Can you set up FU3 with multiple screens?

[Chesney 0]

Hi allA "problem" for the technical people.Can you set up FU3 with multiple screens?We have been working on building a flight sim for the local Air Cadet squadron quite a bit just lately, and it is coming along nicely. The computer is assembled and running with two projectors and a screen for the instruments, the frame for mounting the cockpit (chopped from an old chipmunk) is made and the cockpit is sitting on it, but not yet fixed. Lots to do, but the light is showing at the end of the tunnel.So far we have only loaded FS2004. We can have the main ahead view PLUS the left and right quarter views up at once to give a very wide screen view. In theory we could have the 90deg views as well (5 views in all), but it would need a wrap-around screen and would put a very heavy load on the processor/graphics.What I want to know is, is it possible to do something similar in FU3? If not I can't see anyone wanting to use FU3 - they will all want the more realistic view. With the Air Cadet Vigilant now available in FU3 (thanks again Glidernut for your efforts, help and guidance) it would be great to use our favourite sim as a training aid for them. Certainly the flight characteristics are much more realistic than anything available in FS9.Any ideas?Ches

[Guest The Sim]

Hello Ches,I think you cannot do that without extraordinary efforts. FU3 supports only one 3D viewport i.e. it does not have the capability to calculate more than one view at the same time.To calculate three different views, you have to run three installations of FU3 on separate, but hardware-wise identical computers. The challenge would be to ensure perfect synchronization between the three computers.To start with, assign one computer as the master and feed its clock signal to both slave computers. This way, all three computers would run at exactly the same speed. Then, find a way to feed keyboard and joystick signals to all three computers, again in perfect sync. Copy the joystick calibration data from the master to both slave computers, otherwise things would get out of sync quickly.If this works, you have come a long way. However, if FU3 uses any kind of randomization (e.g., for turbulence effects), you have another problem to solve. Since random number generators usually get seeded with values derived from the computer time-of-day clock, you may get around that by synchronizing all three clock as well.However this may be, what I suggest here is not a solution, just a concept and unfortunately a very complicated one.As an alternative to this hardware approach, the synchronization could be done in software (feeding attitude and position data from the master to the slaves). Unfortunately, this is all unmapped territory. Someone should come up with an FU3 equivalent of FSUIP for MS Flight Simulator. This would open up new worlds to all of us.I do hope my thoughts provoke someone else to come up with a better idea that can be realized more easily.While I know that FU3 excels in many categories, I would go for MSFS if the wide field of view is on top of your wish list. Otherwise, you would have to turn your project into a research lab (see above) with the prospect of never achieving your goals.Back in 1988, was heavily involved in a similar project. I integrated subLOGIC's Flight Simulator II (which later evolved into MSFS) into a real cockpit of a piston-single. This included extreme challenges like hooking up all the flight controls, numerous software changes, creating a new instrument panel and even porting of the software from the Commodore 64 to a much faster computer. This "simulator" was used as an IFR training device at a flying school.Making that happen was so much fun...Now, you know why I had to reply to your post.Best regards to everyone in the Flight Unlimited community,Thomas

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Sublogic's Flight Simulator II (for the Commodore Amiga) was the first version of FS that I used. I still reckon that it was better than FS5 ;-)Chris Low.

[agtim 0]

Hi Near impossible, without the source code of FU3 :-(Did you observate that the views of FU3 are allways ready and will switched immediately to the correct display.Not so for FS9 on the same machine when I switch to sideview I have to wait for 1 second or more before the view is created !May be there is possible to have 5 views of FU3 just by 5 directX calls with setting of the view number between, but even for that, we need the source to locate the places of the directX drawing calls. :-wave agtim