Hello,
I want to build my own MCDU hardware - but without any intelligence, just a stupid “get the information and display it” mechanism. I know how to control MCDU input via SimConnect/WASM.
But what I haven’t found out is how to access the MCDU’s screen content. I haven’t found any variables/LVARs to access the screen texts and formattings.
Any help is appreciated.
Regards,
Spriral Charger
The easy way : you need to ‘pop up’ the MCDU screen and then drag it to the MCDU monitor (which may probably in HDMI)
You have 2 options:
The second option is how we do it for the Simstrumentation CJ4 MCDU for Air Manager. The bezel and buttons were drawn / programmed by us. Basically the same thing you’re trying to do with hardware, and the actual CDU screen is the screen from the sim popped out and sized to fit in the alloted space.
Thanks for your answer. Yes, that would be a possibility. One which covers both, contents and style.
What I do not like with this idea is hardware efforf (there are 2 MCDUs what means thart I need 2 monitors) and the necessicty of positioning a window (or 2 windows) at a certain location. Being a software developer, I would prefer to use some kind of API to transfer data between my MCU hardware and the Sim.
The sim unfortunately doesn’t create 2 actual MCDU screens, nor does it differentiate. You can only pop a single MCDU window out. Just like PFD / MFDs. There’s one set that’s mirrored on the copilot side. You can’t actually pop out the copilot side instruments separately. This was specifically done by Asobo for performance reasons. And of course, it doesn’t take into account cockpit builders who require those.
And there’s no API access to this data. You basically need to build your own from scratch and then have it send the data to the sim to set the LVARs as required.
@Crunchmeister71
That are bad news. I was not aware that popping out is supported for the captain’s side, only.
Ok, then I wasn’t too stupid to find the API. At least that’s good news.
All other things mentioned here are bad news as they point out that the solution I would like to implement cannot be done now (and for a long time, I suppose, things won’t change).
A compromise would the be living with one MCDU ony (or two which share data), having the display show a popped out MCDU window.
Seems as if now is not the right time for such a project. I guess I take more advantage of building an overhead panel (at least the most often used parts of it).
Thanks for all your answers!
Yeah, it’s disappointing for many. If you’re looking to do a pilot side only cockpit, then it’s all good. This is the path I chose. I neither need nor care about the copilot side displays. But in your case where you’re looking to replicate both sides of the flight deck, this is an issue for sure. And you’re not alone in wanting this functionality.
If I remember correctly, it was someone from the Working Title team that explained that this had been deliberately done by Asobo so they didn’t have to render the “same” data twice, and thereby save performance. I believe the comment was related to their G3000 when people were asking why the copilot side softkeys did nothing and why the copilot side PFD couldn’t be popped out. Glass cockpit displays chewed up a lot of performance on the main thread prior to SU5, so I can see why they did this initially, even though it’s technically wong.
In reality, it’s not the “same” data, as pilot and copilot could be using different PFD layouts or in the case of the MCDU, be looking at completely different pages at the same time. Being a “single player” sim, I’m guessing it never really crossed Asobo’s mind that people may actually require these screens to be separate for home cockpit applications. Then again, they’ve done very little in the grand scheme of things to cater to cockpit builders, since we’re a very small percentage of overall users of MSFS.
And as for the data, what you can read / write with either SimConnect or at the SDK level via WASM is what you’re limited to for interfacing with the sim. It’s completely possible to custom program your own MCDU that you can display externally. I’ve considered doing that for our Air Manager MCDU, but it’s a lot of work, and I’m not sure I’m willing to go down that route. But the required data is all there and can be read and written (where applicable), but you need to custom build all the different chapters and pages of the MCDU yourself.
The reason why I asked for seperated captain/fo MCDUs is that I am building the lower part of the pedestal, i.e. from throttle quadrant back (flaps, spoilers, cockpit door panel, printer panel, data loader). After this, I wanted to “move up” and build the upper pedestal parts. I would like to have the pedestal complete, so I need two MCDUs and so - I thought - it would be reasonable to go for seperated MCDUs from the beginning.
When I remember it correctly (EDIT: I do, see this backlog entry), FlyByWire announced their plan to seperate all captain and fo instruments. For some minor things, this is already true (e.g. FD and LS buttons, ND and PFD). This was another reason for me to go for the seperated MCDU option.
But ok, when it’s impossible to pop out the fo MCDU, then mirroring the captain’s MCDU is a reasonable thing for me. Better than re-building the MCDU screens. Much better…
Do you have some hints for me how to pop out the MCDU and how to position the pop out out window on a screen (EDIT: programatically, I mean)?
That may not be possible either. At least atm. You can only pop out 1 MCDU screen, much like you can’t pop out FO side PFD and MFD. That’s of course using default sim stuff.
If FBW somehow manage to work around this and make separate Captain / FO side independent, then what I say won’t apply. I don’t fly airliners and never used the FBW mod, so I can’t speak to its capabilities. I would just make sure it’s a thing that’s available before committing to it.
As for programmatically popping out and placing the screens, I have no idea how you’d go about doing that. There are some projects that people are working on atm that will do that, although they all seem to have some issues. I pop out instruments manually and use FancyZones to easily place them where I need them for my Air Manager panels. It’s a manual process, but once you have the initial sizing done and a FanzyZones area defined, it’s then quick and easy to place popouts how you need them.
Late to the party. You can have 1in 2out HDMI splitter so it shows the same thing on both monitors for captain and fo side. The fo side would just have the pfd and mfd in the wrong order. Same could go for the mcdu, just put in an hdmi splitter.
UPDATE: I just got home from work and on the FBW A32NX I was able to popout both MFD and PFD from captain and fo side, the upper and lower ecam displays, only one screen for the mcdu, the flypad, and the alternate gauge. I know I am late to the party and you may have figured this out already but hope it may help someone else too.
How to find the Events for all the MCDU Buttons so I Fan Tirggel them via Hardware?
You can find them all in Mobiflight. Just need to install the MSFS2020 WASM from the menu of MF
I’m a hobby cockpitbuilder myself. I just wonder, if somebody knows if there have already been some further developments to make it easier to place the screens? If not, it means that each time the sim is started, you have to manually move the screens into place? I remember from the FSX times (if I’m not mistaken) that screen coordinates could be preserved in some setup file, or was I dreaming?
I just finished building my FCU, and now want to start building th MCDU.
Just found this tool which looks promising. Anybody used this?
https://github.com/hawkeye-stan/msfs-popout-panel-manager
If you use popouts and don’t use this tool, you’re doing it wrong. lol
Seriously, it’s an excellent tool. I’ve been using it for a while now and highly recommend it.
