Round 2D panel gauges

[altu727]

On 14 NOV 2011 SOH member hawkeye52 expressed dismay with oval FS9 2D panel gauges displayed by the popular 16:9 aspect ratio flat-screen monitors.

My primary display is a common 22" flat-screen monitor that prefers its 1920 x 1080 native resolution and as you might expect the 2D panel gauges are noticeably oval. Lowering the resolution, say to 1680 x 1050 or say to 1280 x 1024, only makes things worse by further flattening the gauges. Short of springing for a 4:3 aspect ratio flat-screen monitor what to do?

My solution to circularize the 2D panel gauges is to run FS9 inside a NOT MAXIMIZED window and then to first drag the top and bottom edges of the window to their maximum extent vertically and finally to drag the left and right edges of the window horizontally until the gauges appear circular!

 

[Tom Clayton]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'd love to get my mitts on a 1600x1200 (true 4:3) monitor, but they're pricy. They're also better for production apps like Office since they have so much more vertical space. The only other option for production is to get a monitor that pivots around to "Portrait" orientation.

 

[mgr]

As I mentioned in the other thread, I'd love to get my mitts on a 1600x1200 (true 4:3) monitor, but they're pricy. They're also better for production apps like Office since they have so much more vertical space. The only other option for production is to get a monitor that pivots around to "Portrait" orientation.

Maybe a refurbish one:
http://www.amazon.com/NEC-MultiSync-LCD2070NX-BK-Monitor-Black/dp/B0007WZLEG

We have these at your office, they are good value for money. Cost way less then a similar EIZO monitor.

Marcel

 

[djs1]

Having in the past encountered lots of negative feedback on the subject of FS and widescreen monitors, I was not too happy last year when my 19" square Asus gave up the ghost.
After a lot of searching and a limited budget, I bit the bullet and went for the widescreen option, convinced that my view of FS would never be the same again. I bought, for £110, a Packard Bell Viseo 200WS, got it home, wired it up, set it to 1600x900 and prepared myself for oval gauges.
Not so, perfect display and no hint of any distortion to gauges or anything else for that matter.
Having perused a recent thread on the same subject and noted the various comments, I have to ask have I just been lucky with my purchase.

 

[OBIO]

When I was ordering the parts to build my new system, I knew I did not want to go widescreen unless I went BIG.....so I opted for a 19 inch Acer "square" monitor. Newegg.com doesn't have it any longer, but they have one very very similar. The difference between the ACER I have and this one: mine has DVI and HDMI inputs while the one on newegg has DVI and VGA inputs.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009246

Display quality on my ACER took me a while to get used to....it is so much sharper and crisper than my old HP 17-inch LCD and the colors are much more accurate......I got used to the colors on the HP that I though all my painting colors were wrong on the ACER.

OBIO

 

[hawkeye52]

My 21-inch CRT is still "breathing" so I have put off my D-Day [tho' I was seriously tempted to take advantage of the black-Friday specials at Newegg!]. My current thinking is that when D-Day finally arrives, I'll go to a 23-inch wide screen with a display mode that is switchable between 16:9, 16:10 AND 4:3, as suggested by Duckie. If that proves too pricey, I'll go to a straight wide-screen and hope for the best at 1600 x 1028.

- H52

Original thread » http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?59563-Monitor-advice-requested&p=646251#top

 

[Wing_Z]

Well the topic has been beaten to death a little, but as an aside:
if you do not use fullscreen, you are on Windows default driver settings.
Your sim may not look as good as it is possible to get, with custom flightsim drivers.

 

[Sunny9850]

Ok ...that one I'd like an explanation on....what kind of custome FS drivers could there be running on my GPU if I am running full screen ??? This is the first I ever heard of that. So please edu-ma-cate me.

I have a middle of the road ATI card in my PC with I think the latest drivers for W7.
How would I make that card run with different drivers for just the FullScreen portion of FS.

Cheers
Stefan

 

[Wing_Z]

The video settings in windowed mode are the ones used by Windows default, which are great for spreadsheets but not 3D fast-moving renders.

Running fullscreen, FS overrides those with what you chose in the sim, such as anti-aliasing.
nHancer for nVidia lets you go further, and tweak things like anisotropic filtering, gamma correction etc until your computer is on its knees begging for relief.

I think ATI has a similar utility, which lets you set up a profile for individual software, such as FS9.

My sim looks really ordinary in windowed mode.

 

[srgalahad]

The video settings in windowed mode are the ones used by Windows default, which are great for spreadsheets but not 3D fast-moving renders.

Running fullscreen, FS overrides those with what you chose in the sim, such as anti-aliasing.

The downside of that is that you lose the ability to use a second monitor (so no FSNav, Plan-G, TeamSpeak, the multi=player chatbox or other programs running alongside FS and visible at the same time.) If you are able to have FS-only time it's OK, but to multitask, it's a nuisance to use full-screen.

 

[altu727]

A word or two of clarification

To tell the truth, my intent in posting was not to reopen an already well-chewed topic. Instead I merely wanted to share my method that gives round 2D panel gauges on a common 16:9 aspect ratio monitor at no cost. Of course once created and sized the window in which the simulator runs should reopen with its position and size still preserved. If however MS Windows decides to open the simulator's window maximized, then all that's necessary is to click on the "Restore Down" icon at the far right on the window title bar and the simulator is displayed as before. In other words positioning and sizing the window happens but once. The included screenshot is of the entire 1920 x 1080 desktop (as displayed by my 16:9 aspect ratio monitor) wherein the MS Windows "Auto-hide" taskbar feature is enabled and as a result the taskbar is neatly tucked away and unseen. Clearly the 2D panel gauges look acceptably round.

View attachment 53837

 

[Wing_Z]

The downside of that is that you lose the ability to use a second monitor...

I do spend more time Looking, rather than Flying.
However, if you want to Look and Fly:
In fullscreen mode, just nudge the various windows almost off screen, close and re-open, and magically they appear on the second monitor!
It's an nVidia thing, not sure if that works for ATI too.