Strange - Flight Sim X in local mode

[AndyHill]

Now this is an odd one. I've read about the problems with Flight Sim X in local mode and when I bought the sim I witnessed the problem myself. The touchscreen goes black (not blank, black. You can still see the mouse cursor, but not the TB profile) just like in all the OpenGL games. The strange thing is that when I forgot my Lock on -profile on the screen didn't go black when I started FSX. I could even push the buttons and at least ESC seemed to work just fine. I tried a FS9 profile I downloaded here and it didn't work, but again when I loaded the Lock on -profile, no problems.

I tried it a couple of times with identical results, but it sounds so strange that I don't believe it anymore while typing this. Anyway, here's the profile that works for me when the others don't: http://tols17.oulu.fi/~ailomaki/lockonprofile.zip

It's a modified profile, I got the original from here. If anyone wants to try it with FSX I'd be interested in hearing your results. I don't know what would make it so special, it does have the new TEWS screen, but I find that a pretty unlikely explanation.

I'm running Windows Vista with almost new nVidia drivers (8800GTX). Pretty much every OpenGL game blacks out the touchscreen, which unfortunately excludes Il-2 from the list of TB-compatible games. It seems to be a problem with nVidia and Vista, if someone can confirm it might be useful to mention it in the compatibility lists.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Originally Posted by AndyHill

The touchscreen goes black (not blank, black. You can still see the mouse cursor, but not the TB profile) just like in all the OpenGL games.

I don't have FSX, but IL2 is an OpenGL game and it works fine with TouchBuddy. I have not heard that in local mode, that OpenGL games make the touchscreen go black. Can you name some? I'm just curious, as I have not seen this on any other game I have played except FSX.

[AndyHill]

Originally Posted by Wild.Bill.Kelso

I don't have FSX, but IL2 is an OpenGL game and it works fine with TouchBuddy. I have not heard that in local mode, that OpenGL games make the touchscreen go black. Can you name some? I'm just curious, as I have not seen this on any other game I have played except FSX.

Are you using Vista (and nVidia)? Pretty much all OpenGL games do that for me now, earlier with XP everything was fine. AFAIK FSX has little to do with OpenGL, so it should be different.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

Oops, no I'm not running Vista or nVidia. I quoted you from the top of your post, but didn't read all of it I guess.

[AndyHill]

Anyway, I confirmed the issue yesterday. I have a profile that seems to work with FSX in fullscreen local mode. Unfortunately it's a Lock on -profile and I really don't have the time to start experimenting with an FSX one right now.

[Wild.Bill.Kelso]

I took a quick look and compared that profile to my old FS9 profile and my IL2 profile. The first difference I noticed was an Window variable called on_top = 0. It was 1 in the one you posted here that works in FSX, but it was 0 in both my FS9 and IL2 profiles. This variable can be set in the Toolkit Window Tab by checking the 'Always on Top?' checkbox in the Window Options section.

Give this a try with FSX. I would be interested in see how it works. Maybe FSX is running on 'all' monitors so the user can drag it's own windows to other monitors and use them. But maybe this 'on_top' option keeps the TB window on top of FSX too?

WBK

[AndyHill]

That did it. I'm ready to give thumbs up to FSX-TB compatibility in local mode. Score (a big) one for TB.

[Drakoz]

Yes, "Always on Top" seems to work. There's a minor gotcha though. I found that if I enter a flight and then Alt-Tab out of FSX, when I Alt-Tab back to FSX, TB and FSX are fighting for the second video display (they flicker back and forth, and also mess up the textures on the main display). This only occurs when I'm in an actual flight. If I exit the flight back to the FSX main menu and start a flight again, it's all OK. Not surprising because exiting the flight causes FSX to revert back to a normal single display mode vs. blanking all the displays.

This may depend on your video card/drivers (or maybe even specific setup of those cards and video ports). I have a pair of nVidia 8800GT cards, with one monitor on each video card. Of course, SLI is turned off.

Yes, FSX takes over all monitors (and hence blanks unused monitors). This allows you to bring up the GPS, or a 2D cockpit and drag it to the second monitor without using the Windowing functions like FS9 used to do it. In fact, with a touch screen as my second monitor, if I drag the 2D cockpit panels onto that 2nd monitor, I can click the buttons and knobs offering a functionality similar to Touch Buddy, but not as advanced obviously because I don't have complete control over the layout of those panels. For example, the 2D main cockpit panel is too large making most buttons too small and difficult to click with a finger. If I import those 2D cockpit panels into TB and re-arrange them, I get better visuals and control. I haven't done this yet, but I plan to start playing with it soon.

Another downside to trying to use a touch screen with the FSX 2D panels is every time you start a new flight, you have to always bring them up, drag them into position, and re-size them. Very annoying. TB will make this aspect much easier.