Hi, sorry to post here if I have missed what I am looking for. I've been trying to find a basic explanation of the differences and relations between Dashboards, Dashboard Layouts, Overlays, and Overlay Layouts and how and when to use them. Also, from a PC resource point of view, what is the most efficient way to use them?
Awesome work here, once I see if I can run things well I will be buying a license for sure. So much stuff to play with! Bwahahahaha!
Hi !
Good question !
Actually a dash or an overlay are really close, you can edit them with the same editor, but
- Dashs are intended for additional monitor, phone, tablet or USBD480 (basically a dedicated display)
- Overlays on another hand are intended to display over the game (game must be set to windowed or borderless windowed), they feature a few additionnal features
- Appearance : Transparency at designer choice (to see the game behind), non square design, click trough to let user click "behind" it
- Performances : overlay size is restricted to avoid abuses and covering the whole game with an overlay, this restriction is enforced to avoid out of control performance impact.
Layouts are only available for overlays, when using overlays you will probably put 1,2 ...5 overlays all around the screen, an overlay is "placement preset" to avoid doing the exhausting work of placing and moving everything each time you start Simhub. This is not really applicable to dashboards as it simply uses a whole screen.
A dash, side to the game on a dedicated monitor :
An overlay layout (multiple overlays), showing over the game : 
Performances wise, dashboards are better, overlays require to put the game in windowed or borderless windowed which may have an impact on performances. Obviously mileage may vary depending of HW setup, game settings ... and overall computer load. As long as you don't play with your hardware limits and have some "spare" power (GPU, CPU) it will be fine.
Hope that explanation helps 😉
Nicolas
Thanks for the quick reply, and very nice explanation. Yes this helps a lot!