RESOLVED: Side effect when using 3 windows vs. 4 windows.

[Maurice]

I tried the 3 windows setup for the first time at night and I noticed a very disturbing side effect. It appears that the runway lights are much brighter in the front view than in the side views.

Also, I was not able to reduce the brightness by changing the Runway_Lights_Surface_Scalar setting in FSX.CFG. This may have something to do with the windows numbering in the .FLT files as John mentioned in a different thread but I was not able to correct this problem. I still need to experiment further and see if there is a way to avoid this side effect. Here is a short video that shows what I am talking about.

http://youtu.be/BTIxfWUUImE

Nick or John, have you tried the 3 views at night yet and if yes, are you seeing the same thing?

Thanks,
Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hey Maurice,

You're right, yesterday or whatever day it was (I am so confused on days anymore) I noticed that all my lighting in the front view was blown up, even though I did not change the sizing. Also, for whatever reason, the sound files are not playing when the center view is selected (with white bounding outline box on it). If I select the left or right views the sounds play normal.

In addition, I tried changing the order numbers and that made no difference. It seems that the center view will not work as normal without the 4th view in the background. Unless, Nick has some better knowledge on this, I cannot see the benefit. Yes, more fps is worth it, but with blown out visuals and incorrect sound, it's not...

Hopefully, Nick can check his sim out and confirm things...

John

[Maurice]

Well, I'm glad (& sad) that I'm not the only one with this problem. I guess that with FSX, you can never get something for nothing 

Maurice

[Flying_Fox]

Well, I'm glad (& sad) that I'm not the only one with this problem. I guess that with FSX, you can never get something for nothing 

Maurice

Sorry to disappoint you, Maurice,    but I am not confirming this on my sim.

Here is the video. 

SAM4523

3 views, central and right screen. Views border is practically in the middle of this video (no white border visible). Central window is active - I specifically clicked on it before start. ORBX Cairns airport,  REX2 textures. I do not have any other runway lights package.

No changes in lights when passing from one view to another.

Nick

[Garys]

I haven't tried this setup, but could the issue be a problem with using a Triple head2go as opposed to Nvidia surround?

Gary

[Maurice]

I haven't tried this setup, but could the issue be a problem with using a Triple head2go as opposed to Nvidia surround?

Gary

Very good question. I am using Nvidia surround and I don't know what Nick is using. Nick?

Maurice

[Maurice]

This is truly puzzling Nick. John & I must be doing something different then but what?

By the way, how did you get such a nice black background with FSX? Or do you have a fancy video camera where you can change the exposure time on your videos. This almost looks like XP to me based on what Scott & Nat have posted. If not XP and no fancy video camera, how on earth did you get the black areas to be so black (different subject obviously

Thanks,
Maurice

[iwik]

Guys,
From his earlier post his video card is a GTX570.
Les

[Flying_Fox]

Guys,
From his earlier post his video card is a GTX570.
Les

Yes, that's correct. Nvidia GTX570  + Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital.

[Flying_Fox]

This is truly puzzling Nick. John & I must be doing something different then but what?

By the way, how did you get such a nice black background with FSX? Or do you have a fancy video camera where you can change the exposure time on your videos. This almost looks like XP to me based on what Scott & Nat have posted. If not XP and no fancy video camera, how on earth did you get the black areas to be so black (different subject obviously

Thanks,
Maurice

No, it's not really that nice.    I did not yet optimize yet my projection for night flying, and I have keystone correction, so there are light bars at the view borders. So you just don't see it with this camera (Samsung 210) default video settings. Same camera I did the video of your sim with, Maurice.

Nick

[Maurice]

OK, I found at least a partial reason why I was having this problem with lights but I have no ideas why or how I was able to fix it.

When I looked at the 3 view version and I closed the left or right view, I could still see the front view underneath. So it looked like the front view was maximized across the 3 projectors and the side views were simply on top of it. This also explained why I was no longer getting better frame rates than with 4 windows and in some cases, they got even worse.

Why or how this happened is a mystery. I tried re-loading the view settings in the FLT files that had worked previously and I was still getting the expanded front view no matter what I did.

The only way I was able to 'fix' it was to load a flight which still worked well with 3 windows, copy the view settings and paste them to one of the flights that wasn't working and lo & behold, the 3 views worked without the lights problem.

The really strange thing here is that I compared the view settings in the flt files and the settings in the 'bad' flight were identical to the one in the 'good' flight and yet, just copying them over fixed the problem (at least so far)

Bottom line, the problem is fixed but I don't know what was wrong or how it got fixed. This is the type of thing that can drive you totally bonkers.

Anyway John, if you feel like trying this again, here are my views setting below. Just change the zoom & rotations factors and see if these work for you as well:

[Window.1]
Order=2
Active=False
Undocked=False
Maximized=False
ScreenUniCoords=2731, 0, 2731, 6144
UndocCoords=0, 0, 0, 0
CurrentCamera={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}

[Camera.1.1]
Guid={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}
Zoom=0.57499998807907104
Translation=0, 0, 0
Rotation=0, 10, 0

[Window.2]
Order=0
Active=True
Undocked=False
Maximized=False
ScreenUniCoords=1, 0, 2731, 6144
UndocCoords=0, 0, 0, 0
CurrentCamera={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}

[Camera.2.1]
Guid={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}
Zoom=0.57499998807907104
Translation=0, 0, 0
Rotation=0, -70, 0

[Window.3]
Order=1
Active=False
Undocked=False
Maximized=False
ScreenUniCoords=5461, 0, 2731, 6144
UndocCoords=0, 0, 0, 0
CurrentCamera={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}

[Camera.3.1]
Guid={B1386D92-4782-4682-A137-738E25D1BAB5}
Zoom=0.57499998807907104
Translation=0, 0, 0
Rotation=0, 90, 0

Maurice

[Kennair]

Mau, sounds like your errant file didn't have the Panel.1 active.  Scroll down the FLT file to find [Panel.1], you should see "ViewsOn=1".  If it says 0 then the Main Panel containing your Boeing.bmp file isn't active.  This is the maximized window mandatory for FSX views.  If it isn't active then it will make one of your 3 view panels maximized instead which could explain your anomaly.

Then again I could be wrong

Ken.

[Maurice]

Mau, sounds like your errant file didn't have the Panel.1 active.  Scroll down the FLT file to find [Panel.1], you should see "ViewsOn=1".  If it says 0 then the Main Panel containing your Boeing.bmp file isn't active.  This is the maximized window mandatory for FSX views.  If it isn't active then it will make one of your 3 view panels maximized instead which could explain your anomaly.

Then again I could be wrong

Ken.

Nice thought Ken but that was not it. It does say ViewsOn=1.

Thanks,
Maurice

Edit: Actually, let me re-phrase that. I no longer have the original FLT file. I created a new one by saving a new flight so I don't really know if the original file may have had ViewsOn=0. If it did, I certainly did not do that on purpose so something I did may have triggered a change. Who know? 

[Flying_Fox]

OK, I found at least a partial reason why I was having this problem with lights but I have no ideas why or how I was able to fix it.

Maurice

OK, so now you should rename the misleading title of your thread since it was a misconfiguration case, not a bad side effect... 

[Maurice]

OK, I found at least a partial reason why I was having this problem with lights but I have no ideas why or how I was able to fix it.

Maurice

OK, so now you should rename the misleading title of your thread since it was a misconfiguration case, not a bad side effect... 

Done. 

Maurice