AM3 Open Beta more like Alpha

[NCRonB]

I hate to say it, but as a developer myself, this beta feels more like alpha to me. It has promise for sure, and as a real life private pilot, I'm really looking forward to it becoming usable, but it's not yet there for me.

I have a new Windows 10 computer, i7-7700K @ 4.8GHz, GTX 1080, X-Plane 11, 3 TVs for scenery, 2 touch screen instrument monitors all running on the same computer. Thank you, Russ, for your videos inspiring this setup. It runs quite nicely with AM2. I typically get 30+ FPS with high settings. I do notice an increase in FPS with AM3; that's a big plus.

However, it crashes every 10 minutes or so. When I restart it, sometimes the touch screen doesn't work. That is, I can't manipulate the instruments by touch, though they otherwise show correct values. I see the touch screen feedback, and I can move windows around with touch, so I know it's not a touch screen problem. Restarting AM3 sometimes makes it work again.

Loading a fresh C172 panel results in a few "instruments" stuck in a perpetual "loading" state. I think it's just the blank gray fillers. No biggie, but that leaves holes in the panel, so I decided to build my own.

Snapping doesn't seem to work very well. When there are several instruments around, it's hard to tell what it's snapping to, and it sometimes leaves a thin space (and thus a black line) between instruments. Visually sizing instruments is awkward since the size does not reflect what they'll actually be when the panel is shown full screen. It would also be nice to see the numerical dimensions as I'm resizing so that I can exactly match the size of other instruments.

I'm more than happy to spend time testing and reporting. Please let me know what more to provide to help debug these issues. For now, though, I'll have to stick with AM2 if I want to enjoy more than a lap around the pattern.

[Ralph]

All noted. Some issues were already solved, they'll come with the next 'beta'

[NCRonB]

Excellent. Looking forward to another round. Thank you.

[Corjan]

I hate to say it, but as a developer myself, this beta feels more like alpha to me. It has promise for sure, and as a real life private pilot, I'm really looking forward to it becoming usable, but it's not yet there for me.

I have a new Windows 10 computer, i7-7700K @ 4.8GHz, GTX 1080, X-Plane 11, 3 TVs for scenery, 2 touch screen instrument monitors all running on the same computer. Thank you, Russ, for your videos inspiring this setup. It runs quite nicely with AM2. I typically get 30+ FPS with high settings. I do notice an increase in FPS with AM3; that's a big plus.

However, it crashes every 10 minutes or so. When I restart it, sometimes the touch screen doesn't work. That is, I can't manipulate the instruments by touch, though they otherwise show correct values. I see the touch screen feedback, and I can move windows around with touch, so I know it's not a touch screen problem. Restarting AM3 sometimes makes it work again.

Loading a fresh C172 panel results in a few "instruments" stuck in a perpetual "loading" state. I think it's just the blank gray fillers. No biggie, but that leaves holes in the panel, so I decided to build my own.

Snapping doesn't seem to work very well. When there are several instruments around, it's hard to tell what it's snapping to, and it sometimes leaves a thin space (and thus a black line) between instruments. Visually sizing instruments is awkward since the size does not reflect what they'll actually be when the panel is shown full screen. It would also be nice to see the numerical dimensions as I'm resizing so that I can exactly match the size of other instruments.

I'm more than happy to spend time testing and reporting. Please let me know what more to provide to help debug these issues. For now, though, I'll have to stick with AM2 if I want to enjoy more than a lap around the pattern.

I agree, this version is more like an alpha version. We are kinda misusing the whole BETA term. We use this term for the complete development cycle.

You can suppress the AM crash by disabling the TabletInputService on windows. We still have to figure out this is causing the crash exactly.

The missing C172 instruments are not in the BETA store, I will add those.

I'll look more into the pixel gap between instruments. I noticed that when rescaling the panel it would create pixel gaps (float -> int problem), but I have not seen this when dragging instruments around in AM just yet. Will test more this week.


Thanks for helping us out by testing, really helps us making AM a better product,

Corjan

[SimPassion]

Hi

when using snapping I've also seen a gap between the upper and lower gauge
but only at the beginning of the screen

Gap_Gauges.png

if I move the two gauges on the right side of two other gauges there's now, no gap between them

NoGap_Gauges.png

Best regards

[SimPassion]

I've just found the reason of such situation

With snapping ON,
let say the monitor height is 1026 (my second monitor is 1842x1026) and i'm having two gauges with height = 512 for each
when I place them one upper the other, with the first snapped to a corner of the monitor (right/up for example), the automatic placement of the second will snapped it on the opposite corner (right/down) leaving a gap between them = 1026 - 1024 = 2 pixels
when I place manually the upper gauge on the upper/center of the monitor, the second gauge will perfectly snapped to the first on the bottom of it

the issue occurs only on the left and right side of the monitor, where snapping is acting at the same time on side and top or bottom of the monitor (in the corners)

Best regards

[Ralph]

Have you tried beta 37 already?

[SimPassion]

Sorry, the beta 37 is installed
I forgot to say, I've just re check and it's ok with this version

thanks to remind me

Best regards

[Ralph]

Good to hear, thanks!