Hi Folks.I am in the process of building a light aircraft cockpit and before trying to fit monitors etc in position, I am about to experiment with various methods of displaying outside views and instruments seperately. I have the matrox Parhelia which will provide my three outside views. I also have some PCI cards that I thought I could use for the instruments and GPS screen. I figured that FS Panel Studio could be used to set out FS instruments as required and I could undock the GPS and move to a suitable monitor. Specs are -WIN XP. 2g processor. 256 DDR Ram. FS 2002. Matrox Parhelia AGP.2D PCI cards for instruments. I will be using a video splitter on one of the PCI cards to display PFD for both pilots. Another PCI card would provide other gauges and another for the GPS.At this rate, I would have One AGP card and three PCI cards in one computer.Using Project Magenta would partially help the situation as extra monitors are networked and dont require a card but I prefer the light aircraft and Magenta would be unsuitable.Has anybody tried to do what I propose and can you offer me any advise? I know it can be done, but I need to know if my specs are OK.Here's hoping!TONY GERARD. (U.K.)[email protected]

Hi TonyI can't help you with the PCI stuff. But I just wanted to make sure that you where aware that FS2002 only runs in 1920x480 (640x480 on each pipe) when running on all three monitors using the parhelia card. Any other resolution will defaul to one screen (middle one). This is due to a limitaions in the API in DirectX 7 that FS is based upon.If you however find a way to get a higher resolution on all three monitors, I would love to know.thanksPeter Skotte

If you're using only 2D panels on the PCI cards, I think you'll be okay on CPU load. The panels don't consume much power as compared to the 3D view.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums Moderator[table border=2 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=1][tr][td][table border=0 cellpadding=8 cellspacing=0][tr][td bgcolor=#540000]http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/logo75t.gif[/td][td align="center" bgcolor=#FFFFF6]Bush Flying Unlimited"At home in the wild"Looking for adventure? Come join us! * [link:bfu.avsim.net|Web Site] * [link:www.cafepress.com/bfu,bfu2,bfu3,bfu4|BFU Store] * [link:bfu.avsim.net/join.htm]Join!][/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table

For a database which hardware combinations work best go here: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/Alex

Thanks Alex. That's a neat site.Peter http://bfu.avsim.net/sigpics/PeterR.gifBFU Forums Moderator