walker450

I bought a new Blekin n52te gamepad at Bestbuy last night for $70+tax. I am very pleased with my purchase and its performance in DCS Blackshark. Here are some links for the gamepad: http://www.n52te.com/ http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=390404 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826169019 I have not installed the included software, and I actually don't plan to. The gamepad acts just like a keyboard when you plug it in. The keys are preset with tab,caps,left shift, QWERASDFZXC, left right up down arrows, space, and left alt. So far I have it nearly completely mapped. Heres what I have: I have all of the lights mapped to it (interior and exterior) UV-26 countermeasure functions Abris buttons (1-5,up-down,select) pvi-800 buttons (auto-man, high-med-low, can roudn sel, can rate of fire, jettison stores) misc (show pilot body, wingman commands) The layout of the buttons makes it very easy to map multiple commands. With one hand you can have control of a lot of systems. I may be building a spreadsheet describing all of the functions I have mapped... I will share it here if I do. :) Here is a video of me using the Belkin gamepad to navigate the Abris: .

My setup: Vista 64 EVGA 780i FTW Motherboard Q9550 @ 3.9MHz 2x2GB OCZ reaper RAM 2x EVGA GTX280 1GB Video Cards 10,000RPM 150GB Vrap Hard Drive The Primary and Abris Monitors are on the main GPU. The Shkval is on the second GPU alone. With this setup on high graphics, I am getting 30 FPS in the default instant action mission (cockpit and outside views). However, the F3 flyby view is about 27 FPS. I tried hooking the abris and shkval monitors to the second GPU, leaving the Primary all by itself, but it actually decreased FPS to around 15-20. I don't know the reasons for this yet, but I have been searching for answers. I found one post so far that described similar problems....

Here is a video of me using the Belkin gamepad to navigate the Abris: LOL!! That does look kinda creepy... Does the trackir remind anyone else of the little robot in Transformers 1?? LOL I don't know why I make that connection... I'm weird I guess. :)

Thanks EtherealN!! I really like this setup. I too have thought about using a touch and making the ABRIS buttons touchable, but I don't feel I have the time to devote to that. I think that once you start adding in the menus that popup etc, it will get complicated in a hurry. I myself may add buttons to the bottom of my monitor one day, but will propably go the simple route and just hack an old keyboard for the input commands. Know what I mean? :) (of course, no fancy dials like this, I would have to have 8 total buttons; 1-5, up-down, select) I actually bought a Belkin n25te gamepad last night when I bought the new 23" widescreen. I am using the top 5 buttons on it for 1-5 on ABRIS, and the up-down arrows for the up-down functions, and the right arrow for select. I'll make a video of it, it works very good!!

Here are the windows settings: _________From "options.lua":_____________ ["graphics"] = { ["multiMonitorSetup"] = "2 dells and acer", ["color"] = "32", ["heatBlr"] = 0, ["scenes"] = "high", ["water"] = 2, ["fullScreen"] = false, ["visibRange"] = "High", ["aspect"] = 1.77777, ["textures"] = 2, ["shadows"] = 3, ["display_mode"] = { ["avi"] = { ["bpp"] = 32, ["resolution"] = "640x480", ["full_screen"] = false, ["aspect"] = 1.25, ["height"] = 480, ["width"] = 640, }, -- end of ["avi"] }, -- end of ["display_mode"] ["effects"] = 3, ["lights"] = 2, ["haze"] = 1, ["terrPrld"] = "20", ["height"] = 1080, ["resolution"] = "1920x1080", ["civTraffic"] = 0, ["width"] = 3488, }, -- end of ["graphics"] _______________From "2 dells and acer": (my custom file in the MonitorSetup folder)______________ Description = '19 dell on left rotated 90 for abris, 23 acer in center for cockpit, 19 dell on right for shkval,, set up in windows with acer on left as main, abirs center and rotated, shkval right' Viewports = { Center = { x = 0; y = 0; width = 1920; height = 1080; viewDx = 0; viewDy = 0; 1.7777777; } } Shkval = { x = 2688; y = 0; width = 800; height = 600; } ABRIS = { x = 1920; y = 0; width = 768; height = 1024; } This works very well in the game. I can also select all of the buttons in the multiplayer menus. However, the screens are mismatched since I have them mixed up in the windows settings. This setup requires me to adjust the windows settings and rearrange the monitors if I want to do desktop work with multiple monitors. When I start DCS, I must shuffle them around. But, since I mostly use this computer to just play DCS, I don't think I'll be changing it much. :) I will also be posting some useful links on this thread in an effort to help others.

First of all, I really really love this game. That is enough justification for spending $300 at Bestbuy last night and robbing a monitor off of our desktop computer (sorry honey!). She still has her laptop. :) After several hours of experimenting, I decided to go with this layout: Abris on 19" Dell rotated 90 degrees at 768x1024 on the left Cockpit view on 23" Acer widescreen at 1920x1080 in center Shkval on 19" Dell at 800x600 on the right I have to run the Shkval at 800x600 to keep 30fps. With it at 1280x1024 I could only get 20fps. Since it's just the black and white Shkval, I can't tell the difference in the picture quality anyways. With the Abris monitor rotated 90 degrees, it fits the screen very well. I tried it wihout rotation and it worked, but didn't look natural. Multiplayer menus are accessible, but are not all together from left to right... I had to rig the monitor positions in windows to make it all work... If anyone is interested in seeing my .lua files, just ask.

Here is a demo video I made. Be sure to change the resolution to 1080 if you have a good connection. :)

I started using another 19" LCD for the Shkval, and it is great! Now I just need a big flat screen for the cockpit, and I could put the Abris on the remaining 19".... I don't watch our 42" in the living room much.... think I could talk her into it? ;) Here is a video of me doing a demonstration flight without using trim. (ST290 with spring removed and dampers added):

I'm really strapped for time lately. When I have time, I will play around with the mission editor a little.

I love the idea. I think a simple race, similiar to the trans Siberian air race in lock on, would be awesome.

My fiancé in front of Miss America, the P-51 Reno racer. and her with thier A-1...

It looks like the pilot of the F-22 in the second pic has his left hand in a bag of chips lol... Looks way to relaxed to be refueling. :)

LOL!!! Great pics!! The guy in the light blue nearly crawling is hilarious. I must say I would probably be doing something similiar...

Welcome scorpyn! What kinda of helicopters do you fly? I think it says a lot when real pilots actually love this game!

Here is another one for x-plane: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=43415&st=0

For the people saying it is ugly etc... I think it is a look that will grow on all of us... I didn't like the F-22 at first, but now I do. Different paint and different angles and different backgrounds really make planes look better in most cases.

Anyone know if someone is working on a 3d model yet? Perhaps for LO or FSX... The current pics should be enough to make a fairlyaccurate model. I'd love to be able to fly one in a sim and take some cool screenshots.

Here are some pics I took back in 2007 at an airshow at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

Anyone seriosly looked into making a pit that is dominated my MFDs, similiar to the AH-64d and Comanche helos? I imagine there is a way to extract info from BS and display it in a modern looking form like it would be in the latest attck helicopters. Part of me loves the way the Blackshark takes you back in time, but part of me longs for the techy aspect of a Comanche. I think by designing a custom pit, and utilizing this awesome game, we could have the best of both worlds. To elaborate, the touchbuddy app is approaching this idea. But, instead of making graphics of objects in the blackshark cockpit and putting them on the touchbuddy screens, a whole new graphical interface could be used. This new look could resemble something more modern. My best example is Grizzlie's pit (will link to it later); he modeled a Comanche but is playing hokum vs comanche... I would like to do the same but with BS. Example: (Grizzly's) Grizzly's page with all info:http://home.comcast.net/~timothyboldt/

The wood grain matches my desk. :) This will work for now until I graduate to a more simpot-like setup. I have thought the same thing about removing the spring in the rudder pedals, but I wont be for various reasons. I play other sims where I prefer to have them self-center, and in real life I fly a C-152 and the footwork of my games helps me in the real plane. I'll never forget my first flying lesson... We started taxiing and naturally I turned the yoke like it was a steering wheel... It didn't work lol. A few days later I ordered rudder pedals and that helped me get used to using my feet in the real plane. I had previously only used the keyboard or a twist joystick for rudder control.

Right when the main character arrives at the base on Pandora, he goes into some sort of command center. There are about a dozen people in chairs with screens and X-52s in front of them... I'm not sure exactly what they are doing with them, I assume they are pilotindrones with them. As for why Hollywood uses then, I think it's because they look futuristic and have "pretty" lights, which most commonfolk love. Even though I own a X-52, I prefer a regular black stick like my old CH fighterstick... but I lost track of that thing years ago... my flying funds wouldn't allow for much more than a X-52 on sale. :)

I just read your entire thread.... WOW!! Nice work!!

Video here:

I was able to go to a RC/Hobbie shop and buy some dampers. I simply screwed some tall wood screw into a board for the dampers to attach to, then screwed the joystick down to the board. To attch the dampers to the joystick, I ran a piece of electrical wire through both of them and then used a hose clamp to hold the wire tight to the stick. I am very pleased with the feel of it and it is very accurate. I will post a video when I have more time :)