VRC- Do I really need a second monitor to use VRC?

[Jacob Boles]

Hi all!

I've been thinking about becoming an ATC ever since I found out about VATSIM. However, I'm planning on operating off of my laptop to do this and when I was about to download the VRC client I read that it was specifcally designed to work on systems with multiple monitors. Would this be a problem?

[Matthew Kramer]

Not at all. I've always run VRC using a single monitor, and ASRC before that the same way. I currently run vSTARS and vERAM as a single monitor setup. The nice thing about our ATC software is that if you DO have multiple monitors, you can really take advantage of them.

That being said, anything smaller than a 15" screen I could see being somewhat cluttered.

I still say go for it, you'll enjoy it regardless.

[Evan Reiter]

Agreed. Particularly for DEL, GND, and TWR, one monitor is plenty. Once you get to the APP level, and are working top-down at a Major Facility, you may find a second monitor (or even a TV that you can plug into your laptop) to be helpful.

[Jacob Boles]

Thanks. My monitor is 16" so I should be fine. I was installing the VRC just now and the Academy slides for the install say I need to locate the VRC setup file but all I did was click on the popup (on Chrome) and the install wizard came up and it installed. Did I do anything wrong?

ETA: When I opened VRC for the first time Windows Defender said it was blocking some of the functions or something. I don't know if that will alter the functionality of the program or not. An error message pops up that says "Could not retrieve server list from network. Using the catched server list and user-defined servers." I disabled Windows Defender but the error message still appears.

[Fady Botros]

If you run the exe file, you'll be fine. Just know where you installed VRC in case you need to add things in the future.



Been doing this ATC thing for awhile with only one screen. For ground tower and approach it's not too bad. It's only when you start moving out to enroute positions that you have to move around and constantly scroll. A couple words of advice, buy a mouse with a scroll wheel, they're not too expensive, probably start at 5-10$, another thing, would be using the alt+tab trick going between SOPs or cheat sheets and the scope. Finally in combination with the scroll wheel you can use the control or tab keys to scroll faster.

Cheers

[Kyle Ekas]

It's only when you start moving out to enroute positions that you have to move around and constantly scroll.

My early onset arthritis is because of this right here ^^^ /joke

All that scrolling back and forth on a little laptop screen.

A couple words of advice, buy a mouse with a scroll wheel, they're not too expensive, probably start at 5-10$, another thing, would be using the alt+tab trick going between SOPs or cheat sheets and the scope. Finally in combination with the scroll wheel you can use the control or tab keys to scroll faster.

I use a program now called OnTopReplica which sort of "super imposes" a window on my main screen. When you have both monitors full with other VRC windows, it can be very helpful to have a browser window behind that with charts. Then I can reference the chart I need frequently while having VRC as the primary window.

That's all just extra fluff though. The only time you really need more than one monitor is for working center by yourself.

K

[Toby Rice]

I learned to control on a single 15” or 17” monitor laptop. Once I got two monitors I started to use one for airborne traffic and one for ground. That works, but I’ve since transferred that to being one monitor for atc and one for charts.

Now I have a 23” and 27” monitor. I use the big screen for all the big stuff, the second screen for other sectors, but when I need to lookup something my web browser pulls up in the second monitor.

You don’t need more than one monitor until you get to Center. Even then, one works... but it’s a pain for us guys that have been spoiled by multiple screens.

[Don Desfosse]

Yeah, maybe I've just been spoiled, but once I started my TRACON training, I invested in a second monitor and haven't looked back.  It makes things a million times easier!   Now whenever I'm controlling, just the thought of doing it single monitor has me thinking "major equipment outage", "where's my facrep", "I can't work under these conditions" and "this is gonna S(_)CK!" 

[Jacob Boles]

Literally every time I try to load VRC no servers ever load up (sometimes it works, but only on the default profile, never one I saved my settings with).An error message pops up that says "Could not retrieve server list from network. Using the catched server list and user-defined servers." Very frustrating. I even temporarily disabled any antivirus software that might be interfering with the downloading of server info. Any advice?

[Fady Botros]

That's fine. You should be able to connect still. Make sure to sign in as an observer and something like ZAE_JB_OBS or something along that.