Three Screens Really Makes A Difference

[Slayer 190]

It gives you one large screen but if you are operating in window mode you can use it as you were , with undocked windows. You can still do windows in full screen mode as well but the main will be spanned across all the displays.  

 

A proper zoom level of 1.0 with the widescreen support set to yes in your fsx.cfg will yield the correct  aspect ratio( + or - a bit for fine tuning). Look at this guys videos on youtube for an explanation. 

 

I prefer to use surround with a slightly stretched edge because when using windows like that it gets really out of whack when you do any climbing or turning but I use a Track IR for head movement I don't used fixed position it's much more immersive this way

Steve, I have no wish to hijack this thread but I need some help with my NVIDIA 780. I attempted to get it to display 3x 19200x1080 identical monitors in portrait surround sound but without success. I'm running NI (inspecter). Can you please tell me all the steps to get it up and running!

 

[f the originator of this thread desires I can start another thread]

fredpop

 

Sent you a PM with some basic instructions if you have probs still you can PM me again I can show you on teamviewer or something.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

I used to run a 3 monitor setup with my AMD card; I have completely changed my simpit around over the winter and it's not really an option any longer.  I liked it; it was quite easy to do with AMD's Eyefinity, which I gather is much like NVidia Surround.  What I found however, is that although it gave me a very nice wide view, it made things feel more 'claustrophobic' in the vertical view.  I know it's just perception, I could see the very same vertically as before, but somehow being able to see so much more in my peripheral made it almost feel like like I was wearing up/down blinders. :lol: 

 

Your mileage will vary of course, hope it all works for you! 

[Robert McDonald 167]

Hello all!

 

Well, you all are bumping up into the issue that pushed me into 3PCs with 3 video cards running X-Plane 10.

 

With no wish to hijack a thread, and no need to preach to the FSX faithful, I post this only so the technically-minded can see the 'difference' when a sim is designed to split the image and to render 180-degree field of view.

 

I had some special lighting effects on the video which impact the colours across the 3 monitors and I filmed at a side-angle, which exacerbated the problem, but you can clearly see the great impact and high frames rates.

 

Howard is right, when you are rendering external views only and not burdened with the cockpit, you can enjoy undistorted views (as shown in video).  Trying to make just ONE PC render across 3 screens and "twist" the graphics just slaughters frame rates, as well as results in a 'squashing' effect which means the side views don't line up properly.  In my setup each screen is 60 degrees different from it's neighbor... -60 on the left  0 in the center +60 on the right.  Each monitor has its own PC and own Graphics card. Runs across gigabit network.  Center PC runs Xplane and the two side monitors are slaves for views.  Weather (clouds) via SkyMaxx add on carries across all 3 monitors as well.

 

XPlane is scalable, and rewards multiple PCs with higher end graphics cards.  That's something FSX just doesn't do as well.  64-bits in X-Plane is another topic, but all by itself is NOT enough reason to switch over from FSX or P3D.  However, when you start to 'build up' you sim more and more, the flexibility of X-Plane does help.

 

Plenty of room for X-Plane to improve, but for my purposes, it kills.  Yes, it has weaknesses, and I dearly wish PMDG and ORBX would migrate to XPlane.  Yes, it lacks the "LegoLand default airports" of FSX, and yes, there are issues about seasons and views to the horizon at high (JET) altitudes.  I admit all of that.  Still, I am completely satisfied with the setup I fly now.  And I can wait for progress to bring XP up to full speed.

 

I did order a ColorMunki to calibrate the color and brightness/contrast across the 3 displays.  It's not here yet.  It really is challenging trying to color balance 3 different displays.  When you are buying the "happy meal" 27-inch non-IPS from HP, it's an issue.  Nowadays, you can get IPS monitors which look great from a much wider viewing angle.  The HPs are fine when you are sitting #1 or #2 in the cockpit.

 

2nd video is a nighttime triple-screen Visual approach runway 28L at KSFO.  Very pretty lights bouncing off the water...Not the prettiest flying trying to hold the camera phone in one hand and then run everything else with my other hand.  But you can get an idea of what's "possible".

 

Please click the GEAR icon in the lower right corner of the YouTube Player and select 1080p High-Definition video for highest quality viewing.

 

 

and here is the NIGHT video from San Francisco:

 

[Robert McDonald 167]

I used to run a 3 monitor setup with my AMD card; I have completely changed my simpit around over the winter and it's not really an option any longer.  I liked it; it was quite easy to do with AMD's Eyefinity, which I gather is much like NVidia Surround.  What I found however, is that although it gave me a very nice wide view, it made things feel more 'claustrophobic' in the vertical view.  I know it's just perception, I could see the very same vertically as before, but somehow being able to see so much more in my peripheral made it almost feel like like I was wearing up/down blinders. :lol:

 

Your mileage will vary of course, hope it all works for you! 

 

Having spent time in a buddy's real world full-size 737 sim, I can tell you that you'd need 5 screens to do it properly, but just like in the real airplane, the view out each window is wider than it is 'high'.  With a 180 degree field of view (undistorted), you enjoy a feeling of really flying, especially if you darken the room.  But to each their own.  I didn't start off this way, it sort of 'grew' on me.  A lot of time spent trying to make FSX do what I am doing now with X-Plane.  Took a differently engineered sim and some additional expenditures for supplemental pcs / vid cards / beefier Power Supplies and a Glass Cockpit software package.  The good news?  You can have a killer sim for a lot less dinero than a full-size in-your-face full-scale Boeing cockpit.  Is the Boeing cockpit more fun?  For $160 to $200k, it SHOULD be.  It takes a LOT of time, blood sweat and tears to obtain all the pieces to make the real deal, then wire it up and make it all work.  My buddy took like 18 years.  Me?  This is about 24 months after I began.  I have a ways to go though.  Waiting on the Boeing yoke and TQ.  Then the radio stack and full-scale overhead.  

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

Having spent time in a buddy's real world full-size 737 sim, I can tell you that you'd need 5 screens to do it properly, but just like in the real airplane, the view out each window is wider than it is 'high'.

 

Hmmm.. I think the thing there is that you're talking about a full size sim.  If one has a large simpit complete with an overhead and is only using the displays for replicating the view outside of the cockpit, then I'd agree 100% with you.  However, if you're a large part dependent on the in-game virtual cockpit, or if you're flying something with a completely exposed top on the cockpit, then it's back to feeling vertically constrained.  Actually, I found any sort of military jet was the worst - I always found myself wanting more up-down screen space to go along with the side to side.

 

One thing that I have tried a few times is a 42" HDTV on my desk.  That was almost perfect in viewing space for both GA and military.  I haven't gone that way except to mess around with it only due to a lack of actual space.  I'd need to seriously re-arrange a good portion of my basement in order to maintain a simpit large enough to hold a 42" TV as well as keep a desktop with a pair of 24's for work.  That said, when the higher resolution TV's start becoming affordable, I can see myself going that route anyways. :lol:

[Robert McDonald 167]

No, if you look at my videos, you'll see I don't have a 'full size' sim.  I -do- have a wider-than-normal desk, it's an "L-shaped" deal with triple monitors.  I like your idea of the large screen, that sounds ideal for you.  I just had a lot of trouble 'seeing around the corner' with only 1 monitor.  Some guys use track IR to solve that.  Me?  I got seasick.  So I 'had no choice' but to figure out the 3 screen solution.  And yes, I have more than 3 screens. 6 if you count the Android Tablet.  That's a lot of electronics.  I flew a lot of hours on one monitor, this is a recent change.  To each their own!

 

Best of luck!

.

[ajpongress 467]

I don't know what I did wrong, I hooked up 2 monitors and frame rate dropped from steady locked 30 to 3 - 4 frames per second. Care to share how you did it?

 

My guess is you have SweetFX, ENB series, or some similar shader injector running.

[Mithras 87]

Wow... Nvidia Surround was a synch to set up, took me 10 minutes! And setting Widescreen to True in fsx.cfg means I can pull back to view the entire VC. I've switched on the frame rate counter and the frame rates are way up, with 3 screens in a light plane flying over either photoscenery or Orbx, the frame rates are above 30, on one flight fps ran between 50-80. At Heathrow in a default airliner they drop to 10-18. I think they're around 22 single screen at that airport.

 

What I'm saying is that frame rates are comparable to using a single screen, very nice indeed. Its not quite the side window view I had in mind, but very, very close. There is some widescreen stretching at the extreme edges of the outer screens, but like I said, being able to keep my sliders where they were iscertainly worth that.

 

Nvidia Surround is something I'll stick with for now. More experimenting to do.

 

Not having much luck with Sceneryconfig Editor though, the scenery file with its groups keeps resettting, and now all my groups of scenery have vanished, i think I'll stick with the ingame options, and simply disable the big airports when not needed.

 

EDIT: in my testing of the undocked mode I was getting OOMS in airliners and even light planes when using photoscenery, in one test I didn't even start my roll down the runway! Switching to Orbx, I had no OOMs for the same tests. With Nvidia Surround on photoscenery I have had no OOMS although my longest flight so far has only been 15 mins... really looking forward to flying with this, it looks fab.