Adjusting panning speeds in FSX

[mmglads]

Not having the funds (it’s on my wish list!) to purchase TrackIR, & becoming extremely frustrated with the superfast & uncomfortable panning speeds of FSX (& for that matter FS9) I decided to find out how it all works. There were various threads on the net, but none that explained it completely to a “dumboâ€. So here we go, sorry if this has been covered before in a previous thread. Of course, if you're happy with the default speeds, that's fine.

Panning speeds are controlled by the “Cameras.CFG†file, which is to be found in the same folder as your “fsx.CFG†file, that is normally  "c:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX" - this will obviously be different if you have installed to an alternative hard drive.

Use Windows notepad to open the file - and the “Ctrl+F†keys to open the “find†menu.  There are 11 clear camera definitions & you’re looking for two commands in 3 of them.

Camera definition.002 is the “virtual cockpit†view

Camera definition.003 is the “spot†view

Camera definition.004 is the “locked spot†view

The control commands within each of  these definitions are:

PitchPanRate=â€x† (where “x†is a value & this controls the “up & down†rate of movement)

HeadingPanRate=x (where “x†is a value & this controls the “side to side†rate of movement)

The default rates are set at: “PPR=35†& “HPR=70â€. I’ve reduced these to PPR=20 & HPR=35 on my system - but the fun of this is, you can experiment to find the best rate for your video card & system. Just make sure to back up the original Cameras.CFG before you play with it. I also found it easier to create a shortcut to both my fsx.CFG & Cameras.CFG.

Hopefully, you will enjoy slower & smoother panning in all camera views, as you can customize each separate view to your liking. Finally, when everything is sorted, all tweaks (including Koorby’s) installed in both fsx.CFG & Cameras.CFG - I back them up in case of a re-install, saves so much time! Cheers.

[Barry Meiklejohn]

Good tip MM,

If you use a hat switch on your joystick/yoke you can also go to SETTINGS|CONTROLS select BUTTONS|KEYS and in event category select VIEWS. Scroll down to VIEW (PAN) and adjust the REPEAT slider.

However this is a fairly coarse adjustment and your config file entries will give better control.

[maxter]

Thanks guys, this is exactly what I have been looking for, for a while.

Cheers,

[frostlp]

Thanks much for the info.

Lou

[Ken Hall]

Great stuff thanks

[slipstream]

And this is quite interesting....

Buffer Pools

Add the following section and line to the end of the cfg file

[bufferPools]

PoolSize=5000000

This is a sort of scenery cache that will help eliminate a lot of the stuttering you see when panning the view around the cockpit or outside the plane. It does increase video memory usage though, so this probably won’t be effective on a video card with less than 256MB of memory.

-- UPDATE FSX SP1 --- (from Phil's blog again)

The pedestrian sounding BUFFERPOOLS is a section of its own in the fsx.cfg file. There is a setting in there called Poolsize, as in

[bUFFERPOOLS] Poolsize=n

Where n is the amount of bytes we will allocate for one pool of vertex and index buffers to store geometry.

Again from Raf: “In RTM, the default setting was 1MB (1000000). The lower this number, the more pools the allocator will have to rummage through to find space for buffers and the more stutters you may have. In Sp1, we raised the default to 4MB (4000000) and optimized the underlying algorithm for finding free buffers“

So be careful here, making this smaller can hurt you, since searching for space takes time and can cause stutters, and making the number too large can waste space. 4-10m is probably the range to be thinking about using unless you have a very high memory graphics card (>512)

[mmglads]

Glad this topic has helped some folks. Slipstream, that's a setting I tried a while back & it certainly did make a difference. I've actually "ramped it up" to 10000000 on my Nvidia 8800GT & it's had no ill effects. Great tip though! As it's school hollies & my wife is a teacher, we're off for 15 days R&R, at a place where there's no TV or PC's, so look forward to seeing what's been happening when we get back. Good forum this! Cheers.

[Ken Hall]

I tried the bufferpools thing, it did make a differense but seemed to clash with fraps, as when recording video fps dropped like a stone, tried 1000000 and 5000000 no diff

Has anyone else tried it with fraps running.

cheers

[teecee]

I went with Bazzam's suggestion... worked for me..I did not have to change the "camera" setting at all.. just opened the "view(pan)" to 100% and bingo...high speed, smooth panning..just what I have been looking for for ages. thanks old lad.. Teecee.

[Tim Harris]

i did bufferpools 5m and reduced the speed of pan view in VC , awesome thanks worked a treat

[macca22au]

Slipstream is correct in that the default bufferpool size is 1 million.  However there is no entry in the native fsx.cfg.  If you want to increase the bufferpool size, and most of us should to redcue the stuttering, then the two lines that Slipstream shows must be manually added.  There are all sorts of suggestions around - many up to the 200+million.  But most people seem to find 5-80 about right.  This is a big range but its suck it and see.

I did make the panning changes and it has made a difference.  However the smaller you make the panning number the more important it is to have the Repeat slider full across to the right.  That way it is smooth otherwise your new instructions will make it stutter.

I hadn't heard of Bazzam's solution, but I have found reducing the panning speed but getting the Repeat slider over to the right makes for a slow and continuous pan without the eye-wrenching jerkiness that went with the slider to the left - ie no repeats therefore more clicks to keep it panning with a jerk at each stop.