Old 744 Forum

Greetings,
Have you Hardy or any of your lucky Beta testers got any recommendation on monitor sizes or type for the new PSX.

As I will be shortly moving house I am proposing to tear down the sim I built and revert to monitors only.

My thinking is that I would like the main monitor to cover he Captains instrument panel extending to the end of the MCP and incorporating the F/O's Nav display.

A second monitor at 90 degrees for the pedestal.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Derek Adam NZAA

Hi Derek,

I'm using a 21.5-inch (1920 x 1080) iMac. But your choice of monitors is entirely up to you... you can use one big monitor, or several medium-sized monitors, or even several big monitors, or whatever you want. (You can even use small display screens to represent individual instruments.)

Hardy has recommended that people not purchase new equipment before trying PSX on their current setup, and I think that's great advice. Once you get PSX and start playing around with the layouts, you'll start getting a sense for what you'll ultimately want to do.

You may have read this in the manual, but each instance of PSX has nine "layouts," which means nine configurable screens, between which you can navigate using key-presses. Each of the nine layouts has up to four panes, which can be sized to your preference.

You can have a perfectly satisfactory PSX experience using just one monitor. For example, I've configured each of the nine layouts to be optimized for a particular phase of operations: one for preflight, one for engine start, one for long range cruise, one for approaches from the captain's seat, one for flying from the F/O seat, and so on.

But i'm not building a home cockpit. Cockpit builders will probably want enough display landscape so that they can leave each display as it is, so that they don't ever have switch from screen to screen. Remember that PSX lets you have many instances running at the same time (on the same machine or on other machines), so you could have a vast number of displays of all kinds of sizes.

Really, your choice of monitor will depend on what you want your setup to look like. Play with PSX when it arrives, and you'll start to get ideas for how you want to configure it.

I can't stop thinking how this would be a fantastic monitor for PSX

http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34UM95-P-ultrawide-monitor

Imagine two, one above the other. You almost have the entire flight deck covered. If I had access to one of these in my country, I would sure get it.

Alec246 wrote

I can't stop thinking how this would be a fantastic monitor for PSX

http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34UM95-P-ultrawide-monitor

Imagine two, one above the other. You almost have the entire flight deck covered. If I had access to one of these in my country, I would sure get it.

Here's an excerpt from the above web page:

The LG UM95 UltraWide monitor is the ultimate multi-tasking tool. The 21:9 aspect ratio combined with the 4 Screen Split feature lets you view 4 different documents at the same time minimizing the need to flip back and forth between multiple documents.
-----------------------------
I wonder if this "4 Screen Split" feature would work with PSX?

Also, would this type of monitor function as an ordinary 1080p home TV set? Its specs read as if it's really for PC-driven use only.

HI: Derek.
"monitor sizes or type for the new PSX"
I have just purchased a 23.5 inch Acer TOUCH SCREEN MONITOR.
I will eventually require 6 or 7 monitors.
I have been surprised at the ease of which I can use the touch screen to control my computer Laptop (windows 7/ Nvidia GTX 280m) with portrait and landscape also flipped,
can't do much more until Hardy's hard work is delivered through my letterbox,
so I can see if 23.5 inches is big enough or a mixture of sizes will be needed.
Obtaining real dimensions is very difficult. I believe Hardy's artistry will be to scale.

I will use a 40 inch TV for outside visuals.
Kind regards
Russell.

Will wrote

You can have a perfectly satisfactory PSX experience using just one monitor. For example, I've configured each of the nine layouts to be optimized for a particular phase of operations: one for preflight, one for engine start, one for long range cruise, one for approaches from the captain's seat, one for flying from the F/O seat, and so on.

Will, Thanks for your example. Somehow this should have been obvious to me but suddenly I can figure out how I might want to configure those layouts. The power of PSX on a single monitor makes more sense now.

And for those on iMacs or MacBooks, a numpad looks essential to switch between layouts. I've just bought myself a wireless Belkin keypad, which should do the job. Apple don't make a separate numpad and the Belkin was the only one I could easily find.

All set up now. Just waiting for the postman...

Hi 744kid,

I don't have a keyboard with a num pad, just a normal (small) iMac keyboard. Obviously I can't use the num pad to cycle between Layouts.

But you can cycle the Layouts up and down using buttons on your joystick, and that's what I do. I have it set up on a toggle switch, so that moving the toggle in the "up" direction switches Layouts vertically upwards, like you're raising your head higher in the cockpit. Pressing the toggle in the "down" direction moves to the next Layout below, like you're tilting your head towards the floor. I set up the first seven Layouts in this order:

P6
Far overhead
EICAS and near overhead
Flight optimized <---- default
Engine start
L and R CDU and communications pedestal

... And then two additional Layouts that don't fit in the vertical scheme:

Center panorama
Left panorama

It's all pretty intuitive, and I certainly don't find myself missing a num pad.

Those are my own names, by the way, and when I say "flight optimized," I mean that's how I customized it for myself. (In fact, all nine are custom.) As usual with any ergonomic decisions, what you end up feeling best with is very much dependent on your own preferences. There is no one best answer to any of this: number of monitors, type of joystick, arrangement of the screens, etc.

Once PSX hits the shelves, It should be easy to share Layouts -- I'll be happy to share mine with anyone who is interested in running PSX on a one-monitor, 1920 x 1080 setup.

Will wrote

Once PSX hits the shelves, It should be easy to share Layouts -- I'll be happy to share mine with anyone who is interested in running PSX on a one-monitor, 1920 x 1080 setup.

Thanks, Will, that's really useful.

Sharing layouts is a great idea. My main set-ups will be on a 21" monitor (iMac) and a 13" MacBook Pro. The latter will need some careful thought!

these might be suitable for touchscreens:

https://www.avpartsmaster.co.uk/c-420-genee-led.aspx