Kneeboard doesn't work properly when there are more than 240 pages

[lwalter]

I'm playing DCS in VR and I like to have either the DCS Manual or the corresponding Chuck's guide for each plane converted into kneeboard pages.

Whenever the page count is lower than about 240, everything works fine.

If the page count is higher than about 240, then the kneeboard has a weird behavior:

- up to page 242 of the kneeboard (including my pages and the default pages), everything is fine.

- then from 242 to about 250, the kneeboard displays grey pages

- then the kneeboard repeats the initial pages (for about 242 pages)

- grey pages again

- and repeat of the initial pages up to 3 times.

So the kneeboard could show about 800+ in its page count, but only actually shows about 242 pages + 10 grey pages, repeated several times.

[lwalter]

Is a track needed for this bug? I thought it would be easily reproducible.

I attached Chuck's L-39 guide as kneeboard pages, because I had to find the smallest guide that goes over 240 pages. You can easily reproduce this bug by dropping the content of this zip into the custom user kneeboard folder for the L-39.

Note that it's very low quality because I had to make the images small enough to fit into the 50 MB limit on this forum.

 

L39SMALL.zip

[silverdevil]

@lwalter i do not think a track is going to help since the kneeboard is located on your computer. have tried to load the same mission without the kneeboard and with the kneeboard to compare the memory usage. it might be just me but 240 pages for a kneeboard seems excessive. 

[nighteyes2017]

what the heck are you carrying on your kneeboard? the encyclopedia galactica?

[lwalter]

@silverdevil @nighteyes2017 I put either DCS manuals or Chuck's guides, which can have hundreds of pages.

Why am I doing that? because when you're playing DCS in VR, the most efficient and practical way for reading the pages and trying out the steps in your plane is... the kneeboard.

 

 

[silverdevil]

3 hours ago, lwalter said:

@silverdevil @nighteyes2017 I put either DCS manuals or Chuck's guides, which can have hundreds of pages.

Why am I doing that? because when you're playing DCS in VR, the most efficient and practical way for reading the pages and trying out the steps in your plane is... the kneeboard.

i think you should separate the kneeboards into smaller chunks. i personally only have a max of 10 or so. it forces me to get the basics, add a little muscle memory, and use the kneeboards for reminders. eventually i do not need the kneeboards.

sorry but i think you have reached the limits of what you are trying to do.

[f-18hornet]

Thank you, reported for internal analysis.

[lwalter]

18 hours ago, silverdevil said:

i think you should separate the kneeboards into smaller chunks. i personally only have a max of 10 or so. it forces me to get the basics, add a little muscle memory, and use the kneeboards for reminders. eventually i do not need the kneeboards.

sorry but i think you have reached the limits of what you are trying to do.

I understand what you mean and I agree once you know the plane enough, but when you're in the phase of learning a new plane, or learning again a plane you haven't flown for a while, it's good to have the Chuck's guide or DCS guide right in your cockpit and following the steps without constantly removing your VR headset or switching to another application you had pinned into your VR environment.

I saw that somebody from Ed Team picked this issue for internal analysis. That sounds great and I really hope they can find a quick fix for it.

[silverdevil]

@lwalter hello again. i realized yesterday in the F-4 that when i pressed the M key, the F-4 manual appeared. i did not see any difference in performance. i did not check memory usage either though i have 128 GB on my system. The manual in the folder is 75 MB.

[lwalter]

@silverdevil I wish Heatblur technology used for displaying the F-4 manual was ported to all the other DCS planes.

However, I don't know if this technology will remain proprietary to Heatblur of be shared with DCS.

[Flappie]

Devs answered: the kneeboard will stay that way, because of its intricacies with the avionics display.

[lwalter]

On 5/30/2024 at 7:56 PM, Flappie said:

Devs answered: the kneeboard will stay that way, because of its intricacies with the avionics display.

Hi @Flappie

Was the devs answers about reusing Heatblur F-4 manual technology or about the max number of supported pages?

The latter, I wouldn't understand the link to the avionics display.

[Flappie]

I didn't ask about HB's new feature.

24 minutes ago, lwalter said:

The latter, I wouldn't understand the link to the avionics display.

I did not either. We don't have access to the source code. Devs do.

[lwalter]

20 minutes ago, Flappie said:

I didn't ask about HB's new feature.

I did not either. We don't have access to the source code. Devs do.

OK. It's a pity that Ed doesn't want to improve their kneeboard for some good use by VR players, but thank you @Flappie for asking!