DB93
October 16th, 2009, 21:01
Hi everyone.
I run a TH2G Digital, and whenever I tried to display the main 2D panel on any aircraft, I'd just get a massive slowdown, the cursor kept on changing to the 'waiting' spinning circle, and just a black box stretched acoss the bottom of my screen. It made the game unplayable, causing me to have to save, exit, and restart the game and reload the flight. I've found a workaround that has worked well for me, and earlier tonight, I was over on the widescreengaming forums and found others with the same issue. I posted my workaround there, and it helped at least one person, so figured I'd share it here too, in case it could help some other folks.
Basically, you will need to edit the panel.cfg of each aircraft you need to fix. Remember to make a backup of any panel.cfg file before editing it, so you'll have the original to fall back to in case you encounter any unexpected problems.
1.) Open the panel.cfg file for the aircraft you are trying to fix.
2.) Scroll down to the [window00] section. (This is *usually* the main panel window.)
3.) Change only the first value from the following line, leaving the second value at whatever its default value is (in this example, you wouldn't change the 0.874 value):
window_size= 1.000, 0.874
to:
window_size= 0.333, 0.874
If the window_size= entry does not exist, add it to the section as follows:
window_size=0.333, 1.000
4.) Save the file and start up a flight in FSX with the aircraft you were trying to fix, and bring up the main panel to make sure this has fixed your issue.
5.) Repeat steps 1-4 until you've fixed each aircraft (at least the ones you use regularly, that's what I did. :P)
You can also use the window_size changes listed on step 3 for any other panel windows that don't open properly, just find the proper [windowXX] section for the panel window you're having an issue with, and follow step 3 for making the changes.
NOTES:
The only issue I've encountered with this 'fix' is that on some (but not all) of the default aircraft, it does 'squeeze' the main VC window upwards when the main panel is displayed. Aircraft like the default Beech Baron display this 'squeezing' behavior, while others like the Aircreation ultralight (the hang-glider with the mower on the back lol) do not display this behavior. In any case, I don't see why the VC window couldn't just be stretched (resized by dragging) down once you've got the panel window displayed, but I honestly haven't tried that, as I only use the 2D panel windows for quick pop-up references to check gauges that are a bit small to read in the vc. Once you close the panel, the vc window does go back to normal size anyway.
Also, none of the 3rd party, FSX-native aircraft I've done this with have shown the VC being squeezed upwards when the main panel is displayed. I've used it on the Aerosoft Twin Otter, and Lionheart's Quest Kodiak for payware, and a number of freeware stuff including Dave Garwood's excellent freeware Auster J1 Autocrat (shameless plug for a great old-time low and slow aircraft).
Anyhow, I hope this helps at least some folks that are running TH2G that have issues with the 2D panels.
Good luck, and hope this info is helpful to at least a few of you folks having problems.
I run a TH2G Digital, and whenever I tried to display the main 2D panel on any aircraft, I'd just get a massive slowdown, the cursor kept on changing to the 'waiting' spinning circle, and just a black box stretched acoss the bottom of my screen. It made the game unplayable, causing me to have to save, exit, and restart the game and reload the flight. I've found a workaround that has worked well for me, and earlier tonight, I was over on the widescreengaming forums and found others with the same issue. I posted my workaround there, and it helped at least one person, so figured I'd share it here too, in case it could help some other folks.
Basically, you will need to edit the panel.cfg of each aircraft you need to fix. Remember to make a backup of any panel.cfg file before editing it, so you'll have the original to fall back to in case you encounter any unexpected problems.
1.) Open the panel.cfg file for the aircraft you are trying to fix.
2.) Scroll down to the [window00] section. (This is *usually* the main panel window.)
3.) Change only the first value from the following line, leaving the second value at whatever its default value is (in this example, you wouldn't change the 0.874 value):
window_size= 1.000, 0.874
to:
window_size= 0.333, 0.874
If the window_size= entry does not exist, add it to the section as follows:
window_size=0.333, 1.000
4.) Save the file and start up a flight in FSX with the aircraft you were trying to fix, and bring up the main panel to make sure this has fixed your issue.
5.) Repeat steps 1-4 until you've fixed each aircraft (at least the ones you use regularly, that's what I did. :P)
You can also use the window_size changes listed on step 3 for any other panel windows that don't open properly, just find the proper [windowXX] section for the panel window you're having an issue with, and follow step 3 for making the changes.
NOTES:
The only issue I've encountered with this 'fix' is that on some (but not all) of the default aircraft, it does 'squeeze' the main VC window upwards when the main panel is displayed. Aircraft like the default Beech Baron display this 'squeezing' behavior, while others like the Aircreation ultralight (the hang-glider with the mower on the back lol) do not display this behavior. In any case, I don't see why the VC window couldn't just be stretched (resized by dragging) down once you've got the panel window displayed, but I honestly haven't tried that, as I only use the 2D panel windows for quick pop-up references to check gauges that are a bit small to read in the vc. Once you close the panel, the vc window does go back to normal size anyway.
Also, none of the 3rd party, FSX-native aircraft I've done this with have shown the VC being squeezed upwards when the main panel is displayed. I've used it on the Aerosoft Twin Otter, and Lionheart's Quest Kodiak for payware, and a number of freeware stuff including Dave Garwood's excellent freeware Auster J1 Autocrat (shameless plug for a great old-time low and slow aircraft).
Anyhow, I hope this helps at least some folks that are running TH2G that have issues with the 2D panels.
Good luck, and hope this info is helpful to at least a few of you folks having problems.