Three P3D Windows: better 3 video cards, or 3XSLI or neither?

[GSalden 4,656]

Pete, keep us informed about your findings ...

regards

Gerard

[gboz 157]

6 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Well, I went with this, but it isn't as good performance-wise as all three projectors on the one card! I found that rather surprising.
   We will be trying 3-way SLI with the three 1080Ti's, and hope that will turn out justifying the cost of the extra 2 cards.  If not I will have two slightly used 1080Ti s for sale -- hybrid ones with water and air cooling.

Yes, I read all about assorted SLI problems in P3D version 3, but then an equal number of good things about SLI in version 4 with the lastest nVidia driver.

Pete

 

Have you posted over at LM about that? They were definitely recommending one card per monitor a year or so ago.

Have you tried the  UseGlobalTerrainView=True  cfg setting?

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102268

gb.

[Pete Dowson 558]

9 hours ago, gboz said:

Have you posted over at LM about that? They were definitely recommending one card per monitor a year or so ago.

Not yet, but I will do once we've finished getting everything set up.

9 hours ago, gboz said:

Have you tried the  UseGlobalTerrainView=True  cfg setting?

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102268

Not yet, though Nat, who is still aligning the views on my curved screen, says he's tried it in the past and found it made little to no difference but sometimes caused a lag in textures being drawn. But that must have been with P3D3, so we'll certainly try it with P3D4. I see it is now included in [TERRAIN] with 'False' set -- before you had to add it yourself.

BTW, where is this "Performance Tuning Guide" referenced in that thread?

14 hours ago, GSalden said:

Pete, keep us informed about your findings ..

So far having the cards 3-way SLI's definitely gives a smoother result, noticeably so at the sides on the 210 degree view.  That's normally where I'd see constant microstutters even when the forward section looks perfectly smooth.

Not sure yet that it improves frame rates -- will know after we've finished setting up and had a chance to do more tests. If what I've read about SLI is true, one of the things I might be able to do is increase some of the settings I've previously had to reduce to get things usable at busy dense airports.

Pete

 

[gboz 157]

3 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

BTW, where is this "Performance Tuning Guide" referenced in that thread?

Hmmm... from memory it's in the P3D SDK/Learning Centre.

gb.

[Pete Dowson 558]

11 hours ago, gboz said:

from memory it's in the P3D SDK/Learning Centr

No, I can find nothing there very relevant. Thanks though.

Pete

 

[Pete Dowson 558]

14 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Have you tried the  UseGlobalTerrainView=True  cfg setting?

We tried this and it made no difference at all for us, sad to say.

Pete

 

[TravelRunner404 596]

Hi Pete,

How is your set up running 4 months on from these posts?  I own one of these: http://simpit.co.nz/index.php/features-2/projection-display-solutions/simpit-270-centurion

My plan right now is to set it up with 3x Acer Predator Z650.  My current rig is a 1080ti, 8700k, 32gb RAM and it's a pretty smooth experience on one 4k screen at 30hz.

Do you recommend the 1080ti SLI to power the 3 views? Did you switch over to P3Dv4 with your system?  I know you have said the system is smoother with 3 SLI's but does anyone know the reason for that? Is it possibly a placebo effect? 

Cheers,

Brian

[GSalden 4,656]

1 hour ago, TravelRunner404 said:

Hi Pete,

How is your set up running 4 months on from these posts?  I own one of these: http://simpit.co.nz/index.php/features-2/projection-display-solutions/simpit-270-centurion

My plan right now is to set it up with 3x Acer Predator Z650.  My current rig is a 1080ti, 8700k, 32gb RAM and it's a pretty smooth experience on one 4k screen at 30hz.

Do you recommend the 1080ti SLI to power the 3 views? Did you switch over to P3Dv4 with your system?  I know you have said the system is smoother with 3 SLI's but does anyone know the reason for that? Is it possibly a placebo effect? 

Cheers,

Brian

With default scenery or photoreal scenery + AG you can use 1 pc with 1 1080 Ti.

If you use an Orbx region your system will suffer badly. Not because of the AG but because of the amount of roads. These are very taxing on the system.

Then it is better to use 1 or max 2 screens per pc.

Using HD tv’s gives a sharper image than when using projectors.

[TravelRunner404 596]

2 hours ago, GSalden said:

With default scenery

What's that?

2 hours ago, GSalden said:

If you use an Orbx region your system

I load everything I can out of my system with add-ons.  I am fearless and greedy like that :) I'll load a PMDG 777 at SFO at night with high sliders, AS16+Envtex+ASCA+ORBX+Vector+Region+Flightbeam+AI traffic+DL with cloud cover and rain. But being serious, I am okay with what happens when trying to do too much.  I enjoy the challenge for the time being and have accepted it for what it is.  I used to never notice stutters until I started reading about them.  I swear it's like working in film.  Once you know how things are done you never watch it the same.  Ignorance was bliss.

Anyway, just curious how it's worked out for Pete with 3 projectors and a similar FOV.  If it has truly provided a benefit having more 1080ti's I would consider the investment in another one to smooth things out.  I have already accepted, the limitations of a projector and the clarity at 1080.  I think where we are with technology and the platform that is P3d multi monitor high FPS w/ 4k the GPU just isn't quite capable of what I want.

[Tweetyrj85 5]

Hi guys thanks for all this information.

I'm running P3D4 with 3 HDTVs in portait as one big display using NVidia Surround from my 1080 card. This works really well without distortion. Now I'm looking to expand my set up and add 3 17inch monitors for my MIP (2x PFD/ND 1x EWD/SD). I only have one displayport left on my 1080 card. The Mobo also has HDMI and DVI but I'm not sure if I can succesfully use these next to the 1080 outputs. I've been looking at Matrox2GO but find that rather expensive and have been told it has become obsolete. Another option is to use 3 USB3.0 monitors which would be a very easy and relatively cheap solution if it would work. Any recommendations on how to proceed?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[GSalden 4,656]

3 hours ago, Tweetyrj85 said:

Hi guys thanks for all this information.

I'm running P3D4 with 3 HDTVs in portait as one big display using NVidia Surround from my 1080 card. This works really well without distortion. Now I'm looking to expand my set up and add 3 17inch monitors for my MIP (2x PFD/ND 1x EWD/SD). I only have one displayport left on my 1080 card. The Mobo also has HDMI and DVI but I'm not sure if I can succesfully use these next to the 1080 outputs. I've been looking at Matrox2GO but find that rather expensive and have been told it has become obsolete. Another option is to use 3 USB3.0 monitors which would be a very easy and relatively cheap solution if it would work. Any recommendations on how to proceed?

Thanks for any advice!

 

If you don't run 3 seperate views you will always have a distortion. However portait mode less than landscape mode as it is less wide.  Here I run 3 seperate views from a 1080 Ti :  40"- 32"- 32"  HD tv's.

In my cockpit my client pc drives 4 monitors :

• Graphics card 1 : CDU + Lower Eicas
• Graphics card 2 : PFD/ND
• USB monitor      : Upper Eicas/Standby

So using USB monitors would be an option.

Regards, Gerard

 

 

 

 

[Tweetyrj85 5]

Thanks Gerard,

I'm going to give it a try starting with one USB monitor to begin with. 

ATB 

Vincent

[Tweetyrj85 5]

So I've made the jump and bought 2 USB monitors and so far I'm very happy with the result. The only thing is....how to save the undocked displays. I'm using FSLabs 320 in P3D4. If anyone has any experience with this, any help would be highly appreciated.

ATB

Vincent 

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Tweetyrj85

Hello Sir,

I have five undocked  displays, albeit this is for FS2004. I set up my screens as I want them, the aircraft, the weather and time and season and then just save the flight. Everything stays undocked each time I select that flight. I have set up and saved an aircraft (IFly737 BBJ3- VH-CAC) at each airport I fly in and out of. These are Australian or Indonesian airports.

The screens saved are

1. 40inch 1080p LED TV ... Aft and Fwd Overhead panels (in portrait mode)

2.60inch 1080p LED TV .... VC cockpit (0.50 Zoom) (landscape)

3. 2 x 32 inch 1080p LED TVs .... VC cockpit (0.75 Zoom) landscape mode (these are side external cockpit views)

4. 22inch 1650 x1050 Monitor ... in landscape mode for 2 x FMS  with Lower DU in the centre

5. 24inch 1200 x 1920 monitor ... in portrait mode. This monitor shares throttle display and Aft Electrical panel.

My GTX1080ti drives the main VC screen and the two external views, whilst the GTX1050ti drives the three instrument panel displays.

This set up (or similar) is used for all my payware aircraft. The only downside is that my undocked VC displays for side views and the main screen has to be manipulated to show the display I want, each time I select the flight. This is because the VC cockpit display reverts to normal (ie same display you get when you go into taskbar /views/select 2d or 3d views) when you turn off the flight.

As far as I know, there is no way to save any view to the actual aircraft itself. I can only save to FS2004. Coincidently, i recently raised this topic in a post asking if there was a way to set up a VC screen and save it permanently instead of having to adjust it for each and every flight. No response to that question as yet. This is not exactly a deal breaker for me as I have been doing it this way for years now and it only takes a couple of minutes for each flight.

To summarise however, saving an undocked screen is very easy as outlined above. Unfortunately, it would appear that this is the only way to do it and it does have the small referenced downside.

If you have any problems at all, please PM me and I will do all I can to help. Please bear in mind that I find this configuration impossible to achieve with P3Dv3 or 4 nor can I do it with Xplane (frame rates/Performance issues)

Regards

Tony Chilcott

 

,

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Hello all,

Further to this topic, I notice the mention of USB3 monitors. Can someone explain to me how this would work. how do you attach them (USB3 Powered HUB) and how do they interface with the graphics. I would imagine if this does work, one would be best advised to used them for static displays (instrument panels) rather than graphics intensive scenery displays.

If this is possible I would very much like to consider using a couple for WX radar and an EFB or similiar in addition to my current set up.  It may also (given that I do not know if there is a frame rate impact or not) provide a means to actually use P3Dv4 at long last in this configuration. This is dribbling from the mouth territory for me.

Love to get this information.

Regards

Tony