I have a modest homemade cockpit, with two monitors, placed one on top of the other. I’d like to have the external view in the upper one, and a view with just the panel in the lower one. At this moment I have an external view “clean” (without the panel) with a custom camera that I placed just ahead of the propeller, at the same height as the pilot’s eyes.
Then I open a second view, and I configure MFS so that it’s looking down, to the panel. The problem is that I’d like to set the zoom in this second view independently of the upper view. I don’t know how to do it. Maybe by modifying some kind of .CFG or .INI file manually?
Try to use translate view backwards and or sideways to move away from the instruments until it is to your like
Alhough the top view will also move along it is possible to get view to what you want
Also handy can be height settings
This is mainly all by trail and error but give it some time and you get the hang of it
As you have found the big limitation to using the MSFS multi monitor support is the views are inter connected so you can’t get independent views like you can with say Xplane. I use Air Manager for the instruments display. It may be beneficial for you in this scenario.
This is why I don’t use MSFS currently, although I hope to someday.
I fly the FSLabs A320 in Prepar3D because I have three monitors, and I can dedicate a monitor mounted overhead with a view of the entire overhead panel, and another monitor to the right of my primary display with a view of the entire center pedestal. I never need to pan or alter the view out the primary display because everything I need to access is already visible. It is the closest thing to having a full hardware cockpit (which I am building but not yet complete).
I really don’t understand why more people aren’t asking for this capability. It is one area where Prepar3D is still far better than MSFS and it’s a complete game changer for me. It practically makes me dizzy having to change the view on a single monitor all the time. Not even MSFS superior graphics make me not prefer the workflow advantages of P3D and its support for multiple instrument panels.
As previously mentioned in this thread this can be overcome by the use of a third party instruments tool such as Air Manager. Good looking outside world and fixed instrument displays all with MSFS. Have your cake and eat it. Many of us do.
It can be overcome if you are willing to dedicate many hundreds of hours to developing your own panel for Air Manager. Air Manager by itself doesn’t solve anything. It’s just a development platform and SDK for people to write code. I don’t have enough time to create panels for something as complex as an airliner. Maybe a great solution to just throw something together such as a radio stack for a light GA aircraft, but that isn’t representative of the larger world of simulation.
While you are correct, AirManager is a platform, there are already complete Airliner cockpits available.
Fenix A320 - Free
FlyByWire A320 - Free
PMDG 737 - Free
Aerosoft CRJ - Free
Asobo 787 - In Development (Free)
ATR - In Development (Free)
SimInnovations (makers of AirManager) also have a community which hosts free panels and instruments and also payware.
A long time AirManager instrument / panel developer has broken out on his own and hosts his premium panels at ExperimentalSimAvionics
And another awesome group of freeware contributors is SimStrumentation
There are also allot of freelancers who share their work on Discord
I won’t (and don’t) fly any aircraft that doesn’t have a complete cockpit setup for Air Manager, and, thanks to all of those listed above, I don’t have to.
Thanks for the links, I will check these out. The Fenix panels particularly. Perhaps this can be a useful compromise solution that gets me into MSFS.
It’s just too bad support for 2D panels isn’t natively supported by MSFS and add-on developers like in P3D. I really hope that when FSLabs releases their A320 MSFS product they have some sort of solution to this like what they offer in P3D which is very well done.
Sadly, the FBW A320 overhead on the AirManager site doesn’t work, at least not with the current development release of FBW. From what I can surmise, it seems like it has been abandoned by the original developer.
Good Evening. I ask you if it is possibile to have two internal chocpit views with two different zoom. Actually FS2020 have possibilty to add a Window but with a same zoom.
Actually more AM users don’t use it for development than do. The dev features are just a part of its feature set.
That’s like saying a sim doesn’t solve anything by itself. There are many instruments and panels available across a range of aircraft already available and more being developed. Yes there’s no blanket coverage but that’s no different to a sim not having every aircraft. Like the sim you have to wait for new additions.
If it’s not for you that’s fine but it’s a good solution for many.
No. At this moment, all the windows in MFS have the same zoom factor. If you increase or decrease the zoom factor, it changes all the windows at the same time.
I will also check out the various links below, but at least in terms of what is offered on the AM site itself, it’s fairly limited. Even the supported planes still have a small subset of the controls and displays. I’ve been using SimDashboard which does what AM does but only on iOS and Android devices. A lot of instruments and panels are available there as well - and it’s all free or very inexpensive.
But all of these options feel very disappointing. Every time a new aircraft is introduced with incredibly faithful modeling of the real cockpits, it just adds frustration because of how difficult it is to keep going back and forth between looking out the windshield and looking down and zooming in enough to read anything.
I too am truly perplexed at Asobo’s apparent lack of interest in this. I can only conclude that most users have full cockpit builds and thus don’t care - but is that really true?
No. Most users don’t have cockpits at all. Most users use the sim on a single monitor with maybe a joystick / yoke / throttle quadrant etc. The existing camera and view system is built for the average user.
I think we have to get used to the idea that home cockpit builders of any kind are a small minority of the MSFS user base. I was frankly surprised that we got the experimental multi-view support that we have. I don’t think we’ll get much more in 2024, unless Microsoft identifies people who build simpits as a desirable audience segment to add features for.
If a flexible display system had been built into the product design from the beginning, ie if they had said ‘let’s replicate everything FSX can do with views and monitors’ as part of their MVP, then we’d have a system which could evolve to do everything we all need and want. But they didn’t, and now I think it’s too late to do more than they’ve already done for such a small audience.
I’m not sure having only monitor changes this. Even with one, I’d like one window zoomed out to see outside and one window zoomed into the instruments. It’s the constant panning back and forth, up and down and zooming in and out that drives me crazy.
I’d like to remain more optimistic. I don’t know the history of the original Microsoft flight simulator but I’d rather imagine multi-monitor support wasn’t included from day one of that product either.
Even casual VFR pilots doing sight-seeing flights like to be able to see out the side windows, and right now the experimental multi-screen support in MSFS isn’t even very good at that. So I think it will get better.
What I’m most interested in is detachable 2-D instrument panels for flying more complex aircraft. There are different technical ways to address that that don’t necessarily require Microsoft/Asobo support. AirManager is but one demonstration that this is possible. I really think the aircraft add-on developers need to step up here and show the way. FSLabs A320 products on Prepar3D are the gold standard in my opinion.
FSX (and every earlier version of Flight Simulator right the way back to before it was even a Microsoft product) would have let you do that because it had multi-window support. More than one view window open on the same monitor, and then later on multiple monitors, that is. MSFS has this for pop-up windows, but before MSFS you could open up additional windows each with the view from any camera in any position, including a view onto the instrument panels. And save this configuration on a per flight basis.
Not bringing this display model over to MSFS is in my humble opinion the biggest mistake Microsoft made when designing the sim, at least in terms of serving this segment of the market.
Again, something that FSX used to do. But the virtual cockpit model became so dominant that developers stopped including 2D panels years ago.
Yes, we’re on the same page. I had (still have ) FSX. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s incredibly frustrating that they just left behind a feature they developed decades ago.
