The online racing simulator
Dual Monitors..question
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(32 posts, started )
Dual Monitors..question
Im planning buying 2 23" monitors
I'm searching on how to do it and still cant get it...
someone said that
Quote : Windows Vista/7 does not allow to use more than one monitor in Fullscreen mode.
But you can use SofTH or TH2Go to sort this out

i have Vista!and Nvidia 8800 GTS 620mb...
but i've played a game once on dual screen!(i dont remember which..it had the option from its own...left screen for playing and right screen for map.. World war something like this it was named...anyway..)

i tried now to play on dual screen with my 19" TFT and 19" CRT to see how it looks but when i enter on full screen only 1 screen shows the game!
And yes i dont want to play in window mode....
So...is it possible or the quote is right?i should use SoftTH????
and if yes... is there any good config for SoftTH to download ?
#2 - shim
what i do is just pull on the sidebar till it covers the area that i want it to..
i want full screen gaming..
also ..i just learned about EYEFINITY of ati's ...does it support lfS wideview?
Vista/Seven only allows an aplication to use one monitor while in full screen.

- The games that are able to use many monitors are running many process. This way each proces (instance of the game) take an screen and sort out the mess.

- Eyefinity, SoftTH, etc do another trick. They cheat to Windows, and it only sees one big monitor, so any aplication can turn to full screen mode using only one monitor
ok then i must use softTH....
i've already downloaded it but its seem difficult to configure it....
the monitors just arrived and i was trying different things to play
for the beggining i managed to center it on a good (custom) position on dual monitors only not 3....


my old monitor LG 19" 4:3 on the left
and on the center and right are 2 new 23" wide LG
here's some photos







i m waiting for opinions


tommorow i'll try on 3 screents without softTH
and when im done with this ill try to find a good position with softTH and choose the best

a question that i have is ....with softTH do i get more FPS?
Well, logically, eyefinity should work with vista/7, considering that it comes with the 5000s cards, which were released about the same time as 7.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the matter: "dubbed "ATI Eyefinity Technology", supporting up to 6 simultaneous display being connected to one graphics cards, and supports grouping of multiple monitors into a "single large surface" (SLC), treated by the OS as a single monitor with very high resolutions, as an inexpensive alternative for ultra-high resolution display solution."

As for getting better FPS with any kind of software, you'll get as much FPS that you can get with the resolution you'll ask from your hardware.
I can confirm that ATI eyefinity works on Windows 7 x64 with an ATI HD 5850.
Sorry, I still don't get this...Isn't LFS (with one of its very latest patch) directly supporting multi-monitor setups?

Why would one need SoftTh? Only for full-screen?
LFS renders multiple viewports. Which is usefull to turn the monitors towards you.

But Windows don't allow an aplication to use more than 1 monitor in full screen mode.

So yes, those programs/hardware are needed to make "one big monitor" instead of several of them.
so...i have the 3 screens now..i've setted up LFS and SoftTH
I have configured the display at 1280x720 in each monitor (the lowest resolution to get the higher FPS ...
I have ASUS p5k-premium (DDR 2 memories 4 Giga RAM)
ASUS Nvidia 8800 GTS 620 MB
and for 2ndary card an Nvidia 6600 GT
Settings on full
When i start the game and play everything is fine ...i get about 60 FPS while playing alone on the track and from the cockpit view and about 70-80 FPS when on outside camera... i think its a very good number when playing at 3 screens!!!!!

Only when you play with many people on the tracks, testen on multiplayer and on single player with 10 AI Drivers i get about 10 FPS less when you are the last driver and you have all the other cars in front of you...
Again i find it very good on my eye...it doesn't gets me tired

The only problem is when i play in Autocross with many objects (tested on the server driftwars....)
outside the car still have a good FPS number but in cockpit view i get about 40 FPS with high settings and about 55 FPS with low Settings...
what can i do to get some FPS more?
the most settings doesn't affect performance (like draw sky etc...) except the Draw Tyres on the track which when i disable it i get about 6 FPS more....

Do you think that there is a possibility to do it better, or the objects on the parks are a little bit heavy for my machine and i must decide that i wont get better performance?
And how much do you believe is a good FPS number to play?

Still i haven't managed to set the better screens' positions on the desk or the 2nday screens bezzels etc..and other settings....




You overlayed the monitors bevels to get a smaller blind spot/bars between monitors. I don't see many people do this obvious thing. Nice to see.

Setup looks really nice - can see out the right passenger window >_>
If I was you, and I am a bit "mad" so ignore me if you want - I would be bringing that tripple screen right up to the front edge of the desk and piss off the the keyboard to the side and remove the ingame wheel. Be immersed, not a passenger ^_^ Currently you look like a back seat driver. :doh:



Layouts kill your FPS because it's a CPU hog. LFS doesn't seem to clip layout objects properly in the far distance and some particular layouts can be bad news. Even when I got a decent graphics card the FPS still dropped in layouts/autocross until I got a better CPU.
Was fine in racing 250 FPS+ just the layouts - omgz fail.


Some things to try in LFS that might help a lot that you didn't mention....
Options >> MISC
- Multiplayer speedup option YES (reduces detail levels when many cars are on screeen)
- Dynamic LOD reduction set to 1.0 (level reduction factor; higher = more reduced detail levels = more FPS)
- Mulitplayer Car draw 80m (clips cars drawn in the distance, lower number means less cars onscreen = more FPS)

Options >> Graphics
- Try lowering LOD numbers (try extreme low and see the difference)
- Trees OFF (definately, only removes some big trees and moving trees iirc)
- Don't use any +Mirror options because you waste some FPS there.
- Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (not at 8x) use AA 8x or even OFF can increase FPS dramatically. (You might have to change this in your GPU device settings in Windows, or make it Application Controlled
- Textures LOW
- Car and helmet skins COMPRESSED


Options >> VIEW
- Don't use the Multiscreen options 1,1,1 just use 0,1,0 and just use a big FOV
Multiple screen support is great when you can afford to run it, but you are increasing the number of view ports and that can destroy your FPS.

Make sure you change one thing at a time so you know the exact FPS you're gaining/losing. No point reducing everything if only a couple things make a difference.

Well I hope something here helps.


You're doing a huge resolution now (25% more than me @1080p), you need supercomputer to do such tasks. Personally 8800 GTS isn't enough for higher details and res, but hey - what do I know? IDK don't take my word for it, I'm not an expert at multiscreen config. I'm only running one 40" screen at 1920x1080. I got a GTX295 just to run that res because even my 9600GT or HD4890 was not enough for me to run LFS at maxxed out, and I mean with SUPERSAMPLING so it actually looks good.
But maybe the 8800 GTS is enough for racing in LFS at lowest res/details for you, but autoX layouts is death to CPU. What you got CPU wise?
Attached images
lfs_00000029.jpg
Thanx for your help...i'll try this things tommorow and i'll tell what happened!

LFS at >60 FPS is very good i thing!!!
Especially at 80 FPS is perfect!!!

I want to have a steady number at the FPS above 60!

When i played LFS in only 2 monitors (so only 8800 GTS was working)
I was playing at 100 FPS in both screens!!!
one problem as the SofTH developers said is if you want to raise FPS (and if you know what you are doing....) is to overclock the PCI EXPRESS Bus...
but i dont want to try something like this...
IN every track and mode i find the setup that i have now very good...only in the autocross pass and with the objects i have the problem..anyway if i can ,sure i want more FPS! and i didn't know all the things you mentioned!


and i want to try the setup to be as real .... in my car i saw that my eye can see in a big angle ...from my left window to the right passengers half window!

And about the monitors when i want to play for many hours i do that..i pull them in the front :P
Quote from bladegt :
one problem as the SofTH developers said is if you want to raise FPS (and if you know what you are doing....) is to overclock the PCI EXPRESS Bus...
but i dont want to try something like this...

This won't help autocross. You need more CPU power for AutoX drop in frame rate problems. Drive around in no autocross is fine if I understand what you said. Autocross (Layouts) requires maths calcs for their 3D object positions/rotations. It's all done on the CPU for that in LFS. Believe me, I had a 840d CPU and had bad autoX FPS (everything else was ok 250+ FPS outside of AutoX/Layouts), I upgraded to e8400 CPU and the autocross low FPS was solved. Not a PCI express/Graphics problem.

What did you say you CPU was mate?


Quote from bladegt :
And about the monitors when i want to play for many hours i do that..i pull them in the front :P

Sweet
its a quad core 2.6 ghz (intel)

i got what you said... i spoke generally for the FPS matter

Quote :How can I get better performance with SoftTH?
- Use a smaller game resolution, reduce game detail settings, overclock video card, etc.
- Use a smaller resolution on the secondary displays (secondaryWidth and secondaryHeight settings). This can dramatically reduce the amount of data copied over the PCI-e bus.
- Use 16bit colors on secondary displays (secondary16bpp setting, enabled by default).
- For Direct3D 9 games, set useMultihead to 1. This can take advantage of multihead cards to copy frames faster if one of the seconday monitors is located on the same card as the primary one.
- Try different values of sleepBeforeRead. This can be adjusted in-game with App+1 and App+2, App+E shows current setting.
- Try changing the swapOrder setting to 0 or 1
- If you absolutely know what you are doing, overclocking the PCI-Express bus can help.


so i've tried the settings..no big difference except draw tyres on tracks ...disabling it gave me +5 fps in autocross

Trying now playing with softTH's settings
i 've noticed that in SoftTH 1.09 i get better FPS..
I installed this on my LFS folder..
I also changed the uploadMethod from "blit" to D3D and i got +5 FPS
Someone in this forum said that Blit gives more FPS but i noticed the oppossite!

I don't change RGB16D as i saw that everyone says that its better than RGB16

My problem is that the game crashes after a period of playing it...
HAWX was crashing in about 15 mins
LFS managed to stay alive for half an hour
after rebooting and re-playing the game it kept alive for 10mins...
Do you think its the graphics' card temperature?
Well...its a little bit warm...but i dont know :S something tells me that this is not the problem..
- I Have a 8600GT with two 19" displays (1440x900).
- Running Vista 64
- Latest Nvidia Driver
- LFS S2 Z28

SoftTH 1.09 will work on this config?
you don't need softTH for 2 displays...as i know , SoftTH doesn't work with 2 monitors only :S
You Just run the game in windowed mode and you stretch the window from the 1st monitor to the 2nd.... if you see on my 1st post photos i run LFS on 2 monitors with no softTH installed
If you wanted to avoid windowed mode i think you can use softth for a twin monitor setup.
i cant say something for this....i only know that if i dont have all the 3 screens enabled i get an error .. but somewhere in the internet i show someone with softTH and 2 monitors :S cant have an opinion on this
Quote from anttt69 :If you wanted to avoid windowed mode i think you can use softth for a twin monitor setup.

Yeah, I don't want it in windowed mode, crapy FPS;
Vista does not have span desktop config;

So what should I do to use LFS in 2 displays in full screen mode?

i have same problem, i am looking to make my 19" lcd and my like 15" crappy moniter work together in lfs, even though it will look just wrong
That is unbeliveable!!! Why the hell Nvidia cards don't support span mode anymore in vista! C'mon!

Should I get a ATI card?!!? Lazy motherf*s!
i diddnt say anything about how it is compatable or not, i am just saying i have the same issiues as you...i have a ATI RADEON HD 5770 and not sure if its in the control panel
Quote from anttt69 :If you wanted to avoid windowed mode i think you can use softth for a twin monitor setup.

If you've got an ATI card, you can do full screen dual screen mode with ease.

Open CCC, go to "Displays Manager" and you'll see your two screens, side by side.

Right click "Desktop 2", and pick "Stretch desktop 1 horizontally onto digital panel".

I run both monitors @ 1440x900, so I get 2880x900 after doing the above.

Also, as I'm a right hand drive man, I have my second monitor to the LEFT of monitor one instead of the right, so I have to right click the monitor box underneath "Rightmost" and click "Swap display mapping". This gives me a spanning resolution with the second monitor on the left.

LFS still works properly at the spanning resolution with the mapping swapped, just make sure you set up the multi monitor options in LFS properly, as IIRC, it'll default to a 3 monitor setup... or rather it did for me.
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Dual Monitors..question
(32 posts, started )
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