Problem Tiny XR2 panels in 4K resolution

bcirka

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2016
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
Points
0
So I seem to be stuck with scaling issues in the XR2. I've tried two things:

1. Launching in my monitor's native resolution of 3840 × 2160. When I do, the XR2 2d panel is far too small to read.

2. Changing Orbiter's Full Screen launch resolution to 1900x1200. The panel looks fine here, but my screen doesn't stretch the image to fit the entire monitor, instead I have a small version of orbiter running in the center of my screen with black bars around the outsides.

It's odd that I don't have the same problem in the standard DG--the panels look perfect.

Has anyone solved the 4k resolution/tiny panels problem?
 

dbeachy1

O-F Administrator
Administrator
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Donator
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
9,214
Reaction score
1,560
Points
203
Location
VA
Website
alteaaerospace.com
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
That is because the default DG uses a mesh to render its panels (which I presume auto-stretches to fit the screen resolution), whereas the XR vessels use a fixed panel size. What you can do is click "Parameters" in the Orbiter launchpad and increase the "Panel Scale" value to scale up the rendered panel size (although this will not increase the actual resolution of the panels: they will remain at 1920 pixels wide -- they will just be stretched to better fit the screen). If you set the Panel Scale to 2.0, that will double the width and height of the panels, making each of them 3840 pixels wide and twice as high as normal.
 

Linguofreak

Well-known member
Joined
May 10, 2008
Messages
5,017
Reaction score
1,254
Points
188
Location
Dallas, TX
S

2. Changing Orbiter's Full Screen launch resolution to 1900x1200. The panel looks fine here, but my screen doesn't stretch the image to fit the entire monitor, instead I have a small version of orbiter running in the center of my screen with black bars around the outsides.
/QUOTE]

Dbeachy's solution is going to be what you want, but if your monitor's native resolution is 3840 × 2160, I'd be *very* surprised if 1900x1200 is available and 1920x1080 isn't (which shouldn't pillarbox as it's the same aspect ratio as the native resolution). You may also want to check your monitor's settings. Most monitors let you choose whether to stretch or center the image when there's an aspect ratio mismatch.
 

bcirka

New member
Joined
Apr 16, 2016
Messages
27
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Fantastic solution, this worked perfectly.

Let me ask, if there anything I can put in the .cfg files of the DG and XR2 to have it change the panel scaling depending on which vessel is used?

Otherwise, I have to manually change the scaling depending on whether I will be flying the DG vs. the XR2.

No big deal if not, but it would be nice if there was a .cfg solution to handle this automatically.

Thank you!
 

dbeachy1

O-F Administrator
Administrator
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Donator
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
9,214
Reaction score
1,560
Points
203
Location
VA
Website
alteaaerospace.com
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
I don't know of any configuration settings to adjust the panel scale on a per-vessel basis: panel scaling is all handled by the Orbiter core. I believe the default DG is the only vessel that uses a 2D mesh to render its panels, though, so that should be the only vessel where the increased panel scale makes the panels too large.

In fact, I would argue that it's a an Orbiter core bug that the Orbiter core applies the Panel Scale setting to 2D mesh instrument panels since it already auto-stretches any 2D mesh instrument panels to fit the current resolution (which is what happens with the default DG). But that's a topic for another thread.
 

jedidia

shoemaker without legs
Addon Developer
Joined
Mar 19, 2008
Messages
10,842
Reaction score
2,105
Points
203
Location
between the planets
I believe the default DG is the only vessel that uses a 2D mesh to render its panels, though, so that should be the only vessel where the increased panel scale makes the panels too large.

I don't think so. Basically any panel that was developed from scratch after 2010 is likely to be using this method. The original IMS already does, for example.
I assume you have a framework for XR-panels that pre-dates Orbiter 2010. It might be worth thinking about refactoring them. The changes aren't actually that big, drawing and event handling should be unaffected. You just slap your textures onto a mesh plane, orbiter handles the rest.
 

Sword7

Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2008
Messages
140
Reaction score
16
Points
18
Location
Gaithersburg, MD
Today there are many 4K HDR monitors on market. That issue still needs to be fixed. I tried Linux version of Orbiter with XR vessels but my panel was still not stretched to fit and its text is too small to read. I have the same problem like that.
 

dbeachy1

O-F Administrator
Administrator
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Donator
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
9,214
Reaction score
1,560
Points
203
Location
VA
Website
alteaaerospace.com
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
Setting the Panel Scale per this post works fine for me on Windows. If Panel Scale does not work under Linux, that points to a Wine issue, not an XR vessel or Orbiter core issue.
 

Abloheet

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 18, 2009
Messages
212
Reaction score
40
Points
43
Location
Kolkata,West Bengal
I remember there used to be 3 different versions of the 2d instrument panels of the XR series vessels optimised for 3 different resolutions, like 1366*768, 1920*1080, and 3840*2160?

There was an option in the configuration cfg for each XR vessel for setting the panel size used. Is this feature no longer there?
 

dbeachy1

O-F Administrator
Administrator
Orbiter Contributor
Addon Developer
Donator
Beta Tester
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
9,214
Reaction score
1,560
Points
203
Location
VA
Website
alteaaerospace.com
Preferred Pronouns
he/him
You can edit the corresponding XR vessel configuration file (e.g., XR2RavenstarPrefs.cfg) right near the top:

Code:
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Define the 2D panel resolution that the XR2 should use.
#
#  0 = Autodetect (default)
#  1 = Use 1280-pixel-wide panels
#  2 = Use 1600-pixel-wide panels
#  3 = Use 1920-pixel-wide panels
#
# The default value is 0 (autodetect).
#--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2DPanelWidth=0

That has nothing to do with the Panel Scale in the Orbiter launchpad settings, though. It only determines how much information is shown on the XR 2D panels. So if you're increasing the panel scale, you will always want to select the 1920-pixel-wide panels, or just leave it at its default of 0 (Autodetect).

In any case, the default setting should detect your native panel width and automatically select the optimum panel width. So if your panel is wider than 1920 pixels, it should auto-select the 1920-pixel-wide panels, and you can then adjust the Panel Scale setting to optimize the scaling for your monitor resolution.
 
Top