Triple monitor setup using Nvidia Surround and three monitors

[menelado 0]

Interesting - could you post a screen shot of your view?

Eugene

 

http://ul.to/d0vxza86

 

here it is

[raex-flight 3]

+1 for portrait mode.

I'm using 3 x 24" in portrait mode with nvidia surround and trackir sometimes in the pattern.

Bigger gauges = better flying for me.

[Overload 91]

Thanks Menelaos, looks great!

Eugene

[GSalden 4,655]

Looks great Menelado.

 

Because you have it in portrait mode your setup is less wide than 2 monitors and therefore you will notice almost no distortion.

 

To all :

I made a new topic at the LM forum : a plead for a distortion fix when using a triple monitor setup.

Feel free to comment.

[mickatmian 52]

Added a +1 to your topic at the LM forum.

 

Portrait mode will obviously have less distortion with less screen width. I will have to give it a go, but having used three screens in surround + 1 for gauges for last two years or so I had almost forgotten about distortion!

 

Mick

[denali 74]

 

 

I made a new topic at the LM forum : a plead for a distortion fix when using a triple monitor setup.
Feel free to comment.

 Will do

[gboz 157]

The problem with portrait mode is that the bezels suddenly become much more obtrusive. Like looking through the bars of a cage.

 

Also three screens in portrait mode are really just creating the size/aspect ratio of a large TV. This had an advantage in pre-4K days because of the higher resolution of the 3X screens. Today with 4K TV you can get the high res/large size without the bezels.

 

gb.

 

 

As noted previously, LM hasn't seen fit to provide the capability to use Nvidia surround with P3D, unfortunately. So if you try, you'll get the stretched view you got, and it won't work.

 

Not quite sure what you mean by "it won't work".

NV surround works in P3D exactly like it works in FSX and any other game that does not have some geometric post processing corrections going on.

 

gb.

 

 

It takes both the nVidia setup and DisplayFusion to get it setup the way you want.

 

I'm sure Display Fusion is a great utility for getting the most out of three screens for general desktop work but it is totally unnecessary for getting NV surround setup and working.

 

gb.

[Jonathan Berthier 99]

The problem with portrait mode is that the bezels suddenly become much more obtrusive. Like looking through the bars of a cage.

 

Unless you have monitors with thin and equally large bezels all around such as this one for example :wink:

[menelado 0]

 

 

Today with 4K TV you can get the high res/large size without the bezels.

 

There are only a few (1-3) companies that sell 4k TVs with display port input and these are very expensive. In any other case its a waste of money. At the moment the only way to get native 4k output from your PC through the display port.

[GSalden 4,655]

Posted today about the distortion when using a triple widescreen monitor setup :

 

We will keep this request in mind. While it is not supported natively, the platform does provide ways to provide distortion correction via plugins. We ship with basic distortion correction sample using xml/hlsl. See WideViewDistortion.xml, WideViewDistortion.psh in ShadersHLSL\PostProcess. The shader would need to be modified adjust for the your specific monitor setup and fov, but it is a decent starting point. It’s possible to make xml based post processes support AA in 2.5 but it requires some extra shader code. The Colorizer post process does this, so it would be a good place to look to see how it can be done. Alternatively, it’s possible to make a PDK plugin that does a custom post process using C++/D3D11. The plugin approach could query the FOV and adjust the distortion dynamically, but it would be more complicated to develop than the xml/hlsl approach.

 

Beau Hollis

Prepar3D Rendering System Lead

[gboz 157]

There are only a few (1-3) companies that sell 4k TVs with display port input and these are very expensive. In any other case its a waste of money. At the moment the only way to get native 4k output from your PC through the display port.

The latest Nvidia 9xx cards will do full 4k over their HDMI2 ports.

Also HDMI1 will run 4K at 30hz which works quite well with P3D/FSX although with reduced color gamut.

 

gb.

[denali 74]

Posted today about the distortion when using a triple widescreen monitor setup :

 

We will keep this request in mind. While it is not supported natively, the platform does provide ways to provide distortion correction via plugins. We ship with basic distortion correction sample using xml/hlsl. See WideViewDistortion.xml, WideViewDistortion.psh in ShadersHLSL\PostProcess. The shader would need to be modified adjust for the your specific monitor setup and fov, but it is a decent starting point. It’s possible to make xml based post processes support AA in 2.5 but it requires some extra shader code. The Colorizer post process does this, so it would be a good place to look to see how it can be done. Alternatively, it’s possible to make a PDK plugin that does a custom post process using C++/D3D11. The plugin approach could query the FOV and adjust the distortion dynamically, but it would be more complicated to develop than the xml/hlsl approach.

 

Beau Hollis

Prepar3D Rendering System Lead

The shader route is the one I took.  The tip on the AA example is great, and something I could try for the graininess.  I've already written a PDK plugin that queries the FOV and changes it dynamically, and changes shaders dynamically.  What I need is a way to grab a larger bitmap of the view than display dimensions which to work an AA algorithm on.  And actually, just having a larger grab would eliminate the graininess in my shader.  Off the top of my head, what I remember is that it is possible to oversize a view in a display window dynamically, but it immediately resizes the view to the display size after messages are received by the view.  After a little more investigation of that I plan to give that info to LM to see if the view can be locked to an oversize.  But then adding in a post process and then fitting it back into the display may be trickier than it sounds.  (view being whatever is intended to be shown, the display being the window or full screen it is shown in)

[GSalden 4,655]

It would be great if you would succeed!

[racklefratz 4]

No bezel breaks. One image 5760 x 1200. I have a template for 3 individual screens - 1920 x 1200 that I use sometimes for desktop images when I don't have a full width image to use. Use NVidia to fine tune your bezel cutouts. Neat diagonal lines to align to get it close but not perfect.

 

Regards,

 

Ray

I apologize for being so thick, but I'm obviously missing something critical here as I try to understand how you combine 3 separate monitors and spread them across as one.

 

I have 3 monitors also.  Each one has a plastic bezel about 1/2" wide around the screen.  They're always going to be visible, no matter what else I do.  Your image is one continuous one with no bezels in sight.  I don't know how you managed that.

Not quite sure what you mean by "it won't work".

NV surround works in P3D exactly like it works in FSX and any other game that does not have some geometric post processing corrections going on.

 

Well, I said that based on things I thought I remembered seeing in this forum.  Apparently I was wrong.  I know how Nvidia Surround works, and I use it successfully in things like Just Cause 2.  It's great there.

 

Before, when I tried it with P3D, all I was able to do was to get one horribly-stretched, out-of-perspective view of the instrument panel across the 3 screens.  I tried again yesterday and actually did get a correct perspective of the outside scenery view, along with the top of the instrument panel in what I believe was the virtual cockpit.  I fiddled with it trying to get enough panel to actually see, and failed and gave up.

 

I don't know if VC is a requirement to use surround in P3D.  If it is, I'll probably just keep using 3 separate windows.  The 2d panel in P3D looks much more like the real panel in my previously owned airplane than the virtual cockpit.

 

[Manny 1,293]

With three monitors you cannot zoom out like in the first post.. you have to have 1.0 zoom factor to not have that kind of distortion.