Hi, I am thinking of buying a GNS530 from RealSimGear. I am not sure which aircraft(s) it would be compatible with. I posed this question to RealSimGear support team and they suggested that I should post it on this Forum. Would I be able to use the GNS530 only on aircraft that have a GNS430 or GNS530, or will be it compatible with aircraft with G1000?
I would be grateful if anyone that has used the GNS430 or 530 to clarify this for me.
Isn’t the Realsimgear 530 just a bezel with a screen that you have to feed a popped-out instrument to, treating it like a small second monitor? You pop out the 530 screen into it’s own window, then move that on to the physical 530 display. The drivers take care of the buttons for you, and the display shows the instrument.
If that is the case, then your aircraft would need to have a 530 fitted as well. I supposed you could pop out a G1000, and slide that over to the 530, but it wouldn’t fit, and if you could resize it, it would look odd! Likely the buttons would still do things, like tuning radios etc. but it would be a Frankenstein’s monster of a cockpit!
Many thanks. What you are saying makes a lot of sense and is in line with some of the YouTube videos I have watched. It’s actually the buttons of bezels that are of interest to me as G1000 and GNS530/430 have may buttons that are common, eg Direct To, etc. I was hoping that someone who has the GNS530 might comment on this. I expect that the buttons use the USB link to communicate with the flight simulator and therefore would be independent of GN530/430/G1000 and a config file could map them out somehow. But I agree with you that resizing the G1000 to GNS530 would look a bit odd as the size of the screens are significantly different. I believe they are treated as a monitor and connect to the PC using a HDMI cable. It would also be good to hear if anyone has somehow managed to save flight plans as we can on a real G1000 or GNS530. The RealSimGear devices ‘dumb’ (wanting for better words) devices, so have no capability to offer such functionality even though they advertise it as a close representation of GNS530 functionality.
They can only offer what the underlying sim offers, as I understand it.
I have a 530. It only works for planes with 530 or 430.
You described it very well. The only limitations of the RealSimGear are 1) it takes up one HDMI port on you graphics card, and 2) it’s limited to the functionality of the GPS provided by the sim, which can be currently improved with a mod (until the day Reality XP, a real Garmin trainer, is ported to MSFS). Besides that, the RealSimGear is a great investment, since it allows you to operate the GPS using physical buttons, which is priceless. I use it mostly on the Cessna 172 and the Mooney.
If you’re looking into the G1000, then you need a pair of dedicated G1000 bezels, a significantly more expensive solution. Here you have at least two alternatives I know of. Either the same deal from the same manufacturer, since they also carry the G1000 option in their catalog. Or you can go with Simionic, a much better solution in my opinion. The Simionic bezels are built around ipads, with whom they communicate via bluetooth. The bezel+ipad set is linked with the PC via wifi. This frees your PC from a dedicated HDMI port, CPU load, and the best of all, they allow you to use a third party G1000 ipad app (Simionic), which is much more realistic than the G1000 device included in the sim.
Hope this helps. Have a good day!
Don’t your frame rates suffer when you pop out the 530 display?
I don’t notice any decrease in frame rate. I don’t have my computer with me right now, so I can’t check for sure, but I would say that the GPS pops out in a window-less square containing just the representation of the GPS screen. Maybe for that reason it doesn’t affect the fps like popping out other windows such as maps do, or did in the past.
Are you looking for a true representation of the Garmin GPS (GNS530, G1000, etc.) or just a way to control them. If you just want a way to control the functions of the GPSes then you might look into getting a Class Echo.
BTW, he is also working on a dual rotary encoder solution.
Thanks. This helps.
First of all, I am truly grateful for all the responses to my query. Sorry for the late response, it’s because I live on the other side of the pond, hence the time differential.
PhantomStreak,
In response to your question, I am not looking for a true representation of the G1000, etc but only a piece of hardware that allows me to activate the buttons and bezels quickly. The Class echo product looks like an ideal solution for what I am looking for as it allows me to fly different aircrafts. Indeed as I fly a ‘real’ Cirrus, it would be great if this product interfaced to the Cirrus Perspective avionics as well. Do you know if it does?
I’ll send Shake Print a note today. Thanks.
Food for thought, thanks. I might download the Simionic App first as it’s not too expensive.
Good thread with some good suggestions. I’ve been looking for something along these lines too. I think I’m going to wait until the sim is updated at the end of this month. I’m hoping all of the Garmin buttons will be made mappable, making it much easier to control them with buttons on the joystick and throttle. I’m tempted by these hardware solutions, but I’m even more tempted by VR, and they would be difficult to use if you can’t see them.
if it matters, I have the RSG gns530 for a long time… xplane, fsx, p3d. Their driver for fs2020 works perfect. Havnt needed an update for any FS updates lately. It just works. So well that I replace all my MFD’s in all the planes with the GSN530 from the 172 classic. Any plane or helo that has a popout gauge can be replaced with the 530. Just alt click to pop it out of the vc then drag it to the RSG displey and alt-ent to maximize. just saying, it spoiled me, i cant fly without it.
Many thanks for the update.
By the way, I’d be interested in hearing if anyone has tried the GNS530 product from FlightSimBuilder. It seems to be competitively priced compared with the RealSimGear devices.
I hadn’t heard of those, but we should probably start a new thread, or find an existing one, rather than discuss a rival product in this thread.
After seeing your video post . I purchased also this unit.
Very nice software / hardware. Assembling is indeed very easy.
The firmware and updates are with the new softwaretool very easy to install. (You dont need a (micro)SD card). I use a standaard USB printer cable to connect the unit to my pc.
It works also with the new beta of MSFS and of course you need Spad.next
No screens (or windows) are copied from the sim, the unit has its own menu screens (very nice). But ofcourse you have to use Spad.next and simconnect. I see no framedrops at all.
Its a pleasure now to use the g1000, 530 and 430 as the other cockpit button and knobs.
Also it is very good to combine with the Honeycomb Alpha and or Bravo.
It is a nice holidays gift 
I’ve just discoverd that, as the heart of the RSG 530 is a Arduino Mega, it would be possible change the firmware and control this unit thru Mobiflight, allowing make different assignments to the buttons and the bezels. I suppose that in this way you can configure different profiles for GNS530/430 but also with G1000, isn’t?
Any one has tried this method?
BTW, I’ve found this tuto on the Mobiflight github:
