The online racing simulator
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wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
Quote from Technique :One thing that may be annoying is that with a 3 monitor setup you have to use the left and right monitors in order to see the apex of the turn. You have to turn your head a good amount in real life too so in that respect it's more realistic. But in real life you don't have large plastic monitor bezels blocking your vision!

In the image below, the yellow lines represent where the monitor borders would be.

Until borderless triple monitor displays become more common place I think Juls suggestion in the FOV thread is a better approach. Since it works with single displays a single projector could give a decently realistic image..

that pic is using three "4x3" LCD monitors. The proper way to do it would be using three 16x10 widescreen monitors which is what I am doing myself. The only issue is you cannot use TripleHead2Go unless you want to run a non-native resolution. Using SoftTH I am running at 5040x1050 and with my new tweaked settings I am running at 30-40FPS online racing 10-12 people now. That being said, I have a much wider center screen than what you showed in your pics and the anyone who has raced in my setup has agreed so far, once your sitting and racing you actually cannot see the bezels (unless you stop and look for them) because you are so into the race.

My only issue with the way its being done right now is my rear view mirrors and edges of the screen are all distored. The way the other thread you are talking about is going to distort the picture even worse. If you run multiple camera's, especially with projectors you can have over 180 degrees of vision with almost no distortion and no border at all.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
In XP when running multiple monitors could you move them where ever you wanted? I don't remember for sure, but I don't think you can. For example in vista I can go:

[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ][ 4 ]

or

[ 1 ][ 2 ]
[ 3 ][ 4 ]

or

[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]
...[ 4 ]

[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ]
.........[ 4 ]

......[ 3 ]
[ 2 ][ 4 ][ 1 ]

so I can pretty much drag and drop monitors where ever I want to, and the mouse moving from screen to screen will be perfect.

The only thing Ultramon does for me that I havent figured out how to do in windows yet is have a desktop wallpaper that spans 3 of the monitors .. in windows all I can do is put one picture on each monitor.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
I just want to say before I make my point that I have zero programing knowledge so I might not understand everything on that aspect but... horisontal span or not at the end of the day even if the only solution is to use SoftTH or TripleHead2Go, games like rFactor do this already with no issues on Vista with SoftTH.

Basically all we need to do to add proper triple screen support is this:
In a config file or the game itself there is an option for the number of monitors, 1, 2, 3 or 4.

All this option does is control the # of camera's on the drivers helmet.

The screen would then be equally divided into 2, 3 or 4 depending on how many monitors you have picked.. you can then fine tune the angles in the same manor you would fine tune the rear view mirrors in a real car. press a button to move the left camera, use your keys to move it up, down, left, right, tilt and angle. Once your left screen is aligned with center, you press the button to do the right camera, align it as well and your off to the races.

If you select 4 monitors the fourth would be used for a rear view mirror. You should be able to do two things with this view. Use it like an actual rear view mirror on a small widescreen LCD and mount it above your center screen OR if you have the room and are running projectors you can mount it behind you and use 3 REAL rear view mirrors to show whats actually being projected behind you.

In order for that to work you need to be able to reverse the picture so you can use it as a rear monitor or rear view mirror monitor.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
The best game to do this so far is Forza 2 on xbox 360. I was running a 3 screen forza 2 rig before this, and as much as I love the physics, graphics and pretty much everything about this game so far, the triple screen is bad compared to others.

It is my honest opinion because of all the support this game has for running cockpit gauges and warning lights combined with the graphics and physics that if the following could be done it would be a big thing to put this game on top for a long time to come:

Proper multi view support, the ability to add additional camera's and adjust the angles manually. Forget 4 screens with a rear view.. imagine being able to point a projector on the wall in front of you, both side walls, the wall behind you, then another one pointing to the ground below you and another to the sky above... if you could just add camera's using some sort of config file and change the angles AND positions to suit your needs it would be the next logical step above the multi view support that Forza 2, Gran Turismo and rFactor have..
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
Quote from Bob Smith :I should clarify, it's the bandwidth of the memory in your graphics card that matters. Also the PCIe link is a limit that upgrading your card won't solve. Dropping to a sightly lower res on the sidescreens (so less data is transferred to the second card), and using 16-bit colours on the sidescreens, should bring a large boost to any card.

hmm, You just reminded me of something I will look into as soon as im home from work... A couple of weeks ago while diagnosing my machine for what ended up being a software problem I lowered the bus speed of my PCI-E bus down to stock. I'm gonna crank it back up when I get home tonight.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
Both are PCI-e x16 as per specs below I think the third one is just x8.. but its not being used.

Expansion Slot
- 2 x PCIe x16, 1 x PCIe Graphics expansion slot, 2 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI
- 2 x 32-bit PCI, support for PCI 2.1
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
I'll put my full specs.

E4300 @ 2.62GHZ
2GB Mushkin DDR2 PC-5300 OC'd
EVGA nvidia 680i mother board
2 x 150GB Wester Digital Raptors in raid-0
XFX 8800GTX oc'd to Ultra specs
EVGA 8400gt
Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Vista Home Premium 32-bit
SoftTH
3 x 22inch Samsung 225's
G25 Wheel
G15 KB
G7 Mouse
Z5500 Speakers

I'll probably upgrade to a 3.0GHZ core 2 duo and OC it as close to 4.0 as I can get.. if memory bandwidth is the issue, what if I go 780i motherboard with fast DDR3 memory?? then I just need a 9800GTX and a new soundcard.
Last edited by wtf im nameless, .
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
It may have something to do with SoftTH? I don't know. I know on single screens I can crack 300FPS with everything max'd. I just want to be able to run triple screens at 60FPS. If it means buying faster ram or a 9800GTX when it comes out then i'll do what ever it takes.. i just don't want to spend money needlessly since im trying to finish my cockpit.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
Is memory bandwidth the only thing holding me back right now? I'm just wondering if switching to OC'd DDR3 would make a difference... if thats the only thing holding me back it would be worth it to me.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
ok, so I got it going, but I don't know if its working properly... I get triple screens but am having issues with getting the borders working. I have to force the resolution on softTH to 5040x1050.. but if I try to add borders of 100 it doesnt work even if I change the resolution to 5240x1050.

Also, my frame rate drops from 180-300 on single screen to 38-40 on triple screens... is that normal? I assumed since I can get over 300FPS with everything cranked that I would at least be able to hit 60 with stuff turned down.. I cannot even get into the 50's.
Triple Screen and SoftTH help please.
wtf im nameless
S2 licensed
Hi, I am considering purchasing LFS but am having issues getting the demo to work on triple 22 inch monitors. Here are the specs:

Core 2 duo E4300 @ 2.62GHZ
2GB ram
8800GTX
8400GS
3 x 22 inch Samsung LCD
SoftTH
Vista 32-bit

I can get the game to work on one screen with no problems... but when I try to go triple screen the game will freeze and I have to ctrl-alt-del to get out. SoftTH shows as using DX8, can I change it manually to DX9? I am new to the game and cannot find the option.

I also tried 2 different drivers from Nvidia, same thing happens.

rFactor works fine with the setup @5240x1050 (100 x 2 for border), but I would like to try LFS after reading all the stuff about it.

Thanks.
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