• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Handling Multiple DSD Sound Gauges

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1281
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 1281

Guest
Hello Doug and all!

I have just completed a "generic GCA" gauge based on 130 callouts for talking a plane down on final approach. You know, the kind of thing they had before ILS came along.

Here is my problem. How do I know a potential user hasn't already got Doug's sound gauge installed and running in the plane that is supposed to add the GCA module? I am assuming, and Doug has indicated as much, that having two sound gauges and hence two .ini files is likely to lead to a conflict. I can test this for my C-47, which has 380 assorted crew calls and sounds by default, and now is supposed to handle some 130 additional GCA calls. And as you can imagine, even though the sim doesn't crash outright, sounds are missing or erratic.

Now I could try to merge the ini files and run only one DSD sound gauge - but that is an error-prone and clumsy process, one which I can hardly expect the user to handle.

So I was wondering if another option presents itself, i.e., use two ini files, one defining Lvars 00 to 380, and the other Lvars 400-530. If this could be made to work without creating a conflict then distributing the GCA module would be much easier.

Thank you for any thoughts on that.
 

ddawson

Resource contributor
Messages
862
Country
canada
There will only be a conflict if the gauges have the same name.
For a generic solution such as you have here, pick a name for the gauge that matches it and you should be good.
Keep in mind that the numbering you see in the ini files is only a way to match the LVars with the sound files, within the ini file. You can use numbers starting at 0 in each ini file.
 

rcbarend

Resource contributor
Messages
435
Country
netherlands
I can confirm what Doug says.
I made quite a few addon packages that uses Dougs sound gauge, and to avoid conflicts, each package includes a unique (re-named) version of the gauge; each with it's own ini file.
And having these gauges in one panel.cfg works perfect.

Rob
 
D

Deleted member 1281

Guest
Thanks for the prompt replies, appreciate it.

Rob, the question is whether you can have two sound gauges and two ini files in the same plane.

My initial configuration had it like that, the identical sound gauge under different names and two ini files. But some sounds didn't come out right. Specifically, they seemed to be almost inaudible, even though no volume was set.

Yes, the dual gauge setup does work with some of my other planes but they have notably fewer sounds all told. It's only my 500+ sounds setup for the C-47 that seems to be acting up.

So I tried it again, to be specific, in the Vcockpit section I have ...

gauge01=C47_dsd_P3Dv4_xml_x64_sound!Sound, 1,1,1,1,/DGSounds/CockpitSounds_C47.ini
...
gauge51=GCA_dsd_P3Dv4_xml_x64_sound!Sound, 1,1,1,1,/GCA/gcacalls.ini

Gauge01 and 51 only differ in name.

CockpitSounds_C47.ini has MaxSounds=381 with the Sounds running from Sound00 to Sound380.

gcacalls.ini has MaxSounds=130 with sounds running from Sound00 to Sound129.

Repeated the test. Same failure as before, some sounds (esp. the earlier ones like Lvar00 of the gcacalls) come out practically muted. Confirmed by one of my testers, who is on a different version of P3D V4.

BUT, if I renumber my gcacalls 400-529 and set MaxSounds=530 in gcacalls.ini the error goes away, or maybe that particular error goes away. Is that a meaningful finding?

If anyone has the C-47 and wants to test it, I'll be happy to create a d/l link.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

ddawson

Resource contributor
Messages
862
Country
canada
Yes, you can set things up with two gauges and two ini files.
Flip me a link and I'll have a look at it.

Doug
 

ddawson

Resource contributor
Messages
862
Country
canada
Are you using the same stock variable names for the volume, pan and frequency controls in each gauge?
If so, change the names in one gauge or the other.
 
D

Deleted member 1281

Guest
Arrg, yes you absolutely nailed it! There were some identical volume variables and they must have caused it. Everything seems in working order now, two sound gauges each with their own ini's doing their thing nicely.

Many many thanks for clearing that up.

Best,
Manfred
 
Top