Easiest (cost effective) way to get a 3 monitor setup.

[Firstname_Lastname]

Hi,

 

If this is the incorrect forum i apologise.

 

First off I'll say i am utterly smitten with this game. My love affair with flight sims started by playing microprose's F-19 Stealth Fighter on my A500(still have the manual and its wonderfully complex). DCS:BS is amazing, much better than Enemy engaged (which was until BS my favourite flight sim), but most of my childhood dreams of a realistic sim have been imagined by DCS:A-10c.

 

Because i feel i am only getting a little snippet of the total experience (which is still pretty fantastic), i have taken leave of my good sense and started spending money like its going out of fashion. My current shopping list is, included but not limited to;

 

Thrustmaster HOTAS warthog (i have an 2 month old x52, so that’s getting replaced)

Rudder pedals (don’t know which ones)

Cougar MFCD's

7" usb mini monitors.

 

I got myself a TrackIR 5 Pro yesterday (i haven’t had time to mess around with it but its looking good so far)

 

I'd really like to get a 3 monitor setup going on. But, my current graphics card only supports 2 outputs.

 

The way i see it, my options are;

 

1.Get a Matrox triplehead to go.

 

2. buy a new new motherboard that supports SLI or Crossfire and another graphics card.

 

so i put it to you the community, in your experiences what the best way to do this. Or has anyone already dealt with this quandary?

[112th_Rossi]

Any ATI graphics card thats Eyefinity compatable will support 3 monitors. Normal afaik, two DVI outputs and one HDMI output.

[Loz]

The 6000 series AMD cards support up to four monitors, the only proviso being that you will either need two of the monitors to be DPI or have adapters DPI to DVI. (afaik the Nvidea only support 3)

For the price of the Cougar MFCDs and two 7" usb mini monitors you wouldn't be that far off a Touch sreen monitor that can do so much more with in either HELIOS or HawgTouch.

Disregard this, however if you are looking at making any "physical" sort of pit.

[Harzach]

I'll tell you, I have an Eyefinity setup with three 22" monitors and I am REALLY considering going back to using just one. Maybe two, with MFDs exported to a second. The immersion of a triple-screen setup is great, but frankly, it does nothing for situational awareness that TIR doesn't already. Also, it eats frames. I'd say stick to one large screen and maybe a second for panel exporting.

 

Good luck!

[Firstname_Lastname]

I currently use an LG 23" monitor and an old dell 17" flat monitor, I have the MFCD's on the second monitor which works very nicely.

 

I only got my TrackIR yesterday and i haven't had a proper play with it yet, but I'll know soon enough if it does what I want. If so great, i just saved some money :)

 

I found out to my horror that the cost for Matrox TripleheadHead2Go and a new motherboard \graphics card are about the same. That being the case i'd go with the new card\board, as they can be applied to other applications.

 

Edit; I just looked at your sig, that's pretty much what i imagined as to be the ideal setup, any regrets?

 

 

I'll tell you, I have an Eyefinity setup with three 22" monitors and I am REALLY considering going back to using just one. Maybe two, with MFDs exported to a second. The immersion of a triple-screen setup is great, but frankly, it does nothing for situational awareness that TIR doesn't already. Also, it eats frames. I'd say stick to one large screen and maybe a second for panel exporting.

 

Good luck!

Edited August 9, 2011 by Firstname_Lastname

[Frostiken]

Yeah keep in mind that if your graphics card isn't beefy enough, 3-screen will absolutely melt your framerate.

 

Simply upgrading from 1920x1200 to 2560x1600 brought an overall 30% framerate drop in every game - expect 3 1920x1200 monitors to be even worse (7m pixels vs. 4m).

 

You can settle for less with a low resolution, but extreme loss of forward-facing fidelity will make it hard to fly.

[Firstname_Lastname]

Loss of fidelity definitely not something I want.

 

I use a Zotac GTX 460 1GB, which runs most things in 1920x1080 which no appreciable loss of frame rate, I did notice a drop, however when I incorporated my second monitor and set it up to view the 2 MFCD's especially when viewing explosions.

 

I like having the MFCD's but I am so used to looking around the cockpit using the pov hat and zoom, I rarely look at the second monitor.

 

Maybe I have been approaching this the wrong way, seeing as how I can use TrackIR to look at the MFCD's and view the cockpit, do i really need the MFCD's on the second monitor?

 

Do I actually need 3 monitors? the money i save could get me the pedal or the TM warthog...

 

I suppose after I've used TrackIR for a few days i'll know :)

[AtaliaA1]

The video card although an important option isn't as complicated to choose as the all important "Motherboard", and this is a choice that will allow for security in knowing your as future proof as one can be.

 

If you take a look at the forums "crash" and "Game Perfomance" catagories under the Tech support section you can see that all levels of PCs are playing this game. Even some overclocked PCs are having performance issues with this software.

 

Having that in mind and a new build at hand it would behoove us to take these issues into concideration, in an effort to avoid buiding or buying a Tech. Nightmare. One issue you will find with the multi screen systems is the "Stuttering" issue as the software renders clouds, and smoke from fires you set as you blow stuff up. Processors and video cards have a bit of trouble keeping up with the combination of "Multi Monitors and the softwares demand on the CPU and Video Card". In an effort to avoid this, allow me to make a few suggestions and have the community jump in with their ideas also.

 

Any Quad Core processor is fine. A six core is a waist of money as nothing takes advantage of six cores as yet. Video Editing not withstanding. This is a gaming build, Plaese note that as you respond. Moving on, The speed is key for this game an i7 2600K Sandybridge is prime for what we are attempting to run. running at 3.4Ghz and it is overclockable. The core 2 Duo would do for this software but it would not offer the "Motherboard" goodies we are about to get into. And of course you want the fasted Sandybrige your wallet will allow. Now the reason for a Sandybrige is its LGA1155 form factor. This governs your motherboard options.

 

The Z68 Motherboard have intells "Smart Response Technology" This allows the Motherboards chipset to utilize an "SSD" drive for chache. Ram and HDD caching are slower, and in an effort to avoid the tech. nightmare build and to keep up with this demanding software, this technology is a must. Soon caching will be taken away from HDD and Ram as faster methods of chaching are developed. This method is more cost effective as the price of an SSD is high right now. Poor mans method, if you will.

 

So with this in mind, picking a motherboard and a processor is narrowed quite a bit for you. as you search through the motherboard offerings, you will see cheaper boards. The pricing fallows the GPU abilities of each unit, in otherwords. Crossfire and SLi. Also take note of the Raid and Blue Tooth boards as they tend to be quite pricey and options you did not mention.

 

Although you can go lower than my suggestions and go through some tweeks and configuration settings to get this sofware to run as you desire, My soul attempt was to get you up and running and avoid the frustration of purchasing a less than capable system. With this said here are a couple of options for you.

 

(637)

Compare19-115-070

Customer Choice Award Winner Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

 

 

Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K

• 32 nm Sandy Bridge
  
• 4 x 256KB L2 Cache
  
• 8MB L3 Cache
  

• Series: Core i7
  
• L2 Cache: 4 x 256KB
  
• L3 Cache: 8MB
  
• Manufacturing Tech: 32 nm
  
• Model #: BX80623I72600K
  
• Item #: N82E16819115070
  
• Return Policy: CPU Replacement Only Return Policy $314.00
  

Motherboards > LGA 1155 / Socket H2 > Intel Chipsets > Z68ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z ROG Motherboard - ATX, Socket H2 (LGA1155), Intel Z68 Express, 2200MHz DDR3 (O.C.), SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, 8-CH Audio, Gigabit LAN, SuperSpeed USB 3.0, CrossFireX/SLI Ready $379.00

Total = $693.00 as you read this, keep in mind the prices will drop

the longer you wait and AMD is coming out with new

chip offerings, 10 Core chips. useless if you ask me

but this will lower the price of what is out now. You

could save $70 by going with the i5 the difference

being Hyper Threading, I don't know if this game

was written to take advantage of that or not.

Edited August 9, 2011 by AtaliaA1

[Loz]

I'll tell you, I have an Eyefinity setup with three 22" monitors and I am REALLY considering going back to using just one. Maybe two, with MFDs exported to a second. The immersion of a triple-screen setup is great, but frankly, it does nothing for situational awareness that TIR doesn't already. Also, it eats frames. I'd say stick to one large screen and maybe a second for panel exporting.

 

Good luck!

 

Whoever told you that eyefinity would improve your Situational Awareness??

But the immersion, as you say, is definitley a plus. The increased sense of speed through peripheral view is undeniable and well........ it just looks so much better period.

If someone is on a limited budget then, I would go with the advise that TIR and a good HOTAS should be way up the list. IMHO :)

[TulsA-10]

To be honest i have a th2go and used 3 1680x1050 lcs screens with a res of 5040x1080. The wide feld of view was nice but i had to turn down some of the graphic detail settings including my modified graphics.cfg which had extended view distance for better target spotting and visual range.

 

I ended up getting a 47in led tv and using the hdmi output from my 580 gtx. The tv gave me a much larger picture and was able to max all of the graphics settings plus add the extended view distance mod to my graphics.cfg.

 

Lastly i added an hp l2105tm touchscreen and use helios capt loz 1.33 profile. This setup gives you a res of 3840x1080 and you can still crank up the detail.

 

One last thing: If you have a trackir you won't miss the side screens as you can easily turn your head and it gives a more natural feal in the cockpit.. imho

Edited August 9, 2011 by TulsA-10

[cichlidfan]

I almost went with three screens but TIR and my 27" Dell @ 2560x1440 give me an awesome image with most of the imersion of having displays to the sides.

[TulsA-10]

I almost went with three screens but TIR and my 27" Dell @ 2560x1440 give me an awesome image with most of the imersion of having displays to the sides.

 

 

Exactly! One big lcd or led tv will change your mind on using more than one screen for visuals. Helios is a must have.

 

Edit: The best thing is that it keeps your fps up for eye candy.. whats the point of having more screens if you have a low visual range and it looks like pooh if your card cant handle it?

Edited August 9, 2011 by TulsA-10

[Harzach]

Whoever told you that eyefinity would improve your Situational Awareness??

But the immersion, as you say, is definitley a plus. The increased sense of speed through peripheral view is undeniable and well........ it just looks so much better period.

If someone is on a limited budget then, I would go with the advise that TIR and a good HOTAS should be way up the list. IMHO :)

 

It said so on the box! :smilewink:

 

For me, there is a strong connection between immersion and SA. Using TIR supplies more than enough immersion for me to go without the peripheral screens. Still, the eye candy is nice!

 

To the OP - no regrets at all, as I need the three screens (five, actually - with a networked Thinkpad and additional 23" screen) for work. But you really just can't go wrong with the one main screen, along with TIR and a nice HOTAS. As you can see, pretty much everyone here will agree with that.

[Quirkitized]

Exactly! One big lcd or led tv will change your mind on using more than one screen for visuals. Helios is a must have.

 

Edit: The best thing is that it keeps your fps up for eye candy.. whats the point of having more screens if you have a low visual range and it looks like pooh if your card cant handle it?

 

If you really only play DCS then yeah maybe not worth it. But after using three monitors for eight months, I can't go back to one. I was thinking of selling them all and getting a 30" IPS LCD monitor, so I tried out all my games one last time on my 46" lcd tv and just couldn't give up the massive wide view. It's just fantastic for flying, racing, mmo's, adventure, fps games, really adds the the immersion (imo.)

 

edit: My three monitor setup is not cost effective though, to stay on-topic. It was $1200 in video cards and $600 in monitors. The monitors was the easy part, three decent 24" for around ~$200 each. Two GTX 580 3GBs were brutal on the wallet though.

Edited August 11, 2011 by Quirkitized

[TulsA-10]

If you really only play DCS then yeah maybe not worth it. But after using three monitors for eight months, I can't go back to one. I was thinking of selling them all and getting a 30" IPS LCD monitor, so I tried out all my games one last time on my 46" lcd tv and just couldn't give up the massive wide view. It's just fantastic for flying, racing, mmo's, adventure, fps games, really adds the the immersion (imo.)

 

edit: My three monitor setup is not cost effective though, to stay on-topic. It was $1200 in video cards and $600 in monitors. The monitors was the easy part, three decent 24" for around ~$200 each. Two GTX 580 3GBs were brutal on the wallet though.

 

This is true.. as i only fly x-plane and dcs.. So im bias to a sim only pc setup.

[AtaliaA1]

Harzach;Quirk and the others who posted.

 

None of you mentioned anything about stuttering? I am building an A-10 spicific PC. putting it together mentaly anyway. So you all have

no issues with stuttering at all? or any other FPS issues?

[Quirkitized]

Harzach;Quirk and the others who posted.

 

None of you mentioned anything about stuttering? I am building an A-10 spicific PC. putting it together mentaly anyway. So you all have

no issues with stuttering at all? or any other FPS issues?

 

 

Installing A10 on my SSD and upgrading my video cards from 1.5gb vram versions to 3GB ones got rid of any stuttering. Loading times are great now also with ssd.

 

Before, using a regular HDD and being vram capped @ 1.5GB I had stutters.

[Succellus]

I also thought of going 3 monitors, but being capped on the wallet and on space, i prefered to go to a 37" led TV and a monitor for instruments.

Then one day i will go on maybe. Also i knew that 3 monitors would add a second card to my list of to be purchased, and i wasn t inclined too. I have others hobbies cost too.

I prefer to save this way and add instrumentation (real switches) i think it will be more enjoyable for now until i have enought money to maybe put 2 others 2X" monitors vertically to complete the set.

My system ain t totally set yet but i was blown away when i fired games on my 37" TV... its another world to have a cockpit almost real size. Now zooming HUD DOES make a diference, as you don t have to zoom that much because you're quit the "WTF going on there" or "WTF is this damn tank" state much quicker.

[TulsA-10]

Harzach;Quirk and the others who posted.

 

None of you mentioned anything about stuttering? I am building an A-10 spicific PC. putting it together mentaly anyway. So you all have

no issues with stuttering at all? or any other FPS issues?

 

Nope.. No issues.. I'm reinstalling on an ssd.. why not :thumbup:

 

I have edited in very high settings and have everything maxed out with 0 lag or stutters.. I get around 50-80 fps

[KaspeR32]

 

Lastly i added an hp l2105tm touchscreen and use helios capt loz 1.33 profile. This setup gives you a res of 3840x1080 and you can still crank up the detail.

 

One last thing: If you have a trackir you won't miss the side screens as you can easily turn your head and it gives a more natural feal in the cockpit.. imho

 

Hey TulsA,

 

Do you by any chance have a pic of your setup with the hp touchscreen and helios? I was thinking about getting the cougar MFDs but I'm not building a physical pit (as neat as it would be, I don't have the time or money)

 

Thanks. I agree with the Track IR too, if I could get a decent size monitor the track IR is more than adequate to pan around and feel immersed.

[Mr_Burns]

I'll tell you, I have an Eyefinity setup with three 22" monitors and I am REALLY considering going back to using just one. Maybe two, with MFDs exported to a second. The immersion of a triple-screen setup is great, but frankly, it does nothing for situational awareness that TIR doesn't already. Also, it eats frames. I'd say stick to one large screen and maybe a second for panel exporting.

 

Good luck!

 

 

Really interested to hear this. Ive never had TIR but had 3 monitors and I loved it. With my latest setup Im going for 1 x 27" Screen and a 19" for the MFDS and helios and TIR.

 

I was still wondering if I was doing the right thing or should I get some Display port monitors rather than a 27" screen.

 

Sounds like I might just be OK!!

[TulsA-10]

Bunrs

 

I would just run one large screen. I had TH2GO with 3x screens and made the switch to a 47in LED TV and i won't go back. TIR provides all the situational awareness you need. IMHO just use the biggest single screen you can get. If you don't have TIR then i would save up and get one asap.