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I have had FSX installed on my system for some time and I am trying to run multiple display monitors. I am running 2 x GTX 570 Video Cards and have attempted Surround Vision and Multiple Screen settings without much success. Therefore I thought I might try using a Matrox Triplehead2Go box as a last measure. However I have seen that there maybe some problems doing this with FSX for some reasons and wondered whether anyone who has used Matrox boxes could give some feedback prior to outlaying $500 for a unit and which unit is the best. My configuration is:

 

Processor: Intel Core i7-3930K CPU @ 3.2Hz 6 x Core

DirectX 10

RAM: 24.0 GB

HD x 2: 1x 500 GB  -  1 x 2000 GB

Graphics: 2 x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570

Gaming Graphics: 4095 MB Total available memory – 1280 MB Dedicated graphics

Operating System: 64 Bit with Windows 7 Professional

Monitors:  3 x 1920 x 1080 resolution (1x Dell, 2 x Asus)

 

Any comments would be appreciated.

 

 

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used Matrox boxes could give some feedback prior to outlaying $500 for a unit and which unit is the best.

 

You would be completely wasting your money on a Matrox.

For a little more you could get a top of the line Nvidia GTX980 which can handle up to five monitors on it's own.

For a lot less the GTX970 would also do the job.

 

gb.


YSSY. Win 10, 6700K@4.8, Corsair H115i Cooler, RTX 4070Ti, 32GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200, Samsung 960 EVO M.2 256GB, ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger, Corsair HX850i 850W, Thermaltake Core X31 Case, Samsung 4K 65" TV.

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Many thanks for you reply. I'll certainly have a look at that.


I would be interested in anyone's thoughts about the fact that FSX only supports a single screen and you have to drop windows and resize them every time you load up a flight. This has caused me problems in the past and the Matrox box actually takes a single screen image and splits it in three and distributes each on three separate screens and FSX thinks its feeding the one screen as I understand it. That possibility is attractive to me as it leaves the second VGA card for more secondary views for CDU or ATC etc use if needed for large aircraft such as the PMDG 737 800 NGX. My current VGA cards are water cooled and quite expensive so it would be good to keep them if possible.

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I've used a Matrox TripleHead2Go for a few years now and found it absolutely splendid.

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This has caused me problems in the past and the Matrox box actually takes a single screen image and splits it in three and distributes each on three separate screens and FSX thinks its feeding the one screen as I understand it.

 

Well this is what nvidia surround does but it can do it at higher resolutions than the Matrox and without putting black bands at the outer left/right monitor edges, if you enable bevel correction, like the Matrox does.

The Matox was good in it's day but is definitely redundant these days unless you are desperate to hook up as many monitors as you possibly can.

 

Hate to say it but you GTX570s might have been great in their day too but not now.

And unless you are doing some very serious overclocking of a video card water cooling is just not necessary.

 

gb.


YSSY. Win 10, 6700K@4.8, Corsair H115i Cooler, RTX 4070Ti, 32GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200, Samsung 960 EVO M.2 256GB, ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger, Corsair HX850i 850W, Thermaltake Core X31 Case, Samsung 4K 65" TV.

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One thing to remember about Nvidia Surround:  if the three monitors are not exacly alike in all respects, the settings to enable surround will not hold and you'll have to reconfigure each time the pc boots.

 

For example,  I have three 22 inch 16X10 monitors each 1680 X 1050, same brand and model and a GTX770 card.  However, two monitors are 61 Hz and one is 60 Hz, which rquires a custom .inf for Nvida surround to work.  That's fine,  but the Nvidia software will not maintain 5040 X 1050 and imposes it's own suggested, unwanted and visually not satisfactory, resolution  each time the computer boots.

 

So I'm back to the TH2G, which does maintain 5040 X 1650 at all times.

 

Best,

Jim Harnes 

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I take your point gb re the over-kill with water cooling but my PC builders thought it was a good idea for gaming - bit more revenue I suspect.

 

My understanding was that FSX only supported one screen and therefore it struggles with more. Would the GTX 980 overcome this and would just one do if I was to add a fourth, or more, later?

 

Unfortunately I'm not too clued up on peripherals etc as you can see and I have been struggling with this for some time so I'm grateful for your input. I would be happy to reject the existing cards I have if I'm confident that I'm not going get white outs with a new card and things running smoothly. I'm trying to do some flying training in on this and it really frustrating. 

 

When I previously tried to utilise the Nvidia Surround I found that the instrument panel was far too close and Was not able to to move the view back further. Did you experience that and if so what was your solution?

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Thanks to you too Jim. As you can see from my replies to gb I'm finding this whole issue very confusing. I have spent a lot of money  on hardware and software so far but it's not really getting me anywhere. This is important to me so I am willing to spend more if necessary but I am trying to work out where best to put the money.

 

Mark

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Can't you set up your screens, save your flight and set it as your default so it loads on startup with your screen setup, (although you may have to drag some undocked views to the correct screen and maximise them), then go to airport whatever to fly?

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When I previously tried to utilise the Nvidia Surround I found that the instrument panel was far too close and Was not able to to move the view back further. Did you experience that and if so what was your solution?

 

Did you have Surround running with your two 570s and the 1x Dell + 2 x Asus monitors then?

If so try setting it up again.

You just need to add the "WideViewAspect=True" entry to the Display section of the FSX configuration file (fsx.cfg).

This will greatly increase the horizontal field of view, showing you much more of the cockpit.

You can also move the eye-point further back with the CTRL+ENTER keyboard shortcut.

 

gb.

 

 

My understanding was that FSX only supported one screen and therefore it struggles with more. Would the GTX 980 overcome this and would just one do if I was to add a fourth, or more, later?

 

No, not corect.

FSX will support as many monitors as you have connected (but that does not mean it will be flyable, frame rate wise).

Also as you have found what happens to each view on reloading a flight can be problematical.

Some people seem to have no problems.

When I used to run four screens, in full screen mode, on reloading a flight all the views

would be on on top of each other on one monitor only.

I had to manually drag each view back to it's correct monitor. A real pain.

 

gb

 

 

Would the GTX 980 overcome this and would just one do if I was to add a fourth, or more, later?

 

The GTX5xx series cards were AFAIK the last nvidia cards to require two cards running in SLI to use Surround.

The GTX 6xx/7xx/9xx cards can all do Surround with only one card.

 

gb.


YSSY. Win 10, 6700K@4.8, Corsair H115i Cooler, RTX 4070Ti, 32GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200, Samsung 960 EVO M.2 256GB, ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger, Corsair HX850i 850W, Thermaltake Core X31 Case, Samsung 4K 65" TV.

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When I used to run four screens, in full screen mode, on reloading a flight all the views

would be on on top of each other on one monitor only.

I had to manually drag each view back to it's correct monitor. A real pain.

 

It's a relatively simple programming task to auto position Undocked views to specific sizes and coordinates if that's what you're looking for. If people would find that handy, I can put a utility together to do that.

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It's a relatively simple programming task to auto position Undocked views to specific sizes and coordinates if that's what you're looking for. If people would find that handy, I can put a utility together to do that.

 

I've changed over to a single 48'" TV myself but that would be very helpful for anyone else running multiple screens.

 

Thanks,

gb.


YSSY. Win 10, 6700K@4.8, Corsair H115i Cooler, RTX 4070Ti, 32GB G.Skill Trident Z F4-3200, Samsung 960 EVO M.2 256GB, ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger, Corsair HX850i 850W, Thermaltake Core X31 Case, Samsung 4K 65" TV.

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I use Matrox on FS9 and its a fabulous experience. See PIC below of landing view.

 

apart from in reality that nice view is broken up by the frames of your monitors, so it's not so critical whether the overall view started as one continuous image or 3 smaller ones.

 

Cheers

 

Richard

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I've used the Matrox TripleHead2Go for some years and it works well. It needs three monitors the same, and works within a window best. The screen frames are generally no big issue with the bezel correction. I use the second output from the videocard for a fourth monitor for GPS etc.

 

There must be a better way of doing it these days though with the better cards now available.

 

Cheers

 

Peter

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