How To "Properly" Use Shared Config Files

[gmtech16450yz]

im going to have to read this on one of my days off. i haven't experienced any lost signals when using shared configs.

Try my LNF one I put in the first post and see if the boost and cam values show up in your chart display. They shouldn't unless you're using my exact settings already. They should if you put the other "main" config file I also posted in your HPTuners "Settings" folder.

[gmtech16450yz]

gmtech's explanation of this and his "how-to" were easy to understand and implement for myself and I just starting using HP Tuners.

YAAAAAAYYYY! Thanks!

BTW I did get your message. I'm so friggin busy right now I can't take on ANYTHING else. Sorry! I shouldn't even be sitting here typing stuff in this thread! I think it's important though and I have this sickness when it comes to helping others or passing on info I think hasn't been addressed. lol. I really need to be at our rental house right now gutting the garage so I can build it into a giant family/rec room before our renter moves in!

[AGamble]

What is the best config for a stock ls3, what are/is the best things to watch? I am so new to this I have to take baby steps.

[schpenxel]

Yeah, someone needs to bottom line this for everyone else with ADHD.

This is a way to TRULY share your config with someone (or receive someone else's) so that both of you are seeing the EXACT same thing. Using the .cfg that most people post does a pretty half ass job at best. Things don't work, graphs show up different, custom PID's don't work, etc.. Using this method you can 100% share or receive or copy or whatever you want to do with your complete config.


Very good to know.. now I just need to play with it some

[gmtech16450yz]

Over 800 views and only 23 posts, and most of them were mine anyway. (lol) I'm still thinking this isn't being totally understood? I don't know guys but to me this is a HUGE deal. How many of you regularly scan or tune different cars with different engines? How many of you often use different histograms, chart setups, etc? How many times have guys tried to share their config files with others or tried someone else's config file and half of the stuff didn't work? I can't be the only one!

I just made a quick video showing how I change my ENTIRE scanner program from setup for scanning a Direct Injected LNF engine to scanning a supercharged LSA engine with literally a couple of keystrokes. Everything works, Histograms, Chart Display, Table Display, fonts, chart graph range settings, etc. BTW, I NEVER use the Gauges page in the HPTuners scanner so for you guys that use those, don't be surprised if my configs I posted here don't have anything setup in the Gauges page. If you have spent time setting up your gauges, don't worry, this technique will save or transfer ALL of those settings too.

If nothing else, you guys should be backing up this main config file somewhere safe. Like I've said above, if you've spent a lot of time setting up your scanner, you may end up losing all of that work someday either when you update to 2.25 and go back or simply when your computer dies or you're transferring to a new computer. I regularly backup my entire HPTuners folder (whole computer actually) to a safe, off-site place just in case. It's saved me a few times.

Here's the video, let me know if it makes a little more sense than the chapter posts I write!


https://youtu.be/gHjMQKqVL0k

[ECaulk]

I got your LSA file figured out, just read over your initial post to quickly. Actually used this last week, and it works awesome. helps because the comp I use for tuning is a little 12inch screen (light laptops are nice for logging) and making adjustments on that comp is do-able but more of a pain. Got the config file over to my desktop with a 22inch monitor and it worked perfectly, never had to connect the computer up.

Tried it again going from my LNF config to GMtech's LSA config, worked perfect, and then changed to my LN2 config, again worked perfect.

I think some people are over complicating things, its really simple. Like extremely simple and extremely useful. I also second backing up all your hptuners stuff, recently had my gf spill water over another laptop and killed it, thankfully I had backed it up about a week earlier so no significant loss of data just money for a new one.

[JimmyS]

Thanks John! The switching part makes perfect sense now after watching the video. I've used and saved your .cfg file before and switched between a couple different .cfg files over the past year and always had to add or update something when I did open a different .cfg. Watching the video really will help others understand what you're saying.

Backing up your files is important. I used to keep my tuning laptop under the drivers seat of my Sky and my wife drove the car and had to adjust the seat. When she parked it back in the garage, she lowered the seat all of the way down and craked the screen on the laptop and turned it into a kaleidoscope. Luckily I had the backups so when I got a new Surface Pro, all I had to do was load the HP Tuners folders. No downloading from the HP Tuners site required - it all worked just as it did before.

Thanks again!

[gmtech16450yz]

Yay!!!

[mowton]

I thank you for figuring this out....I have struggled with this for years and must of recreated 1000's of .cfg. What a waste of good time :-) So I think I'm clear as far as my generated .cfg, but I assume others who want to share their confis have to send their version of the settings file with an extension? is that correct?

Ed M

[gmtech16450yz]

I thank you for figuring this out....I have struggled with this for years and must of recreated 1000's of .cfg. What a waste of good time :-) So I think I'm clear as far as my generated .cfg, but I assume others who want to share their confis have to send their version of the settings file with an extension? is that correct?

Ed M

Hi Ed,
Yeah the extension problem is only about this forum and it's attachment rules. Many forums have similar rules. My config was larger than most because I've made a bunch of changes to it. Others may have config files that are smaller and would be under the max file size for posting them as attachments. It's simply a matter of trying to attach your config and if it says it's too big, just change the extension to .txt and tell whoever you're sending it to that they'll have to change the extension back to .cfg. If the file size requirement was just a little bigger it wouldn't be an issue. We're talking like 19KB to 30KB, those are TINY files anyway!

I "repaid" your thank you in the other thread you posted in. (Scanner TPS values to Editor TPS values conversion chart) Hope it helps!

[gmtech16450yz]

Like I said before, I am absolutely NO software engineer so me trying to explain this "self generating" or "self updating" config file is like Chris, Keith or Eric trying to explain how to do a heart transplant! I'm sure they, like I get the general idea, but we're far from experts!

So I just google searched for a little info on config files and found this.

Application Configuration Files
An application configuration file contains settings that are specific to an app. This file includes configuration settings that the common language runtime reads (such as assembly binding policy, remoting objects, and so on), and settings that the app can read.
The name and location of the application configuration file depend on the app's host, which can be one of the following:
Executable?hosted app.
These apps have two configuration files: a source configuration file, which is modified by the developer during development, and an output file that is distributed with the app.
When you develop in Visual Studio, place the source configuration file for your app in the project directory and set its Copy To Output Directory property to Copy always or Copy if newer. The name of the configuration file is the name of the app with a .config extension. For example, an app called myApp.exe should have a source configuration file called myApp.exe.config.
Visual Studio automatically copies the source configuration file to the directory where the compiled assembly is placed to create the output configuration file, which is deployed with the app. In some cases, Visual Studio may modify the output configuration file; for more information, see the Redirecting assembly versions at the app level section of the Redirecting Assembly Versions article.

It looks like it's relevant to what HPTuners is doing? Again, maybe one of you guys that have actually written this program can sum up what I'm trying to explain in a shorter (lol), more understandable form? To me, since I started out on the MAC side a couple decades ago, the "main" config file is more like a "Preference" file in the MAC OS. If you have a problem with a program, a common fix was to throw out the preference file so it will then make a new one with default settings in it. The reverse was also true, if you did a bunch of "customizing" on how a particular program worked and looked, and you lost that preference file, you also lost ALL your custom settings for the program itself. Try using Photoshop for years and losing your pallets, brushes, filters, windows, etc setup! That's not a trivial problem.

Or maybe I need to just shut up since you guys already got all this? lol.

[mowton]

Hi Ed,
Yeah the extension problem is only about this forum and it's attachment rules. Many forums have similar rules. My config was larger than most because I've made a bunch of changes to it. Others may have config files that are smaller and would be under the max file size for posting them as attachments. It's simply a matter of trying to attach your config and if it says it's too big, just change the extension to .txt and tell whoever you're sending it to that they'll have to change the extension back to .cfg. If the file size requirement was just a little bigger it wouldn't be an issue. We're talking like 19KB to 30KB, those are TINY files anyway!

I "repaid" your thank you in the other thread you posted in. (Scanner TPS values to Editor TPS values conversion chart) Hope it helps!

First off thank you again for this and I am hoping to limit my config rewrites to 2 per month now :-)

Secondly, and more important, props for the TPS conversion table . I always thought maybe they slipped a decimal point a place or 2 and always guessed at changes, now I can apply scientific theory to these parameters. This is great my friend.

Ed M

[gmtech16450yz]

First off thank you again for this and I am hoping to limit my config rewrites to 2 per month now :-)

Secondly, and more important, props for the TPS conversion table . I always thought maybe they slipped a decimal point a place or 2 and always guessed at changes, now I can apply scientific theory to these parameters. This is great my friend.

Ed M

Hahahaha. I can't take credit for that table because I didn't make it. I would have given credit to the person that made it, but he's kind of a dick. So I didn't.

[TBSteck]

I was hunting for a thread exactly like this and I think how gmtech explained it is so simple a lot of us do understand how he says do it. Thanks.

But I still must be missing something because - see my screen image below (If you haven't used the Snipping Tool, which is a default program/app in Win 7,8 or 8.1 - you might want to take a look at it). I took the two .cfg files in the 1st post above and downloaded and installed them on my workstation and started up VCM Scanner program and browsed to his .cfg file (notice I put his name after it so I know where I got it but made no changes)

Here is my explanation of all of my circles, highlights and arrows ... (I hope I can explain this so someone understands what my issue is, if not, sorry.)

I noticed it said "Cadillac CTS (V8) 2012 after the .cfg file which must have come from gmtech's .cfg file because I have never owned a Cadillac - probably means nothing but just wanted to point it out.

I think I understand the relation of the Chart Display to Chart Configuration to Insert Parameter / User Defined / Configure User Defined to Configure User Defined Parameters. See all the read circles and red arrows I did.

I'm wondering if I'm missing another file or something because if you notice that the BOOST (psi) is located in the Chart 2 under BOOST with a Label of BOOST and using a PID of Boost2. Since this is not a standard HPTuners PID then it must be a User Defined PID. If you look in the User Defined area with the read circle around it - there is no Boost2 PID listed. If I look at all of the User Defined PID (by clicking on the Configure User Defined) it isn't listed there either by the Boost2 name in the left column BUT if you click on #4 <undefined> it shows up there with the Name of Boost2.

For this discussion I not concerned why the Function has what it has.

Am I missing another file? If not, how does this work for you? Just an FYI, I did notice on the top chart on the 1st post of this thread that this field - BOOST (psi) has no value nor any line on the chart. Could be because there was nothing to display.

If you have question on what I'm talking about - ask away and I will do my best to answer it.

Sorry the display is so small in the post but if you open it up it is big enough to see. How to you make it bigger in the post?
Understanding Chart Display using gmtech16450yz cfg files.JPG

[schpenxel]

I was hunting for a thread exactly like this and I think how gmtech explained it is so simple a lot of us do understand how he says do it. Thanks.

But I still must be missing something because - see my screen image below (If you haven't used the Snipping Tool, which is a default program/app in Win 7,8 or 8.1 - you might want to take a look at it). I took the two .cfg files in the 1st post above and downloaded and installed them on my workstation and started up VCM Scanner program and browsed to his .cfg file (notice I put his name after it so I know where I got it but made no changes)

Here is my explanation of all of my circles, highlights and arrows ... (I hope I can explain this so someone understands what my issue is, if not, sorry.)

I noticed it said "Cadillac CTS (V8) 2012 after the .cfg file which must have come from gmtech's .cfg file because I have never owned a Cadillac - probably means nothing but just wanted to point it out.

I think I understand the relation of the Chart Display to Chart Configuration to Insert Parameter / User Defined / Configure User Defined to Configure User Defined Parameters. See all the read circles and red arrows I did.

I'm wondering if I'm missing another file or something because if you notice that the BOOST (psi) is located in the Chart 2 under BOOST with a Label of BOOST and using a PID of Boost2. Since this is not a standard HPTuners PID then it must be a User Defined PID. If you look in the User Defined area with the read circle around it - there is no Boost2 PID listed. If I look at all of the User Defined PID (by clicking on the Configure User Defined) it isn't listed there either by the Boost2 name in the left column BUT if you click on #4 <undefined> it shows up there with the Name of Boost2.

For this discussion I not concerned why the Function has what it has.

Am I missing another file? If not, how does this work for you? Just an FYI, I did notice on the top chart on the 1st post of this thread that this field - BOOST (psi) has no value nor any line on the chart. Could be because there was nothing to display.

If you have question on what I'm talking about - ask away and I will do my best to answer it.

Sorry the display is so small in the post but if you open it up it is big enough to see. How to you make it bigger in the post?
Understanding Chart Display using gmtech16450yz cfg files.JPG

Are you using the VCM Scanner.cfg in Documents\HP Tuners\Settings AND the .cfg file (the normal one you with get to under file-->open config? You have to use both to get the full config..

I've had that same thing happen before when I wasn't logging something a custom PID needed (file-->open config, open the same file as you had on the other computer, and that should fix it, if that's the problem)

[TBSteck]

Why does my Gauge Display look like it does - not fitting in the window correctly? Is this because you don't use the Gauge Display and therefore didn't take the time to make it look pretty? If so, that OK and I get it, I'll fix it when it becomes a priority with me. Right now it is the logging info on the Chart Display and getting the correct info logged that is my priority.
Gauge Display using gmtech16450yz cfg files.JPG

[TBSteck]

Are you using the VCM Scanner.cfg in Documents\HP Tuners\Settings AND the .cfg file (the normal one you with get to under file-->open config? You have to use both to get the full config..

I've had that same thing happen before when I wasn't logging something a custom PID needed (file-->open config, open the same file as you had on the other computer, and that should fix it, if that's the problem)

I'm using the VCM Scanner.cfg and the 12-10-12 LNF.cfg files posted in the 1st post that gmtech16450yz made on this thread. I also put them in the correct place/folder per his examples which makes 100% sense to me,

[schpenxel]

I'm using the VCM Scanner.cfg and the 12-10-12 LNF.cfg files posted in the 1st post that gmtech16450yz made on this thread. I also put them in the correct place/folder per his examples which makes 100% sense to me,

One of the PID's used in that custom PID is probably different for your vehicle, is my best guess

You mentioned it showing a different vehicle up top than yours.. so that makes me think that's a plausible explanation

Try actually logging something on your car and see if any PID's don't work in the table display. My guess is one PID used in the custom PID you're having trouble with won't work.

[schpenxel]

Why does my Gauge Display look like it does - not fitting in the window correctly? Is this because you don't use the Gauge Display and therefore didn't take the time to make it look pretty? If so, that OK and I get it, I'll fix it when it becomes a priority with me. Right now it is the logging info on the Chart Display and getting the correct info logged that is my priority.
Gauge Display using gmtech16450yz cfg files.JPG

Different size or resolution display than his?

[TBSteck]

Different size or resolution display than his?

I have a 24" monitor (actually there are three on this workstation) and I change the resolution from 1920x1080 all the way down to 800x600, no change on the overlap, etc. Same issue.