How many PCs for 3/5 TV screen setup

[onthefence]

Thanks Ed.

Time permitting, could you share some pics & thoughts on your findings after testing?
Stating that it's safe to say that one strong PC can easily run 3 displays depends on your settings and resolution used. Also, since 3D acceleration seems limited to the primary graphic card (as I have been told) it's only that card that gives best performance.

So curious about what your experience is.

BR
JWS

Hello JWS,

For sure I will update the thread with my findings in regards to running 3 displays at a decent smoothness. In the past I have discovered that, yes there is a relation ship between smooth running displays and FPS, (FPS is a good tool for measuring) but there is also something else that I can't explain yet, other than sheer power that makes for a smooth stutter free experience. For the single 60 inch screen I always had stutters when taxing at an intense airport like Fly Tampa CYYZ until I introduced the 3080. The 2070 was ok..but had much stutters. So I guess I don't really know how well the combination of the 3080 and the 2070 combined will perform. I was almost ready to do a ViewGroup but my one long HDMI cable failed, so I've had to order another which wont be in for a week. In the meantime I'll continue to ready the shell and set up the center screen for the ViewGroup. I have decided to start with a ViewGroup of 60 degrees. I think 45 may be better but I can't get that close to my shell with a 60 inch TV out front

I have already had to make a compromise with my riser installation by moving the riser cable down to the 3rd PCI slot rather than the second, as the cable wanted to bend up into the 3080(riser cable a bit too long and the 3080 comes down very close to the 2nd slot). Need to read my motherboard manual to try and figure out what if any effect this will have on the lane performance for the 2070.

My shell is still very bare as I am in the process of moving everything from my temporary setup upstairs to a much cooler area in my basement. I think it would be very difficult to install a 2nd riser to allow 3 cards on my motherboard. I guess a person could do some kind of crazy type mod to do it, or strip a card down to bare bones and install a thin water block as Nico has done. I think basically my motherboard, even though it has three full sized PCI slots, is just not set up to handle three large cards like 3080s or 2070s. The bottom slot is only an inch above the power supply and the 2nd slot is about 1/2 inch below the 3080.

My CPU also limits me to 16 lanes, so another bottleneck here. The Rocket Lake i9s support 20 lanes and still support LGA1200 socket so that's an option but I wont go that route unless I can find a buyer for my i910850K. Including a few pics of the riser in case others may want to go that route.

I still plan on using 3 PC's for the sim, but the Main PC will be handling the displays. Some day I may reduce to two PC's but as of now I have them available so will keep using three for now.

Pic 1: You can see how the cable bending upwards here was an issue when in the 2nd slot. Was pushing up into the 3080.
Pic 2: Self explanatory. I'm not big on RGB and will probably turn all that off later on.
Pic 3: plugged into 2nd PCI slot. I was worried about fan interference and cooling so moved the connection down to the 3rd PCI slot.
Pic 4: Had no good place to make the upper screw connection so installed a tiewrap, slightly flimsy but seems to be efficient enough to do the job.
Pic 5: Center screen active and ready for ViewGroup. Still much to do yet before this new setup is flyable.

[onthefence]

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick followup here. My HDMI cable came in yesterday so I finished calibrating my two side screens. A couple caveats. In the video I mention frames per minute when in actuality I meant to say frames per second, I also mentioned that the Left and Right screens were on the 3080 when I meant to say the Left and Centre screens are on the 3080. Apart from that the video was mainly to show the three views using 60 inch screens and View Groups. There's a lot of fiddling about to get things looking right and I still have more tweaking to do, but initially I think I'm off to a good start. The scenery is Fly Tampa CYYZ RWY 5 Threshold. The sim is not flyable at this time but hopefully soon, so cannot get an accurate depiction of how smooth the flying will be with the 3 screens.


So far results are encouraging. I am seeing only a small amount of fps reduction although I am static and not moving so could be just an illusion, as the sim is not yet flyable. Sitting on the rwy threshold of rny 5 CYYZ Fly Tampa I am seeing fps of 26 to 30. Prosim is running as is AI. No weather at this time.

The 2070 isn't overclocked (yet) so there is room for improvement there. May even be able to squeeze a little more clockspeed out of the 3080 and the i9 as well due to them being in the basement now, which is a much cooler area than it was upstairs. Posting utube of the latest results. I did this quickly at end of day so I made a few little goofs that I have explained in the first paragraph.

This is still a work in progress and there is much more tweaking to be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIYzi7L-4YU

[onthefence]

Hello All,

I revisited the View Groups again today but the Left screen has me stumped. In the above post in my video I mentioned the left view was a bit blurry. I thought it was just a matter of making a few tweaks but it seems the issue goes deeper than that. (it always does, doesn't it?) I have three 60 inch TVs, Left and center on 3080 and right on 2070. It's the second TV on the 3080 that is giving me a problem.

At first glance the problem seems obvious, the resolution is set to low as when I right click and open a menu the menu is huge, but on checking the resolution of all TV's they are the same at 1920x1080. View items on all three screens are set to medium. I thought maybe I had a bad TV so I checked the diagnostics and the display was perfect. The zoom seems to apply equally to all three TV's when I zoom in or out.

I then thought maybe it's the 2nd port on the 3080 that was causing the problem so I set the display to extend to 2 and 3 (2 being the screen with the issue) and in this setting the resolution of all screens were the same, except there's a duplication issue now. My screens are numbered 2 - 1 - 3, 1 being the center.

So I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue and might have an idea where I'm going wrong. I was thinking at first maybe the screen was too close, but the problem shows in the furthest reaches of it, so not that either. Including a couple pics to show the differences in sizes of the menu and also mouse pointer.

[Khendal]

Hello guys, sorry for this little off topic, but anyone of you know the lenght of this bar?

[JWS]

Hello guys, sorry for this little off topic, but anyone of you know the lenght of this bar?

Khendal,

Would you please be so kind to remove this and put it in a separate post? This is not a 'little' off topic. Besides, the question attracts more attention (and answers) as a separate topic.

Thanks in advance.

BR
JWS

[Khendal]

Hello guys, sorry for this little off topic, but anyone of you know the lenght of this bar?

Khendal,

Would you please be so kind to remove this and put it in a separate post? This is not a 'little' off topic. Besides, the question attracts more attention (and answers) as a separate topic.

Thanks in advance.

BR
JWS

Sincerely, we were talking about tv positioning some posts ago... i've tried 3 measures, and i would like to be sure about the last one, and i need the height in picture, to make a little projection in the wall and have the low side of the tv at that height.

[onthefence]

Hello Everyone,

Well I thought long and hard about starting another thread, but I felt it might be better to keep this post here as it is the solution to the blurry screen issue on one of my 60 inch TV's. These three screens are connected to one PC, I'm just not at the point of flying yet..almost..but not quite there yet. As per norm I am waiting for a certain item to come in the post.

So as mentioned in an above post, one of my screens was blurry. The solution was quite simple and is found in the Windows Display settings. Including a screen shot just in case someone else runs into the same problem. In my case the setting was at 150% and I set it back to 100 and no more blurriness.

[Bernie]

Hello Everyone,

Well I thought long and hard about starting another thread, but I felt it might be better to keep this post here as it is the solution to the blurry screen issue on one of my 60 inch TV's. These three screens are connected to one PC, I'm just not at the point of flying yet..almost..but not quite there yet. As per norm I am waiting for a certain item to come in the post.

So as mentioned in an above post, one of my screens was blurry. The solution was quite simple and is found in the Windows Display settings. Including a screen shot just in case someone else runs into the same problem. In my case the setting was at 150% and I set it back to 100 and no more blurriness.

Sorry Ed, that was the first thing I thought was wrong but I didn’t say anything as I thought you would have checked that. I wish now that I had said something. Again, sorry.

[onthefence]

Hello Everyone,

Well I thought long and hard about starting another thread, but I felt it might be better to keep this post here as it is the solution to the blurry screen issue on one of my 60 inch TV's. These three screens are connected to one PC, I'm just not at the point of flying yet..almost..but not quite there yet. As per norm I am waiting for a certain item to come in the post.

So as mentioned in an above post, one of my screens was blurry. The solution was quite simple and is found in the Windows Display settings. Including a screen shot just in case someone else runs into the same problem. In my case the setting was at 150% and I set it back to 100 and no more blurriness.

Sorry Ed, that was the first thing I thought was wrong but I didn’t say anything as I thought you would have checked that. I wish now that I had said something. Again, sorry.

Hi Bernie,

No worries:) I knew it was something simple but I just couldn't think of it. Finally managed to stumble across someone on the web who had a similar problem. I looked at that Display page many times, but my mind didn't register the Scale and Layout section, seems I only focused on the resolution.

I'm currently waiting on a holesaw to come in the post to mount my Tiller, and then I will be able to move the MIP in and start setting up for a flight or two and get some FPS reports of various video card connections. I have my three View Groups almost exactly where I want them and I think pretty close to where they should be and I have noticed a drop of about 10 FPS, down from 30 using a single screen (my TVs are all set to 30hrz and are limited to 30 fps). I was seeing 30 with the three TVs on initial setup but I think my screens were overlapping somewhat so wasn't rendering 3 full screens due to overlaps, at least that's why I think the frames dropped..could be something else as well. Not flyable yet so no idea what smoothness will be like but my goal is to complete it before the first snowfall which gives me roughly 2 to three months.

[JWS]

Not flyable yet so no idea what smoothness will be like but my goal is to complete it before the first snowfall which gives me roughly 2 to three months.

With the present temperatures, I think you can add an extra month.

JWS