Dummy guide to setting up 3 views with TripleHead & Nthusim

[Maurice]

After struggling for many, many hours while trying to set up my 3 views and not getting anywhere, Scott was kind enough to share his FLT settings and I was up & running very quickly after that. However, I still had no idea why things had not worked out for me even though I followed the instructions in the Nthusim website about setting up the views.

I had run into many obstacles along the way and nothing made sense at all, so after I got things working with Scott's help (thank you again Scott),  I again spent many hours trying to understand what had gone wrong for me and I'm pretty sure I now understand & have a very good idea of what it was that caused my problems. So now, I would like to share my discoveries with the hope that it may save you some grief as well if you make the same mistakes I did.

if anyone finds any mistakes in what I wrote, please let me know and I will make corrections if required.

Hope this will help some of you,

Maurice

[Kennair]

Excellent document Maurice.  Detailing something all multi projector users have had to struggle with until now.  I also twiddled and cursed over these details prior to getting our pro sim to commercial level.  I might just offer a couple more points that I discovered and also might help.

1.  Zoom levels indicated by the WindowMaker tool assume you have "WideviewAspect=True" set in the fsx.cfg file.

2.  Window.1 is the necessary hidden window required by FSX (it always needs at least one fullscreen window).  This is hidden behind the main 3 views but we don't want it to consume any CPU resources.  The WindowMaker tool sets a zoom level of only 255 and looks straight ahead.  This could pick up buildings or scenery in the distance and therefore write unnecessary pixels to the hidden window.  To reduce this likelihood go to the relevant camera view (usually Camera1.1) settings and set the zoom to 512 (FSX maximum) and set "Rotation=-90, 0 ,0".  This will cause the hidden view to look straight up in the air at max zoom and so mimimise pixels on screen.

3.  While testing window zoom levels you can hold the Shift key down while pressing + & - and the zoom speed will be much slower allowing you to more finely tune it.

Just some of my findings,

Ken.

[Maurice]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the additional info, especially how to fine tune the zoom levels if you don't do it directly from the Flt file. I didn't know that one.

As far as the other tips, if the zoom level is set to 512, I'm not sure it makes any difference where the camera is pointed or at least it did not make any difference in my setup. Frame rates did not change at all when I switched the view to straight up.

Having said that, I really need a new FS PC as I am getting horrible frame rates with my old one. So when I get my new PC, I will certainly experiment with that as it certainly does make sense that pointing the hidden view straight up where there are no objects should logically make a difference although that is still the name number of pixels whether the pixels are different or not. Would love to understand more about this subject,

So more testing required for that one and it would be nice if anyone using multiple views would describe their experience as well. The more inputs the better 

Thanks again for your inputs.

Maurice

[Maurice]

Ken,

One more thought about your comment:

"Zoom levels indicated by the WindowMaker tool assume you have "WideviewAspect=True" set in the fsx.cfg file"

Mine was set to true and the zoom levels calculated in the Excel file were still completely wrong by a big margin, so I still think the projectors resolution is the main factor here as well as the line above.

Maurice

[Flying_Fox]

I again spent many hours trying to understand what had gone wrong for me and I'm pretty sure I now understand & have a very good idea of what it was that caused my problems. So now, I would like to share my discoveries with the hope that it may save you some grief as well if you make the same mistakes I did.

Thank you Maurice for posting this.

I've hit a variation of the situation when three undocked windows show the same view while the rotation parameters are different.

Interestingly enough, I did not have thes problem from the beginning while I was using the default 737-800 aircraft. All the views was correct.

However, the trouble started when I installed PMDG 737 NGX. Suddenly the side views became the same as central. I ran another saved flight with default 737 - everything works normal. Changing the plane to PMDG - get 3 same views again. Re-writing views section in FLT file again from the spreadsheet - no result. I did the search and found your document. (then remembered that I've seen that before and even bookmarked it, but that was long ago). So, I guessed that I found the solution.

I checked the Active parameters for the 4 windows involved in my .FLT file - to my surprise they were correct: Window.1 active=true , other three views with active=false.

It didn't make sense and I started investigating FLT file more. After a while I found duplicated cameras 2.1, 3.1 and 4.1 with the same GUIDs as first three instances. They were not in one spot, but spread among other cameras definitions in .FLT file. And their rotation parameters were also different, so they were not just copies.

After I removed them everything worked again. 

So, this is another thing to look for in such situation - duplicated camera IDs with the same GUIDs.

Nick

[wledzian]

WindowMaker does not assume Wideviewaspect=true.  It just calculates the correct zoom to produce the selected FOV.  FSX decides which dimension to apply this FOV to.

When Wideviewaspect = True, FSX clamps the narrower window dimension.
When Wideviewaspect = False, FSX clamps the wider window dimension.

If you're running your projectors in landscape with one window per projector, you want to set Wideviewaspect = False.


The duplicated GUIDs are a result of using existing camera definitions and overriding certain settings within the .flt file.  Unfortunately, when you change aircraft, FSX keeps the views, but loses the rest of the settings.  The proper way to handle this would be to define new cameras in the cameras.cfg file with the proper settings and use these GUIDs in the .flt file.  When I created WindowMaker, I didn't know that I could define new cameras, and I simply haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

[Flying_Fox]

Hi wledzian,

In any case thank you very much for your excellent work on WindowMaker! It made switching to undocked views very easy for me!

Thanks again,
Nick

[Sean]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I was looking for a copy of Maurice's guide.

Regards the window maker tool, I've noticed that no matter what values I put in the green boxes for the number of windows and FOV, the cells E2 to E56 don't change. Upon further scrutiny, there are no formulas in these cells, so they'll never change.

Am I missing something here?

Sean

[Kennair]

Sean, make sure you have Macro's enabled in Excel.  By default they are off so that nasty scripts don't run when if you open a rogue file.  The Windowmaker tool uses Macro's to fill in the required fields rather than individual cell formulas.

Just a thought.

Ken.

[Sean]

Cheers Ken. When I open the file, I get asked whether I want to enable macros, which I thought I did. It asks every time I open the file. I'll check and try again.

Shouldn't make any difference, but I'm trying this on Office for Mac.

Sean

[MLeavy737]

Maurice,

  Thanks for taking the time to do this! I never noticed this post before, will come in handy sometime in the future!

Mike L

[Maurice]

no matter what values I put in the green boxes for the number of windows and FOV, the cells E2 to E56 don't change. Upon further scrutiny, there are no formulas in these cells, so they'll never change.

Sean

Sean, I had that 'problem' as well but it was because I clicked on the GO button directly after entering a value in the green cells. That threw me for a loop as well.

If you click on any blank cell after entering your values and then click on the GO button, then the E2 to E56 will change to reflect your values (if you enabled the macros)

Maurice

[Maurice]

Maurice,

  Thanks for taking the time to do this! I never noticed this post before, will come in handy sometime in the future!

Mike L

You are very welcome Mike. That is what this forum is all about, people helping people so we don't all have to rediscover the wheel on our own 

Maurice

[Sean]

Sean, I had that 'problem' as well but it was because I clicked on the GO button directly after entering a value in the green cells. That threw me for a loop as well.

If you click on any blank cell after entering your values and then click on the GO button, then the E2 to E56 will change to reflect your values (if you enabled the macros)

Maurice

That doesn't work for me. 

I can see the macro when i select macros from the file menu, but have no idea what else to try. Maybe the author will see this and help? In the meantime, I'll try it on a good old windows PC.

[Maurice]

I don't know about the Mac but on a Windows PC, if you click on Tools-Macro-Security you can change the security settings (temporarily of course) to Low setting. This should work but if it doesn't, then it has to be a Mac issue because the calculations do work.

Maurice

[cestlavie2010]

I have the same problem on mac...on windows it works!

[cestlavie2010]

ok..just reading this..will this also work for me?

main pc 3x 27" on th2go but 1st screen about 15deg angle and 2nd screen center and 3rd screen about 15deg angle WHAT IS MY FOV?
left pc 2x27" on th2go 90deg left
right pc 2x27" on th2go 90 deg right

2 person cockpit so I sit on the left and my copiloot on the right ?

currently using Wideview software...

will this work out for me you think?....I will be testing....

[cestlavie2010]

what a great spreadsheet! allthough not everything does yet what it should...i am getting there...

how can i calculate my FOV ?

I get "crazy cursor"  so performance drops dramatically....how can i change this ? long ago i had the same...right now strugging with resetting resolution and small 2d throttle panel from 1x1cm and resetting to 5760x1080 again....but maybe there are better solutions to this.

mmmm...allthough perspective seems to be lot better, performance is really bad EHAM 6-8 fps and CPU 4,4 GHZ with GTX580 on TH2GO. If i close center or right window performance returns....but this is not really flyable...do all of you experience these kind of fps drops when 3 windows on 1 pc and on TH2GO ?

[Maurice]

what a great spreadsheet! allthough not everything does yet what it should...i am getting there...

how can i calculate my FOV ?

I get "crazy cursor"  so performance drops dramatically....how can i change this ? long ago i had the same...right now strugging with resetting resolution and small 2d throttle panel from 1x1cm and resetting to 5760x1080 again....but maybe there are better solutions to this.

mmmm...allthough perspective seems to be lot better, performance is really bad EHAM 6-8 fps and CPU 4,4 GHZ with GTX580 on TH2GO. If i close center or right window performance returns....but this is not really flyable...do all of you experience these kind of fps drops when 3 windows on 1 pc and on TH2GO ?

I really do not understand what you are trying to do. From your description, it sounds like you would be using 3  PCs with 3 TripleHeads and 5 monitors with WideView.  This is a setup I would not touch with a 10 ft pole as I've had enough troubles with one PC and one TripleHead. Hope you can pull it off but this is going to require a lot of experimentation on your part and I think you may be the first one here to attempt this kind of setup.

But to answer some of your questions, you don't calculate your FOV; you decide what you want/need it to be and the Excel sheet will make the calculations accordingly. The FOV is based on the size of your screen but since you are using monitors, I can't hep you there as I have no experience with setting up monitors with TripleHead

Performance definitely takes a hit but only if you use 3 undocked windows as opposed to one view stretched over 3 monitors. With one view and the TripleHead, the performance should not be affected. Since you say you are using WideView, I don't know why you are even considering using the spreadsheet since it is meant for one PC running 3 undocked views.

I suggest you concentrate on one PC for now with the TripleHead & forget the spreadsheet. Setup your TripleHead so that the output is 3 times the horizontal resolution of your monitors and the same vertical resolution. So if your monitors are 1080x1024 for instance, the TripleHead should make an image that is 3240x1024 and that image would be spread over 3 monitors. You then adjust the zoom factor so that it looks OK to you.

If you get that working OK, then you can start thinking about adding more complexity by adding side views on the other 2 PCs and using Wideview. I assume you know that each PC would have to be running its own instance of FSX with all the add-ons you have on the main PC.

Anyway, that's my opinion but I could be wrong, or I may have totally misunderstood your setup and/or what you are trying to do

Good luck,

Maurice

[Sean]

It works in Windows (that's the operating system, not the things you look out of).

[cestlavie2010]

Hi Maurice, thanks for your answer, maybe i was unclear....

I know all you write about th2go and separate instances of fsx and wideview. Main problem is that I can't get the perspective ok so that when i turn the left and right screen seem to "glue" together like a big screen, It is always or, out of sync or incorrect persepctive or angle etc.

Because i tried everything with zoom, wideview=false/true and, wideview angles I thought i first take the " 3 undocked windows view route" so have main pc ok en then focues on side pc's.

With one strected view i have ok performance but not with three undocked... i know about the main 2D panel not being transparent...

I am in doubt what i am going to do....maybe do beamers...or accept...

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/6283/wa1d.mp4

Remco

[stinger]

Hi guys well I feel like a dummy I have read this guide and still don't understand what the heck to do?
Basically i'm setting up a curved screen with 3 Mitsubishi projectors and triplehead togo, please can someone talk me through some basics
so far I have got fsx on centre projector and am able to stretch it manually across the other 2 screens,each time I start it up is this how to do it? I've not got any warping software yet,but do I have to do this each time I turn on the sim is there away of saving it to just open up each time? frame rates are quite bad this way,do I need to have three separte views ,how do I do this? whats windowmaker and flt file? really guys I,m not good with computers, anyone live in England near Tamworth willing to come round and help? I would pay for your time, its getting very frustrating now to say the least thanks.  

[blueskydriver]

Do you have Skype?

John

[stinger]

Hello John,
i'm in the dark ages here , no Skype i'm afraid
email is,
storminnorm@live.co.uk
thanks
norman.

[blueskydriver]

Hi Norman,

Can you download Skype? It's free too use... I believe you'll get much more help that way, not just free me, but from others.

John