Three monitor best practice?

[hockey_fan 0]

Wondering if others have had better luck than I have with 3 monitors in MSFS.

I have 3 55" monitors, all exactly the same model.  I currently use Nvidia Surround to stretch the game across the screens. Acceptable, but definitely there is a large amount of distortion on the left and right monitors.  But I tolerated it.

The time came to replace my graphics card. I originally switched to a high end AMD card, but AMD Eyefinity (the rough equivalent to Nvidia Surround) is being phased out (source: AMD customer support). It would not work on my monitors in any way, so I gave up and returned to Nvidia Surround on a different graphics card.

However, has anyone had success with the MSFS Experimental setup? I read online and followed instructions but there were 2 insurmountable problems.  In each monitor one aligns the view (camera) with roll, pitch and yaw adjustments, but I could never align all 3 monitors satisfactorily.  Always 1 monitor would be horribly misaligned with the other 2.  A runway for example from a wide angle view would look like an 'L' instead of a straight 'I'.  No view orientation or zoom setting would fix the problem.

The other problem was the processing time needed for having 3 separate views.  Basic mouse clicks or mouse wheel input was insanely slow, cockpit workload was essentially impossible, even on my high end pc.

I guess that is why it is labeled Experimental, but if anyone has had success with this method, I'd appreciate hearing about it.  Supposedly the views can be configured with much less distortion.  Now that I'm more aware of the distortion in Surround, I'd like to try a better option.

 

[Silicus 889]

Regarding alignment watch this video, it helped me a lot!

I agree, the implementation for multi monitor setup is very lazy, just like the replay function.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Silicus

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

Is there a best size monitor(s) for these setups?

[Fielder 3,760]

It's been about 3 months since I was using spanning across multiple monitor. But I used :

Nvidia Control Panel | Configure Surround, PhysX

(Because I could not get the MSFS settings spanning app to work. Especially if I changed views (e.g. switching between outside views and cockpit views and drone view). 

The interface in CS,PX isn't all that easy to figure out which box to check and so forth, but it works very well once you learn the steps. There's an adjustable dohicky in it that makes up for the bezel width which is the key to why I love using this instead of MSFS settings.

You want the display to be set at the native resolution on both monitors which is done with Windows Display Settings. All monitors at the same resolution. So you have to use both WDS and CS,PX to switch back and forth to spanning display and non-spanning. And I had to memorize the steps. But it's been awhile and I forget.

 

[hockey_fan 0]

9 hours ago, Silicus said:

Regarding alignment watch this video, it helped me a lot!

I agree, the implementation for multi monitor setup is very lazy, just like the replay function.

I will try these suggestions.  One thing I did not try yet was being eye level with the monitors.  As the monitors are large I have them on stands and I have to look up at them (perhaps 10-15 degrees up).  Maybe that has affected the left/right monitor orientation.  I doubt it but I will try this suggestion anyway.

But I still have a total dealbreaker in the other problem, i.e. how much processing goes into the 3 windows.  It seems like the I/O (keyboard, mouse) is processed much slower than usual, as if only 1 out of 10 clicks are accepted.  I cannot use this 3 window scenario in a meaningful way.  It is unbearably slow.  However for purposes of understanding the orientation, I'd like to know better how to align the windows, and I'll try a few more experiments.  The lack of distortion as compared to Surround was inticing.   

[hockey_fan 0]

3 hours ago, Fielder said:

It's been about 3 months since I was using spanning across multiple monitor. But I used :

Nvidia Control Panel | Configure Surround, PhysX

(Because I could not get the MSFS settings spanning app to work. Especially if I changed views (e.g. switching between outside views and cockpit views and drone view). 

The interface in CS,PX isn't all that easy to figure out which box to check and so forth, but it works very well once you learn the steps. There's an adjustable dohicky in it that makes up for the bezel width which is the key to why I love using this instead of MSFS settings.

You want the display to be set at the native resolution on both monitors which is done with Windows Display Settings. All monitors at the same resolution. So you have to use both WDS and CS,PX to switch back and forth to spanning display and non-spanning. And I had to memorize the steps. But it's been awhile and I forget.

 

Thanks, yes I got Surround PhysX to work.  It is my best and default flying scenario.  However, there is unmistakable distortion in Surround in the outer monitors that I would like to get rid of.  The experimental monitor setup built into MSFS looked like it was worth a try, but it doesn't look ready for prime time.  

[hockey_fan 0]

4 hours ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

Is there a best size monitor(s) for these setups?

I am not an expert by any means, but the larger the monitor/TV likely the farther away you have to sit from it.  Everyone has their preference, I very much like the experience of three 55" 4k tv's, although I use them at 1080p right now.

[KL Oo 706]

I've got 3 x 50" TV's running with MSFS experimental setup - I find it far better than the stretched solution that NVIDIA Surround produces. Yep, frames take a hit not just with GPU processing time but CPU processing time as well. That said, I can generally maintain 30 FPS at most large airports in the PMDG 737 with AIG Traffic at 80%. 

 

Frame generation helps however it will only work on the main display, not the two side displays. I sit about 43" from the screens. Russ Barlow has some great videos on youtube that describe the ideal setup - thats what I used as my reference.

 

[MarkDH 234]

I'm not sure why people are struggling with this, it is very straightforward. Yes, there's a performance hit but it's not massive. I run my setup on an i7-7700K with a GTX1070 and it's usable. I currently run three 1080p views (not shown here). The only real handicap is that you must run same-size screens, as you can't control the zoom factor on a per-screen basis. Hopefully that's coming... 

 

[EGLD 441]

triple screens is just not very well supported by MSFS, if you have the screens all in front of you at slight angles on a desk for instance - if you have them at 90 degrees to make a box around yourself, it might be ok

i understand there are some good videos to get it looking as good as possible, but the best I could get to was just not good enough unfortunately

i went back to a single large screen (43" 4k TV) with Tobii which is a better solution for now

[GSalden 4,706]

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

triple screens is just not very well supported by MSFS, if you have the screens all in front of you at slight angles on a desk for instance - if you have them at 90 degrees to make a box around yourself, it might be ok

i understand there are some good videos to get it looking as good as possible, but the best I could get to was just not good enough unfortunately

i went back to a single large screen (43" 4k TV) with Tobii which is a better solution for now

The further you set backwards the higher your zoom value needs to be set, because you then need to “pull” your eyepoint forward.

The same with monitors angled less than 60+ degrees.

My 43” displays are angled at 45 degrees so to get a geometrical correct view I need a zoom value of 73. 

 

[Malaromane 448]

9 hours ago, hockey_fan said:

[snip]

But I still have a total dealbreaker in the other problem, i.e. how much processing goes into the 3 windows.  It seems like the I/O (keyboard, mouse) is processed much slower than usual, as if only 1 out of 10 clicks are accepted.  I cannot use this 3 window scenario in a meaningful way.  It is unbearably slow. 

[snip]

This could be down to the input lag of your TVs. On the TVs, look for some sort of "Game mode" setting which should turn off a lot of the post processing and smoothing that the TV does and helps to reduce the display's response time.

[MarkDH 234]

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

triple screens is just not very well supported by MSFS, if you have the screens all in front of you at slight angles on a desk for instance - if you have them at 90 degrees to make a box around yourself, it might be ok

I don't understand the reasoning here. MSFS gives you all you need to create a basic 3-screen view, but it's not magic. For it to look right you need to position your side screens at the same angle that you have rotated the side view in MSFS, and you need to be sitting so your eyepoint is normal to the centre of each screen. Your 90-degree 'box' would just be a particular example of this.

[EGLD 441]

1 hour ago, MarkDH said:

I don't understand the reasoning here. MSFS gives you all you need to create a basic 3-screen view, but it's not magic. For it to look right you need to position your side screens at the same angle that you have rotated the side view in MSFS, and you need to be sitting so your eyepoint is normal to the centre of each screen. Your 90-degree 'box' would just be a particular example of this.

do you have 3 screens?

have you managed to get anything approaching an acceptable result with them all placed in front of you?

with no overlaps/duplication, perfect geometry etc?

would be interested to hear how you managed this if so

my 3 screens aren't big enough for a 90 degree setup - i would say you need all 3 to be at least 50 inch

[MarkDH 234]

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

do you have 3 screens?
have you managed to get anything approaching an acceptable result with them all placed in front of you?
with no overlaps/duplication, perfect geometry etc?

'Perfect' is a dangerous word, but I have it working acceptably well! Have a look at this video from 10:35 for the general layout. This is in P3D with a view group, but I have now replicated this view in MSFS, as you will see in this video. The screens are angled inwards, probably by about 30 degrees, although from memory the side views are showing a 50-degree offset. (I can't angle them any further because my panel is in the way.) You will see this layout in many of my later pre-MSFS Twin Otter videos, although it is hard to film it well because the view will only look correct from one position, which is roughly where my head is.