Second monitor for MFDs - framerate hit and/or stuttering?

[Smashy]

My setup:

 

i7-2600K

16 GB RAM

AMD R9 290

OpenTrack

 

With my current game/system settings, I'm getting anywhere from 30-70 FPS in the Hornet in Syria map with Free Flight or light training missions.  It'll sometimes dip below 30 when flying near populated areas.

 

I'm interested in getting the Thrustmaster Cougar MFD button panels to slap on a second smaller (11" 1920x1080?) monitor and exporting 2 DDIs to the second screen.  Given my setup, what kind of framerate hit should I expect to take?  While researching this, I also found some reports that TrackIR users were experiencing significant stuttering and head-tracking input lag when exporting MFDs to a second screen.  Is this something specific to certain graphics cards and/or TrackIR's software?  Or just head-tracking in general, including OpenTrack?

 

I'd love to get a working MFD controller setup going but not at the cost of consistent head tracking or horrible frame rates.  Any advice or user reports would be huge.  Thanks and Merry Christmas!

Edited December 24, 2020 by Smashy

[Smashy]

I crossposted this question on r/hoggit and just added a follow-up there.  Cut/pasting here in case another novice might find my results useful.

 

 

I was able to scrounge a second 1920x1080 monitor and have been dicking around with MFD exports all morning and here's what I've found. This is mostly for the clueless beginner like me who might be doing some shotgun Googling. All testing was done with the Hornet.

 

- when exporting right and left MFDs to a second monitor each as 800x800 displays to a 1920x1080 monitor, I'm seeing about 7-10% framerate loss while in-flight. Not huge, but worth considering if you're on the edge of what you consider tolerable framerate. With the instant action mission "On The Ramp" in the Caucuses, I get 20% framerate drop just sitting there not doing anything.

 

- headtracking with Opentrack was unaffected. Both monitors that I used did not have any fancy whatever-Sync features.

 

- changing "Res. of cockpit displays" didn't have any impact on image quality or framerate. I could see no difference between "256" or "1024 every frame". I still don't understand what this setting does. I also didn't spend a whole lot of time experimenting with this particular setting.

 

Framerate loss is a thing when exporting MFDs, at least for me it is. However, I think the benefit of exported displays and Cougar MFD button rings will be worth the framerate drop. Time to go shopping.