Any hacks to make glass cockpits easier to use?

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I find myself gravitating to steam gauges. I think this is because the VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator) is easier to see. Though all gauges in a glass cockpit take some effort to check as they are small.

As a result I gravitate to Cessna 152 instead of the 172, the Pilatus PC6/B2-H4 instead of the PC6/B2-H4 G950s. All the aircraft I have bought essentially have steam gauges (Tiger Moth, BN-2 Islander and c-160 Transall).

Which is fine for my general flying but a lot of the activities are for aircraft with Glass cockpits.

I have TrackIR which greatly improves the ability to look around but still does not encourage me to use glass cockpits. Or is it my 1080x1960 monitor setup?

How do you feel about glass cockpits? Are there any ways to make them easier to use? sPK

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The physical size of the monitor is going to be more important than the resolution, just as an example the displays will be larger on a 32" screen compared to a 27" at the same resolution.

You can always opt to pop the glass screens out onto a 2nd monitor where you can adjust the size. This is the method I use on the rare occasions I am not using VR.

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I find 1080p is pretty low-res for reading the G1000, G3000, and G3X displays when at/near default sitting camera position, but at 2160p (“UltraHD 4K”) on a 32" monitor things are very legible for me.

At 1080p you’ll simply have some very small text in terms of pixel size that’ll make things tough to read. You’ll likely have to either switch cameras – make use of the instrument views! – or physically “lean in” which may have limitations with a head tracker in terms of visibility to the tracker.

Additionally, interacting with the control knobs on a G1000 etc can be a little funky when using a head tracker, as your mouse cursor doesn’t move along with your camera – some folks prefer to assign a hotkey to toggle head tracking (you can set this in the Controls assignments, by default I don’t think it’s assigned to a key) which can make it easier to look around the screen while you’re using the mouse.

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In small GA I hate them and avoid whenever possible. Seems crazy to me why go fly to just end up staring at gigantic digital screens?
I bought the Kodiak on sale and still haven’t flown it yet (several months later) mainly because there’s so much glass it just puts me off.

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I have a laptop which has a decent HD screen, but glass cockpits are pretty well unreadable. An analog dial has the great benefit of being able to get an idea of it’s state, without having to actually read the number. e.g. In the Bonanza if a needle is pointing to (say) the 5 o’clock position I know I’m doing just over 100mph. So you can read a value with a glance - whereas with a glass cockpit you’re often looking for a number which is hard to read. Plus steam gauges are nicely separated, whereas glass cockpits try to cram everything into one screen.

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You’re not the only one.

I’ve asked about this before, specifically if there was a .cfg file some where to alter the font size.

Never got an answer.

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Just use VR. I’m serious.

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Two big hacks:

  1. Get one or two small monitors and pop the PFD/MFD out onto them. Solves the readability issue. If they are touch screens then you can use pop out panel manager to use the functionality
great for the GTN750 and 3000/5000. If you find a touch monitor too expensive you can also use a tablet you may have already and link it using a screenshare app like SpaceDesk.

  2. For non touch and the G1000 in particular then invest in some external hardware with a dual rotary encoder - this will make life 1000 times easier as you don’t have to try and find clickspots with your mouse. I use a Logitech radio panel configured using SPAD next and it makes it easy to control the G1000.

Or

  1. Get AirManager . That will give you the G1000 bezel that you can use with your popped out PFD/MFD which is much easier to use with your mouse.
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I did several mods that changed the cockpit cameras. Most of them are also focussed on making the glass cockpits more readable on ny monitor.
Won’t help any with a laptop I’m afraid.

My advice for a laptop would also be a larger monitor if possible. 21:9 is pretty great and improves immersion a lot.

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Not sure if you meant in-Sim or IRL, but I second this either way.

Big digital screens, swinging wildly with every single foot of altitude change and single knot of speed are FAR too distracting! I am a perfectionist (and I suspect most pilots are), and trying to be THAT darned accurate in a little plane being tossed around by forces that literally won’t allow for such precision, is maddening, LOL.

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No not IRL. Sadly I’ve never set foot in a real cockpit, just simming.

Yes, have to agree I find the big screens truly awful. It’s how I do an assessment of new aircraft releases. I go spend a minute looking at what the cockpit is like and when Gxxxx units stare back at me I generally don’t buy/try/fly it. I’m probably one of the few on here who would actually struggle to find my way about these units as I just don’t use them. They have minimal interest to me. If I fly GA it’s usually in the JF Warrior or Piper doing some VOR nav.

I do however spend an inordinate amount of time gazing into MFDs and FMCs on the airliners. I’m weird that way. :joy:

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Interestingly, the things that make glass bad in game make it great in the cockpit.

Glass doesn’t suffer from spotty or irregular backlighting. There is no parallax in glass or sticking, bent, dirty mechanical elements. Glass is usually designed specifically to alleviate the need (sometimes more successfully than others) of having to spread your scan across the cockpit, though that can lead to fixation. Plus glass is generally integrated so that the elements can flash, change color, etc in order to alert the pilot of approaching minimums, exceedences, and the like.

The almost comically extended horizon line in the Garmin, for example, is specifically designed to reduce spatial disorientation by giving you as much horizon as possible to “cage your brain gyro”, so to speak.

My only gripe about glass is that it can be difficult to read in direct sunlight, especially the older installations.

Having said all that, I love steam gauges in and out of game. I love the nostalgia, the craftsmanship required to build them (there’s a fully articulated gyro in the A-4 Skyhawk that I still to this day do not know how they managed to get to work :wink:), and the “art”, if you will, of a good scan.

But I do recognize the virtues of glass.

Unfortunately, a lot of the in game font sizes and such are probably limited by an attempt to replicate the actual glass. But the glass in the cockpit is generally fairly large and clear, which is very variable on a home PC or XBOX setup.

I know some planes have pop out windows (or did in some sims), even if you don’t have a second screen. That’s probably going to be about as good as you are going to get without getting a bigger monitor and/or a faster computer in order to run it in higher resolutions and refresh rates.

Or run steam, which I do overwhelmingly. It’s more of a challenge and might make you a better pilot. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I did this and it’s fantastic, but I did find the fps drops a lot when panels are popped out (sometimes 1/2 the frame rate prior to the pop out). Are you seeing that even with the MSFS pop out panel manager add on?

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How recent was your last experience of the FPS drop? They really fixed this a few SU’s ago and now I think its hardly there at all. BUT I do get FPS drop and its never been clear to me if its the AI traffic from FSLTL etc or bug in the core sim (which are known to exist still)

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Personal Comments and Observations

I totally get the comment about the VSI - it’s so much easier to work the pitch input and make the needle dance to the 500’ line easier than the altimeter tape VSI readout in the PFD.

To that end, the ALT-# trick that jumps you to the fixed instrument view is best. I have the default pilot seat view mapped to my trigger on the joystick, and most glass cockpits have the PFD preset as one of the instrument views, usually ALT-1. So I use that to fine tune the pitch input for descent, along with cross-checks on the pitch ladder to approximate a 3 degree slope.

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Now that’s an objective and rational view of things. Beats the usual ‘I hate glass’ posts. I enjoy the pro’s and con’s of both.

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I bind a number key on the number pad to a close up of the mfd and another to the pfd, so a quick press brings me in and out immediately. Not perfect, but n improvement in my mind.

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I agree. Sometimes I’ll just leave it on the PFD and practice flying instruments-only.

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This might not be related to your issue but I had the same problem with terrible FPS on pop outs, losing 1/2 or more of my frames with each popout. Last night I decided to use DDU to do a full clean removal of my Nvidia drivers in safe mode and reinstall the latest ones. It fixed my issue. I barely see any FPS drop now when I pop out G1000 panels.