If so, how is it going? Is it worth doing rather than going the Triplehead route? JS

I'm running dual 22", if that counts. I run both FS9 and FSX beta 3 in spanned mode (3360x1050) in VC view using TrackIR4. The only minor annoyance is the screen join being centre screen, but with TrackIR it is easy enough to move your cockpit position to see what you need.Gary

Gary:Are you happy (or at least very satisfied) with your dual 22" mons? Would you say it is a good alternative to Triplehead?What range of field of vision do you estimate you have? Is there some sense of peripheral vision? Do you use a Zoom factor?Sorry to pepper you thus and thanks if you can be bothered to respond any further.Many thanks for posting!JS

JS,I am very satisfied with my dual LCD setup. If money was no object and I had to choose between dual widescreen or triplehead, I would probably go for triplehead solely for the centreline issue I have already mentioned. The two widescreen LCDs only cost me $300 a piece, so I have a pretty good facsimile of triplehead with less of cost outlay.I worked out field of vision for someone else a few months ago, and it is about 90 degrees. There is definately a sense of peripheral vision with this set up, and TrackIR completes the "I'm really flying this" feeling. The zoom factor I use is 0.31 for spanned mode (3360x1050) and 0.5 if I just use FS on a single screen for an equivalent effect.One thing I do suggest if you go either way is to use an nVidia card, as they are so much more adaptable to spanned mode at native res and drive triplehead at higher resolutions again to support native res. I recall that you have the same video card as me (ie. 7900 GTO 512M), so you are all set either way, but this is also a note to others that may read this thread.Gary

And while I'm at it, here is a screen shot of my office in the sky!Garyhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/161008.jpg

Wow, that looks SUPERB, Gary! Sheesh....! Great stuff!Thanks again for the additional info. It helps me develop a better "feel" for what I might be in for. I did indeed change my ATI X850 XT PE card for the eVGA 7900 GTO because I had fully intended to go for the Triplehead set-up after being bowled over by it at the AVSIM conference recently. However, while I greatly appreciate the faster performance of the eVGA card with its immense memory and fill speeds, I believe that the older ATI card color and texture rendering was actually superior with its displays of the sim. I have been ambivalent about ploughing another $1200-1400 into a Triplehead set-up in the circumstances and am considering alternatives at this stage.If I get another 24" LCD and like it, I might just migrate to a superior ATI card in due course. But first things first!Thanks again.JS

Incidentally, in the case of your set-up with regard to the centerpost issue, could one not simply sit in the Captain's seat (or the FO) and have a visual bias from that side, attentuating the center post and centerline issue?JS

Yes you could. In the case of the LDS 767, I adjust the seat position so that the centreline runs just to the left of the VSI, so that it doesn't cut any instruments in half. Works great!Gary

Do you guys know if fs9 will work in full resolution of the 30" Dell screen, something akin to 2560x1600. I want to get it but it

Hey John:You should be OK provided you have a giant video card like us, i.e., with dual DVI, 512RAM, and some other stuff. The DELL website for the 30" LCD will tell you exactly what you need to have to make it work. It should run at 2560x1600 as well; that's the max for my card.I'd been wondering about a 30" DELL LCD as well but my view is that you might need to push the monitor so far back to take things in that it could be a bit of awaste. The area of the screen increases almost by a square of the dimensions. My 24" LCD is fairly huge (and I really wouldn't mind two of 'em together!) but I can put it 20-24" inches back and still enjoy a lot of it in my field of view without neck or eye strain. The 30 incher is still pretty costly too even with the recent enormous additional discount. What's this talk about bumping your res DOWN to 1600x1200? You only bump the res UP these days--mine is 1920x1200 on the 24" LCD. A greater res increases the display field of vision significantly. Bumping down is a total waste !JS

I agree, you do need a giant videocard to run at 1900x1200 or above and I think the new 8800 will be up to the job. I in fact know 2560x1600 is something the best videocards allow and handle, just wondering if FS9 itself gives this as an option when the equipment is up to it. I myself have the 24" Dell + a 21" viewsonic which I use for popup windows.As far as the 30" practicality is concerned I have read reviews about it by gamers, and although all did love the monitor some did mention that it

Jon:You and I have similar display set-ups, mine is 24" DELL + 20.1" DELL LCDs. I just "spanned" my 7900 GTO across both monitors and did FS9 for the first time on dual monitors in this fashion and it was totally stupendous! The res defaulted to 3200x1200 and was excellent. The 24" LCD was brighter and more riveting but the smaller LCD performed quite nicely too. I had a Malaysia Airlines 747-400 that was 44 inches wide in SPOT view and it looked fab ! The feeling was immersion was remarkable. when I went back to the normal 24" LCD by itself, even in 1920x1200, everything seemed stunted and insufficient visually. So I am back in spanned mode again and keeping it like that for the time being.I am sorely tempted to buy a second 24" LCD to match the existing one. It's even better than a Triplehead setup because it is just 2 monitors although clearly the centerline will need careful management because of this. But I think it could look sensational.I'd forget about a 30" LCD and focus on doing something similar.JS

JS2x 24" does sound good. In fact I never considered it because my current ATI 850xt doesn

I recently replaced my X850 XT PE for an nVidia based card. The ATI has slightly superior display rendering and with FSAA of 2x, it was nearly as sharp as the new nVidia card is at FSAA of 8x. I was really impresssed with it and have wrapped it up carefully after dusting it off just in case...I am going to stick with the GTO for now since it is very good and very fast too, and anyway it all costs a lot to keep switching; but if I do go for a spanned 2x24" approach (literally!), I might go back to ATI in future (say in a year or so) and get an x1900 or some such thing. I am also sticking with FS9 for now and might never migrate to FSX because I can't handle all of the tweaking required not to mention the VISTA and DX10 issues that I can well live without. I've got FS9 in brilliant shape with a zillion add-ons that all work with tons of hardware equipment like CH and GoFlight. It's Sunday morning, chilly and rainy and I am about to go downstairs and check out my new spanned view before breakfast. Yeah! It is THAT exciting!JS

Sorry, to be more specific about your observation on spanning with ATI, the nVidia interface is superior in this regard and yeah it does not seem you can span the ATI X850 card, at least I could not find a way to do it using the DELL branded ATI drivers control panel. Maybe Gary knows more about this, I am far from expert on it.And yeah the nVidia based cards support MATROX Triplehead far better than ATI. MATROX tolds me they have no plans to do anything further on making the res better for ATI cards. So that's why I moved to my nVidia based 7900 GTO.[i still think ATI renders better than nVidia !]JS