Add Thrustmaster MFD's Yes or No

Hello all, I am getting back into fly sims again at the present I own a Thrustmaster Cougar but it is getting a little long in the tooth. Anyway I see Thrustmaster Have MFD'S and wanted opinons I trying to decide if I want to purchase them or not. I will have admit that my desk space is a little tight. I will adding the DCS F-16 and F-18. For the users that own the MFD'S dose it make things easier or are these just better for the pit builders and just stick with the mouse?:)

Hello all, I am getting back into fly sims again at the present I own a Thrustmaster Cougar but it is getting a little long in the tooth. Anyway I see Thrustmaster Have MFD'S and wanted opinons I trying to decide if I want to purchase them or not. I will have admit that my desk space is a little tight. I will adding the DCS F-16 and F-18. For the users that own the MFD'S dose it make things easier or are these just better for the pit builders and just stick with the mouse?:)

Back in my A-10C only days, I had two and loved them, even put a monitor behind them to export the imagery.

Then Harrier, Hornet and Viper entered DCS World. I bought another pair which split with a sqnmate, so now we have 3 MFDs each.

Then I bought a Rift, so I figured out putting them around a joystick deskmount was the way to go.

They look like the real thing, have a lot of buttons, no problem configuring them for other sims like X-Plane or even simracing and never had an issue.

For around $65 they are a great addition if you fly modern jets.

My advice is go for them, you won´t regret them.

Combine them with screens on the back and you will love them.

I have two and I liked them before I went VR. Useless for VR, but with TrakIR, totally worth it.

Useless for VR

I strongly disagree on this. Quite :D

I love them !

With a little monitor behind, it works very well !

I bought this one :

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B07CK7D49Q/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I still use mine with VR. I am able to find a corner, then count over. It is a little slower than being able to see where my hand is, but ok for non-critical button pushing. Eventually, I will mount them in a way that allows me to arrange them to match their location in the VR pit as well as put "bumps" to help locate particular buttons, which will make them work really well for aircraft that have them.

They are well worth the investmen. I'm running three of them with the small monitors behind them and they are great, especially with the Hornet.

I strongly disagree on this. Quite :D

My point with physical MFDs being useless in VR, is the exact point made by streakegle. In VR, you are literally fumbling in the dark. Better off to map the DCS UI Layer mouse button controls to your HOTAS, and just use the VR cursor to push buttons.

I actually made my own controller for this very purpose. Cost way less than $80 USD to make. And I can add a shit ton of buttons/switches, a couple of axis, and pots.

Playing on a monitor totally worth it, but you don't need two of them on your desk. If you can find a Single. you can use TARGET to map all the MFDs in the cockpit to one. Saves on desk space, and cheaper.

I can't stand operating a mouse from hotas controls. To me that is the slowest solution of all if you don't turn your head to look directly at the control. I use a real mouse for controls other than MFD and HOTAS buttons, the problem being it is set up exclusively for right-hand use.

My MFDs are positioned close together, dead center, and a little too far out of reach. If they physically matched the VR pit geometry, they would be almost effortless to use and adding prompts to identify the center buttons would help make it even faster.

VR gloves or natural hand tracking would make the MFDs far superior to any HOTAS or mouse solutions, as long as the virtual fingertip accurately depicts where your real fingertip is located.

Until the tech catches up, the finger tracking tool advertised and sold on these forums provides almost a perfect interface mimicking mouse actions with finger pointing and buttons on the side of the finger device. I am seriously considering getting that, but it still has the limitation that the button must be in view to see and touch it.

Whereas using real-world controls, I can be looking over my shoulder and still press an MFD button or any other switch/lever I happen to map via usb controller boards. The more you play that way, the faster you get. It is hardly "fumbling around" unless you are in a panic, only marginally slower than what you can do when you can actually see the MFDs.

I disagree.

I have two and I liked them before I went VR. Useless for VR, but with TrakIR, totally worth it.

Not the case with VR. I've just added these to my setup and love them.

Not sure how other VR users fair but i've found that muscle memory has taken over largely and and am able to press buttons either while playing DCS or driving sims in VR without any bother. I have been using VR since 2014 so will conceed that i've had plenty of practice.

I'd say get a pair they are a good, relatively inexpensive way of expanding the immersion.