I'm currently running P3D2 on a [email protected] and a GTX 780 with a single 1080p monitor which gives me excellent performance. I'm thinking about getting two additional monitors to run P3D2 with Nvidia Surround. Two questions in this regard:

1. Is the triple monitor setup really worth it compared to a single monitor with TrackIR?

2. What performance hit would you expect compared to the single monitor setup?

 

Thanks for your help!

 

 

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I run 4 monitors from a 7970, 3 form the main screen, i'll answer from an ATI perspective.

 

I like the view that 3 monitors gives, you can still use TrackIR but three widescreen monitors (to my mind) looks more natural.  But really only you can answer that question.

 

The performance hit from connecting 3 separate monitors is non-existent.  If you are spanning across all 3 screens at 5760x1080 the performance hit is somewhat significant.  For information i run 5760x1080 with 2xEQSSAA it runs pretty smooth other than at EGLL x-treme.

Thanks for the quick reply and sorry for posting the same topic four times. This is a problem with Tapatalk...

 

 

If you are spanning across all 3 screens at 5760x1080 the performance hit is somewhat significant.

Can you quantify this? (Like normal GPU load with a single 1080p monitor is x%, with three it's y%)

 

I'm trying to determine what to expect if I went from a single 1080p screen to a 4K HDTV monitor.

 

Cheers!

 

 

Can you quantify this? (Like normal GPU load with a single 1080p monitor is x%, with three it's y%)

 

Sorry not really.  I have only ever run FSX with 3 monitors.  What I can tell you is that other people running ATI cards like me are using 8XEQSSAA and LOD of 6.5.  I can only manage 4.5 LOD, though this is more for OOM than performance and 2xEQSSAA.  FPS are pretty bad at EGLL x-treme when using the PMDG 777, perhaps i get 15 or so, i think others get more.  I also run in Windowed mode, so that may have an impact of a kind.

I don't think it's a show stopper now as it would have been perhaps 4-5 years ago, i would guess it makes perhaps 10fps difference.

 

 

 

I'm trying to determine what to expect if I went from a single 1080p screen to a 4K HDTV monitor.

 

Wow...that's a spicy meatball.

I run on a 780/3770k setup with 3 27" 1080.  I've used trackIR with this in FSX, and it works.   I have much faith that P3D2.05 is going to improve this much, as what I suspect are the issues are addressed in their buglist.  I'll eventually even crank out a fix for the stretch on the side monitors.  If you look in this forum I have a half fix already working posted that you might enjoy with trackIR, as it fills the part of your vision that really matters for immersion (1/2 of the side monitors with only a little vertical distortion; you can put radios and other dialogs on the 1/2 that is left dark.) 

 

You won't regret the 780.  You'll want it even for single monitor, but it works satisfactorily for triple monitor for most games at reasonable settings.  I did extensive research about memory and you shouldn't have any memory issues with the 3GB vs a 6GB Titan.  

 

There is a performance hit, but I haven't quantified it.  Probably because 3 screens matter so much to me now I won't go back to compare.  It isn't 1/3 as you might expect mathematically, more like less than 1/3 on performance (meaning better than 66% of a single screen), but as I said I think LM has something worked out to make that much less.  They touted it for the first version, but wasn't quite delivered.

 

I wish I had more time to share.

I have the same graphics card and have tried running three screens. You should be prepared to significantly reduce your image quality settings to compensate for the significant drop in FPS when tripling the size of the display. Unlike FSX, P3D2 places a significant load on the GPU, which means that increasing screen real estate will significantly increase the GPU load as well. With my current settings I am running the GPU at 99% most of the time on a single screen, so is obvious that this will not work for three screens with the same settings. However, by reducing the graphics quality (details, AA, shadows, et cetera) you should be able to run with good frames.

I am getting very good results with my GTX 670 (2GB) across three 27" displays so I would think being a whole series below the 780 you should see as good if not better results.  I'm holding off on my GPU agrade until the 2.05 or even the 2.1 patch comes out to see what direction I may take.  I also use TrackIR across the three for better immersion.

 

As an example for my setup, I am getting 50-60's when I use a single display and 30-40's across three.  This is in Las Vegas, NV, USA as my little testing area with installed:

 

FSDT Las Vegas airport

Megacity Las Vegas

MegasceneryEarth Nevada

My own 30cm photoreal scenery for downtown

80% AI (World-of-AI)

most sliders around 2/3

Shadows int/ext. for aircraft, buildings

Water off (i'm in the desert!)

Cloud theme Fair about 70 miles.

 

And the only tweak I have applied it the Affinity mask in the .cfg file and a few settings in Nvidia Inspector. 

Thanks for all the answers. I guess this gives me a pretty clear picture of what to expect when going from a single monitor setup to a triple monitor setup. Since I like to fly fps-heavy add-on aircraft and scenery, I guess, I will step away from the idea to add 2 displays for now. Maybe 2.05 or 2.1 will improve things but for now, I just don't want to take the fps hit. Another option for me would be using a projector together with TrackIR. I already tried this option and it also improves the immersion a lot.

Thanks for all the answers. I guess this gives me a pretty clear picture of what to expect when going from a single monitor setup to a triple monitor setup. Since I like to fly fps-heavy add-on aircraft and scenery, I guess, I will step away from the idea to add 2 displays for now. Maybe 2.05 or 2.1 will improve things but for now, I just don't want to take the fps hit. Another option for me would be using a projector together with TrackIR. I already tried this option and it also improves the immersion a lot.

 

It's not the number of displays it's the resolution, if you were able to run 5760x1070 on a single monitor it would have roughly the same performance hit as running over three monitors.  Might be worth bearing in mind with the guy wanting to run on a 4K monitor.  I find that the most glaring problems are the bezels and the fisheye effect that is created by having three monitors.

I  run surround with lower end card 2 x GTX 580 3 GB so I dont have experience with high end card but here is some obsevations about P3d and Track IR and Surround.

 

- Severe hit in FPS 40% less when running in Surround vs running P3d windowed on one screen (even if I have still 3 screen available). But it works both ways as you can double the FPS when you need it by switching back to the windowed mode on one screen. My typical scenario is as follow: I use surround 3 screen when I'm at cruise altitude and want to do some sightseeing. And I switch to one screen when I shoot an approach in IFR when I want maximum fluidity (anyway I don't have time for sightseeing much as I don't use the autopilot for the approach most of the time). But this is much more flexible than in FSX. In FSX, even if you tried to go from Surround (full screen) to windowed resized to one screen, you have almost no gain in FPS. P3D allow to do this with a huge gain in performance and you still have the others screen for different pop-up. I also switch from full view to windowed when I want to access my pop-up window on the desktop.

 

- I found Track IR useful in surround but now always. Because surround has a severe distortion on the side of the side screens, by using Track IR you really point your view sideways and this result with a view without distortion when you need it. I also use always Track IR when flying downwing to check the runway position. Works well and much better for position awareness.

 

- I found that I put Track IR in "pause" mode much more since I have P3d than before, basically when I'm looking ahead or scanning the instruments, I often pause the track IR and this is just fine like in a real cockpit... I put Track IR "on" only when I want to have a look sideways. But I could have done the same in FSX but I never thought about it. Maybe because now I follow my plane progress on Foreflight on a Ipad so I look often downward and this is annoying when in Track IR mode as the view on the 3 screen just go down also.