SimHQ Contributing Editor Chris "BeachAV8R" Frishmuth reviews iControl DCS, the mobile app for the iOS operating system.

http://www.simhq.com/_mobile/mobile_006a.html

this might actually get me to buy an Ipad

What is the most affordable platform that will run this app?

Does it need a 3rd gen iPad?

Does it run on Android?

Thanks!

It does not run on Android tablets.

I will wait for the developer to weigh in on other iPads (1st and 2nd gen). I do know that the Retina update only just brought it up to 3rd generation..so it must have been working fine on the previous iPads..

What Beach said about the developer's advice, but if it helps, I've tried it on 'iPad 1 (classic!)' and 'iPad Don't Call Me 3, But 3' and it seems to run fine on both.

Great review!

iControl DCS will run on all generations of iPad.

However, the 2nd and 3rd generation iPads have quite a bit more processing power so the FPS in the combo MFCD display will be noticeably faster on 2nd and 3rd generation hardware.

A version for WinRT (Microsoft Surface and Windows 8 touch tablet PCs) is what I'm working on at the moment. If all goes well, I hope to have that ready for the public Windows 8 launch!

I do not plan on making an Android port. The platform is too segmented and the development environment is not friendly enough for me to be able to support iOS, WinRT, and Android all by myself. That may change in the coming months, but don't hold out for an Android version.

Anyway, if anyone else has any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer as many as I can!

Thanks to SimHQ and BeachAV8R for the review!

Great review Beech!
I'm buying it!

One question though... Does the whole deal with extra virtual screen and "undocking" the CMFD:s and running the server, have any noticable effect on FPS in the sim?

I tried the free version briefly but suffered from a large decrease in FPS. I may not have had the screen set up optimally as I was only testing and had the exports all set up on the same screen. DCS is a smaller window with MFD's underneath on one 1920x1080 monitor. Free flight typically nets 100+fps on my machine, was lucky to get 20 with the config I was running.

I currently have a hybrid version of iPadpit working for the CDU (without exporting the screen) so I can still run full screen which doesn't appear to suck too many FPS if at all since it's only detecting keypresses. Has anyone got a rough idea of how much FPS I'd lose with iControl set up optimally?

I just ran a quick and dirty test using FRAPS to capture/log 30 seconds of gameplay (replayed track). All settings are the same except for the monitor output size and the fact that iControl is running. These are horrible FPS because my machine is 4 years old and I have everything nearly maxed out except for draw distance, ground clutter, and no tree shadows.. The scenario was Instant Action Spring with the TGP pod on the right side and the TSD on the left.

1680 x 1050 (no iControl): Avg 12.767 FPS

2480 x 1050 (iControl w/ 800 x 600 virtual monitor): Avg 11.133 FPS

So yeah..it knocked it back slightly..my calculations show it a 12% loss of FPS? Perhaps it is proportionally greater for a faster machine or something? I really don't know. Some folks with faster machines might be able to put up some better comparisons..

BeachAV8R

There will be an FPS hit since it has to run in windowed mode to export/capture the MFCDs and CDU, as well as the general overhead from the fact that you've got to send and process all that data to/from the iPad. For me, on a quad core AMD Phenom II 955 and Radeon HD6870, the FPS hit seems to be around 5 FPS when running at 5760x1080.

If it's significant, you should try disabling Aero glass on Vista/Win7. There's an option to do this in both A-10 VC Server, as well as there being an option in the display settings within DCS World now. That can have a drastic impact on FPS while running in windowed mode.

Of course, you could always not export the MFCDs or CDU and just use iControl DCS for the switches, in which case you'll need to manually switch your display settings back to fullscreen.