Hiding exported displays in the virtual cockpit

[Havner]

Hi,

Is there any way to hide MFDs or any other exported display when it is being exported?

The issue is that there are brightness differences between exported displays and the ones in virtual cockpit. I already brighten the exported ones with Reshade + mask (as describe in a thread elsewhere) but the brightness difference can be significant at night that blinds me (I have OLED tv with high brightness). The ideal option would be to hide the exported displays, e.g. make them simply black.

In Apache I can achieve that with the brightness rotary that affects virtual displays, but not exported ones. But it's only for Apache. Is there a generic way to do that? For A-10, or F-16.

Screenshots to visualize the issue. Sorry for low quality, but my phone has broken stabilization.

 

[MadKreator]

@Havner you can’t hide the exports( natively through dcs anyway) they are either there or not. You CAN edit the viewporthandling.lua to turn off the viewports in game but it will turn of ALL viewports on all aircraft ( a-10 excluded, its a little trickier).It will break IC in MP so best to use that with OVGME or mod manager. In your case you would lose the TEDAC since you don’t have it displayed on an exported screen…. I’m not that familiar with the Apache but I would assume the aircraft lighting has a “night mode” somewhere, or the displays themselves? I use reshade the same as you. I turn the displays in game at night, or put lighting into “night mode”. Then tune reshade to compensate correctly. In the daytime if you don’t toggle reshade off, you will need to adjust the display brightness and contrast. There isn’t really a happy medium using reshade. Attached are a couple pics of “night mode” in the a-10 and f-15. In the daytime in both I either toggle reshade off, or compensate for it by turning down the brightness and contrast of the displays. Again I’m not familiar with the Apache mfd/lighting  controls but I’d first look into dimming the in-game displays, then tuning the exports with reshade.
*these are screenshots with helios profiles running, but same concept with native display exporting.

Pic 1: F-15e night mode , no reshade… Pic2: f-15 night with reshade…. Pic3: a-10 night mode with reshade..upper displays are the in-game, lowers are the exported ones

 

 

Edited June 10, 2024 by MadKreator

[Havner]

@MadKreator thanks for the answer. I guess you answered my question in a way, that there is no correct way to achieve what I want

Doing what you suggest is a workaround. I might experiment with it. What I don't like about it though is that dimming the in game displays will compress the histogram which will then loose details when brightening them with reshade on exported displays. But like you said, nothing more that can be done here anyway.

Regarding the Apache, what I meant is that that's the only module that actually has a proper solution done by ED (albeit by chance I presume). The in game displays have a brightness rotary that affects only the in-game displays, but not the exported ones. So I actually can dim the in-game displays completely (they are black) without affecting the exported ones at all.

[MadKreator]

5 hours ago, Havner said:

@MadKreator thanks for the answer. I guess you answered my question in a way, that there is no correct way to achieve what I want

Doing what you suggest is a workaround. I might experiment with it. What I don't like about it though is that dimming the in game displays will compress the histogram which will then loose details when brightening them with reshade on exported displays. But like you said, nothing more that can be done here anyway.

Regarding the Apache, what I meant is that that's the only module that actually has a proper solution done by ED (albeit by chance I presume). The in game displays have a brightness rotary that affects only the in-game displays, but not the exported ones. So I actually can dim the in-game displays completely (they are black) without affecting the exported ones at all.

Intersting that the exports aren’t affected by the dimmers,  I have yet to see that. When you setup exports in dcs, is is just creating the  monitor file that tells them to be exported and where ( which you of course know) and that monitor config is only read and applied when dcs first starts. They would prob need to implement either “dynamic” monitor switching, or re-work each module with a way to actually turn them off in real time. You could use Helios to export them and in the profile create “panels” that would hide/unhide with a button or switch to cover the exports up.. BUT if you are currently using SimAppPro or DCS-BIOS for any of your setup, there can be conflicts from the export.lua when more than one program is trying to “control” the exporting of functions.  And I totally understand the degradation in quality if dimming or brightening too much. Since exports aren’t a real “raw” video feed, there isn’t really a way to truly apply the filtering except post-processing like reshade does.. Same when using something like IRIS screen exporter, there’s nothing to “capture” to apply any real filters to. We just have to fake it.. Of course don’t necessarily take my word for a be all end all.. Someone much smarter than I may know a way that I’ve never experienced

[Maxxox]

Hi there. For me is hiding the displays in the virtual cockpit no solution. The question is, why is there a brightness difference at all? This is now for years and no fix is coming. I dont want to use external software to handle this.

So the question to ED: when we will get a fix for this very old problem?

[rob10]

12 hours ago, Maxxox said:

Hi there. For me is hiding the displays in the virtual cockpit no solution. The question is, why is there a brightness difference at all? This is now for years and no fix is coming. I dont want to use external software to handle this.

So the question to ED: when we will get a fix for this very old problem?

That's one they've said in past that there is no obvious solution for so even though it's a long term issue there likely isn't a fix coming soon.  I can't remember the details of the why, but it's a big fix (if they can even figure out a way to do it) and while I'm one of those affected, I get that it realistically only affects a small portion of users so spending the time required to fix it likely isn't high priority.

[MadKreator]

The only answer/response I’ve ever seen regarding the export brightness is “ It’s part of the UI Layer, and that would require a complete overhaul to fix the exported display brightness issues”…. Whatever that means.  Yes reshade, kind of “fakes” it, but it does get the job done. As for hiding the viewports, natively, like when switching seats in a two seater, thats coded in the module somewhere. A video in another thread from an ED Dev, shows their internal API is a pop-up/ drag and drop method. He mentioned ( vaguely implied) the possibility that he “could” enable that on the user side several months ago, but so far no word since. If something like that was implemented, there could possibly be more control of them… or maybe it would simply see where they are and write the monitor file accordingly, like Helios currently does.  It was a hopeful showing, but it also took 3 or 4 years from the initial post for a dev to open an ear to it ( exports violating IC). So maybe by 2030 it might get revamped? Hopes high, expectations low. As @rob10 said, the priority is likely very low as “we” are a small army compared to the total number of DCS players. Unless the native export API starts to interfere or affect the game itself it doesn’t  seem  like they’ll be changing anything about it any time soon

[MadKreator]

https://gyazo.com/174b5846188bcb1ae12e460a60812732 Just for fun, ED’s Internal API for exports that the dev mentioned “could” be exposed to the user end. Doesn’t help our situation, necessarily but nice to know the possibility is there for some advancement in the export realm.