14 replies to this topic

[tcmx]

Hello i am trying to get my fsx to work with dual screens. I want both my screens showing the view out of the aircraft window left and right window. It just seems it is not possible, yet have seen YouTube video showing exactly what I want to achieve. I have a good computer and ati gaphics card that should be more than enough power.  

I just think there must be some hidden setting somewhere to fly with dual screen. I have tried all the stuff about undocking a window and streching it across both monitors, but all that achieves is a wide distorted display of the controls, and the right hand cockpit window is just black.  

I would really appreciate any assistance on this as I have been messing around with it all day and searching google , but all I get is stuff about using triple head to go matrox card, or using wideview software , and i don't want to use either as i know my graphics card is good enough

Many thanks
Jonathan

[tcmx]

This is the view that I get

[tcmx]

is what I want to do possible ? im not even sure now after reading a microsoft article:

##################################
Can I use multiple monitors?
Definitely. In fact, Flight Simulator's ability to display multiple windows on more
than one monitor at a time creates a more realistic cockpit environment. You can use
a center monitor to display the aircraft instrument panel and the outside view ahead
of the cockpit, and use another monitor to display the radio stack, throttle quadrant,
GPS, or any of the other pop-up panels available on a particular aircraft. Aside
from additional monitors, you'll need a video card that can support multiple monitors,
or a system that can support multiple video cards.
###################################

so they talk about undocking instrument panels and radio stacks etc and having the center monitor displaying the cockpit window.

im not really interested in displaying undocked panels at the moment, just want to use two monitors as the main cockpit view, but both the aircraft windows showing the view of outside.  I just cant find a definative procedure and instructions for setting this up.

I have seen people doing it on youtube like this one, so it has got to be possible without using tripple-head-to-go thing, yet everything that references multi monitor for FSX harps on about the matrox card.

Edited by tcmx, 05 April 2011 - 04:16 PM.

[Invisiblemoose]

tcmx, on Apr 5 2011, 11:46 AM, said:

I just think there must be some hidden setting somewhere to fly with dual screen. I have tried all the stuff about undocking a window and streching it across both monitors, but all that achieves is a wide distorted display of the controls, and the right hand cockpit window is just black.

Hey, you shouldn't be trying to stretch one view across both displays. Open up a second view and move that on to the second display and then stretch it to fill that screen. You can have one 2D cockpit on one screen, with a virtual cockpit view on the other tilted away. Or two virtual cockpit views. Or any views you want.

You can also try using the "view - link all (toggle)" command to pan all your virtual cockpit windows at once.

[tcmx]

Invisiblemoose, on Apr 5 2011, 05:55 PM, said:

Hey, you shouldn't be trying to stretch one view across both displays. Open up a second view and move that on to the second display and then stretch it to fill that screen. You can have one 2D cockpit on one screen, with a virtual cockpit view on the other tilted away. Or two virtual cockpit views. Or any views you want.

You can also try using the "view - link all (toggle)" command to pan all your virtual cockpit windows at once.

thanks for your reply,  
how do i open up a second view? all i can seem to do is change the current view.  the way it appears to me to work is the cockpit has like all the dials and the windows chopped out so then it shows the outside view.  ?? i don't know I cant figure out how it works.  I have been trying to find a comprehensive manual for fsx that explains how it works, but nothing really explains it. what is difference between 2d cockpit and virtual cockpit?
anyway I will try to follow as you said and see if that will work. the computer seemed to work fine with the view streched across both screens, didn't really make it slower, but just it distorted the dials etc and made the right hand cockpit window black.  I could grab a handle on the "outside" view and drag it a bit , but would not let me drag it right across both.

[Invisiblemoose]

Right, you can't drag one view across onto the second monitor. You need to open up a new view (alt->views->new view) and drag it to your second monitor. Then you can resize it to fill up that screen. You can undock views by right clicking and choosing undock.

Edited by Invisiblemoose, 06 April 2011 - 08:23 AM.

[tcmx]

Invisiblemoose, on Apr 6 2011, 08:20 AM, said:

Right, you can't drag one view across onto the second monitor. You need to open up a new view (alt->views->new view) and drag it to your second monitor. Then you can resize it to fill up that screen. You can undock views by right clicking and choosing undock.

so if i open up a new window view, for example for the right hand screen, will FSX 'know' to display the right hand half of the flight view . if you know what i mean. and not display a duplicate of the left hand window.

Do you think i could get away with adding another monitor to display undocked avionics instruments pertanent to MD-11 or 747.  the graphics card will do it no problem, just not sure if the computer/fsx will. We don't need hugely lavish frame rates as most of the flying will of course be up above the cloud. I guess more important on landing when lots more graphical data needs to be generated to screen.

I was looking last night at this 10.1 inch touchscreen which was about £110 , anyone tried a 'cheap' touch screen. I was really only looking for bargain cheap small monitors like a couple of 10 or so inch screens that could sit on the desk without taking up too much room. but these were far from cheap! cheaper to buy 18.5 widescreen on todays prices, about £40 preowned from ebay.

thanks

[Spam]

im assuming your using the two seperate outputs on your card. Most people who run multi monitor use the 'triple head to go' which has a configurator and an immense aspect ration to make it fit three screens.

[tcmx]

Spam, on Apr 7 2011, 08:06 AM, said:

im assuming your using the two seperate outputs on your card. Most people who run multi monitor use the 'triple head to go' which has a configurator and an immense aspect ration to make it fit three screens.

yes the card is an eyefinity type which has 1 dvi and 4 miniDP. just have to use an active display adaptor on the third to fith display.  it has 4Gb of onboard ram which i don't know if that makes a difference to the game. will just have to see how it goes with two monitors for a while.

[tcmx]

this is just some capture i took off youtube, this is what i want to be able to acheive with the cockpit spanning across my monitors



Although I have 2 monitors , could add a third, but just want to get it working on two monitors with the PMDG 747-400
and MD-11
if it works then i would very much like to add the third monitor.   The above set up is with the matrox tripple head card, but I don't have this card, I am using a ATI card that has 5 monitor outputs.  but at moment I don't know if this card will enable me to do the above,

other advice suggests I need to get the matrox card.  but i don't understand why or what the matrox card does over and above my ATI card.  I have been looking on the matrox website at the spec of this card but i really cant see what it does over the multi head graphics card that enabled it to display the cockpit across three monitors that a multi head graphics card cannot. is this matrox do something special for fsx ?

thanks
J

Edited by tcmx, 08 April 2011 - 03:28 PM.

[tcmx]

also just noticed the matrox card can only output a maximum of 2x 1920px by 1200px.  and potentally I want to be running at a resolution of 5760px by 1200px.  i have a couple of the letterbox widescreen style 1080 24" screens on the office pc , and can only regret ever purchasing them. terrible aspect ratio , in regular office applications by the time you have tool bars etc youve lost loads of workspace so have to scroll up and down the workspace. and for sim where you do need half screen dials etc and half window, the vertical height is a premium.  I just hope its possible to use the ATI with fsx like in the above capture.

it was suggested to me to forget about multi monitors for fsx and just get 1 big screen. Yet a 30" monitor costs well over a grand, and i still don't think that would give better immersion experience than 2 or 3 monitors, plus when switch over to the other computer office type applications are much better in multi monitors are great for multi tasking. so don't see the appeal of the 30" monitors unless one is successfull enough to be able to afford 3 of the buggers! then it gets interesting... but then the computer starts to fall to bits with outputting that mega resolution, you would need a totally insaine beast of a pc to power it up.

Edited by tcmx, 08 April 2011 - 04:00 PM.

[JimS]

hi

i am also having trouble with spanning the VC across two 24" monitors.

I have tried stretching the window across both but always end up with a black screen on the right hand side.

I have tried a custom resolution using the nvidia drivers but still have the black screen.

Any ideas?

Jim

[Invisiblemoose]

JimS, on Apr 17 2011, 11:22 AM, said:

I have tried stretching the window across both but always end up with a black screen on the right hand side.

Hello there, did you read my replies?

[JimS]

Hi

Yes, but thats not what im talking about. I mean to have the VC spanning both monitors as a single view. like in this video.



thanks again

Jim

[JimS]

I found the solution. Using SoftTH does the job nicely.

Thanks again

Jim