[doveman]

Originally Posted by Weltensegler

Don't look at those they are all kinds of stretched because I used a cheap panorama stitching app and you dont sit that far away as it seems here.
Maybe use the cockpit frame as reference.
The middle monitor is kind of like you would normally fly the outta monitors just add more to it.
I still have zoom on on a rotary so I can always adjust or zoom in on cockpit or ground looking for targets.

For example check this here out where I'm zoomed in a lot most of the time.
This video was more meant for testing the camera though and parts of the cockpit are not working and the camera is higher than my eyes so not everything lines up as it should.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GW9cHNO-F2k

What I don't really understand (maybe because it's impossible), is how I might be able to get a wider view on a single monitor. With 3 monitors, I guess you use a higher resolution, with the normal 1920x1080 mapped to the central monitor and the rest mapped to the side monitors, so to achieve the same sort of thing with a single monitor, I guess I'd have to use the central third of the screen, 640x360, for the normal view and then 640x360 for the extended left view and the same for the right, which doesn't sound like it would work.

Even if it would, my 50" TV is actually only 1280x720 (acutally 1024x768 but it uses square pixels apparently to resolves 1280x720) and whilst it accepts 1920x1080 to produce a picture where everything is smaller, it's obviously not able to display all the pixels and must be skipping the ones in between the actual pixels, so everything's a bit less sharp and it's better to run games at 1280x720 (even if it was 1080P it would be a struggle to read everything in text heavy games from my normal seating position) but probably that's not good enough to be able to spot things clearly in DCS World.

I was aware of this limitation when I bought the TV recently but I really wanted a Plasma rather than a LCD as they look so much better for TV/Movies and I also wanted a Panasonic as they make the best Plasmas (or do until March when they're stopping production anyway) and I couldn't afford the extra for a 1080P model and from my normal viewing distance, I wouldn't be able to appreciate the extra detail anyway. Obviously if I built a cockpit I'd be sitting much nearer and would be able to but I don't know if/when I'll be able to do that, so I couldn't really factor that into my purchasing decision and I was mindful that I might want to spend money on the Rift or similar in the near future anyway.

[Weltensegler]

A wider view is achieved by increasing the FOV (zoom out) which you most likely do all the time when flying to look for ground targets or bring the HUD visually closer. It doesn't matter on how many monitors you display it.
If maximum zoom out is not wide enough you can change the max FOV per aircraft type in some files... I believe view.cfg? not sure cant check right now.
But there are many posts in this forum about changing min and max FOV.

The resolution has nothing to do with that. Resolution just determines image quality and with that how good you can spot targets on the grounds etc.
In fact I run 1024 resolution on the outside monitors because I don't need them super crips since they are only peripheral view and when I turn my head there my trackIR brings it to center screen.

Most realistic of course is when your default FOV in game is the same of your setup (your position in the cockpit or rather the angle of both side of your monitor(s) and your eyes).
So the more your screen(s) surround you or the more you have to turn your head from right to left the more you can/have to zoom out (increase FOV) to match that and stay accurate.
But if you don't care so much about that accuracy you can just zoom out as much as you like in order to get your wider view.

[doveman]

I don't think it's that simple though. To get a wide view like this http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1677969 (just to give another example) on a single monitor, you'd have to set the FOV quite high, which will result in the centre/cockpit part of the view only occupying the centre 1/3rd of the screen. So if it's a 1920x1080 monitor, now the cockpit is being displayed with only 640x360 pixels, whereas in a 3-monitor setup, the cockpit is being displayed with 1920x1080 pixels.

To be honest though, I'm only really flying the KA-50 at the moment where the cockpit blocks most of the side view anyway, so I'm not used to what the view from the planes looks like or how much I'd need to zoom out to be able to see as much as is shown in those photos.

[Weltensegler]

Well it is that simple but there are draw backs like you said.
And unless you get super close to your monitor it will be strange to look at a wide FOV on your monitor that is rather a 40 degree to you.
Plus of course the planar mapping the DCS camera creates does its part in previous posts mentioned inorganic or non existing distortions.

[hannibal]

Can You use softTH with SweetFX?

[Sorin]

SweetFX "does not work with 64bit game executables yet".
http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/..._download.html

Anyway, not sure if it would make a difference for DCS.
The cockpit of A-10C is amazing IMHO, does not need any post processing.
The scenery is so bad that I don't think any amount of postprocessing would make it look better.
DCS is a military flight simulator, not designed for eye candy scenery.

[doveman]

Originally Posted by Sorin

SweetFX "does not work with 64bit game executables yet".
http://www.guru3d.com/files_details/..._download.html

That's rather outdated. It was usable via Radeon Pro before but has been directly 64bit compatibile since v1.5 anyway.

@hannibal, in theory it should be possible as SFX allows for chainloading another dll but I've tried this myself and couldn't get it to work, so maybe SoftTH needs to be loaded first but I don't think that allows for chainloading another dll after.

[Weltensegler]

Only interesting post processing would be lens grid distortion to simulate more of a cylindrical or spherical mapping instead of DCS's planar mapping that produces this ugly stretching on wide FOVs.
Only interesting if it doesn't take to much performance which it probably does.

[ofcross]

Originally Posted by PeterP

Hi again.


I had a look at the pictures you PMed me.... (and I admit! This build really deserves a own thread )
and made some edits to one of them - just to give you maybe some inspiration....

Spoiler:

As I think horizontal FOV is not everything in A10C...

Right now you are planning to position the screens like this:



But maybe you want to think a second about this possibility - as it is able to do it via SoftTH while DCS runs still fullscreen:




This would give you a better "look-down" ability at the battle-field to plan your attack-run .

And you really don't miss anything at the sides.
And you would also have a much more natural FOV as the outer boarders of the side-screens wouldn't be so Stretched any-more - you would use a aspect that comes closer to 1. - actually you would use 2,125 instead 5,333.

You could also use the "missing" square under the middle screen (a place of 1920x840 for the avionics exports) to show the additional exports on it and use SoftTH's "destRect" function to spread this info at the Helios screens.

So it might be possible to run this setting at a DCS-in-game resolution of "only" 1080+1920+1080x1920 = 4080x1920 = 7.833.600px
(reminder : you are using right now 13.360.800px and have still around 30FPS)

Another advantage would be that there is no misplacement of the sun-glare when the "camera" view-port matches your whole in-game-resolution. So you would be able to use the HDR setting without any bug.

Still need to find out how to render a black-square underneath some indicators , but I think it is possible to hi-jack the Control indicator for this and colour it solid black by changing the RGB values.. than we will move the solid-black control-indicator to cover the space under the middle screen. >>>http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.ph...42#post1409442
We will see...


I think it's worth thinking about it !


Edit: found a video that demonstrates fairly well what you can expect to see on the sides:


EDIT #2:

Forget what I wrote about the a black Controllindicator....
I found a easier way and made a proof of concept :


Here is the used MonitorSetup.Lua for following screen-shot and look at the second view-port.
The "Black" needs a spawn-point that is outside of the render-surface , and than I dragged this window up by using a negative height.

Spoiler:

_ = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('Export example2');
Description = 'Export example';
Viewports =
-- Put your values in , and delete all exports that you don't want to use !
-- You will have to determine the area for the MP/SP GUI
{
Center =
{
x = 0;
y = 0;
width = 2176;
height = 1024;
viewDx = 0;
viewDy = 0;
aspect = 2176 / 1024;
},

Black =
-- must be always after
-- the last legit view-port
-- so it is underneath the avionics but on
-- top of the "world"-render
{
x = 576;
y = 1025; -- must be 1px more than screen-height
width = 1024;
height = -449; -- must be negative to "drag it up"
}
}
-- BTW isn't my find brilliant?!
-- my shoulder still hurts because I clapped myself so much on it! XD

GUI=
{
x = 576;
y = 0;
width = 1024;
height = 576;
}

LEFT_MFCD =
{
x = 576;
y = 576;
width = 150;
height = 150;
}

RIGHT_MFCD =
{
x = 576 + 1024 - 150;
y = 576;
width = 150;
height = 150;
}

CDU_SCREEN =
{
x = 576 + 160;
y = 576;
width = 150;
height = 150;
}

DIGIT_CLOCK =
{
x = 1370;
y = 800;
width = 150;
height = 150;
}

CMSC_SCREEN =
{
x = 800;
y = 800;
width = 200;
height = 200;
}

CMSP_SCREEN =
{
x = 1050;
y = 800;
width = 200;
height = 200;
}

RWR_SCREEN =
{
x = 1300;
y = 800;
width = 300;
height = 300;
}




UIMainView = GUI

And this is how it looks on a windowed res of 2176x1024 with and without the "Black" view-port (BTW: all tests made in 1.1.2.1 and a empty "Black" view-port has no hit in performance at all )

Hi Peter, I hope you are doing well!

I have a question: Is the "black square render" available now-days?
I've tired but no luck, do you know if there is a new command or something?

Thankyou!

[Weltensegler]

You tried the one I wrote? I am pretty sure it doesn't work anymore. I wrote it for DCS 1.5.
I didn;t get Peter's solution to work (probably my fault) so I created a black polygon with lua...again that was for DCS 1.5

But my buddy Jabbers is currently writing a new tool that lets you setup you cockpit and generates all the exports according to your screen setup and resolutions including black backgrounds.
It is far along but still WIP. Best to ask him in the splashone gaming discord if you can try/beta test the current built.
cheers, WELD