logitech Flight Yoke System, CH Pro Pedals, Acer K272HL 27", Windows 11 Home x64

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a quick tip..when moving gauges around and editing the panel.cfg, you can just hold down the ALT key to bring up the top menu..go to flights and just reset your flight, which just takes a short time, to see the results of your edit.

Still thinking about a new flightsim only computer!  ✈️

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little something to remember when using the Reload User Aircraft key combo, is that you MUST have ALL AI turned all the way off. Airport Vehicles, Ships of all sorts, AI Aircraft, you name it. ALL AI must be completely off.

If not, the various .cfg files, like the Panel.cfg or aircraft.cfg, may or may not reload completely. Some parts of them, like .cab files, or .xml gauge files, may or may not reload, so any changes you make may or may not take effect. If you have all the AI completely off, this is not a factor.

 

Also, some, in fact most, gauges in FSX are actually .xml files. All .cab files are is a form of zip file the .xml files can be packed into. Dll files are a compiled type of file, similar in construction or make-up to C++ files. Like .exe files are.

You can remove an .xml type of gauge files from .cab files, edit them if you need/want to, and either just leave them in the Panel folder, put them into the sim's Gauge folder, or put them back into the .cab file. Just remember to keep the pathing correct for whatever changes you make.

Finally, if you want other planes to be able to use a particular gauge or gauges, place them into the sim's Gauge folder. Whether it's a .dll, an .xml, whatever, it can go into the sim's Gauge folder for any plane to use. Once again, just make sure you use the correct pathing in the plane's Panel.cfg file.

 

Good fortune in your endeavours!

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little something to remember when using the Reload User Aircraft key combo, is that you MUST have ALL AI turned all the way off. Airport Vehicles, Ships of all sorts, AI Aircraft, you name it. ALL AI must be completely off.

If not, the various .cfg files, like the Panel.cfg or aircraft.cfg, may or may not reload completely. Some parts of them, like .cab files, or .xml gauge files, may or may not reload, so any changes you make may or may not take effect. If you have all the AI completely off, this is not a factor.

 

Thanks Pat, I never realised this! I have noticed that after several aircraft reloads (Ctrl+Shift+A is my combo) FSX or FS2004 will crash, so every 3 or 4 reloads I restart the flight with the default Ctrl+; combo.

Tim Wright "The older I get, the better I was..."

Xbox Series X, Asus Prime H510M-K, Intel Core i5-11400F 4.40GHz, 16Gb DDR4 3200, 2TB WD Black NVME SSD, 1TB Samsung SATA SSD

NVidia RTX3060 Ti 8Gb, Logitech Flight Yoke System, CH Pro Pedals, Acer K272HL 27", Windows 11 Home x64

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad I could help. I just re-read the paragraphs I took all that from. Turns out I was mistaken on one detail. You only need to have AI AIRCRAFT turned off, not ALL AI's. I do apologize for that. I have always made sure ALL the AI were off, but heck, no one's perfect :D

 

I got this information off Microsoft's ESP PAGE, the section marked Testing Changes to the aircraft.cfg file.

I realize this isn't FSX, exactly, but the information in it seems very accurate for FSX, and I have used it for a long time.

 

Good luck, and enjoy!

Pat☺

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

Had a thought...then there was the smell of something burning, and sparks, and then a big fire, and then the lights went out! I guess I better not do that again!

Sgt, USMC, 10 years proud service, Inactive reserve now :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

how does one open view and extract the various gauges in a .dll or .cab file. Is there a software tool to do this?

A CAB-file is a compressed file of XML-code (textfiles) and bitmaps for gauges.

It's somehow similar to a ZIP-file, and can be opened (and content extracted) with WinZip, WinRar, or similar.

 

Be aware: the reverse process can't be done with the above software, you'll need CABDIR.EXE from the SDK for that purpose.

OTOH gauge folders don't need to be "cabbed" or "re-cabbed" to be funtional.

 

As for a DLL: that's compiled code. Impossible to open and/or change it (unless maybe if you're a VERY talented hacker. But in that case: keep it to yourself ;)).

 

Wim

b727fcaptain.jpgx701captain5.jpg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...