Multi Monitor Setup Help

[Congo_Toey]

Hi Guys,

I am new the whole flight sim scene, and decided to try DCS Blackshark as my first sim. So far I am really enjoying the whole learning to fly and the realism thing.

 

I am lucky enough to have a very high end gaming rig, with Dual ATI HD 4870x2's in quad crossfire, and also a single nVidea GTX 275. I am running a Matrox Triplehead2Go with three 24" monitors connected to it, that I use the ATI crossfire setup with, and I also have a single 24" monitor that I connect via the GTX 275.

 

The problem I have is getting the view of the cockpit right, in my multi monitor setup, I have tried all sorts of configurations and the best I can get is using a 4 camera setup one for each monitor but it still just does'nt look right, as in the picture attached, but as you can see there problems where the views have the same parts of the cockpit in them. I would really like to have my setup like this guys in this video http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjE4NjYxNTI=.html, I have been trying hard but cant seem to get it to be one like one camera shown on all monitors.

 

Is there anyone that can help me?

 

Edited September 23, 2009 by Congo_Toey
Adding the picture

[ruprecht]

Amazing rig.

 

I believe the 4 camera configuration will unavoidably give you these areas of overlap and your only real area of control is in your FOV and zoom settings. Tweaking these might help you lose the overlap, but may create other issues such as reducing your FOV to an unacceptable level.

 

I also use TH2G and use a single centre view spread over 3 monitors. There is some weirdness caused by the bezels (which, to be fair, goes unnoticed after about a minute into the flight), but there is no overlap.

 

Good luck and please post photos of results.

 

Cheers

[Congo_Toey]

Thanks or your comments, how do I actually modify FOV and zoom, I cant find the lua file with them in?

[Congo_Toey]

How do I change FOV and Zoom

[CyBerkut]

Congo, in the spirit of teaching a man to fish...

 

Use the forums search function, and search upon the terms, "FOV Zoom LUA" (no quotes). I'd recommend that you select to show posts, not threads. You should get a number of hits as results for that search (put all three of those terms in a single search). Read through them, and you should see the name of any appropriate .LUA files to edit. You may also see a cautionary reminder to NOT use Windows Notepad to edit .LUA files. Instead, Notepad++ is the most commonly recommended editor to use that will not screw up your LUA files. Download links for Notepad++ can be found using your favorite web search engine, such as Google.

 

Good luck!

[hannibal]

you adjust parameters in the graphics.cfg file...

 

what is your resolutions in the windows desktop? can you get a screen of the nvidia control panel for managing multiple displays?

[sinelnic]

Hi Congo,

 

I use a similar setup only with 3 monitors and desperately planning to get a 4th for the panel, just like you (more on that later). Now what I discovered is that in the "My3Cameras.lua" file I used to configure the, uhm, 3 cameras, there's a tiny little parameter that goes:

 

ViewDx=1 (or 0 or -1, depending on the left, center or right viewport/camera)

 

What this does is rotate the camera along the X axis in proportional reference to the center camera. So, after many tweaking (and specifically for my monitor angles and FOV, which is around 60 deg), found that using -1.05 and 1.05 (left and right), cause an overlap that compensates for my monitor's bezels.

 

You also have a ViewDy parameter but you're the one who has the 4th monitor so I leave it up to you what to use in there :)

 

Could you please let me know a couple of things on your setup?

 

1- What OS are you using?

2- What CPU do you have?

3- Are you using "windowed mode"?

4- What fps do you get?

 

Thanks!!

[Congo_Toey]

Hi Guys,

I will try to answer all of you at the same time.

 

I am using windows 7

Screen resolution on TH2G is 3840x1024 and my 4th monitor is 1280x1024.

I have a i7 975 CPU with 6Gigs of DDR3 2000 memory.

I use windowed mode because it is windows 7.

I havent looked to see what FPS I am getting, but as I have a very good 5 GPU rig, I dont think I will have an issue with FPS, but I will try and find out for you.

 

I dont use the nVidea control panel because I use mostly ATI Graphics cards.

 

I do already use notepad++ as my editor and just for your information below is cut from my lua files.

 

I will try 1.05 view and see how that looks.

 

This is from options.lua

["graphics"] =

{

["multiMonitorSetup"] = "4Cameras",

["color"] = "32",

["heatBlr"] = 1,

["scenes"] = "high",

["water"] = 3,

["fullScreen"] = false,

["visibRange"] = "High",

["aspect"] = 6.25,

["textures"] = 2,

["shadows"] = 3,

["display_mode"] =

{

["avi"] =

{

["bpp"] = 32,

["resolution"] = "640x480",

["full_screen"] = false,

["aspect"] = 1.333333333,

["height"] = 480,

["width"] = 640,

}, -- end of ["avi"]

}, -- end of ["display_mode"]

["effects"] = 3,

["lights"] = 2,

["haze"] = 1,

["terrPrld"] = "20",

["height"] = 1024,

["resolution"] = "3840x1024",

["civTraffic"] = 0,

["width"] = 6400,

}, -- end of ["graphics"]

 

and this is the 4camera.lua

Description = 'ABRIS and Shkval on the right and with 3 identical monitors each with its own camera on the center'

Viewports =

{

Left =

{

x = 1280;

y = 0;

width = 1280;

height = 1024;

viewDx = -1;

viewDy = 2;

aspect = 1.25;

},

Center =

{

x = 2560;

y = 0;

width = 1280;

height = 1024;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = 2;

aspect = 1.25;

},

right =

{

x = 3840;

y = 0;

width = 1280;

height = 1024;

viewDx = 1;

viewDy = 2;

aspect = 1.25;

},

bottom =

{

x = 5120;

y = 0;

width = 1280;

height = 1024;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = -3;

aspect = 1.25;

}

}

[hannibal]

dude.. i thought Patch 1.01 fixed the problem in which you do not have to go to windowed mode and that phantom monitor fix is not necessary???

[ruprecht]

1.0.1 didn't (and can't) fix the windowed mode issue. That's a limitation of the OS.

[Congo_Toey]

I have only just upgraded to 1.01a and I think it dod fix the phantom monitor issue.

[hannibal]

so, you still have to be in window mode just to run multi monitor??? i thought 1.01 patch was to address this too?

[ruprecht]

a limitation of the OS.

 

Vista and Win7 had fullscreen multimonitor disabled due to some issue with DVD licensing or something. It's across all applications and games, not just DCS. the issue is not present in XP.

[-Bazong-]

Congo did you get it sorted? Thought your rig was very impressive!

 

It has inspired me to use an 46" LCD-TV and a 19" touch monitor I have at work. I was wondering if it's possible to have the main view on the 46" extend to the 19" below so I can use it to touch switches etc.

Edited September 28, 2009 by -Bazong-