FO + 3-monitor or 6-monitor FOV

[BHawthorne]

With all the conversation in the other threads about surround gaming I hit another question I'd like to pose. Brief toying with X-Plane 8.40 it looks like I can do a maximum FOV of 160 degrees when I tried it on my 3-monitor TH2G rig. Say someone has a theoretical simpit setup with 3 projectors setup to project on screens setup like:


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Wouldn't that be requiring a FOV of 180 degrees @ 3840x1024?

Or theoretical simpit setup with 6 projectors:


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/ \
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360 degree FOV with 2x TripleHead2Gos horizontal-spaned via a top of the line current generation Geforce card @ 2x 3840x1024 = 7680x1024.

I'm mostly curious if FOV in the FO client could be this flexible? As is, my initial plans will be focused on 3-monitor setup, but further down the road I'd be interested in 6-projector setup later on so I can check my 6. :smile:

The top Geforce 7900 series cards atm are perfectly capable of pushing that amount of pixels. Both outs on the cards are dual-link DVI, hence capable of running 2x 30" Apple Cinema Displays via one card. Pushing 360 surround is actually less pixels than 2x 30" displays.

2x 30" Apple Cinema Displays: 2560x1600x2 = 8,192,000 pixels
360 degree projectors: (1280x1024x3)x2= 7,864,320 pixels

Things to ponder...

[ruprecht]

Hi mate,
I think the flaw in your assumption is that you'd need to have one view of 7680x1024 with 360deg FOV for FO. But the plan is that you could have, say, 3 PCs each with a dual-head card running at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 on each display. The you tell your main sim rig that video card head 1 renders the forward view with 60dev FOV and head 2 renders the rear view with 60deg FOV. You then connect your other 2 PCs via TCP/IP and tell them via the network client to render the rear-left, rear-right, front-left and front-right views, each at 60deg FOV.
You could then add another PC, or another video card, and say you want left and right MFD's rendered on those 2 heads, and another for the overhead FOV, etc etc... as many as you have ports on your network switch.
Does that make more sense? Surely anyone who's serious enough to buy 6 projectors won't be worried about the hardware to make it work. The triplehead-to-go cards are treated as one display so you'd need 180deg FOV - maybe we can modify the engine to render that, I don't know.

[BHawthorne]

Hi mate,
I think the flaw in your assumption is that you'd need to have one view of 7680x1024 with 360deg FOV for FO. But the plan is that you could have, say, 3 PCs each with a dual-head card running at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 on each display. The you tell your main sim rig that video card head 1 renders the forward view with 60dev FOV and head 2 renders the rear view with 60deg FOV. You then connect your other 2 PCs via TCP/IP and tell them via the network client to render the rear-left, rear-right, front-left and front-right views, each at 60deg FOV.
You could then add another PC, or another video card, and say you want left and right MFD's rendered on those 2 heads, and another for the overhead FOV, etc etc... as many as you have ports on your network switch.
Does that make more sense? Surely anyone who's serious enough to buy 6 projectors won't be worried about the hardware to make it work. The triplehead-to-go cards are treated as one display so you'd need 180deg FOV - maybe we can modify the engine to render that, I don't know.

It's cheaper for me to buy 1 more TH2G box vs, 2 more slave computers. I have access to a source for surplus projectors. It's more cost effective for me to go the route I outlined. :smile:

The way you outlined I could buy 3 mid range gaming rigs and do the same things as one top of the line gaming rig as I outlined. Running only 1 comp leaves less things to blow up and troubleshoot later on. I'd rather not have to maintain 3x computers vs 1. It's basicly 2 different ways of going about the same goal.

What I'm trying to get at is with the existance of TH2G users out now, it would make sense for the client to be flexiable enough to do both, as you'll have both types of computer owners wanting to run the game. Is changing max FOV from 160 to 360 that programming intensive of an option? Merely have minimum FOV be 45 and maximum FOV be 360 per "screen". In the 3 computer master/slave setup FOV setting would be 60, and on the 1 computer option it would be 360. Designing this for flexibility early on will allow for more options for players.

I suppose I could go a third route and slightly upgrade my old computer with a newer graphic card. Then I could tell FO that the main computer would render a forward 3840x1024 view with 180 FOV and slave my old computer to another TH2G and have it render a rear 3840x1024 view with 180 FOV. That's sort of a hybrid of the 2 methods.

Here is X-Plane 3840x1024 160 FOV using a TH2G:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/8346/th2g7gk.th.jpg (http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=th2g7gk.jpg)

[ruprecht]

Sure. I just outlined a way to do it with the currently (known) planned functionality from FO. The FO plan allows you to render *any* view on a networked PC. Your approach requires that FO support a single view with 180deg FOV. I just don't know if that's in the plan, that's all.
Also, with the price of "top of the line" hardware, I reckon I could buy 3 dual-head video cards that could push 1600x1200 on each head cheaper than two that could push 4800x1200 on a single head, plus 2 triplehead-to-go units. But that's an argument we could have forever :) It's all down to what you want to do - and as I said I don't know if 180deg FOV is in the plan. The networked approach works better for me and a lot of others as we can then display *any* view without requiring extreme or unusual FOVs from the sim.

[BHawthorne]

More options are always good. Just batting around ideas that might have not yet been brought up yet. Better to bat them around earlier in the process than to find it later as an oversight in features. :wink2:

Second related question, on the 3 computer master/slave setup, wouldn't that triple the network traffic? Is that network traffic restricted to only local 192.168.1.X IP machines or will that traffic be broadcast to the remote internet game server too? What happens if you have 2 or more simpits at a lanparty? Or 2 or more simpits on 192.168.1.X that access a remote internet gaming server? Both of my current gaming rigs have 2 built in NICs. Could I connect all the master/slave network traffic on the second nic tied to a second router to keep that network chatter off the internet NIC?

[SpinKick]

Sure. I just outlined a way to do it with the currently (known) planned functionality from FO. The FO plan allows you to render *any* view on a networked PC. Your approach requires that FO support a single view with 180deg FOV. I just don't know if that's in the plan, that's all.
Also, with the price of "top of the line" hardware, I reckon I could buy 3 dual-head video cards that could push 1600x1200 on each head cheaper than two that could push 4800x1200 on a single head, plus 2 triplehead-to-go units. But that's an argument we could have forever :) It's all down to what you want to do - and as I said I don't know if 180deg FOV is in the plan. The networked approach works better for me and a lot of others as we can then display *any* view without requiring extreme or unusual FOVs from the sim.

I like the sound of "any view" on a networked PC!!! looking forward to it!

[AMVI_Rebel]

hi
just a question: if you fly wit 6 monitor and a 360deg. FOV how will be possible to look UP? i mean when you try to look up at 12 oclok your 6 will look down? same if you try to maintain a tally in a DF situation
thanks in advance
bye

[ruprecht]

Well, obviously you'll need another 4 monitors hung from the ceiling :)

[AMVI_Rebel]

i can´t! what append in case of ejection! LOL

i was wondering about using trakIR in vertical axis only but this can be a problem if you are looking behind, so: about using the hat the problem is to set up the sky portion rof each monitor, is it?