Font Display in FSX

[falcon409]

My question has to do with how fonts look in Avionics displays. Is there somewhere in the aircraft.cfg or airfile that designates a particular font or is it system controlled through the FSX engine? I'm flying Ito's Avia Accord and the font display for everything in the cockpit is difficult to read with fonts being compressed to a point of almost being impossible to read.:salute:

[kilo delta]

I'd imagine that the fonts are coded into the particular gauge files used,Ed.

[falcon409]

I'd imagine that the fonts are coded into the particular gauge files used,Ed.

Ok, well there must be something in the way Ito builds his VC possibly as these same gauges in another airplane display fine.

[Moparmike]

Yup, the font properties for a gauge are defined in the gauge itself (regardless if it's an XML or DLL style gauge).

It is most likely that the problem with small, hard to read resolution is caused by a very small "image" size used in the VC sections of the panel.cfg.
You can scale-up the dimensions used for both the entire VC section and the gauges used on it in the panel.cfg to see if you can get more detail. Try doubling the resolution of the panel section and the gauges to see if things get more readable for you.

[Moparmike]

An example from the Default FS9 C172....
Keep in mind that by scaling up the gauges and panel sections you'll have a bigger performance hit. Might not be a problem unless there is lots of VC gauges or if you've got an older system.

[VCockpit02]
file=Cessna_172_Panel_Decals.bmp
size_mm=512,512
pixel_size=512,512
texture=$C172s_2
background_color=0,0,0

gauge00=Cessna182s!Oil_Press_Temp, 257, 2, 98, 98
gauge01=Cessna!Vacuum_Ampermeter, 256, 102, 98, 98

Bump up the size_mm, pixel_size entries.
For each gauge, you will need to multiply each of the 4 entries by whatever factor you scaled up those first two entries.

[VCockpit02]
file=Cessna_172_Panel_Decals.bmp
size_mm=1024,1024                    //<--double size
pixel_size=1024,1024                    //<--double size
texture=$C172s_2
background_color=0,0,0

gauge00=Cessna182s!Oil_Press_Temp, 512, 4, 196, 196                    //<--double the X and Y dimension entries and the X & Y size entries
gauge01=Cessna!Vacuum_Ampermeter, 512, 204, 196, 196                    //<--double the X and Y dimension entries and the X & Y size entries

[falcon409]

Yup, the font properties for a gauge are defined in the gauge itself (regardless if it's an XML or DLL style gauge).

It is most likely that the problem with small, hard to read resolution is caused by a very small "image" size used in the VC sections of the panel.cfg.
You can scale-up the dimensions used for both the entire VC section and the gauges used on it in the panel.cfg to see if you can get more detail. Try doubling the resolution of the panel section and the gauges to see if things get more readable for you.

Thanks Mike. . . .I had already doubled up the size of the main VC panel from 512x512 to 1024x1024. That gave me much better resolution for the gauges but had no effect on the font appearance. If you take a look at the pic I posted in the thread "My Latest Ride", you can see the center stack is the problem. The AP doesn't look too bad, but the clock on the left side and the Comm/Nav radio are tough to read. I had tried putting a Garmin500 GPS in that space, but it was so distorted that I couldn't use it and opted for the Bendix Stack.

[Moparmike]

I've been wanting to grab that plane anyway. Looks like a neat ride. I'll DL it and fiddle a bit too and let you know if I get any results.

I'm a bit rusty on the manual panel res mods so I might've posted a mistake above...or maybe it's not working the same in FSX.