|
It's not often I get to actually enjoy flying but I've been having a bit of a holiday and playing around with a few addons here and there. I stumbled across Ernie's ISG1 gauges and thought I'd give 'em a go.
Stunning piece of software! Beautifully presented with terse but intelligently written documents, lavishly illustrated, and every single step marked out for those impatient among us including me. Even if you don't quite "get" the clear docs, what better than to load up one of Ernie's templates and that's the quickest way of learning... observe and follow.
I always thought the FSX B737 was not bad for a default aircraft...and a lot smoother on frame rates than some versions I can think of. So with a bit of flight model tweaking, a tidy up here and there, and crucially, the installation of some of Mr Alston's very elegant and fast gauges, and voila - an aircraft that looks more than half decent and is running at half the cost and twice the frame rate of even the most modest addon.
Kudos Ernie!
I suppose I ought to balance this with a few questions, and a couple of suggestions: The major stumbling block I had was with that nasty Template exe Microsoft ocx file which not only refused to run but even though the installer seemed to install it (Vista) I couldn't find it in any windows folder. After several hours banging my head against the wall I finally downloaded another version and registered it. Would be nice if the docs mentioned this stumbling block, which is not your fault Ernie but it would have saved a lot of time if I knew about it in advance. Apologies if you did mention it and I missed it.
Back to the positive. Just imagine the time and effort that went into these gauges, and each one delivers what it says on the tin, wonderfully handsome, smooth track lines and very smooth in update. And each one has a dedicated lavish pdf to go with it. Good value indeed.
Now for a suggestion and query or two: In the Smith FMS, can I get rid of the occasional fonts bumping into one another at the bottom of the display if I adjust the ratio and size of the FMS? Just every now and then the fonts get knotted up.
Panel Studio shows most of the gauges as blanks. Is this a limitation of Panel Studio or just the nature of these kinds of gauges?
I know how difficult 3d panel gauges are to place or even get working at all, but is there a possibility in the future of some kind of clever way of interpreting what's available to exploit in the average VC MDL file so that existing gauges can be zapped and replaced? I realise you can already just about swap one for the other if it's similar, but I'm talking about finding the hot spots where a gauge is possible to place without endless troubleshooting.
Once again, my sincere thanks to you Ernie. This is a lovely piece of software, clearly done with devotion, detail and a labour of love.
With Best Wishes,
Rob Young
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
