Exporting MPCD and avionics to a secondary monitor

Howdy! I have bought a small 7″ LCD, resolution 800×600 for my setup. Here’s a quick guide about how to export avionics to an external / secondary LCD or monitor.

My main monitor is a 1920×1080 23″ or something. It’s fairly small, due to the lack of space on my desk. I have configured the additional 7″ monitor as the primary then I created an ad hoc configuration for it. The simplest way to do this is by copying and existing similar config and edit it.
Monitor cfg files can be found in \Config\MonitorSetup.

I created a few different config files but most of them are similar so I’m going into the details of just three of them:

• RW: a single file to display the ABRIS (Ka-50), the TV screen and the RWR of the SA342;
• F/A-18: the AMPCD is not in a really comfortable position hence I decided to export it;
• AV8B NA: just for the sake of experimenting, I have exported the Right PCD.

Setting up the Views

This is the file for the RW. The first part of the file is similar for both configs.

_  = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('RotaryWing');
Description = 'RotaryWing: Ka-50; SA342 profile'
Viewports =
{
Center =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width  = 1920;
height = 1080;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = 1.777;
}
}</small>

<small>RIGHT_MFCD =
{
x = 1921;
y = 0;
width = 600;
height = 800;
}

SA342_TV =
{
x = 1953;
y = 0;
width = 570;
height = 490;
}

GazelleRWR =
{
x = 2071;
y = 495;
width = 300;
height = 300;
}

</small><small>UIMainView = Viewports.Center

Viewports describes the main monitor, RIGHT_MFCD represents the ABRIS (default name) wherease the other two entry are included using a different tecnique I will cover later.

This is the cfg file for exporting the AMPCD:

_  = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('fa18');
Description = 'fa18'
Viewports =
{
Center =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width  = 1920;
height = 1080;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = 1.777;
}
}

CENTER_MFCD =
{
x = 1921;
y = 0;
width = 600;
height = 600;
}

F18RWR =
{
x = 1921;
y = 650;
width = 150;
height = 150;
}

UIMainView = Viewports.Center

It includes the code to export to the RWR. I am not currently using it since the monitor is not big enough to host both views (I have also attached a Thrustmaster MFD on top of it. Velcro rules!). I haven’t tried exporting the Left or Right MPCD but I guess the standard nomenclature will do (RIGHT_MFCD and LEFT_MFCD).

Last example, the Harrier’s Right MPCD. The beginning of the file is the same as the F/A-18 (of course the name and description are different) so I paste just the interesting part:

RIGHT_MFCD =
{
x = 1921;
y = 0;
width = 600;
height = 600;
}

Please not that this will not export the MPCD unless you bind the reletive buttons from the Controls options and activate the export in-game. The easiest way to find these controls is to open use the Search function, type “export” and bind them.

More lua editing

Now that the Views are up and running we need to tell DCS what to export. In some cases there’s no need to do it because DCS deals with that on its own, for instance the ABRIS or the AMPCD. In other cases, we have to manually specify what to export and link them to the Views.
NOTE: these files might be overwritten in case of Repairs or Updates. You can either make a copy of the modified file and overwrite the new file every time or use OvGME or similar tools.

Exporting SA342 RWR and TV

The RWR file is located in \Mods\aircraft\SA342\Cockpit\RWR\indicator\init.lua. This is the code I have appended in order to export the RWR:

dofile(LockOn_Options.common_script_path.."ViewportHandling.lua")
try_find_assigned_viewport("GazelleRWR")

As you can see, it’s quite easy. The same principle applies to the TV; its file is located in \Mods\aircraft\SA342\Cockpit\TV\Indicator\init.lua.

dofile(LockOn_Options.common_script_path.."ViewportHandling.lua")
try_find_assigned_viewport("SA342_TV")

I have found these info on ED’s forum, credits to them.

Pictures time!

Some pics of the setup and the 7″ LCD. Note that the MPCD is not centered relatively to the TM MFD simply because of the position where I took the picture.

As usual, feel free to comment and ask if you need any help 🙂