Multi-monitor set-up guide & help (unofficial)

[71st_Mastiff]

Name doesn't matter. The game just can't handle my monitor setup like I'd like it to. I have to move my left monitor to be on the most right in ATI CCC and then use 5760 as screen width. Now it all works, but it f's up normal desktop usage so I have to swap the screen around when I'm playing. Or I could move the screens around, but I'd like the middle one to be "primary" with task bar etc.

 

I have heard of some one else having this same issue I will look through the post and link you to them. ok here is his link http://forums.eagle.ru/member.php?u=60191

[airdog]

Thanks for the tutorial...worked the first time I fired it up!!! Cougar MFD's are on the way from Amazon.com WOOT!!!

[71st_Mastiff]

Thanks for the tutorial...worked the first time I fired it up!!! Cougar MFD's are on the way from Amazon.com WOOT!!!

 

air dog once you get those its a simple set up in DCS A10c.

 

For Falcon4 af very easy set up to.

and FF5.55

but of course I can't play ff5.55 as I have the NVIDIA bug.:mad:

[airea]

I got it done but I have a question. Is there a way to work this method with keeping "full screen" option "on"?

 

My main monitor is 2560-1440 and this resolution gives very low performance. If I select a lowe res, then I cannot utilize the whole screen as the fullscreen option is off...

[MadTommy]

I got it done but I have a question. Is there a way to work this method with keeping "full screen" option "on"?

 

No, you can't span more than one monitor with full screen turned on. Just not possible as far as i'm aware.

[hassata]

Weirdness. The beta really porked my multi-monitor set-up. I have a 640x480 monitor to the left, a 1024x768 center, and a 640x480 to the right. In the first beta, I had a res of 2304x768 in options, and the following MM lua, which was perfect:

 

= function(p) return p; end;

name = _('MFD Cockpit MFD');

Description = 'Left MFCD on the left monitor,Right MFCD on the right and camera on the center'

 

Viewports =

{

Center =

{

x = 0;

y = 0;

width = 2304;

height = 768;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = 0;

aspect = 3;

}

}

 

LEFT_MFCD =

{

x = -4;

y = 19;

width = 127;

height = 283.5;

}

 

RIGHT_MFCD =

{

x = 512.5;

y = 20;

width = 127;

height = 283.5;

}

__________________

 

 

 

With Beta 2, I cannot get my setup to work. I;m having some of the difficulties (off-center, placement difficulties etc.) that Kuky and other had with Beta 1, but no longer have now. It seems that setups with second monitors with a total res less than the main monitor and sitting below are optimal. If anyone has any ideas with regards to my setup, please post.

 

On a positive note, I'm noticing the MM fps are a bit better.

 

I really hope ED is devoting some resources to MM so that setup is streamlined, and things like text placement are made easier.

[airdog]

Weirdness. The beta really porked my multi-monitor set-up. I have a 640x480 monitor to the left, a 1024x768 center, and a 640x480 to the right. In the first beta, I had a res of 2304x768 in options, and the following MM lua, which was perfect:

 

= function(p) return p; end;

name = _('MFD Cockpit MFD');

Description = 'Left MFCD on the left monitor,Right MFCD on the right and camera on the center'

 

Viewports =

{

Center =

{

x = 0;

y = 0;

width = 2304;

height = 768;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = 0;

aspect = 3;

}

}

 

LEFT_MFCD =

{

x = -4;

y = 19;

width = 127;

height = 283.5;

}

 

RIGHT_MFCD =

{

x = 512.5;

y = 20;

width = 127;

height = 283.5;

}

__________________

 

 

 

With Beta 2, I cannot get my setup to work. I;m having some of the difficulties (off-center, placement difficulties etc.) that Kuky and other had with Beta 1, but no longer have now. It seems that setups with second monitors with a total res less than the main monitor and sitting below are optimal. If anyone has any ideas with regards to my setup, please post.

 

On a positive note, I'm noticing the MM fps are a bit better.

 

I really hope ED is devoting some resources to MM so that setup is streamlined, and things like text placement are made easier.

 

I am assuming that the screens are at the config that you stated and show up in windows as such...your Main screen in center and the 2 640 monitors are left and right of the main screen. The options.lua should have the resolution set as 2304x768. I am also assuming that the tops of the monitors are all in alignment if this is not the case then Y will have to be adjusted. I also sized the MFD's to take up the full screen on the 640 monitors....hope this helps...back up everything :)

 

Here is my guess what it should be:

 

= function(p) return p; end;

name = _('MFD Cockpit MFD');

Description = 'Left MFCD on the left monitor,Right MFCD on the right and camera on the center'

 

Viewports =

{

Center =

{

x = 640;

y = 0;

width = 1024;

height = 768;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = 0;

aspect = 3;

}

}

 

LEFT_MFCD =

{

x = 0;

y = 0;

width = 640;

height = 480;

}

 

RIGHT_MFCD =

{

x = 1664;

y = 0;

width = 640;

height = 480;

}

__________________

[Kuky]

^^^

Yup... I would say the same airdog... Centre screen should have X value 640 since hassata has 640x480 monitor to the left of it.

[hassata]

Many thanks-I'm pretty sure I tried with the above settings, but it was late and by the end of it I was numb lol. I will try as soon as I am at the machine and report back.

 

Well much weirdness, but I finally got it working. 1024x768, below that 640x480 at 0,768, next to that 640x480 at 640x768. Res of 1280x1248. Lua below

 

_ = function(p) return p; end;

name = _('lmfcd+camera+rmfcd');

Description = 'Left MFCD on the left monitor,Right MFCD on the right and camera on the center'

Viewports =

{

Center =

{

x = 0;

y = 0;

width = 1024;

height = 768;

viewDx = 0;

viewDy = 0;

aspect = 1.333333333333333333333333333333333333;

}

}

 

LEFT_MFCD =

{

x = -10;

y = 805;

width = 455;

height = 460;

}

 

RIGHT_MFCD =

{

x = 818;

y = 815;

width = 440;

height = 450;

}

 

 

One thing I noticed, going from an MFD monitor res of 800x600 to 640x480 gave a decent fps boost.

Edited November 8, 2010 by hassata

[Pikas62]

Is it possible to run the Multimonitor Setup with USB Monitors like the Lilliput UM70 7" USB Display USB-powered mini Monitor?

[Gandi]

yes it works !

[shu77]

 

One thing I noticed, going from an MFD monitor res of 800x600 to 640x480 gave a decent fps boost.

 

I was going to drop in a second 20" in my config, but I found the 19 is quite acceptable, and at the larger res (1280x1024 rather than 1680x1050 I can get away with 400x400 MFD's.

I debated going back to a 17" and trying 1024x768 but that all gets a bit hard. I guess the short answer is while multi monitor runs full screen like this the less pixels the better.

Would be nice to have a network app so we could push the rendering off to a second PC, then it would jsut be network data which would be a huge boost, but its a lot of extra work for a small subset of the community. Having the MFD's external is pretty much a holy grail in itself.

[PoleCat]

Very nice thread. Thanks for all the usefull information.

 

Out

[airdog]

Got my Cougar MFD's today...set them up on the second monitor....awesome having the buttons to push so much faster setting up the pages and delivering weapons.

[hassata]

Nice!

 

Edit: how did you get the cockpit view like that?

Edited November 13, 2010 by hassata

[airdog]

Nice!

 

Edit: how did you get the cockpit view like that?

Just looked up with the TrackIR until it was where I wanted it and then paused the TrackIR view there. My plan is to try and figure out how to make that view the default view. Will report back when I figure it out.

[Kuky]

You need to edit .../Config/View/SnapViewsDefault.lua and set Snap[11][13]["vAngle"] = 0

Edited November 13, 2010 by Kuky

[baksie]

please also post picture with full daylight.

[airdog]

That worked....much better. Thanks Kuky

[Sandelsium]

4 monitor setup with 2 MFDs and one inactive

 

First my setup:

 

1: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

2: Intel Q9450 - 2,66GHz

3: 8 GB RAM

4: ASUS GeForce GTX470

5: 1-BenQ G2400W (1920x1200, camera), 2-Acer X203H (1600x900, not used), 3&4-Samsung U70 (800x480, MFDs).

 

Displays set up so that 1 & 2 are level at bottom with 2 on left side of main display 1. 3 and 4 are on top of each other below 1 with same X coordinates as main display 1. I use resolution of 1920x2160 in options.lua.

 

I have a problem where everytime after a mission if I try to load another mission, my second MFD (right one, display #4) fails to render properly. Only a small portion of screen is rendered. If I exit the sim and try again, same problem. However, I found out that if you disable Aero and then enable it again, second MFD starts to work :thumbup: This must be repeated every single mission and is a bit tedious, obviously... But works like a charm every time.

 

My Samsung U70 display are driven with DisplayLink 5.5.27797 drivers and I use GeForce drivers 258.96 (the latest don't work at all with current DisplayLink drivers). No idea what the root of the problem is, but if you are suffering from similar problems, try disabling and enabling Aero (you can switch the themes from Aero enabled theme to Win 7 Classic theme and back for example).

 

EDIT: I think I found out the core reason why the right MFD display fails to render properly. I had some Windows Gadgets on it but after I removed them, it seems to be rendering correctly every single time, without the need to fiddle around with Aero... However, my left MFD can have all the gadgets I can stuff into it and it renders correctly every time. Interesting :)

Edited November 15, 2010 by Sandelsium
Added findings

[MadTommy]

^^

In DCS and in fact all demanding games i always set the *.exe with the following Property > Compatibility options checked.

 

 

This might help your problem, it will disable Aero at game launch.. and potentially avoid other issues. This is on Win7 x64 Ultimate too, with a couple of gadgets running as well.

Edited November 16, 2010 by MadTommy

[Sandelsium]

^^

In DCS and in fact all demanding games i always set the *.exe with the following Property > Compatibility options checked.

 

 

This might help your problem, it will disable Aero at game launch.. and potentially avoid other issues. This is on Win7 x64 Ultimate too, with a couple of gadgets running as well.

 

Thanks for the tip! However, when I tried those settings, both MFD screens don't render at all :( I think there is something funky with DisplayLink drivers. Removing gadgets from right MFD still seems to help.

[savoy6]

i tried those settings as well no difference. ~20fps is what im getting at the start of the landing tutorial. 5970, i7 920, 9gb ram. 5760x1080 is the resolution im running 1 screen full screen. tried with/without hdr and tsaa not running msaa at all. doesnt seem to make a difference. everything else is on high. shadows on low. civ traffic off. i have been able to get most of the hud in by adjusting my seat height in the cockpit.

[MadTommy]

This is the reason for your low fps - 5760x1080

 

That res is massive a will need some serious gfx power.

[metalnwood]

A 5970 is some serious graphics power. I run all my games at 5760x1200 no problems with one and compared to the gfx in some other games I would expect it to run ok here as well.