visual systems .. dejavu all over again

[nicd]

G'day folks.

Been a while ay!    Good to see some familiar old names still kicking around here.

I've had nearly 2 years off from sim building/operating but just climbing back in the saddle now. The break has been good but I have a 737 sim to rebuild and upgrade, and looking forward to it.

I've been scanning recent developments on the scene and it's encouraging to see what's changed, although it's a bit frustrating to see how some issues/challenges in this field never seem to change. I was kinda expecting to see some amazing new sim software platforms (that belonged in this decade!) to be in use and revolutionsing sims by now .. but oh well!  (MS flight.. I mean.. wtf?).

But anyway.. I'm rebuilding with good 'ol FS9 for starters, then test and upgrade to FSX again if the visual system can take it (been down this road before btw).

I was one of the early adopters of 3 projector systems and developed a 5 window solution that gave 270 degree surround with smooth frames and reasonable quality. Downsides were some pixelation and window edge borders .. now a thing of the past with edge blending which is cool.

I'm now considering what visual system to upgrade too so thought I'd check in and see what you guys are up to. Have read other threads with interest. Great to see what you guys are doing with curves and warping .. some amazing developments and sims there.

I have a 5-window, 5 projector, 270 degree design in mind but there's a few early questions I have, mainly about card configs...

ATI eyefinity 6-display card looks interesting, but uses all display port outputs, and it seems that the irritations between ATI and FS software have not gone away .. performance and AA etc. Also unsure as to whether you can send 5 undocked windows through eyefinity and keep control over view perspective etc.

Thinking maybe a single hi-spec Nvidia card with 3 accelerated DVI outputs.  One to a TH2GO for projectors 1,2,3, the other 2 DVI outputs directly to projectors 4 and 5. All projectors running 1024x768, maybe wider res depending on performance. But bit concerned at possible perfomance hits with having the FS display across three physical card outputs rather than just through a TH2GO.

It may not even be possible to send full-screen FS9 / FSX output across 3 outputs .. i.e. maybe it works on primary output only?

Maybe multiple Nvidia cards is a possibility.. altho there seems to be perfomance questions there too. And the full-screen question applies to this solution too I guess.

So if anyone has thoughts, experience with these issues I'd appreciate a conversation here and see what's possible.

Also watching Mau's recent thread where 3 card outputs instead of TH2GO are discussed with interest (didn't want to hijack that with a discussion on 5 outputs so...)

cheers
Nic

[Maurice]

Welcome back to sim hell Nick! I thought you were one of the lucky ones who managed to free themselves from sim bondage, but I see the sim tentacles are still attached to your body. My sincere sympathies about your misfortune 

Since you were the pioneer of surround visuals, I feel like I should be asking you for advice rather than giving you advice, but since you asked, here I go

I think a 5 windows, 5 projectors system adds many more complications that are totally not required to achieve great surround visuals. You can likely get as much as 240 degrees field of view with 3 wide throw projectors, so why use 5 & complicate your life? Is it just because you already have the 5 projectors or is there any other reason?

Also, are you planning to still run FS9 or will you be going to FSX with only one FSX PC? If going to FSX, running 3 undocked windows already kills the frame rate enough as it is, so adding 2 more windows will make FSX crawl on a single PC no matter what hardware you use.

If you are planning at some point to switch to multiple FS computers with WideView, then many people will advise you to switch to XPlane so that is another option to consider.

Anyway, these are my 2 cents. I'm quite sure you'll get much different advice and/or opinions from the other similarly afflicted simmers in this forum

Cheers,

Maurice

[XOrionFE]

hello Nic,

Maurice took the words right out of my mouth.   I had been down the Th2GO 3 projector 210 degree route with multiple windows and it was quite nice and usable.  However, I could not get the full 1080p resolution out of my DLP short throw projectors with the th2go this not ideal resolution.  Like Maurice said, any additional monitors and views and I think FSX just cannot handle it becuase it was not built to take advantage of video GPUs.   In short, you really must go to the wideview multiple computer configuration.   Not sure but I think only Nat and I have that type of setup right now using projectors and multiple copies of FSX.    I feel like this gets pretty complicated and unwieldy personally because of having to make sure all copies of FSX are loaded with all the same scenery, addons, etc.  then if one messes up....

Also, wideview is not that great at syncing the weather

I decided to give x-plane 10 a try and it is by far in my opinion the ideal setup and best for our sims.  That said, it is still lacking on addon scenery and full vendor support.   USING XPUIPC, the x737 flight model, and Sim-Avionics you get pretty close to operational but still really in its infancy in our world I think.   But again, I believe it is the platform with the best future and very easy to setup multiple networked computers for as many visual machines you want.   I use it with Fly Elise warping software.  James Price also provided some great help in getting us going in this model by sharing some of his files on this site.

Good luck and welcome back to the fray...

Scott

[nicd]

Hi Scott and Maurice - thanks muchly for your advice.

One limitation I have (potentially) is not enough budget to go with a decent surround screen and warping software. That may come later, but at this stage I'm planning on 5 flat screen panels arranged at constant angles with joins as seamless as possible.

I reckon you're right Maurice.. 240 degrees would do the trick, although pixelation may still be still significant. Part of the reason for 5 projectors is I already have access to them and tighter projection on less screen area per projector will mean a better image with less pixelation etc.

I think I'm ruined for life tho.. having had 270 degrees and being able to look back over my shoulder and see scenery.. it's difficult contemplating anything less! With 240 degrees .. how is perspective at left/right edges of the screen.. i.e. are things warped or any weird speed effects etc?

I think I'll be staying with FS9 for a while it seems. Mind you, I can't believe I just said that (2004.. omg!). From past experience I can get 5 windows running smoothly (30 FPS) with FS9 on a dual-core with a quality video card. So on an i7 with good video card it should be fine. What I don't know is how it will run coming out of 3 video card outputs rather than just 1 output to a TH2GO (hence my earlier questions on this..)

Xplane does interest me Scott. However the downsides that you mentioned are a bit of a show stopper for me at the moment. If these things improve then I'd have no problem giving it a go.

I'm sometimes tempted to jump to the WideView side .. but like you say Scott, maintaining up to 5 x FS installs would be quite a job! Although I wonder if that could be solved by regular PC hard-disk cloning? (assuming identical PCs)

There's also the up-front cost of the PCs. I had thought that a lower-spec PC could be ok for WideView client PCs, but posts by other users worry me.. re stuttering, lag etc. on PCs that should be running fine.

WideView seems to have the weather sync issue improved (??) but does anyone here have experience with wideview and AI traffic and specifically - online flying on VATSIM? Interested to know how it goes in that environment.

The illness continues ... arrrghhh!!   

Nic

[Maurice]

Nic,

What you are trying to do makes my skin crawl  . Dealing with just one TripleHead and 3 undocked view is already  a challenge so never mind a Triplehead with 3 projectors and 2 more projectors running on 2 more video outputs.

Personally, I would rather have a dozen root canals without anesthetic rather than try what you want to do. I think they would casue a lot less pain 

So, once again, you will be a pioneer pushing the envelope and venturing where no simmer has gone before. I admire your madness but I can't encourage it    But to answer your question "240 degrees .. how is perspective at left/right edges of the screen.. i.e. are things warped or any weird speed effects etc?", I have no doubt you would find that when inside the cockpit, things will look perfectly normal and much better than just acceptable.

But you are right about getting a sharper image with 5 projectors without short throw if you can pull it off. The pixelation should be much less obvious since the image would not be enlarged quite as much.

I think you live in Australia if I'm not mistaken, so why not visit someone with a circular screen? Even though Nat is currently using 3 PCs for FSX, the visuals were the same when he had only one FSX PC. Are you reasonably close to Nat? I don't want to speak for him but I'm sure he would be more than happy to show you his setup.

Maurice

[nicd]

Thanks Maurice

That's why it feels like dejavu.. maybe attempting to go where no sim bullder has gone before .. again

So yes, it could well end up in a burning heap.. but I guess that adds to the fun! I must be getting older and stupider tho.

Yeah I'm in Australia, and will try and hook up with Nat next time in Melbourne. Be great to see his build and check out the WideView solution first hand - good suggestion.

thanks again

Nic