Cougar MFD

[Salun]

Recently I've been looking into ways to upgrade my simpit and one thing I've given serious consideration to is buying up to 4 Thrustmaster Cougar MFD's and setting up my second monitor to use display flight data for all my flight sims.(FSX,Xplane 9, Orbiter, DSC Blackshark, DCS A-10C, YS Flight, FC2)

I was wondering if there is a way to link the Cougar MFD to Orbiter to use them independently of one another. Similar to this on the sides of the screens

 

[Hielor]

Recently I've been looking into ways to upgrade my simpit and one thing I've given serious consideration to is buying up to 4 Thrustmaster Cougar MFD's and setting up my second monitor to use display flight data for all my flight sims.(FSX,Xplane 9, Orbiter, DSC Blackshark, DCS A-10C, YS Flight, FC2)

I was wondering if there is a way to link the Cougar MFD to Orbiter to use them independently of one another. Similar to this on the sides of the screens

YouTube - ‪DCS A-10 MFD Test‬‏

The Cougar MFDs aren't really the best for Orbiter--Orbiter MFDs have six buttons on each of the left/right, the Cougar has five buttons on each side. So, you're already missing a button there.

As for technically getting it to work with Orbiter, the difficulty there is that the MFD buttons have different keyboard shortcuts depending on what MFD is currently active, so you'd probably have to make an addon to convert the CougarMFD presses into Orbiter MFD presses.

FWIW, I picked up a pair of these awhile back and have been working on adding support for them to RemoteMFD, but it's been slow going and I don't know when (or if) it'll ever be finished and usable. There's still that rather major issue of the Cougar having a lot more buttons and buttons in all the wrong places compared to Orbiter...

 

[plainsight]

I've managed to put Cougars to good use with an Autohotkey script i found on orbiterwiki, which i modded for use with MFD buttons and to fit the 2nd screen resolution. I'm running four external mfds during reentry and 2-3 during other phases. For the 6th button, i use the bottom rockers. The only problem is that you don't see the labels, so you have to know what button does on certain MFD. That's why i keep one or two MFDs open between cougars, with visible labels.

http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/Four_MFD_on_22_inch_Monitor

FPS used to be a problem, but in dx9, i don't get any fps drop.

 

[Ripley]

Content moved to its own new thread.

 

[Keatah]

How WOULD Orbiter work with any sort of external MFD device?
What would the hardware need to be like? And what about software interface?

 

[plainsight]

How WOULD Orbiter work with any sort of external MFD device?
What would the hardware need to be like? And what about software interface?

It does work, here's mine example:

Like i said, two mfds in cougars lack labels, but the green tone matches very nicely.