Wow, that's really old school and very cool. I remember when all of the flat panels came out and got my first one. For the longest time I wanted to use my Viewsonic 20, (that weighed 60 pounds), because of the smoothness and blending of the contours. I still don't think that any flat panels can capture the gradient smoothing of a CRT, although, they don't cause any cancer that we know of yet.I think that Master Seev would appreciate your system as he looks down from above...http://seev.rwy12.com/mycockpit.html. Oh, the thing holding me back is my wife Linda. She says I spend way to much time flying and not enough time taking her out dinner and to see chick flicks :)Mark

----------------------Mark/Opa- I'm not familiar with "Master Seev"- can you enlighten me?Re flat panels: I, too, was initially suspicious of image quality- LCD vs CRTs. (Initially I had 3 CRTs, but the lateral space saving with LCDs was too compelling to ignore. So I moved into the master BR and she got exclusive use of the den for sewing!!!) I continue to assure my lady that simming is a sure fire prophylaxis against Alzheimer's!!Both these LCDs have 8ms response and with some colour & brightness balancing, I can't distinguish between LCD & CRT. Additionally, the LCDs can be placed OVER the CRT bezel, thus reducing total bezel separation. The limiting overlap factor is that the planes or surfaces of the LCDs must intersect with the surface(side edge) of the CRT. The pic shows the result. (Uneven colouring/ excess blue tones caused by outside light. Flash is a no/no due to reflection.) The view separations here are approx. 6

----------------------Mark/Opa- I'm not familiar with "Master Seev"- can you enlighten me?

Not enough space to cover all of Seev Kahn's accomplishments but here are a few thoughts:From a blog -"Wednesday. 12 March 2008Seev Kahn Has Passed AwaySeev Kahn was the creator of many Israeli scenery files, the RWY12 ObjectPlacer software and many object libraries. Seev was also a very creative cockpit builder who amazed us with his inventions and unique ideas. A thorough, dedicated, honourable person who will be sorely missed by his family, his friends and the flightsim community." This was after a long battle with Cancer.And check this link also:http://seev.rwy12.com/The site still has a nice collection of his Tutorials and other goodies.He was perhaps best known in Europe where he was considered one of the "wise old men" who always found time to help others with our shared hobby/addiction.

Not enough space to cover all of Seev Kahn's accomplishments but here are a few thoughts:From a blog -"Wednesday. 12 March 2008Seev Kahn Has Passed AwaySeev Kahn was the creator of many Israeli scenery files, the RWY12 ObjectPlacer software and many object libraries. Seev was also a very creative cockpit builder who amazed us with his inventions and unique ideas. A thorough, dedicated, honourable person who will be sorely missed by his family, his friends and the flightsim community." ----------

-----------------------Opa- Thanks for the reference- Seev was quite a contributor to our hobby. ------------------In 2000, I attended the Microwings Magazine FS conference in Seattle. Amongst many displays, Matrox was showing their G400 Dual Head video card with FS running multiple views. I was hooked and ordered one when I got home. Since then it's been a continuous voyage of discovery!After getting 2 mons running, a friend showed up with an old SI card and an even older 9" Bank teller CRT for a third mon.Eight years later & I'm still discovering things!! Probably the great revelation was establishing that Frame Rate has very little to do with the quality of image perceived by one's eyes & brain.Regards Alex Reid

Mr Reid, you're going to have to explain yourself a bit more on this one. It sounds interesting, but I've working for many of the major studios in L.A. over the years, I've found that FPS is pretty important too? Go for it...I think you've got something up your sleeve :)One more thing, because I am fan of guys like Seev, Shez, and Opa...I didn't log in to post a reply over Opa's respect for Seev. I just saw you're layout...that really is nice Alex...Mark

Yeah I agree Mark. While the smoothness of the screen updates is very important and crucial to ones enjoyment, framerate definitely matters. I have no doubt the claims Alex makes are true - that he finds the framerates he's getting suitable for enjoying the experience. But I'm pretty sure that those three screens would look absolutely stunning updating at a smooth 60fps...

Mark and Zevious- Try this experiment:Load up FS and go flying. Note the FPS. Now hit Pause and note FPS. Hey no change!!!! Same FPS flying or stopped!Conclusion? FPS doesn't tell us much about quality of motion!!!!!!!!!!!!With multiple VIEWS, 2/3 of the whole is always paused while 1/3 is updating. (There is ONLY ONE CPU.) So the eye/brain combo is overwhelmed by the 66% unchanging scenery and tends to miss changes in the view being updated. Have you ever seen a stutter when the sim is paused?Only when the changes are sufficiently great do we detect them. As for example nearby runway lights flashing past wingtips in a high density scenery airport.You start to see this effect at about 12 FPS but the plane itself (and more distant scenery) is smoothly flyable right down to about 7 FPS when finally all hell breaks loose. (Time to retard a scenery slider in FS!)This effect is the reason the bridge watch scans with binoculars when looking for a submarine periscope. Normal human vision just doesn't see small detail- unless the vision is concentrated by binocs or squinting. As in single monitor flight simming!A requirement is that the outer view angles are adjusted in Panel Config for the width of the monitor bezels that separate them. Your eyes/brain then see a single image- just as in your car thru side window and windshield. Alex Reid

with all due respect Alex, yr point about pausing the sim and noting the framerate makes no sense at all. Sure, the framerate is the same puased as unpaused, becuase the image is still being updated at whatever the framerate is - theres just no change in yr position so the image doesn't change. Of course theres no stutter when the sim is puased. Nothing is changing. Now tell me, how enjoyable is the sim while its paused? The closer you get to a framerate of zero while the sim is running the closer you get to flying while paused. Heres an experiment for you to try - set the framelock to 5 fps and fly around for a while and see how enjoyable it is. I know I sure don't enjoy it...anyway, this is going way off topic for the thread. I doubt we'll manage to convince each other of much. I agree with the point that fps doesn't tell the whole strory of how smooth the sim is running and it's certainly not a necessity to run really high framerates to enjoy the sim. I personally just find that everything feels much more immediate, smooth and crisp at 60fps than it does at say 30fps. Not just the smoothness of motion but also the responsivness of the controls - it just has a more "you are there" quality that I find very easy to distinguish...

with all due respect Alex, yr point about pausing the sim and noting the framerate makes no sense at all. Sure, the framerate is the same puased as unpaused, becuase the image is still being updated at whatever the framerate is - theres just no change in yr position so the image doesn't change. Of course theres no stutter when the sim is puased. Nothing is changing. Now tell me, how enjoyable is the sim while its paused? The closer you get to a framerate of zero while the sim is running the closer you get to flying while paused. Heres an experiment for you to try - set the framelock to 5 fps and fly around for a while and see how enjoyable it is. I know I sure don't enjoy it...

-------------------Zevious- That's the point! When the sim is paused, FPS continues to show a number as if still flying. Ergo, Frame Rate in red doesn't tell us a great deal about what we are seeing. FPS is useful as a relative measure for quality of motion (ie smoother or less smooth) but NOT for absolute good vs bad. Sort of like a pitot tube which can tell you whether you are flying faster or slower- but not much about your ground speed.I tried your experiment- FPS locked @ 10 (the lowest lock setting in FS9). Everything flew quite well, very smooth although there is certainly some chattering as I noted in my prior post.The difference in our setups is that I have 66% of my total view always running "paused"- ie not being updated. That is the ultimate in smoothness! But that is partially offset by the 33% that IS being currently updated. At 10 FPS my eyes are seeing a total of 30 updates per second on (portions of) the whole 45" wide, 145

Ah, interesting observation Alex. You know, I showed your setup to my wife and Seev's too. Her conclusion...we're all bonkers. I think it's all pretty cool personally :)Mark

Yeah like I said Alex, I don't doubt what yr saying at all. I can only relate my experiences as a single monitor user. I find the difference in overall feel between 30 and 60fps quite easily notable and I definitely prefer the higher framerate. I've been gaming on consoles and PCs for about 30 yrs now and I've found that 60fps seems to be sort of a "perfect" framerate for games. All things being equal and given a situation where there are no specific issues cuasing intermittent stutters, I'll take 60fps over 30 or lower all the time...

Yeah like I said Alex, I don't doubt what yr saying at all. I can only relate my experiences as a single monitor user. I find the difference in overall feel between 30 and 60fps quite easily notable and I definitely prefer the higher framerate. I've been gaming on consoles and PCs for about 30 yrs now and I've found that 60fps seems to be sort of a "perfect" framerate for games. All things being equal and given a situation where there are no specific issues cuasing intermittent stutters, I'll take 60fps over 30 or lower all the time...

--------------------Zevious- I don't think we're really in disagreement on FPS. The difference comes about on the mode of viewing. Single monitor simming is essentially looking at a narrow slice of the world through a telescope. Since the viewer is concentrating on a small area, he/she needs the highest possible detail and resolution. That is- high monitor resolution and high frame rates to handle very small amounts of motion.Multi mon-triple horizon simming doesn't need this as much- there are only so many retinal receptors in our eyes that fine detail is lost when we allow our vision to relax to the human norm of 180

heh Alex, that's a heck of a theory, but actually almost makes sense to me :( As for fps..the fs actually updates 'everything' at the frame rate that is present, ie..control inputs..aircraft position, etc. So yes, the more fps the better..as it gives a much 'smoother' operation of the sim, not only graphiclly but with control inputs, etc, as already mentioned. Now for some reason people keep arguing that there is no detectable difference between 25fps and 100fps and why they keep claiming that is beyond me (this is all single monitor). Anyways, I've always found it best to lock fps at your monitors refresh rate, so for lcds that be 60 and my old crt was 75. If you can't make it that high I've found the next best for graphic 'smoothness' in the fs is half of the refresh rate, so 30 for lcds...although then I start to noticed control inputs are not as responsive. I guess its all give and take. :(

What would be nice to know is how the ACES team is actually calculating FPS. Sometimes thing are subjective and what FPS is to one might not be to another. There maybe more here then meets the eye? (major Pun if it wasn't gotten :)A call to ACES...how are FPS calculated in FS9..y=f(x)Mark

heh Alex, that's a heck of a theory, but actually almost makes sense to me :(

--------------red1- Almost makes sense to me too!!!!Ya gotta try it out!! I think it's about as close to "something for nothing" as we'll find with computers.Alex Reid

Really, all joking aside, it would be nice to know that the FPS we're seeing displayed on the screen makes sense. If ACES decided to call our total computer load the axiom FPS...and yet, it is the actually the amount of processor time, the disk seek time, the screen refresh rate, and a slurry of other factors all combined into one, then that would be nice to know how to interpret it. I can write a piece of software that will tell you that it's going to be sunny when it's actually going to rain so what are we really looking at when we see that display of FPS dipping into the low 12's :)Mark