MFDs with monitor

[TheNumberJ]

Was laying low this weekend due to on-call for work, but managed to add a new toy to my setup... one step closer to the dream sim-pit.

Album: https://imgur.com/a/EiQLh

Monitor used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NB17E0Z

Other Items: Amazon Basics 6' DisplayPort to HDMI cable ($11),  Scotch-brand Wall Mounting Squares (4lb rated; $5)... and of course the ThrustMaster MFD controlers...

Was looking at some monitor options and stumbled across the Elecrow 11.6" 1080p LED LCD screen. I did some quick math on the dimensions and it seemed to be the perfect fit for both MFD controllers. Had a tiny bit of bonus money so I pulled the trigger, and yes, it was a perfect fit for the MFDs. Only a tiny bit of screen space is wasted on the bottom. It's a very small lightweight aluminum frame, and the screen is crisp and colorful at 1080p. Only con is the connectors (HDMI/Power) being on the right side; though you could easily flip the monitor in your graphics settings to have it go the other way; but still ends up sticking out the side.  The other obvious drawback is not being able to split up the MFD controllers, but I liked the simplicity of keeping them on one screen.

Only took me an entire afternoon to get the monitor setup script (.lua) right... I may have dropped an A-10's worth of F-Bombs... but I managed to figure it out and seem to have a good understanding of it now.

[AG-51_Thud]

Nice. 

[AG-51_Razor]

Yes, very nice! 

[AG-51_MD44]

Looks great...glad that worked out!

[Apache600]

"dropped an A-10's worth of F-Bombs"   Fantastic analogy.  hahaha      Looks really cool.  Nice work.    So do you have to do anything fancy to configure it for the A-10C, or the Harrier, or the Ka-50 ... or anything with a screen, if you switch from one plane to another?

[AG-51_Kaydo]

Nice work.  I was wondering what monitor size would fit two MFD's.  If I ever switch my setup, I will go from two monitors to just the one.

[TheNumberJ]

So do you have to do anything fancy to configure it for the A-10C, or the Harrier, or the Ka-50 ... or anything with a screen, if you switch from one plane to another?

Nope, the config uses a generic "LEFT_MFCD" and "RIGHT_MFCD" tag for the two screen windows (don't have my .lua script handy where I'm at). The A-10C ports those two options as the MFD screens, but the Ka-50 uses them for the Shkval and ABRIS. FC3 aircaft will pump out their Radar window to the right MFD, F-5 also does the same.

I'm just using a default 3 windows config (LEFT_MFCD, RIGHT_MFCD, and Center) However, you can also now custom script each aircraft monitor setup with 2.5; they added an "If" function to the monitor setup script. So you can basically do:

If aircraft is "A-10C" : use this monitor config A
If aircraft is "Ka-50 : use monitor config B
else, use default config.

So you can really customize each window. I haven't done it yet, but you can also export other aircraft windows to the screens, like the FC3 aircraft RWR; but this requires a bit more custom scripting.

[AG-51_Glider]

SO a couple of questions...

Can you just have it display the MFD cards guys have mad for a/c that do not have screens such as the Huey?

Its it possible to have one of the MFD's display the cargo hook view for helicopters?

This looks to be an excellent fairly simple setup for this type of thing. If you are not worried about separating the MFD's looks like the cat's meow. Kaydo and others have built excellent setups where they did just that but this looks like a whole lot less is involved. I think I am going to try this out myself and would like to discuss this with you on TS if you are willing.

EDIT- So I pulled the trigger on this. Will have the goods in hand by Wednesday. If you can help me out with the lua files J I would be eternally grateful!

[AG-51_Kaydo]

So I didn't manually setup my LUA files like NumberJ did or Fireball.  I used the Virtual cockpit server software.  This is the video tutorial on how to use it  The only disadvantage I can think of is Fireball mentioned a frame rate drop because my MFD's are still displayed on my main monitor where as he has it setup only to go on his other monitor. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-uxLPuY6xk.

Basically, this program creates the LUA for you, without having to manually do it. 

https://bit-shift.com/a10vcserver/index.html

[AG-51_MD44]

Many moons ago when I ran more than one monitor I followed this guide for setting things up.  https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/214771/  Not sure how much different/harder it is but I THINK it's still valid?

[AG-51_Fireball]

The bit about turning off the cockpit view MFCDs and only displaying the exported MFCDs is super easy.

Go to this file in your game folder:  DCS World OpenBeta\Scripts\Aircrafts\_Common\Cockpit\ViewportHandling.lua

Look for this line in the file (it's line 81 in the current version of the file):

Code: [Select]

   purposes = {render_purpose.GENERAL,
Add two dashes in front of the the word 'render' like so:

Code: [Select]

   purposes = {--render_purpose.GENERAL,
Save the file. That's it!

This file seems to get overwritten with a new one on almost every update. So, if you notice your in-cockpit MFCDs are displaying again after an update, just go back into the file and make the the change again. Also, just to be safe make a copy of the ViewportHandling.lua before you make any changges.

[TheNumberJ]

Ya I can help out. I should hopefully be around in the evening most nights this week; but still On-Call for work until Friday...

My monitor config lua script can be downloaded here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5u8wh7r4g6m7omz/MFDTest.lua?dl=0

Tips:

1) DISABLE FULL SCREEN IN DCS

2) Do the math on your monitor config. You need to add up the total space of your monitors combined together for your DCS views. With both my main monitor and the MFD monitor being 1920x1080 that made this fairly simple. Total screen space 3840x1080, this is what you set your resolution to in DCS (you will most likely need to manually type this in to the DCS options). You are basically giving DCS a huge space of both monitors to display it's "views" in, then you define smaller windows within that area.

3) Edit your monitor config file (MAKE BACKUP COPIES BEFORE EDITING!). These are located at

Code: [Select]

\DCS World OpenBeta\Config\MonitorSetup\
I tried to show how I did the math on my setup here (sorry I should have picked a better txt color): https://imgur.com/a/TrsIn

I'm starting the Center view (my main monitor) at X=1920 (Y=0 will be used most of the time, this is the top of the screen). So I'm telling the system start my main view 1920 pixels from the left. Then the view window is the entire size of the monitor 1920x1080.

I tell it to start the LEFT_MFCD in the upper left corner (X=0, Y=0)

I tell it to start the RIGHT_MFCD 1070 pixels from the left corner (X=1070, Y=0); for this one I just had to keep playing with the value until I found something that worked well for the spacing. Old guides may tell you that you can edit this file while the game is running, but I had to restart DCS for each change.

The size of the MFDs is set to 840x840, which seemed to be a good size for the MFDs.

Might still tweak all those numbers a bit as i play with things.

[AG-51_Glider]

Thanks guys. I am hoping to be playing with is on Thursday. It does not look TOO difficult as you guys have done the hard work already. I am running 1600 x 900 so will have to tweak the numbers a bit. I may try Kaydos method and then do the render change as described by Fireball. Really looking forward to having this great feature. Has anyone used this for P3D/FSX? I am thinking specifically of have the GPS display on one of them. Also what about the GPS in the Mi8? Can it be made to display on one of the MFD's?

[AG-51_Animal]

I can help too...also, when I fly aircraft without mfd exports, I just Use a pdf file on the screen with the mfd

[AG-51_Glider]

Thanks Animal! Yep I would like to do the same.

My stuff is supposed to be here tomorrow