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himmelhorse

Is this possible in XPlane10

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Mumur,

 

Wow, this MAY be an avenue to explore albeit an expensive one here in Indonesia.

 

I have to admit though, when I first explored the possibilities of Xplane I was looking at going down the route of multiple copies of the programme (four) and utilising my triplehead2go for the three main panel screen (3d cockpit) and was very unsure about how this would work ie do I install the entire programme (complete with all the desired add-ons) and then duplicate that three times, or do I just have the addons on the original copy and run the basic programme on the other three.  In the final analysis though, if I cannot undock or move just the overhead panel, and for the life of me, I cannot work out how this would be possible, what exactly would I be achieving?  This is, by the way, why I started this thread in the first place I guess.  If in fact, it is possible then I would need someone to hold my hand and guide me through the dark process involved. Technical help here is almost impossible. For the second time, (the first time was years ago), I went into a computer shop here  and asked the technician if the Nvidia GTX 1080 GPU was available yet.  His response was exactly the same as the first attempt ... What is a GPU" Not really an awe inspiring response.

 

I have noticed over the years, many people using FSX and multiple monitors and via forums I have asked much the same questions I am asking here.  For some reason, nobody seems to want to or be able to share their knowledge as if it was a secret.  I guess that is fair enough although it isn't very helpful to me personally.  What I am hoping for in this forum is that the people who do have and are using roughly the same set up I want, (if it is do-able) can and will help out.  I think it is amazing that people who don't have this knowledge or experience always step up and at least try to help out. For that, I am and I am quite sure everybody here who has received help and actually solved their problems, are genuinely appreciative.

 

Vincent .... Prosim 737.  

 

As far as I can tell this is FSX or P3D based and as such, unworkable for me at this time. Just for your info ... I have installed on my computer (all on different drives) FS2004, FSX, FSX-SE,  P3D and Xplane 10 (updated)  The only one working successfully despite many many attempts is FS2004. I am not denigrating these programmes as (apart from P3D) they all work and work very well, but .... only on a single monitor and this is not what I am wanting.  Basically, I have a full cockpit except that I am using monitors in lieu of hardware.  For your further information the photo displayed is not current and I will be up loading my new photo as soon as I can.

 

Well guys,  I have rambled (again) but I hope my long-windedness has been helpful in my appeal for help.I want to express my sincerely felt gratitude for your responses thus far and have to admit that for the first time in a long long time, that I actually feel optomistic.

 

Thanks again to all

 

Tony Chilcott 

 

 

 


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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Murmur,

 

Here is a quote from Yz125 that I am trying to understand and if possible to implement.  

At this time it does not make a huge amount of sense to me and it may well be he is talking about

multiple computers anyway.  I simply do not know.  I tried to get in touch with the poster but to

date I have had no response.

 

Ok I read Yz125 post. From what he states, looks like you can actually run multiple copies of X-Plane on the same PC and connect them. So maybe you could do what you're trying to, using only one PC and running on it 3 copies of X-Plane at once (as per Yz125 instructions) and networked.

 

I think in this case you'll need a powerful PC though, since it'll need to run 3 instances of X-Plane at once. For sure you'll need a lot of RAM, a fast CPU and GPU. Of course, on the two copies that are only displaying flight instruments (overhead and FMS/pedestal) you can lower all scenery settings at miminum so they consume less resources.

 

You can try experimenting right now.


"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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Support for this type of flying would certainly help X-Plane gain passengers. Wish X-Plane would get 1 million in funding to finally give us FSX 2.0.

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Ok I tried and I can confirm that it works on the same PC even using a single copy of X-Plane running multiple instances. But it requires some tweaking with the ports etc. Probably the easiest configuration is to make another 2 copies of your X-Plane folder and follow the instructions given by Yz125. So, looks like what are you trying to achieve is possible with a single PC.


"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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Murmur,

 

Aha.

 

This could be a breakthrough of immense proportions.

 

Coupla things ...

1. I could very well live with using only four screens ... ie not having the side views and using a button to look right and look left.

2. This would mean the only intense cpu/gpu/ram usage would be the main screen with the other three being for instrument panels only.

3. I will now devote some time to downloading and installing scenery, utilities and aircraft into the main/master folder before duplicating those folders x 3 (at least initially ... will look at buying a cheap computer for those instrument screens leaving my main computer to handle the main screen and the side views later on. I have 3 spare ATI HD6970 2gbVram which can be utilised in the second cheapie computer.) Can I have your thoughts on this idea.  Is it better to eventually throw the AMD GPUs and trade up(?) to Nvidia. I mean is Nvidia better than AMD for Xplane (I know it is for FSX/P3D)

4. I have to go to Australia shortly so this project may be somewhat delayed.  In this instance, when I am ready to proceed further, may I please PM you for further advice.  I would also like to be able to send you some photos of what I currently have in FS2004 so that you are in no doubt about what is needed.

 

Thanks again for your wonderful response.

 

Regards

 

Tony Chilcott 


Very Bumpy,

 

I agree with you almost totally.  The strange thing is that I (and probably many others) only arrived at Xplane in almost sheer desperation for something better and workable.  I disagree slightly with you however, over "finally give us FSX2"  Xplane is already that, and  I think that unless P3D and Dovetail come up with something remarkable in the near future, Xplane will continue in stature as long as further development continues.  Long live the 10.50 update

 

Regards

 

Tony Chilcott


Tony Chilcott.

 

My System. Motherboard. ASRock Taichi X570 CPU Ryzen 9 3900x (not yet overclocked). RAM 32gb Corsair Vengeance (2x16) 3200mhz. 1 x Gigabyte Aorus GTX1080ti Extreme and a 1200watt PSU.

1 x 1tb SSD 3 x 240BG SSD and 4 x 2TB HDD

OS Win 10 Pro 64bit. Simulators ... FS2004/P3Dv4.5/Xplane.DCS/Aeroflyfs2...MSFS to come for sure.

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Coupla things ...

1. I could very well live with using only four screens ... ie not having the side views and using a button to look right and look left.

2. This would mean the only intense cpu/gpu/ram usage would be the main screen with the other three being for instrument panels only.

3. I will now devote some time to downloading and installing scenery, utilities and aircraft into the main/master folder before duplicating those folders x 3 (at least initially ... will look at buying a cheap computer for those instrument screens leaving my main computer to handle the main screen and the side views later on. I have 3 spare ATI HD6970 2gbVram which can be utilised in the second cheapie computer.) Can I have your thoughts on this idea.  Is it better to eventually throw the AMD GPUs and trade up(?) to Nvidia. I mean is Nvidia better than AMD for Xplane (I know it is for FSX/P3D)

4. I have to go to Australia shortly so this project may be somewhat delayed.  In this instance, when I am ready to proceed further, may I please PM you for further advice.  I would also like to be able to send you some photos of what I currently have in FS2004 so that you are in no doubt about what is needed.

 

Hi Tony,

 

It's possible you could get good performance even using all six screens, infact the main view would actually be equivalent to a single monitor, but with three times the resolution (3x1080), so the only thing you need to have good performance is brute GPU power. At most, you could be forced to lower AntiAliasing settings to improve performance. I would try all six screens and see how it goes.

 

With regard to folder duplication, X-Plane allows aliasing of custom scenery, so you can actually have all custom scenery only in one of the three copies (say, the master). In the other two copies, you would alias (link) the custom scenery to the custom scenery folder in the master. This way, you'll save a lot of disk space.

 

Regarding AMD vs nVidia, yes the latter should perform better. However at the moment I would try using just one PC, it's possible you'll get good performance.

 

You can PM me, as I said I have no multiple monitors so I can just make suggestions. One last word of caution, Laminar Research does not currently support running multiple X-Plane copies on the same PC, so basically you're on your own. It should work without problems, but don't expect technical support from Laminar Research should you encounter issues now or in the future.


"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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Well, great news Tony. Apparently, you don't need to install ANY scenery on the other two copies, since they only show flight instruments. So you just have two barebone copies with no scenery installed, saving a lot of hard disk space and also performance. I just tried and it worked: the master copy shows the main forward view with scenery, the other copy just shows the flight instruments you want. It'll just have water (since there's no scenery installed), but it doesn't matter since the view is centered on flight instruments (overhead or pedestal) so no outside view need to be shown.

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"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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Tony,

 

Running multiple instances of X-Plane is definitely the way to go.

Here's the post by Yz125:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/65660-how-to-run-multiple-copies-of-xp10-on-one-machine-windows/

 

I such a setup on Linux some time ago, based on this post:

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/44217-howto-take-advantage-of-multiple-graphics-cardsmonitors-in-x-plane-with-a-single-computer-the-linux-way/

 

I tried with 2 instances only, for external views, and it worked surprisingly well performance-wise. I just soft-linked everything in another folder, except the output folder, because it contains the preferences where the network, configured differently within each instance.

 

The fact that X-Plane uses mostly one thread on the CPU for real time calculations is an advantage here, because a 4 threads processor could probably manage 4 different instances easily. (disclaimer : didn't try)

 

However, each instance uses it's own memory, so you'll need a lot, depending on how you push the graphic options. With just the cockpit drawn, not so much RAM is needed.

 

What surprised me most is that the GPU memory didn't seem to take such a big hit. I did never really experiment with that, but my hypothesis is that the GPU identified the textures real path and didn't load them twice. Don't take this as a fact, it's just presumptions on my part.

 

Keep in mind that an extended view across 3 monitors (for the external views) is still only a flat plane extended to a bigger resolution. For correct perspective, you'll have to keep them aligned. I you need a different angle for each, a different instance of X-Plane will be needed again, or FlyElise excellent Immersive display pro for perspective correction.

 

6 monitors is a lot. I wouldn't even try it on a  single PC. X-Plane is much more ressource hungry than FS 2004 and that's to be expected for simulator in 2016. Make some experiments with a second machine and start with low graphic options.

 

I'm still planning to build such a setup for external views, but I still miss the monitors.

 

Best luck for your project.

 

Pascal

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6 monitors is a lot. I wouldn't even try it on a  single PC. X-Plane is much more ressource hungry than FS 2004 and that's to be expected for simulator in 2016. Make some experiments with a second machine and start with low graphic options.

 

I don't know, after all 2 out of 3 of the running instances of X-Plane have no scenery (only water) and no flight model to calculate. So a single fast PC could be enough. Certainly with 6 monitors the GPU is heavily taxed, and a second PC or a second GPU could improve performance.


"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." [Abraham Lincoln]

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One issue with the multiple parts of the cockpit on different screens just came to my mind : only the master copy will allow to manipulate the buttons, and third party aircrafts with customised datarefs will not show the right informations on the instruments. For that, you'll need a cockpit sharing app like Smart Copilot.

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