EdwardS

Thanks Dave for your advise!

Hi Efrain, Just an addition to what I wrote above: I would not recommend a FOV larger than 210 deg. since the space available between the side screens becomes quite small. Moreover, my experience is that with 210 deg. there is plenty of immersion. Just my opinion. For a perfect alignment in FSX (Prepar3D) the zoom factor must be 0.4312 and WideViewAspect=FALSE for a VOF=210. In WidevieW you set the heading angles: -70, 0 and 70 deg. for the left, centre and right screen. Ok, still possible to do it all on one PC but at the cost of frame rate, particularly at heavy add-on airports/scenery and real-time weather.

I just finished my setup with 3 x (1280 x 800 pixels) ultra short throw (BenQ MW851UST) projectors + 3 x 87" flat screens. Total FOV=210 deg. I use 1 FSX/WidevieW server for 2D panels (2 x 27"monitors) and 3 FSX/WideVieW clients for scenery only. IMO this is the only way to combine high frame rates (30 fps) with high quality FSX settings. I still use warping software for each of my 3 clients since I found it very difficult to 100% mechanically align the projectors. I used a laser device for that but still it is difficult to get a perfect mechanical edge butting. I use Fly Elise Immersive Display Lite 2 for warping (ref. http://fly.elise-ng.net/index.php). Due to the flat screens the corrections needed are minimal but still there is slight loss in sharpness but I can live with it. I found the software very easy to use. Overall I am quite satisfied with my setup and the immersion is great (of course if I have had the money I would have gone for 3 x 75" Samsung thin bezel LCD LED TV's). What I still miss is real-time weather synchronization on the clients, so hopefully HiFi (AS2012) will come up with a solution for that. Server PC: Intel Core i7 2600k at 4.5 to 4.7 MHz + Nvidia Geforce 680 (could be a lighter one too) Client PC's: Intel Core i5 3570k at 4.3 to 4.5 MHz + Nvidia Geforce 660 (MSI 660TF)

I am a enthusiastic AS2012 user up to now. Recently I build a 270 deg. FOV 3 projector setup using FSX & WideView running on a server and 3 client machines for scenery only. Everything runs very smooth now. Unfortunately, I cannot use AS2012 anymore since it does not synchronize weather on the clients. The only possible alternative OpusFSX was a no go for me. My question is: would HiFi come with a solution for this issue? may be even this year? ( :rolleyes:) I would encourage them hereby. It would be great to have my real-time weather back !

John, Yes, it is obvious that 110 deg. is identical to 70 deg. as Mark describes it. So, still the question remains if the configuration I want can be created by simply creating 3 camera views -70, 0 and 70 deg in OpusFSX. Since your experience with loading 1 (or even 3?) .FLT files seems not very handy with OpusFSX, I think I (we) should concentrate on a better way of loading my (your) wished panoramic view. Question: is there a better way?

Mark, Thanks very much for your input! First let me show my screen configuration: see the picture. You can easily understand now that in order to create three 70 deg. views, the screen angel must be 110 deg. Lots of builders use a curved screen, but I preferred not. And the difference in perception is not that large I experienced. Considering distortion, I used to have 1 stretched base view over a triple wide monitor (WideViewAspect=TRUE) and that indeed gave a lot of side screen distortion at lower zoom factors. So that is the reason I prefer to use the 3 views approach I described. There is practical no distortion anymore but at the cost of frame rate. This configuration is used by a lot of builders I know. The reason I choose for flat screens instead of a curved screen, is to overcome resolution losses, mainly vertical, due to the use of warping software. As I explained, at a FOV of 210 deg. and 3 views there is a fixed zoom factor of 0.4312 to get the images properly aligned. I used Window Maker for that (very handy). The 3 views are docked to the underlying base view at full screen mode. I never work in windowed mode. After saving the configuration, i manually edited the .FLT file to get the views exactly right. It was even possible to get rid of the white 1 pixel border of the active centre view in this way, but that's another story. The photo shows the overall result. So back to the use of three PC's and the possible use of OpusFSX to overcome the frame rate issue. As you have done, I plan to have an extra 27" monitor on my centre screen server PC for panels. What I simply don't get is how I have to set OpusFSX to get the same result as I have now. I suppose, I could use a saved (and modified) .FLT file for each PC and load them into FSX successively. Would this work with OpusFSX live camera? Another approach would be to do the settings in OpusFSX as you do, but would I get the same result? You explained what you did but if you mention 45 degrees, how is that figure related to the camera rotation parameter in the .FLT file? I understand OpusFSX uses the AIRCRAFT.CFG file to create the camera views. I was aware of this alternative method but never have succeeded in manually modifying the AIRCRAFT.CFG to get a proper result. What I do not get either is that you can play with the zoom factor. I definitely cannot since my views are only aligned at a specific zoom factor as I explained. So lots of questions. Up to now, I am still building my client PC's so I presently cannot experiment myself. I am a bit surprised that the OpusFSX creators are not able to give more specific answers on my question. After all, this has nothing to do with cockpit building but everything with how to create a specific panoramic view which is in my opinion well within the scope of the package. Correct me if I am wrong.

Hi all, I am a cockpit builder and I wonder if OpusFSX can be used to make a 3 x 2D panoramic view of 210 deg. FOV using 3 PC's. So just scenery and all full screen. My present configuration is: - 1 PC + TH2Go + 3 x (1280x800) short throw projectors + 3 x 87" flat screens (the side screens making an angle of 110 deg. with the centre screen). - 3 “undocked” 2D FSX views (on top of the base view), 70 degrees each (total VOF=210 deg.) - FSX screen resolution: 3840 x 800 pixels, 32 bit, full screen mode. The MS Excel utility “Window maker” calculates that I have to use: Zoom factor: 0.4312 WideViewAspect=FALSE (Windows are wider than they are tall) Additional camera’s settings in the saved .FLT file are: Window 2: Rotation=0, -70, 0 (left projector) Window 3: Rotation=0, 0 ,0 (centre projector) Window 4: Rotation=0, 70, 0 (right projector) This setup works well besides that frame rate can drop as low as 10 fps at heavy airports and real time weather (PMDG 738NGX). So I decided to go for a 3 PC (1 server and 2 clients) setup. I understood from Cheryl that Mark Hargrove has quite some experience with that subject. I am very anxious to learn that OpusFSX can do the job. Moreover, I need some guidance how to configure OpusFSX to create the exact geometrical configuration I described. Can I still work with my modified .FLT file or can it be done easier via OpusFSX? In my opinion the zoom factor is not arbitrary here and directly relates to the FOV and the number of views. For me the OpusFSX manuals are not convincing enough and so I wonder if Live Camera can really compete with WideView here. It would be marvelous, however, if it worked because the integration that OpusFSX offers with real time weather and Dynamic Aircraft Movement is very appealing.

Unfortunately, the patch does not install for me. I put it in the FSX folder and then got the message: 'Can't find the pattern' 'Nothing patched'. Alternatively I copied your api.dll over the original but then got the error: 'Flight Simulator was unable to load some program files and will now exit......'. Thanks anyway Eneee for your work. Any idea what's going on? My original api.dll is: v.10.0.61472.0 (fsx-sp2.20071210-2023). Ok, I understand it now: I do have Deluxe SP2. Could we expect a second patch? Would be nice!

Hi Word Not Allowed, I did the same exercise so you can compare.

You will easily find out just by reading on the internet....and then you will never forget.

My experiments sofar with a HD6970 card, a 3840 x 800 eyefinity group (based on 3 WXGA projectors resolution), one 27" 1920 x 1080 dlp monitor, gave promising results in terms of frame rate and quality. FSX is configured full screen with 1 large base view and 3x 70 deg. scenery views on top. I noticed that the 2D panel gauge display had a very low impact on frame rate provided that I do NOT use an external frame rate limiter. My opinion is that in this particular configuration I even could use a second gauge display without any problem running from the same card. For that, however, I need the earlier mentioned Sapphire FleX HD 7950. This card is also faster than my present HD 6970. If you add the expected performance boost when Prepar3D 2 comes out, one PC with one card should be able to do the job well. One remark: the present add-on's should be patched I understood, in order to profit from DirectX 11. OK, this is the way I see it now. Because I am a perfectionist and I'm quite impressed by Word Not Allowed's findings and tweaking, I still like to investigate the other, a bit more costly, route: nVidea (e.g. Asus GTX680-DC2T) in combination with a Matrox TH2go for my 3 projectors + two 27" DLP panel gauge monitors of course. IMO this combination would offer the best speed and quality. Correct me if I'm wrong. I like to realize this in about a year from now, so time is in my advantage.

I am planning to make a 3 HDMI projector 210 deg. Eyefinity setup + 2 extended DLP monitors for panels and gauges. I did some testing already and the AMD Sapphire FleX HD 7950 3GB seems to be the perfect card at present for what I want. Unfortunately, thanks to this topic, I learned I should go for Nvidia in terms of quality. But Nvidia to my knowledge has no equivalent 5 monitor card. What I hope for, however, is that with the expected coming of Prepar3D v.2 which already proofed to do better rendering than FSX, the difference in quality between Nvidia and AMD could become smaller. What is your opinion?

Thanks Srdan, I will dig in further. BTW, I found a Dutch simmer on cockpitbuilders.com who recently bough two Jetstream motorized yokes. I'am anxious to hear his opinion.

I ordered a motorized Sim Revolution Jetstream TQ platinum because I understood it is a very good product. For next year I consider to bye their (elevator trim) motorized gold star yoke and a captains seat. I do not have a hardware cockpit (yet) but as applies for WebMaximus I am looking for a more realistic yoke, particularly yoke force. What is your opinion on Ace versus Jetstream? (I understood the Ace yoke is not motorized). Edward

There is another easy solution to prevent an unwanted change of any selected parameter in the fsx.cfg. Go to: http://forum.avsim.n...6