GNS430 Setup Guide

Setup guide for the RealSimGear GNS430

Jarrod - RealSimGear avatar
Written by Jarrod - RealSimGear
Updated over a week ago

Download and install the RealSimGear plugin for your flight simulation software.

Connect the cables

Connect the HDMI and USB cables.  Turn on your PC and the display will show a second windows or mac desktop.  The image displayed on the GNS430 will be inverted, to correct this you will need to adjust the display settings.

Configure the display

Windows

With the cables connected, open the Windows Display settings.  You should now see a smaller box that represents the GNS430 display.  If you are unsure, click the 'Identify' button to confirm which display is associated with the GNS430 device.

Click on the GNS430 display (number 2 in this example) and change the display setting for the smaller display to “Landscape / flipped”, leave the resolution set to whatever Windows says is recommended, usually 1280x720.

It is usually best to 'place' the GNS430 display below and to the center of your primary display. This makes it easy to adjust the GNS430 to exactly fill the display however if you have multiple other displays, this positioning may need to be modified.

Mac
With the cables connected, open the Mac System Preferences.  Hold down the control and option(alt) keys and select "Displays" from the System Preference options.  This will open up the Display settings with the Rotation option visible (simply clicking on Displays does not do this).  You will see that each connected display will have a Display Setting box open.

On your main Mac screen, you should have something that shows all screens.

On the main screen, ensure the "Mirror Displays" is unchecked, and that the display arrangement matches how you physically have your RealSimGear devices arranged (the above image is for example only).

On each of the RealSimGear screens, in the Display Settings screen, select Rotation to be 180°.

** To make it easier to read, you can also select the "Gather Windows" button, which will position the Display Settings boxes for all screens onto your main screen.

If you are using the Reality-XP GNS430

Please see these additional instructions for how to configure RealSimGear products to work with Reality-XP.

Position the screen and test

Start X-Plane and load the default Cessna 172SP.  With the default 3D cockpit view selected, click on the virtual GNS430 screen so that it ‘pops out. Note the background may look strange, look for the small rectangle in the upper right and click this to make the window appear with the white bar at the top.

Now position the window so that it fully fills the GNS430 screen.  If you position the GNS430 display below your primary display, just drag it down so the only the white bar is visible in your primary display.  You may need to adjust the width/height of the popped out window slightly.

Try pressing the buttons on the GNS430 and you should see screen change.  If you don’t see anything changing, you can check that the GNS430 is connected by checking the connection status window in "Plugins -> RealSimGear GNSx30 -> Connected Hardware". 

Your device should appear in this window, and the message/command items will change when you press the buttons or turn the knobs.

You can also check out this video from X-Force PC that describes the complete setup process. Note this is for the GNS530 product but the process is essentially the same.

For the basics of MSFS 2020 popouts, you can reference this video.

If you need additional help setting up your GNS 430 for X-Plane or Microsoft Flight Simulator, please email our support department: support@realsimgear.com

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