AV8R

@Peter, Of course you can use my pics, that was my contribution to your effort. I would hardly think my rig is representative of very many, but its a poor man's way to have individual MFDs and CDU or ICP touch displays. Some would rather just put them on large VGA screens with soft OSBs or even velcro attaching TM Bezels on to the monitor's screen itself. I would think the VipersPits crew are likely to have individual monitors for each MFD like I did in some shape or form. Regarding the blackout boxes... Im not a fan of using the cockpit in a manner that doesn't look realistic, so they don't look good to me. Just my opinion of course. That being said, I can imagine two uses for it that would be beneficial: a. An ATC role b. RIO back seater or trainer mode The Helios part of the equation is pretty poorly documented, so if you are a documentation guy maybe you can write a section in your dummies guide to help others. It looks like you have the main screen spread out on multiple monitors well thought out. Probably in my next PC I will go that route when I have the horse power to run it all. Remember, bring the hay off the loft down to the floor where it can be enjoyed by all. Thats the goal of an applications note and good writer. Cheers from Southern California :pilotfly:

@Peter, You want some A10c cockpit pics... So here's some year old pics I made when I was doing this for DCS-A10c Cockpit with MFDs Cockpit with CDU as I was making work on an USB touch panel + Helios What is not documented... Helios is powerful but is poorly documented and thus presents a steep learning curve for those not familiar with it and combining DCS' LUA scripts and Windows display positioning. The whole display exportation and replication methodology as it applies to our flight sim use is assumed and not handled well. That's where you come in. What I found difficult was creating an USB touch panel CDU... The trick is to use Helios art that has a cutout for the CDU data rather than using the screen replicator that is used to display MFDs. MFDs can be done either with Helios software bezel and OSBs, or as I have done as LUA displayed data plus TM Cougar MFD hardware with push button OSBs. The other hurdle is getting Windows and the video card propeties to consistently position and display the monitors exactly where Helios and DCS' LUAs expects them to be. I know you are well aware of this and is what you've painstakingly wrote about. It extremely frustrating to do when using 32 bit Vista and also throwing DisplayLink into the mix. Then there s getting each monitor a black background so that the portions not being displayed on don't show up as your Windows background. Exporting from Falcon presents more challenges as its older software, but the latest BMS coding and third party utilities make it possible to do what DCS does via LUAs. Helios brings out the cockpit art with selectable button callbacks, to either sim. Too bad the IL2 series didn't make it into these. All the pictures are done via a single Q6600 computer with one nVidia cheers

@Peter, A dummies guide that uses pictures and explanations is well done. That being said, you asked for opinions, so I will offer some to help you help others... What you've done is really just the tip of the iceberg. I exhort you to think about going the next level to applying HELIOS both for VGA and displayLinked USB (LCD) monitors. Ive done this for both DCS-A10c and FalconBMS, so it can be done. Maybe these pictures will inspire you and others... DCS-A10c with two USB LCDs as MFDs and TM Bezels as OSBs, plus 1 touch panel USB LCD as CDU (Helios + LUA scripts) FalconBMS with 2 USB LCDs as MFDs (GPT Extractor) and 1 touch panel USB LCD as the ICP (Helios) Heres yet another idea, running the BMS ICP off an iPad which is a touch panel monitor itself So yes, VGA main monitor plus USB monitors can be made to co-exist. Also, native sim monitor extraction (be it DCS or BMS) can be used in conjunction with HELIOS or other remote solutions like SPLASH XDISPLAY to display on an iPad for example.

I use: WinXP SP3 Vista SP2 MacOSX SnowLeopard 10.6.6 (bootcamp to Vista)

Sandman and Paul, I didnt get a registration sent to me since I paid, and the email I recieved was: "Thank you for your order from SC Simulations, LLC.. Once your package ships we will send an email with a link to track your order." Ill take this issue over to their site's forum. Thanks for the infos. Hopefully I wont have to re-invent the wheel and leverage CDU and other gadget art like yours.

Perfect. Thank you. Your rep just went up a notch.

I just purchased Helios, waiting for the product to arrive. For some reason, the downloadable version crashes as soon as I launch it.

EtherealN, OK, not the answer I was hoping for, but direct and straight. Thanks. Is there any insight as to why this changed from previous support of direct connect?

Nice image Sandman, Are you using a touch panel for this, or just clicking it with your mouse?

Is there a way to play multiplayer without having to first log in with an account with DCS? What I believe I saw was both the connect by IP and LAN online modes required logging in. Should this login server go down or not be support in the future, how will we use A10c online? If I missed a direct connect methodology without logging in, please provide the steps. Thanks

will there be an english version of the first ramp start doc?

Actually LockOn runs great on my MBP 17" whether its in VM windows, Bootcamp to Vista, or Unity mode. DCS-BS and DCS-A10c runs well in Bootcamp mode. My question is around why did they allow LockOn and not DCS run in VM modes? The other issue is that perhaps this development team might consider a Mac version, released some time after the PC version. Im not really interested in the MacOS vs Windows vs Linux discussion. Nor am I interested in the Apple vs PC platform arguments. Those that have Macs its a moot point. I will say this, over the decades of owning many desktop, home made systems and laptops; this MBP 17" is the best laptop Ive ever owned on many levels. And you dont have to pay full price of over $2500 to get one, go for a lovingly used one and you pay a fraction of that. Lastly, on this MPB I have on it: IL2 1946 v4.10m, LB2, SteelBeastsPro, LockOn, DCS-BS and DCS-10c-B4 and FalconAF. Makes a great for a in house portabl or mobile gaming system. Yes I prefer my PC tower for at home gaming because of the flexibility of changing hardware over time and the lower costs. But for a laptop, Mac is it. They look, feel, and run like a laptop Id design for myself. Go on, go to an Apple store and indulge yourself. ;)

Currently Flaming Cliffs, DCS-BS and DCS-A10c cannot run under a virtual machine on a Mac. LockOn does however. A workaround is to run these sims under a dual boot Mac (bootcamp), but then we lose the multitasking advantages of running on a Mac if we switch the OS to pure Windows. The request is that the development team consider allowing DCS to run within a virtual machine. Below is LockOn running on a MacBookPro running Snow Leopard 10.6.6 with VMware's Fusion 3.1.2 and Windows Vista Home Premium. It runs great on a MBP 17" with 4GB memory and an Intel dual2core 2.4 ghz processor. Even DCS-A10c b4 runs under bootcamp with medium settings. :pilotfly:

As you can see, SteelBeastsPro has no problem running on a Mac with Vista VM Theres definately something going on with FC2 and virtual machines. More and more people are doing this, so it makes sense for this to be supported. I have run BOOTCAMP emulation of Windows VISTA, and FC2 runs well under it. It does take a long time to run the launcher, but eventually FC2 runs fine. So the problem is running FC2 under FUSION's virtual machine emulation of Vista. Regarding the PAUSE key in Windows that doesnt exist as a key in MacOS, this combination works for BOOTCAMP emulation of Windows: Fn+ESC (MacOS) = PAUSE (windows) Note that the original LockOn does work in a virtual machine (Fusion) window under MacOS. The Flaming Cliffs2, DCS-BlackShark and DCS- A10c do not. So its has something to do with whatever they put in those products to reject VM running of their sims. With the advent of the Intel based Macs that that the power to run these sims, it would be valuable to allow these sims to run under virtual machines. If we have the reg code I hope thats sufficient to allow us to choose whatever hardware and OS technology we choose to use. It may be too late for LockOn, but how about going forward with DCS?

I tried to run FC2 on my MacBookPro 17" laptop running FUSION and Vista. FC2 installs fine, the demos run fine, but the actually flying does not. It gives this message: "An attempt to use a virtual PC is detected. Please close all PC emulators and try again. If the error recurs, press "Error report" and send the report to product technical support." I do not have a problem I run SteelBeastsPro this way

I tried to run FC2 on my MacBookPro 17" laptop running FUSION and Vista. FC2 installs fine, the demos run fine, but the actually flying does not. It gives this message: "An attempt to use a virtual PC is detected. Please close all PC emulators and try again. If the error recurs, press "Error report" and send the report to product technical support." Can someone tell me why Im getting this and you guys arent?

MetalnWood, This is amazing. Correction, you are amazing... Is there a chance you can port this to the win-mobile for the PocketPC platform? They are much cheaper and are small touch panels with WiFi or USB. I use a HP PocketPC with the MFP software for FalconAF's ICP. If interested, please contact me and ill be happy to work it with you.