HUD zoom in and won’t zoom out

[ATC31501]

I am new to DCS. When I fly in F18, HUD display is zoom in, I can’t see the certain items, like altitude or Alpha indexer. How can I modify the situation? I am using TrackIR

[draconus]

The HUD is only correct for one exact spot where usually pilot eyes would be as default. With TrackIR Z axis - move your head closer (forward) to see more on the HUD. If you want to keep that view without keeping head forward just move your head farther away and reset the TrackIR view in that point - you should've had key binded for that - so when you move your head to the default position again the HUD should show more (as your virtual head is closer).

There are also key binds for moving the camera view point around - check that too.

The game/module usually has the correct position as default view point at start. You should always reset the view after entering the cockpit because you always seat a bit differently. During the game your position and calibration can also move so reset the view whenever is needed.

Edited November 19, 2020 by draconus

[Eskimo John]

I am also new to DCS and have the same problem as ATC31501.  At random intervals the display zooms in as far as it can go so that I have my nose on the instruments and I cant seem to get it back unless I press right alt C and use the mouse wheel to zoom out, although sometimes this dosn't work either.

 

I am using a track IR as well, but I have tried running DCS without the TrackIR software running and it still happens. 

 

I have noted that the zoom happens without a key, joystick or mouse click coinciding with it so it isn't an obvious control issue that I can see.  It happens with both the Frogfoot and the P51 so it seems not to be an aircraft related issue.  I have a complete new DCS 2.5 install with Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog JS and throttle and Saitek rudder peddles attached aside from a keyboard and trackball controls. 

 

@ATC31501 - did you get this fixed?  I an hoping for some advice as without it DCS is a non-starter for me.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Eskimo John
SP :)

[Lange_666]

Do you happen to have an axis bond to the zoom function?

[Eskimo John]

@Lange_666 Thanks for the reply.

 

I have no axis bonded to the zoom function, all controls are set to the way they are on install. no modifications at all.  Essentially every control is set to default. 

[draconus]

Does resetting the TiR center help? The head tracking can drift away from the center after a while so it's normal to reset it every 10-30 mins or so when needed.

[Eskimo John]

@draconus It happened without Track IR and also with it  functioning.  Resetting it had no effect other than to re-centre my forehead on the instrument panel.

 

However. Following on form @Lange_666 's post I set a JS control to the zoom in slowly and zoom out slowly functions and did a quick test flight in the P51 to see if this control setting could help me control the event when it happened. The result was interesting.  I completed two flight with out it happening al all. It is as if the control settings prevented it from happening.  

 

Later today I will do a longer flight to test it more thoroughly and report back here.

[draconus]

Sounds like conflicting bindings to the zoom - take note of what you do when this happens - a button press or some axis rarely used.

[Eskimo John]

It happened again

 

On approach in the P51 - not a good time as a lot is going on.

 

I did note the following: 

• I was able to recover from it using the newly mapped zoom controls.
• It wasn't so pronounced. However this might be because I was zoomed out further than before when it happened.  It went from fully zoomed out to about the normal position.
• A small menu appeared in the top right corner of the screen appeared when it happened. I am not sure what this is as yesterday was my first day with DCS, but it was in white letters and listed several of things that were numbered. It may have been there when it happened before but I am not sure.
• I do have some sort of conflict with my controls, but it might be unrelated.  I have Saitek rudder peddles which work by default in terms of rudder control, but the toe brake switches don't seem to function correctly. There behaviour is strange:
  • They don't show up in the control mapping screen if I try to map them.
  • if I use them the stick in the cockpit moves to extremes.  The right hand toe brake moved the stick to the far right and the left hand toe brake moved the stick back toward the pilot as far as it can go.
• There are a few control settings with a red disk with a ! cut from it by some of the P51 control settings.  

An accidental touch of brakes can have an interesting effect in flight.  The instinct to use them on landing results in very bad things.  As they dont seemed to be mapped to controls I cant see a way to stop them behaving like this.

[draconus]

It is crucial to set your controls right and get rid of any conflicts. Just sit and do it first for one module and then the same for other modules later (as you already will know what and how).

 

Any red mark means a conflict. Move a mouse cursor over it to take note of what and where is conflicting. Make sure only one device controls one binding. If you have a pitch axis row make sure it is only assigned in your stick column. Delete all the other in this row. Same with throttle and pedals. For the axis device to be assigned either select it from the drop down list (if you know what is JOY_Z for example, but rarely you will) or move it for full range in both directions to be detected. For the toe brakes you might have to use "invert" axis option.

 

In game use Rctrl+Enter to check how your current assignments work currently. If anything needs correction go Esc > Controls > make changes to the current aircraft > OK and check again in the sim.

 

Find zoom axis assignment and show us the screenshot from controls.

 

The pop up menu was probably ATC comms menu - it's known to do it - annoying. Hit comms button "\" to close or choose an option like "F1. Request landing" then.

Edited January 13, 2021 by draconus

[Eskimo John]

Thanks for this @draconus.  I have to work now but I will return to this later today if I can or if not tomorrow and go through all you have posted above.  When it s done I will post again.

[Eskimo John]

Some progress...

 

I have found some conflicts and wrong assignments and resolved them:

 

The default settings for some axis commands seems to have been to set all devices to the same axis.  So the toe brakes moving the control issue was because the JOY_X and JOY_Y settings were assigned to the Roll and Pitch control for all three of my devices, joystick, throttle and rudder.

 

There were some conflicts in the settings, a couple of them were because the same command exists in both the General and UI settings, BDA Show/Hide being on of them. I deleted the General version and kept the UI version.  I hope this was the correct one to delete. Others were specific commands for aircraft that conflicted with non aircraft specific commands. With these I deleted the ones I thought is would want to use less.

 

Once the rudder brakes were sorted I noted that the animations seemed to indicate that the controls were the wrong way around so I inverted them. 

 

No time yet to test, but hopefully later today.

 

One question.  Are the changed settings automatically saved? I couldn't see a save button.

[draconus]

25 minutes ago, Eskimo John said:

Are the changed settings automatically saved? I couldn't see a save button.

They are saved after clicking OK on bottom right. Looks like you sorted out most of binding issues. Most of these troubles come from default DCS bindings which assign main device axis to most common actions and you then have a mess with multiple devices connected.

After you're fine with your controls go to \saved games\dcs\config\ and make a backup of an input folder - might come in handy some time.

Edited January 14, 2021 by draconus

[Eskimo John]

Finally got around to testing the changes made above.

 

Seconds into a flight the zoom thing happened again.  So I checked the controls settings and this is what I found:

 

1. No red marked conflicts.  The changes made wit respect to these have saved and look fine.
2. Axis control assignments were not ok. The changes made to remove the assignment of JOY_X etc had reverted to what they were before, that is to say they were assigned to all three controllers again.    

So I think my first priority is to get to the bottom of point 2 above as I need to find out if this is the cause of the zoom problem, although I have no Idea how to do this.

 

Are these assignments stored in a file somewhere that I can view or at least check on the date/time the file was last changed?

 

Any help would be great.

[Lange_666]

The assignments are stored: C://Users/*Yourname*/Saved Games/DCS (or DCS_Open_Beta)/Config/Input/*plane name*

There you have minimum 2 dirs: "keyboard" + "mouse" or more depending on what is attached, i also have "joystick" and "trackir" (joystick hold everything that acts like a joystick in game, so stick, throttle, rudders...).

Let's take keyboard for example:

In there you have a file called "Keyboard.lua" which is the default keyboard setup for that particular plane, and then if you changed something you also have a "Keyboard.diff.lua" in which the differences to the default are stored.

 

To start over fresh, just remove the input dirs and let DCS create a new one.

[draconus]

Afaik the default profiles are stored within main DCS directory and their respective aircraft folders. Then in \Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input user profile are only .diff files created if any changes are made.

@Eskimo JohnPlease make changes like delete wrong axis assignments, click OK, restart DCS and check again if the changes are saved.

[Lange_666]

53 minutes ago, draconus said:

Afaik the default profiles are stored within main DCS directory and their respective aircraft folders. Then in \Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input user profile are only .diff files created if any changes are made.

 

Correct!

(i only checked my A-10C keyboard dir which has also the keyboard.lua in it, all others have only the keyboard.diff.lua)

[Eskimo John]

3 hours ago, draconus said:

Afaik the default profiles are stored within main DCS directory and their respective aircraft folders. Then in \Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input user profile are only .diff files created if any changes are made.

@Eskimo JohnPlease make changes like delete wrong axis assignments, click OK, restart DCS and check again if the changes are saved.

 

To be clear.  Any changes made to the controls should be saved in \Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input.  So I should expect to see a directory call Input at the above path and a .diff file in that directory?

 

There is such a 'Config' directory, but no 'Input' sub-directory and no .diff files in the Config directory.

 

EDIT: There appear to be .diff.lua files in the individual aircraft files in the main DCS directory structure. Would the missing user profiles files explain why things have reverted to what they were before the changes? 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Eskimo John

[draconus]

Do you happen to have two versions of DCS or more DCS profiles under \Saved games? Otherwise that sounds like the game fails to write any changes to your controls. Are you using any mods? You may want to try with clean profile (rename the \saved games\dcs to \saved games\dcs.tmp for awhile) - just for testing. Also try repairing and cleaning DCS:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/support/faq/repair/#2463807

Edited January 15, 2021 by draconus

[Eskimo John]

The DCS install is a completely new install of v 2.5.  No mods at all, just as it comes. The only thing that is not default is that the user files are on the usual 'C' drive and the install is on a different SDD - the 'D' drive.

 

Otherwise its completely vanilla.  I am just trying it out at the moment as my usual X-Plane doesn't give me the combat experience DCS should.  If it matters X-Plane is installed on a completely separate drive as well.  

Edited January 15, 2021 by Eskimo John

[Lange_666]

1 minute ago, Eskimo John said:

The DCS install is a completely new install of v 2.5.  No mods at all, just as it comes. The only thing that is not default is that the user files are on the usual 'C' drive and the install is on a different SDD - the 'D' drive.

 

If you refer to user files as the Saved Games folder then that's normal since the Saved Games folder sits by default on the C drive. I have the same setup, Windows on C, DCS (and enother Open Beta install) on D. 

In the Saved Games you should have a DCS folder, in there a Config folder and in there an Input folder with in there all folders for each aircraft.

Each aircraft folder then should contain few 3 subfolders like: joystick, keyboard and mouse.

In there you should find the xxx.diff.lua files which contain differences compared to the default setup (if no difference then there is no xxx.diff.lua file).

[Lange_666]

On 1/12/2021 at 4:42 PM, Eskimo John said:

I have noted that the zoom happens without a key, joystick or mouse click coinciding with it so it isn't an obvious control issue that I can see.  It happens with both the Frogfoot and the P51 so it seems not to be an aircraft related issue.  I have a complete new DCS 2.5 install with Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog JS and throttle and Saitek rudder peddles attached aside from a keyboard and trackball controls.

 

Spiky input from one of your controllers (i eyeball the trackball).

What happens if you go into controls (either the P-51 or Su-25) and set the Slider axis of the Warthog Throttle to the Zoom axis in the "axis section" ?

Also, for the test, remove the Saitek pedals as pre-caution because i remember reading some people had issues with it.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Lange_666

[Eskimo John]

@Lange_666 Thanks for the above.

 

MY SaveGames folder has a DCS subfolder in it as described above and in that folder there is a Config folder, exactly as you describe above.

 

However that is where it ends. I have three files in the Config directory  imgui.ini, network.vault and options.lua.  There are no directories in the Config directory.  Perhaps the changes are not being saved as  there is no structure to save them in?

[Lange_666]

Just going to run a little test myself.... hang on...

[Lange_666]

Alright:

 

If i do what draconus suggest, change the DCS folder in Saved Games to DCS.tmp and then restart DCS, it asks me for a login/pw, i do this and then it creates a new DCS folder in Saved Games. Within Config i then have this:

 

The moment i change a control it adds an Input dir in that Config folder. I just changed one thing in the A-10 A aircraft controls.

 

In that Input Folder i have then this: (the more controls you change on various aircraft, the more aircraft folders are being created)

 

In that a-10a folder i then have this:

 

In the keyboard folder i then get this: