(Over?)Ambitious 8-screen TB project underway

[Waxer]

Greetings, all!

Other than posting several questions, I haven't introduced myself yet. I am a Falcon addict, former co-Falconeer with HatTrick, who really gets the credit for starting me down this path, and I've also started up the learning curve in DCS:BS. I'm in the process of building a custom 'pit.

I started by looking at the physical 'pits over at Viper Pits, but the realistic part of me thinks I lack the hardware/electronics skills necessary to build a physical 'pit.

I was at the I/ITSEC government contractors trade show and noticed how most of the real-world milspec simulators are now "all glass 'pits". These full-sized physical layouts of tankers, fighters, and helos mostly utilize very-large-format touchscreens with animated switchology (some of these 'pits have 8 to 10 what-look-like 3 foot x 18" gorgeous touchscreens laid out side-by-side along the side panels and for the instrument panel! Awesome, beautiful, and functional.

I asked one of the smaller vendors, who had a 6-screen helo sim running "how much" and he said "one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollars"!). But I digress. What I saw made me wonder if I could build an all-glass 'pit using touchscreens.

That, and HatTrick's work in his profile, led me here.

I recently purchased an MSI all-in-one PC with an 18.5" touchscreen in 1366x768 running Vista, and seven Mimo 7" USB touchscreen monitors in 800x480. I already had a 37" Visio widescreen TV running as my desktop system monitor.

My goal is to have the server system (a WinXP system which runs Falcon) with the 3D-view (or HUD view) on the 37" Visio, which is currently on a pedastel above my desktop; the front instrument panel on the 18.5" MSI client standing on my desktop below the Visio, and the auxiliary and side instrument panels on the Mimos, stacked one on either side of the MIS, and 2 on each side to the left and right of the cockpit seat.

I have a progress report: I have successfully run TouchBuddy and Falcon Guages on this setup (client sytem, MSI touchscreen plus 3 Mimos, laptop plus 2 Mimos), with the guages animating and TouchBuddy sending key commands to Falcon. Three of the Mimos are currently plugged into the MSI; two Mimos are currently plugged into an HP Pavilion laptop running WinXP.

Three of the Mimos profiles are TouchBuddy only; 2 of the Mimos, plus the MSI touchscreen have transparent masks in their TouchBuddy profiles with Falcon Gauges animating beneath.

2 of the Mimos are unconnected as of yet, as I am out of USB slots and the Mimos aren't recognized when plugged into the powered USB hub I purchased.

I'm not out of the woods yet. I posted a question in the "How To" thread pertaining to finishing the 1366x768 profile for the MSI touchscreen. And I might have a few more questions. I'll post up my successes and failures as they happen. If the Mimos don't work out I'll probably switch to non-USB connected touchscreens. When the whole thing is running smoothly, and winter sets in, I will hit the workshop to build an appropriate framework for the 'pit.

Wish me luck; I'm a sick b*stard

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Wow Waxer!

We have a few guys here who went all out with multiple screens and big desktops, but I think you are leaving them in your dust! Did you say you bought 7 (seven) separate Mimo 7" touchscreens? Plus that 18" one too? Wow! Can't wait to see it. Post some pics when you get them all plugged in just so I can drool.

That 18" looks like a good deal. I would like to have a bigger touchscreen, but that will have to wait.

If you have other questions, or would like to get on ts for some help sometime just let me know..

WBK aka Snacko

[Waxer]

I was attracted to these devices because my cockpit layout anticipated running 8 touchscreens, emulating the panel layout of the F-16, and I thought that if I went with traditionally-connected monitors, the costs of processors, video cards, and monitors might be an issue.

These monitors promised easy USB connectivity, up to 127 devices per system, and built-in touchscreen support. They were out-of-stock, and had several positive reviews, so I thought "why not give them a try".

The monitors returned to stock, and my order was promptly handled. The monitors are well-packaged and arrived in good condition.

I have to say the process of getting them actually up and running has been more than unusually painful. So this post, I must confess, is a combination progress report, a list of workarounds, and a bit of a rant. I apologize in advance for the ranty parts, and hope the workarounds help anyone doing a similar install, or trigger replies that say "Waxer, if you'd only done it this way your problems would have been solved!".

Here goes.

1. My first attempt was to install two Mimo systems on my WInXP laptop's 2 USB ports
2. The instructions in the setup guide from Mimo directed me to plug the monitors in before running the software installation from the CD
3. This turned out to create an immediate issue. As soon as the monitors were plugged in, Windows New Hardware wizard attempted to run. It turns out that with the Mimos, the first thing that is detected by Windows is the Touchpanel. This is nowhere documented. You need to cancel out of the Hardware wizard at this time. The assumption you make is that the Wizard is trying to install the video drivers. Pointing it at the CD at this time, as the instructions direct, causes an error.
4. In general, the documentation that comes with the Mimos is drastically insufficient. If you search through all of the online documention, and pay careful attention, you will find that the touchscreen drivers are from a company called Touch Base Limited. Mimo does not supply documentation for the touchscreen drivers; nor do they at this time have a way to update the drivers.
5. Touch Base recommends -and this is a good recommendation- that you do not plug all the monitors in at install. Plug in one monitor, install the video drivers; then install the touchscreen drivers; and after it's working, plug in the second monitor; etc.
6. The Mimo video driver installs properly from the installation software CD, and the application that it installs runs properly.
7. However, the monitors are very finicky! At reboot, or when making configuration changes, it is easy for a monitor to lose its virtual connection to your system. Buried in the online Mimo documentation is the recommendation: if things aren't working, it may be necessary to physically unplug, and re-plug your monitor's USB connection. I found this to be both true and helpful; at boot time, it's typically necessary to unplug and replug at least one monitor to get it to be recognized.
8. There are also times when the control panel app for the video screens disappears from the toolbar; unplugging and replugging a monitor seems to bring it back.
9. The Touchscreen software is also troublesome, I'm sorry to report. It's default install is for a system with one touchscreen. My experience was that, with more than one touchscreen installed, only one screen would calibrate, and it was not the same screen each reboot.
10. Buried deeply within their online documentation, is the necessity to add the parameter "/assignall" to the calibration shortcut. This parameter brings up a window on all monitors in your system that says "if this screen isn't a touchscreen, hit ESC, otherwise touch the cross onscreen".
11. The calibration software also seems to randomly select a monitor for calibration. At each reboot, you must open the calibration settings, and select "Whole Desktop" prior to calibration
12. The Mimo documentation says that once calibrated, the screens system remembers calibration settings. Not so; at reboot, each screen must be re-calibrated (if you don't the touchpanels are inoperative).
13. So, at reboot, plugging and re-plugging the USB cables may be necessary to get video signal; using the "/assignall" parameter, changing the setting to "Whole Desktop" and recalibrating seems to get all the monitors up and running and touchscreen-enabled
14. The other major problem I ran into was USB related. It seems that the USB is neither Universal nor Serial . Buried deep within the Touchbase documentation is the recommendation that, once your monitor is installed, keep that specific monitor physically associated with that specific USB port. In other words, if you're moving things around, you can't just plug any monitor into any port. If you do (and I did) the outcome will range from one monitor no longer being recognized, to all monitors no longer being recognized. Once I figured this out, I did a careful reinstall.
15. The New Hardware Wizard still pops up on my XP system at each reboot, despite the drivers all being installed. I attempted to let it find drivers, and it errored-out with "Wizard cannot install drivers: a driver is already installed for this hardware". So I cancel the Wizard at reboot each time.
16. After learning all this, the 3 Mimo install on the Vista MSI system with its own 18.5" touchscreen went smoothly, and it all calibrated.
17. Last but not least: the Mimos don't work at all on the D-Link powered USB Hub I bought. Plugging them in gets a Windows Popup that "this device appears to be broken". I have a Belkin Hub which I am going to try next.
18. Once they are running, how do they run?
    • Mimo says that 3d-hardware-accerated apps and apps based on DirectX will not work on the Mimo. This gave me pause, as I thought the difference between Falcon Gauges and F4Glass was that Gauges used the GPU and Glass used the CPU. However, Gauges versions 2.0 and 4.0 do work.
    • There is some lag, however. The gauges on the Mimo animate perhaps .25 to .50 seconds after the gauge in the 2D Falcon cockpit. I am still experimenting with this.
    • I seemed to have intermittent delays in a Mimo panel recognizing a touch and sending a macro. However, that could have been "pilot error" as I get used to using the touchscreens. After I made a few config file changes, and enabled borders and beeps, this seems to have gone away. I will report more on this if it re-occurs.

Bottom line: it's working so far; I still have to finish my 1366x768 profile see my problem description here; and I'm still hoping I can get the gauge animation running more smoothly (may have to use F4Glass if the Mimo is 3D animation-limited).

Wish me luck; I'll post pics and profile eventually, if I get all the hardware bugs worked out.

Waxer

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Too much for me to read, so I skipped to the bottom. Glad to see the bottom line is it worked. LoL. We can get on TS sometime, but I may need a cup of joe to keep up with you.

WBK

[Feed]

This sounds incredible ... I too would like to see pics (whether or not you get the bugs worked out), and thank you for posting such great information about the issues you've had getting multiple Mimo monitors to work. I have just one, but have been itching severely to get at least a couple more for a similar project. I will certainly consider the possible headaches if I ever do honestly get a 'pit underway.
Keep us posted!

[CyBerkut]

Waxer, that is an amazing project! I've had similar thoughts that going the glass cockpit route would allow for more flexibility for the time and money invested in 'pit' building projects. With the DCS series alone, we have the current helicopter, and the A-10C on the horizon. It just makes sense to get the HOTAS / HOCAC & rudder pedals hardware the way you want it, and then utilize touch screens for at least most of what is left to deal with. We're fortunate that DCS has the clickable 3D cockpits, but even that can benefit from TB (as evidenced by D. Dastardly's terrific profile work.

I thought the MIMO USB touchscreen monitors looked like interesting possibilities as well. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences with those on here. It was a bit disheartening to see that you have run into so much grief with them.

I will be intensely interested to hear what your thoughts are about those after you spend more time on dialing things in with them. Based on what you have reported so far, I have to wonder if I would be better off avoiding the use of mutiple MIMO's on any single PC, and perhaps just utilize more of the All-in-one touchscreen PCs, and/or touchscreen LCDs being driven by video card outputs.

With the news about the impending ATI eyefinity (5800 series) capabilities to run multiple displays off of a single video card (similar to what the Matrox TH2Go, only more flexible, and at higher resolutions / monitor counts) things are getting more interesting.

Good luck with it, Waxer!

[flyinjake]

Great post Waxer. I am new to this and looking for touchscreens. Noticed on one of your links an ELO 15inch for 250 USD. Yes, please keep us informed of your progress.

Jake

[Waxer]

I'm in the live testing phase of my project (in-between my step-daughter's wedding LOL).

I've had excellent results with the MSI/Vista touchscreen system, with 3 MIMO touchscreens connected. It boots every time, and calibrates every time, and the four instances of TB that I have running in Client mode work flawlessly with each other, and the Server gets 100% of the keypresses. W00T!

I've had off-and-on success with the Compaq Presario/XP laptop with 2 MIMO touchscreens connected. The MIMOs only randomly enable. Lots of plugging and replugging, and half the time I can only get one (not both) to calibrate. I can't figure out why. Sometimes, when I boot, only 1 MIMO will power on. Other times, they both power on, but only one will calibrate. The last time I flew, they all worked fine; go figure.

That flight was a dream, though. Looking out the HUD/3D view on my 32", at the front panel on the 18", and the auxiliary panels either side, the "E" panel (the one between the knees in Flacon) below, and panels B and G on either side of the chair. Six touchscreens working and animating.

I'm still getting sub-standard frame rates with Falcon Guages. I don't know why; I'm going to experiment with reassigning processor affinities (it's a quad-core) and see if that makes any difference, although I suspect it's a graphics card/USB pipeline issue, so I'm also going to give F4Glass a whirl, since it's CPU driven and I have 4 cores; that might be the solution.

I tell you --- sitting in a "glass cockpit" is awesome; hope I can work the rest of the bugs out.

Cheers,
Waxer

[flyinjake]

Waxer,
I bet it does add a level of immersion to a sim when using touchscreens. I am purchasing equipment and working on the profile as we speak. Myself,I am going the route of bigger monitors rather than many smaller ones. I already have them and just need to install overlays then I should be good to go. Hope you're able to get the bugs worked out. Sounds impressive indeed.

Jake

[Waxer]

I'm happy to say that I'm in "cleanup mode" on this project. Six touchscreens and a large widescreen monitor. Two more touchscreens to be added in version 2, after I cleanup version 1 (I've decided to replace my aging HP laptop and with its replacement get enough built-in USB connectivity to add the two additional touchscreens.

1) Regarding the existing MIMO-touchscreens intermittent setup issues on the HP-WinXP laptop: the "solution" if a MIMO doesn't calibrate is...just unplug it, wait a few seconds, and then re-plug it. A completely inelegant solution, but it works every time. This problem never happened on the Vista system, which starts flawlessly. It now takes me less than 10 minutes to boot up all three systems and get the profiles running for a flight. I've made both ramp and taxi variants.

2) Falcon Gauges proved to be too stuttery for my purposes, so currently I am using F4Glass, and quite happy with it despite it not having all gauges available to animate. Lightning (author of MFD Extractor over at viperpits.org) is writing a replacement for both Falcon Gauges and F4Glass that should prove to be the uber-solution -- can't wait.

I have to say, looking at the front panel on the 18" with the HUD or the 3D view above it on the 35", while surrounded by the MIMO touchpanels, completely rocks. The immersion factor of reaching out with left or right hand to flip a switch that is located at its correct (or close to it) physical position; and of looking at animated gauges, is awesome. Not to mention how much quicker and easier it is than mousing around the cockpit.

I've started uploading some pictures; I have to clean up my desk a bit this coming week in order to photo the whole layout for uploading; and I have to clean up my fairly messy templates too, but I will upload the works as soon as I can.

Thanks to everyone for this great application.