Sharper VC gauges

[Tuor2112]

Hello-is it possible to sharpen the gauges in a VC.I have a payware plane that has a good VC but the gauges have low resolution.I found out swapping gauges doesn't help.Cheers

[Sandydog]

The problem is in the resolution/pixel size of the vcockpit, not in the gauges.
For whatever vcockpit section you wish to make more 'vivid,' open the .cfg with Notepad, go to the pixel_size line, and at LEAST make the pixel count match the window size--in this example, as the size is 512x512, try 512,512. If your vidcard can stand it, double the values as here--1024,1024. The clarity is surprising.

[Vcockpit01]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=512,512
position=7
visible=0
ident=
pixel_size=1024,1024
texture=$battleM

[Tuor2112]

Its already at that limit:

[Vcockpit01]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=1024,1024
visible=0
pixel_size=1024,1024
texture=$vpanel

am I stuck with it then? Cheers

[Moparmike]

1024 is not to be considered an "upper limit". You can go higher than that if you choose, but it will really start to suck your framerates down. Some builders map the VC gauges onto small polys and regardless of how high you set the numbers, you'll still have poor resolution.

Also, what resolution are you running your game at? Even with very high VCpanel numbers, if you run at a lower rez the rez will become your limiting factor.

What plane are you working with?

[Tuor2112]

Its the Alphasim Martin Mars running at 1152x864x32 .I changed the pixel_size to 2048,2048 with no effect.

[Moparmike]

Okay, let's see how rusty I am...

Your VC section looks like this:

[Vcockpit01]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=1024,1024
visible=0
pixel_size=1024,1024
texture=$vpanel

If you bump the pixel size up to 2048x2048, do the gauges shrink and get mis-mapped? If so, you'll need to increase the location/size entries for each gauge.

Here's a line out of one of the FDG test birds. The original pixel_size and size_mm were 640,640. I doubled them to 1280,1280 so the gauge entries needed to be doubled in size as well.

gauge02=f4f4_wildcat!Climb-Indicator, 480,161,160,161

gauge02=f4f4_wildcat!Climb-Indicator, 960,322,320,322 <--all entries multiplied by x2.


Unless that plane has the gauges mapped really small, I doubt you'll notice much improvement from this if you're running your game at 1152. You'll probably have better results by upping your game screen resolution to 1280x or 1600x...if your vid-card/monitor can handle it.

Good Luck!

Oh...post one of the "gaugeXX=........." lines from the VC section too. Might help debug your problem.

[Tuor2112]

Thanks for your help:
pixel_size 2048,2048 -no improvement
Monitor is too small to really go above 1152x864x32
Here is the VC section

[Vcockpit01]
Background_color=0,0,0
size_mm=1024,1024
visible=0
pixel_size=1024,1024
texture=$vpanel
gauge00=ALPHA_Mars!ECU Icon, 50,330,23,23
gauge01=SimIcons1024!Kneeboard Icon, 50,300,23,23
gauge02=SimIcons1024!GPS Icon, 50,360,23,23
gauge03=SimIcons1024!Radio Icon, 80,300,23,23
gauge04=SimIcons1024!Map Icon, 80,330,23,23
gauge05=SimIcons1024!ATC Icon, 80,360,23,23
gauge06=ALPHA_Mars!Altimeter, 381,151,79,77
gauge07=ALPHA_Mars!VSI, 391,272,60,60
gauge08=ALPHA_Mars!ASI, 171,152,73,73
gauge09=ALPHA_Mars!ADF, 468,267,72,70
gauge10=ALPHA_Mars!VOR1, 467,153,72,70
gauge11=ALPHA_Mars!Flaps_Ind, 190,388,40,40
gauge12=ALPHA_Mars!TSI, 171,272,70,65
gauge13=ALPHA_Mars!trim, 395,377,54,54
gauge14=Cessna!Attitude, 280,150,75,75
gauge15=ALPHA_Mars!Nav Icon, 491,235,23,23
gauge16=ALPHA_Mars!HSI, 265,255,108,105
gauge17=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Audio, 807,175,163,35
gauge18=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 1, 630,175,169,65
gauge19=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Nav-Comm 2, 807,212,163,61
gauge20=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio ADF, 630,245,169,40
gauge21=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio DME, 807,275,163,40
gauge22=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio Xpndr, 630,292,169,50
gauge23=Bendix_King_Radio!Bendix-King Radio AP, 807,319,163,50
gauge24=ALPHA_Mars!Man12, 641,75,60,61
gauge25=ALPHA_Mars!Man34, 726,75,60,61
gauge26=ALPHA_Mars!RPM12, 811,75,60,61
gauge27=ALPHA_Mars!RPM34, 899,75,60,61
gauge28=ALPHA_Mars!ACLK, 772,396,54,55