[phreak]

I'm going to be getting a Logitech G15 sometime in the near future and I was wondering what kind of stuff people would like to display on the LCD screen.  There is an SDK available where programmers can implement LCD screen functionality, so i figured i'd at least take advantage of it.  There are 4 buttons available, so you can use them to toggle between different types of displays as well as use them to control the display (ex: scroll).  Some things to consider is that the screen is a 160x43 monochrome display that refreshes at approximately 30fps.

Here's my ideas so far:
1) History of FRED generated messages (send-message, send-message-list, training-msg)
2) Primary/Secondary/Bonus Goals
3) Ship information - Ship name, IFF, subsystem status for each subsystem (hull, engines, weapons, nav, comm, fighterbays, turrets).  With the display, i may be able to display 3-4 at once.  I could also display other information such as number of turrets remaining,

[Cobra]

I like the idea of ship information. One preset shows the ship and IFF, another shows the subsystems, and finally one for the number of turrets remaining.

[Shade]

Crazy and probably impossible idea - You could use it to display a mini-HUD. After reading this, I did a little experiment with MS Paint to see just how much HUD info could potentially be crammed into 160x43 pixels, and it is surprisingly much. Take a look at the attached image, you could have:

Target hull strength
Distance to target
Current hull damage
Weapon energy
Afterburner energy
Current speed
Shield status (0-4 shield bars for each facing denoting current strength, old-school WC style)
Gun/Shield/Engine energy distribution (By varying length of a black bar in each column)

With a 30fps update rate, it could easily stay current, and allow you to still know how your ship is doing if you turn off the HUD for screenshots or are using side/rear/whatever view to scan for hostiles where usually the HUD is gone. But I imagine that's a bit more complicated than what you had in mind

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[phreak]

oh emm gee

i thought of that, but i figured it would be a slight pain.  should be possible though.

[WMCoolmon]

Add support for the G15 through scripting.

EDIT: Maybe something like this:

Code: [Select]

gr.setTargetDevice(GRAPHICS_DEVICE_G15, 1) --First G15 device
gr.drawText() --Use builtin G15 text drawing stuff
gr.drawRectangle() --Use builtin G15 drawing stuff to draw a rectangle
--etc
gr.setTargetDevice()


[CP5670]

I'm looking forward to this. I have had two of these keyboards for over a year and have never really used the screens for anything, so it would be nice to finally have them do something useful.

[Cobra]

I want a G15, dammit.

[Kaine]

i can't imagine myself looking down at the keyboard during play... but i guess it's kinda a cool feature anyway.

[colecampbell666]

Why look at that stuff on the keyboard when you could look at it on the screen.

...Although in FRED you could use it to display ship info without opening ship editor.

name
class
scroll through subsystems (Strength, Type)
etc, etc.

[Nuke]

is that the same screen thats on the mx5000, if it is i can help test.

[phreak]

no, the g15 display is slightly larger.  i also think the g15 sdk is specific to the g15 anyway.

The G15 SDK makes it sound like the library will be used in future releases of keyboards with larger displays and with color.

[Nuke]

goes to figure it has its own setup, the mx5000 costs like 50 bucks more than the g15. youd think they could at least use a unified sdk.

[jambo]

i can't imagine myself looking down at the keyboard during play... but i guess it's kinda a cool feature anyway.

I use my G15 keyboard to track my CSS stats and i'm always looking at it. If something was made for FS2 to display HUD information and maybe even track kills and deaths with a ratio I would love it. Would be great for online play.

[Hippo]

on a whim i threw shade's little sample onto my own g15 display, and took a picture of my monitor with a freespace screenshot with the keyboard in front of it. what i determined, was that when you have information on the screen already, and you duplicate it on the keyboard display, you'l never use it because why look down from the screen? focus on things you can't always see that would be of use.


(yes i'm using a g15 keyboard on a laptop.)

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[Shade]

Yar, it's pointless for normal play. As I pointed out, it would only really be useful when using alternate views since there you don't get a HUD. That doesn't mean it's not cool though

[Hippo]

maybe expand on data thats visible, like wingmen hull integrty as well as the coloured dot, or when targetting a ship information on its susbsystems that you would otherwise have to cycle through to see

[Cobra]

Ooh! Multiplayer stats!

[WMCoolmon]

Add support for the G15 through scripting.