Hi guys,why does it always have to be good news/bad news. I have flown FS2K2 with 3 monitors for years without a glitch. Due to incompatibilities with my home cockpit I have flown FS9 only with two monitors until a few days ago. The results have been very good.A few days ago I have reworked my cockpit and now introduced the 3rd monitor to FS9 (which is a touchscreen, great!!!). The main monitor, and one of the cockpit monitors are running from an ATI 9700Pro. The 3rd monitor is running from a Nvidia TNT2 64MB. The secondary monitors all have only panels resp. 2D windows running.What a disappointing experience.Apart from the fact that the new windowed mode/undock/fullscreen mode procedure really sucks, I have a new problem. As soon as I put anything on the 3rd monitor, fps drop 30 %. This is not linked to a certain monitor. All is fine when I have 2 screens running. Put something on a 3rd screen and the trouble begins. This never was the case with FS2K2. The fps hit I got in FS2K2 was not even noticable. I guess it has something to do with FS9 treating all 3 windows as 3 D windows. I guess that is why you have the 3 tasks running instead of only one. In FS2KS I could completely disable hardware 3D acceleration for the secondary screens without a problem. In FS9 fullscreen would not work in this case.Can someone shed some light on this? Or explain what is really behind that new "enhanced" multi monitor support. I noticed that there is only a small fps drop when you open a 2nd 3d window and put it on a 2nd monitor. But that was not what I intended to do. Any good explanation of my findings is very welcome.Alex

Hi,I also use 3 monitors in my sim and had no problems in FS2002.3 monitors under FS2004 has been nothing but a nightmare and an endless source of frustation.I hope Microsoft really do read these forums because I would like the developers who took something that worked really well and then broke it realise what a monster they have created. Surely they tested what they did and saw what a complete botch up it was?Sorry to sound harsh but this really has been one of the main drawbacks of going to FS2004 and really if they had just left this area of the sim alone I am sure most people who use multiple monitors would be happy.

It looks like with the pressure (demand from the market) to offer multiple monitor support for wide 3D views, and with the move forward with more and more support for an "all in 3D" cockpit, these results are consistent with the goal behind FS2004 multi-monitor support, i.e. (only my opinion) supporting wide 3D rendered scene over multi-monitor. This now makes me understand the purpose of this display setting about rendering the panel as a texture in FS2004. This would allow all the graphical components to be rendered in the 3D context only, easing the support of 3D over multi-monitor.All this maybe to realize the days of custom cockpits with multi monitors are doomed, and the way to go will more and more be networked computers with one in charge of the 3D scenery only (over as many monitors you want) and the others, in charge of the gauges.I wonder though!

>and the way to go will more and more be networked computers with >one in charge of the 3D scenery only (over as many monitors you >want) and the others, in charge of the gauges.Jean Luc,I would go that road. But it is not available. I would gladly put all my gauge stuff to a networked computer. I have a pretty fast Athlon XP2100+ with GF4600 standing right next to my FS Puter.But:That road is not available. WideFS, or even WideView will not support gauges. So the only chance is to go the Project Magenta way and this does not offer an acceptable solution for a TwinProp GA lover like me. You know I am a believer as far as the RealityXP stuff is concerned. But how do I get the GNS530 on a 2nd screen other than the way I am doing it right now? I really wish there was kind of a WideView option for complete panels. I would pay a considerable amount of money for that. But for now I will have to go out and buy a Radeon 10000Pro and an AMD 6400+.Alex

"I really wish there was kind of a WideView option for complete panels" humm... me too!"how do I get the GNS530 on a 2nd screen other than the way I am doing it right now?" humm... I would love to have a Flight Line 530XP.NET Garmin...

I agree 100%, I used to run 3 monitors with fs2002 ,without a problem ,in fs2004 like you say its a nightmare. I have actually just gone back to 1 monitor again and it really sucks after using 3, but the performance loss when undocking windows is to much to take.

You are absolutely correct with regards to what MS was trying to accomplish. They wanted to be able to support active scenery windows on multiple monitors to take advantage of the multi-head cards available. It's on their website. I had trouble with sound degradations using two video cards to support two monitors. That went away with my Radeon 9700 Pro - it has two video outputs. I don't see any real performance hit by having sub panels open - but I have not tried any scenery windows. Colin

You are absolutely correct with regards to what MS was trying to accomplish. They wanted to be able to support active scenery windows on multiple monitors to take advantage of the multi-head cards available. It's on their website. I had trouble with sound degradations using two video cards to support two monitors. That went away with my Radeon 9700 Pro - it has two video outputs. I don't see any real performance hit by having sub panels open - but I have not tried any scenery windows. Colin

Guys,I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing here but this has been my experience.Using main monitor for outside view and two other monitors for panels/gauges only.I agree with you all that MS made a dogs dinner of multi-monitor support in FS2004 as compared to previous versions. They appear to have completely ignored the fact that thousands of simmers have gone down this road which makes for much more realistic flying. However, I say this only in relation to the Windowed/Fullscreen mess they somehow managed to engineer.In FS2002 I always flew in fullscreen mode but I can only fly in Windowed mode in FS2004 because attempting to go fullscreen just makes an onscreen nonsense. I get around this problem by using Windowed mode but hiding the Menu Bar and the bottom bar in the outside view and using MDF cut-outs for the gauges on the other two monitors. In effect, the "Window Frames" are hidden from view. Not the best but just about acceptable.I must point out, though, that when I undock the panels/gauges off the main screen there is a huge INCREASE in frame rates whereas you guys appear to be getting a 30% loss which does surprise me. I wrote down the results but just can't find them at the moment but I can tell you that the increase is more than double.My main card is a GeF4 Ti4200 (128MB) with two outputs and the second card is a 64MB GeF4 MX440. I'm still using the tried and trusted 30.82 drivers.The panels are just simply custom made with FS Panel Studio and using quite a few pre-FS2002/2004 gauges.P

Hi to all.I use a Duron 1GHz, Matrox Parhelia, GF4 MX440 PCI and S3Virge PCI.Combined with Reality XP JL4 I see no performance lost by using this setup. Even the S3 is displaying the Eicas panel smooth.I even manage to get full screen with the parhelia and have the JL4 on the other monitors without borders!!! Really great!! Don't ask me how I do it because I still don't know :)) .I give you a hint , just put the gauge for more that 50% off the screen (left or right, it will depend on your setup) and then go to full screen, the gauge will appear on another monitor a little smaller but without borders. Just resize it and off you go!!!All the cards are selected with a resolution of 1024x768 in FS4 and also the desktop (Except for the parhelia wich has 1280x1024 on the desktop, using a 21" monitor there)Best regards,Pedro

Let's see if goes ok now.Pedro

http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/49373.jpg

Jean Luc,lol. I will watch the RealityXP product announcements closely.Alex

Guys,I wonder if someone actually reads what I write here.There is no problem or fps hit with 2 monitors. This is regardless of using a dual head card or an AGP and a PCI card.There is no problem in windowed mode, as this is 2D.The fps problem is related to 3 monitors and fullscreen mode. I was very clear about that I think. There was a good hint though to set the secondary monitors to the same resolution. I will check that.I refuse to run in windowed mode. Apart from the fact that I doubt that all video card features are supported, windowed mode defaults to the desktop resolution. That is also the reason why a lot of people find a fps increase in windowed mode. They are simply running a lower resolution. What really is beyond me is how someone wouldn't notice the difference in graphics quality. I do not have a few thousands buck in soft- and hardware only to finally run this thing in windowed mode. Apart from the fact that I am running FS in 1600x1200x32 on my main monitor and my desktop at 1024x768x32. So I would have to change the desktop resolution anytime I fire up FS9.I made a BIOS update and cranked up the FSB a few ticks more. So I gained a few frames back. Someone do a panel WideView please. That would be so great!!!!Alex

Pedro,that is exactly what I do. I am using the same procedure. Except my primary monitor is running at 1600x1200x32, and teh others on 800x600x16 resp. 1024x768x16. I have tried different resolutions but it does not change a thing.Our systems are very different. I am using an Athlon XP2700+ together with ATI and Nvidia card.Alex