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Triple Screen Performance


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As DCS World evolves, we are constantly upgrading our systems. Many have already jumped to VR, but I am positive that there are still an abundance of triple screen pilots out there. I would like to discuss setups and performance of our triple screen setups.

 

DCS World 2.5 even at lower settings at 1080p x3 is almost unplayable with a GTX 970.

 

How well does DCS World 2.5 run with a 1080 Ti at 1080p x3 or even 1440p x3 at higher settings?

 

How well does DCS World 2.5 scale when using two 1080 Ti's (in SLI mode) at 1080p x3 or even 1440p x3 at higher settings?

 

How well does DCS World 2.5 scale when using two 1080 Ti's (not in SLI mode) at 1080p x3 or even 1440p x3 at higher settings?

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It seems this has been discussed a little on another site:

 

https://forums.oculusvr.com/community/discussion/56343/how-to-push-your-vr-system-particular-oculus-game

 

BeastyBaiter August 2017

Xavier4or, yes mostly. DCS World has 2 branches currently, DCS 1.5 stable and DCS 2.x alpha. DCS 1.5 is what's on steam and includes the free map. However it uses a less advanced graphics engine that puts nearly all graphics processing onto a single CPU core instead of using the GPU. The newer DCS 2.x branch is much better, but the free map is not compatible with it at this time. They are updating it still so that it will work with the better graphics engine. It's this DCS 2.x Alpha branch that will crush a 1080 TI.

 

Here's a pretty screenshot of it doing just that (this is absolute max possible detail in VR):

 

 

 

Telorn August 2017 edited August 2017

If you want to push your video card beyond its limits, about any main stream VR title can do that. Go to the graphics and increase either supersampling / resolution above 1.0. What it's doing is rendering the game above the native resolution of the two HMD eyes. This gives the benefit of cleaner textures, better text and less jaggies. If you can get the supersampling high enough, AA isn't even needed. The rendering can get over 4k and make any high end video card crawl, especially when we want 45fps per eye, or 90fps total.

 

BeastyBaiter August 2017

Indeed, that pic above is running at in game pixel density of 2.5 on top of the rift's native 1.3. That's (1080x1200)*1.3*2.5 = 3510x3900 per eye. For 2 eyes, it's 7020x3900, roughly equal to a triple 4k monitor setup in terms of total pixels. It was done just for grins as a test, obviously 21 fps isn't playable. More reasonable settings (PD 1.3 in game, 2xMSAA instead of 8x) gave a consistent 45 fps with the GPU at 90%+ usage in the busiest areas.

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“How well does DCS World 2.5 scale when using two 1080 Ti's (in SLI mode) at 1080p x3 or even 1440p x3 at higher settings?”

 

 

Plain & simple – fantastic! Planes behave different – much more realistic to me! EWorld apart from my first 660GTX to the twin Titans. But it was hard to find any information on what works and how…and with current hardware. Therefore, I decided to share my experience with the community.

 

 

Putting the hardware together was not a simple task. I tried TrackIR – great product – but I feel sick immediately - VR not being an option, again I get sick quickly – so I went for the 3-screen experience. At first, I thought, “Why don’t I buy a Titan and stick it into my 4 year old PC…” – For starters – the case would not fit the card… (Using the saw was not an option) and I decided to build a brand new ‘up to date’ rig. In the last 6 to 8 months, some very good hardware has emerged on the market and all the pieces have to fit together!

 

 

Here the details (and some “small print info”): The motherboard (Asus ROG Strix Z370-E Gaming) and the CPU (Intel Core i7-8700K (3.70GHz / 12MB)) have to fit together – both support the 8. Generation socket (LGA 1151 / H4). For CPU cooling I use a Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO RGB.

 

 

Power is crucial for the Titan graphic cards – two PCIe (8x 6+2-Pin) are needed – for EACH CARD! Every card uses up to 250 watts. With 500 watts gone just for the graphic cards I decided to go for the Corsair RM Series RM1000x - 1000W. With approx. 60-70% power usage, the fans are not constantly running at full speed and heat is acceptable.

 

 

Now I needed a computer case with enough space (very important) so the air can circulate. I did not want to cramp the cards into an old case just to save a bit of money – it was/is not worth it. The cards heat up to (normal) 87° Celsius when flying. I went for the Corsair Crystal Series 570X RGB. Great case – fits also the CPU cooling fans (I had to swap places with the case fans – front case fans to the top – CPU fans to the front). Fantastic case – thanks Corsair! With the Corsair K95 RGB keyboard, the Corsair M65 Pro RGB FPS-Gaming-Mouse and Saitek X56 HOTAS Stick & Throttle night flights are truly awesome. You can fly in a dark room.

 

 

Then there is the Asus ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Monitor connectors (currently) offered by the card are 1 x DVI (forget it – don’t use), 2 x HDMI and 2 x Display Port (DP). At first, the plan was to connect all three screens to one card using the HDMI for the center screen and the two DPs for the side screens. How silly of me.

 

Let me explain why. It is all about Frame Rates (FPS) – or Hz. If your screen is 60 Hz – it can display 60 FPS or Frames per Second. The human eye is fooled starting at 30 FPS – 40 FPS to be safe – the more the better. I treated myself to 3 x Asus ROG Swift PG278QR capable of 144 Hz in ‘normal’ mode.

 

 

Then I found out that HDMI standard is only supporting up to 60 Hz - only DP can transport higher FPS rates. If I was using 3 individual screens it would be possible to run different FPS but to use DCS you need to ‘fuse’ the screens (3 x 2560x1440) together to one big virtual screen of 7580x1440. This is accomplished with the NVIDIA Surround tool supplied with the card driver. The virtual screen can only have one frame rate – in this case, I was facing 60 Hz…

 

 

Being keen of seeing the final (fantastic) result I ordered the second Titan – placed the SLI interface (provided with the motherboard – the motherboard has to be SLI compatible) and build my big virtual screen of 7580x1440. Important note: use the best cable to connect your monitors! Why? Again, it is the FPS! Measuring the FPS with a tool on the computer shows you the number of FPS produced by the graphic cards – never ever the FPS actually arriving at the monitor (through the cable). You go cheap on the cable – you lose more FPS than you might think – and you can hardly measure it. The monitor does not talk back to your measuring tool on the computer. I use 3 x 4K/60Hz certified DP cables and reach (hopefully true) FPS of up to 142. Beware - If your monitor is not able to display 144 Hz, you will simply not experience them.

 

 

Now came the task of ‘how to tell DCS…’

 

 

After having locked me out of the application successfully (could not press the OK button as it was placed ‘out of range’ on the screen – my mistake, I started to edit the configuration file (the graphics section only) directly. The file is here:

 

 

C:\Users\...your user name…\Saved Games\DCS...\Config\options.lua

 

 

At first, I configured three cameras and the width of 7560 . Great view – but my cockpit stretched over all three screens like a big banana – I could not fly like that. Then I figured that this could be due to the aspect ratio setting. The aspect ratio is an imaginary, diagonal line across the screen. This value calculates by width divided by height. In my case this was 7580/1440 = 5.3333333333

["graphics"] = {

["aspect"] = 5.3333333333,

["height"] = 1440,

["multiMonitorSetup"] = "3cameras",

["width"] = 7580,

This produced the final and awesome result!

 

 

Beware – you see not one screen but 3 camera views – one to the front and two to either side of your cockpit. Like in reality, the sides are more or less tilted downwards to the left and right of your side screens. After 2-3 landings, you get used to it. Checking the runway for any aircraft is like in real life

 

 

Finally yet importantly – reset the Monitors to factory default – DCS does the rest.

 

 

Closing thoughts – would not try it with only one Titan. If your sim behaves badly – it is not DCS’s fault!

 

 

Fantastic flying – Thank you DCS Team!

 

 

Feel free for any comments & questions

 

HarryDeere41

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you so much Mr. HarryDeere41. He answered the SLI question quite well.

 

Does anyone have any experience with running the two 1080 Ti's in single card mode where you have the main monitor connected to the middle monitor and the second video card connected to the left and right monitors?

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I run triple 1080 monitors on a 1080ti, and a 980ti before it, with maxed settings. Maybe the problem... drumroll... is running 5760x1080+ on a GPU that only has 3.5gbs of VRAM.

 

 

My experience with attempting SLI in the past was very hit and miss in general, and a definite miss with DCS. So much so that I would suggest not bothering.

Де вороги, знайдуться козаки їх перемогти.

5800x3d * 3090 * 64gb * Reverb G2

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Thanks for the input zhukov032186, but I believe this thread already made the observation that a 970 is lacking in the ability to power 3x 1080p screens. As you can see in my sig, I have already made a drastic upgrade to compensate. I am now waiting on that second 1080 Ti to get here (will be here Monday). Then I will be able to check out some of the differences between a single 1080 Ti, SLI 1080 Ti's, or splitting monitors on the two 1080 Ti's.

 

The reason I started this thread is because I read that old one which talked about someone having issues with 980's in SLI mode, but gain considerable performance from splitting the monitor load among the two cards. I was hoping to see if anyone else has had the same success the prior thread's author did.

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  • 2 weeks later...
My words ..."If your sim behaves badly – it is not DCS’s fault!" - not totally true - read https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=215421

 

Mr. HarryDeere41,

 

Mind if I ask what nVidia drivers you are using for the surround? It seems the last two drivers nVidia released aren't allowing me to use 3 monitors for surround. The one I am using does allow surround and allows me the 7560x1440 resolutions, but defaults to 3840x960 whenever I reboot. SLI is definitely flaky and that is before you even get into games with it.

 

For those of you wondering, I did try to hook up the instrument monitor and the center monitor to the primary video card and the two side monitors to the secondary video card. The results of that setup actually performed worse than if I ran all 4 monitors at 5760x1080 (accessory or instrument monitor at 1080p below) with just a single 1080 Ti. Too bad DCS World is not setup like X-Plane 11 or P3D x4 where you can utilize two separate video cards for different views.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi all,

Noob here so be kind.....lol

 

I have a triple monitor set up and decided to try DCS . I got the triples setup ok, but I am now having issues. I only fly the P-51 currently. Since going from a single screen to triples my default view has changed.

 

I have the system settings set to 5760x1080 with one screen. Nvidia surround activated

 

Issues:

 

1. The default view when launching an instant mission is outside the aircraft (same as F4 view). My position is about 10 ft above the aircraft.

 

2. If I select F1....the cockpit view is way to close to the front panel. My nose feels like it is almost touching the dash. If I hit the / keypad key I can zoom out a little but not enough to even see the entire front panel.

 

3. If I select chase view, again, my view is way too close to the tail of the plane.

 

What am I missing at this point?

Any pointers would be appreciated

Gigabyte Z390 mobo, i9-9900K, 32gb ram, GTX 2080 ti, Evo 970 nvme 1tb, 2 DSD button box OSW panels, Oculus Rift CV1, Odyssey Plus, Valve Index, Rift S, HP Reverb, 2 SimRacingStudio wind sim fans, MFG Crosswind pedals, Warthog hotas w 50mm extension, Simlab GT1 EVOcockpit, Gametrix Jet Seat, SFX-100 3DOF motion, 8 transducers, 2 Cougar MFD's

 

DCS World, Simshaker for Aviators, sound module

 

Modules: P51, F/18, All Rotor craft, F14, F16, FC3

Super Carrier

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From the sounds of it, your FOV or aspect ratio is off. At the 5760x1080 resolution, your aspect ratio should be 5.333333333.

 

There are two places where your aspect ratio is.

 

\Saved Games\DCS\Config\options.lua which is what you have in the game settings.

 

The second is in your DCS game folder.

\Config\MonitorSetup\

 

Since you are using nVidia surround, you should be using the 1Camera.lua which will already have it calculated. If you chose a different monitor setup, you will have to check those settings in that lua.

 

Hope I understood you and this helps.

 

Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk

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From the sounds of it, your FOV or aspect ratio is off. At the 5760x1080 resolution, your aspect ratio should be 5.333333333.

 

There are two places where your aspect ratio is.

 

\Saved Games\DCS\Config\options.lua which is what you have in the game settings.

 

The second is in your DCS game folder.

\Config\MonitorSetup\

 

Since you are using nVidia surround, you should be using the 1Camera.lua which will already have it calculated. If you chose a different monitor setup, you will have to check those settings in that lua.

 

Hope I understood you and this helps.

 

Sent from my LG-H900 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I failed to mention in my post that my aspect is indeed 5.3333333. I also am using the 1 camera.lua option.

So it seems my FOV is the issue. I don't know where to adjust this or what value I should use.

 

Any thoughts on that?

 

Thanks in advance!


Edited by dpj463

Gigabyte Z390 mobo, i9-9900K, 32gb ram, GTX 2080 ti, Evo 970 nvme 1tb, 2 DSD button box OSW panels, Oculus Rift CV1, Odyssey Plus, Valve Index, Rift S, HP Reverb, 2 SimRacingStudio wind sim fans, MFG Crosswind pedals, Warthog hotas w 50mm extension, Simlab GT1 EVOcockpit, Gametrix Jet Seat, SFX-100 3DOF motion, 8 transducers, 2 Cougar MFD's

 

DCS World, Simshaker for Aviators, sound module

 

Modules: P51, F/18, All Rotor craft, F14, F16, FC3

Super Carrier

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