In game panel update

Charts MSFS In-Game Panel
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I’m going to include a message that was originally written in our Discord community server here, as I feel that some more elaboration could contribute to the understanding of this issue.

Not at the moment. Believe me, we really tried! But the simulator simply cannot handle the technology that we now use. This is not to say that we are using some rocket-science tech, it’s just that the environment that the simulator provides just does not include the right things.

They would need to make substantial changes for us to be able to bring it inside the simulator. Even then, this environment that MSFS panels run inside directly shares resources with the simulator. This effectively means that if the panel needed to render a frame of the map (which has become more resource-intensive due to the advanced vector maps), the simulator would have to wait for that to complete before being able to continue rendering the simulator itself.

The performance would be terrible (for both the panel and simulator) when compared to running the app separately.

With this said, however,

We have made substantial efforts to make something that is compatible with the simulator as well. The conclusion, for now, has been that it is simply not possible at the moment without rebuilding the most integral parts of the app from scratch in a severely limited and altogether worse environment. The new map is integral to its overall functionality, which means that doing a combination of old & new is not really feasible without causing headaches and slowing down development severely.

We’re really sorry about this. We know how important it is to VR simmers, and this is not a decision we’ve taken lightly! You can rest assured that we will keep this in mind going forward, and that we won’t simply give up.

To end on a productive note, I see that there are many experienced VR users in this thread! Surely some of you must have used tools to bring in other software into your simulator (or other games)? I’ve heard of (and even tried some) such utilities, but it’s been a while and I’m sure there are better alternatives now.

If you know of working such solutions, please do kindly share your experience & knowledge with the others in this thread - I’m sure that it would be much appreciated by some!

Again, we are terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards,
Malte

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If some sort of suboptimal but still usable solution pops up on flightsim.to in a few days it will surely be very embarrassing…

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Add me to the list of VR users frustrated by a lack of update to the in-game panel. I was really looking forward to auto-pinning of procedure charts since it is such an unnecessarily complex task right now. Also getting the METAR and TAF in the app would be really great. Neither of these features are related to how the charts/maps are drawn, and I never thought the charts/maps lacked visual quality.

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Could the in game panel be more like a “web browser” that displays maps etc generated from the host computer, instead of generated within the in game panel?

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Thanks for the clarification. But IMHO I think Navigraph did some poor decisions here.

Firstly, managing expectations. Nowhere prior release did I find any mention of the new features not being available in the in-game panel. And based on the reactions from othere here and elsewhere, it seams that this was the case for many users.

Second, I think they made the wrong decision when they focused on the new vector charts, even when that technology could not be used in the in-game panel. According to their own user survey from 2021, 15% of users use VR (which I expect is higher now in 2022), and maybe more importantly, 25% of users reply that the in-game panel is something they use. So by excluding approx. 25% of users from the usefulness of the update, I think they are disappointing a large part of their user base. I think instead they should have realized that all the features they wanted to implement was not supported in all the environments the users expect, and hence focus development on the features that could be implemented, while working to solve the implementation issues with Asobo. Or in other words: develop and bring all the features that are not dependent on the vector charts to both the stand alone and in-game panel, and when those are done, then implement the vector charts, either exclusively in the stand alone application, or in both the stand alone application and in-game panel if the vector charts issues had been solved by that time.

That way all the users would feel part of the new features, and would be more understanding to an issue with vector chart technology not being available in the in-game panel.

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Just wanted to fill in on this one to. There are apps what bring any desktop application into VR. I have tried several, but they all have severe limitations and buggy behavior. Mainly slow to unworkable fps (fine for reading, but not for anything else), inability to interact with the application (mouse and keyboard strokes are not sent to the application), or general instability and CTDs. Therefore a native in-game panel has always been preferred in my mind, and until now, Navigraph where one of the best and most used in my mind. (And it is still usefull, don’t get me wrong. Only feels like I’m missing all of the new features going forward).

Haven’t tried FSDesktop with Navigraph yet, so that might be a solution. Anybody tried?

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Really sad, Navigraph 8 is top notch product, buy the lack of an updated ingame Panel for use in VR is a major bummer.

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I hope the update(if there one is comming) ingame Panel can be toggled by a hotkey

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There is a shortcut already! See the changelog over here: Release Notes - Navigraph Charts In-Game Panel for MSFS

I hope you find it useful!

Kind Regards,
Malte

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Bringing external windows into the sim like that is a workaround I was hoping I would get rid of with Navigraph Charts 8. I’ve been using foreflight for VFR flight and just embeded the browser window into the sim. The problem is that you can’t interact with it. I was so hoping that Navigraph would rectify this. Instead, this feels like one step back. Why did you base the core technology on this when you knew that it’s incompatible with MSFS?

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So I tried this myself with the latest Navigraph application. Conclusion is that is sucks… With FSDesktop, which has the most promise, it still is painfully slow, full of bugs and annoying interface issues. So not really usefull.

What was even more annoying is that I at least though that I could create a plan and use the auto pin feature in the windows application, and then when I opened the legacy in-game panel, that flight plan with the correct auto pinned charts would be imported, but alas, no such luck. So this makes this update even more useless to VR fliers, as you can’t even use the windows application to to the pre-flights planning it seems. :frowning:

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I was so hyped, but now quite disappointed.
It’s a real bummer that software which is “THIS SOFTWARE ARE INTENDED FOR FLIGHT SIMULATION ONLY.” releases a new version with cool features, that cannot be used inside the flight simulator the same way as the old version could.

I really hope they find a way to bring some of the features (VFR charts please :smiley: ) into the in-game panel, and hopefully more of the new features eventually.

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Why was this detail not posted on the forum ? It’s another communication issue. I don’t participate in discord, and don’t want to spend time searching multiple platforms for information about products.

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We’re investigating such a solution but it will take some time. We do see the need for it though, so we’ll figure something out!

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That is exactly why I posted it here as well, within minutes of posting it on discord. To clarify - this was not posted before the release, but rather during the release day. We’ll always try to get such information out in all related channels!

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VERY disappointed here too…this was simply not made clear.
I had also hoped this would find its way into XP12 (where we use AVITAB Currently to see navigraph charts ) but this can not use all the features of navigraph, particularly now there is a new version …does XPLANE also suffer from the same vector tile graphic limitation as FS2020 , or is there some hope for XP12 users? I am also exclusively a VR user…

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Thanks. Do I need to configure something? Out of the box, it’s not working here

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This will certainly affect my decision to continue paying for navigraph, especially with the price increase for features I can’t use in-game. If you cant update the in game panel, please reduce the price to what it used to be.

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Hopefully some sort of solution can be found as flying exclusively in VR I can’t see value in continuing a Navigraph subscription if I can’t use the product in the simulator.

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OK thanks for the clarification!

Greg

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