Hi guys.

Having a problem with setting up my 3 screens how i want it them.
I want the main screen to display out the front wind screen, and the 2 side screens to display out the side windows.

No matter how i set it, it tries to share the passenger side window and windscreen on one screen and the car is never pointing straight. Driving straight is like aiming down the bezel of 2 screens. That area is also warped and looks bent even with the bezel set as 0.

Rotating view fixes it a little, but then when you look behind, your looking on an angle.

Using the custom view it is almost managable, but some servers force cockpit view and i cant get it to look right.

Any way to set it so the main screen is centered to the track and the others only display out the side windows?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Its because you are sat to one side of the car I think. Set a custom view with virtual dials in the centre of the car, and thats probably your only way. Either that or drive single seaters

Thats exactly why, however even when you use custom view and have it show the body and select center, its all still off to one side

Its playable with a custom view (tho it looks warped and behind view is way off) but several servers are In Car only

In LFS add a screen to the left and a screen to the right, then it will understand that the wheel must be in the middle screen

Its already set like that.
Wheel is in the center screen, but the center view is half shown on the passanger side view when i only want it displayed on the center screen.

Now that I read it again I understand what your problem is.

Short answer: You can't achieve what you want.
Long answer: You have to use a custom camera, at the center of the car, with a high FOV.

I say it's imposible, because I guess it will show a really distorted image.

yer, when u do get it sorta how i want it, its all distorted and disorientating.

There has to be a way to do it tho, seems a waste to use 3 screens if all you can do is spread the front view wider

I notice some camera control mods in the mod section. Any chance one of these can help?

Spreading the front view wider (tripling the FOV) is the advantage to three screens. I'm not sure how your view is messed up, or what your trying to achieve; I know I use cockpit view with 3 screens, and it feels pretty natural. Based on the math in rendering a 3D scene to 2D monitors, the side monitors will be slightly stretched, but I haven't found that terribly distracting.

Try taking a screen shot of your cockpit view, and your custom camera that is closest to what you want. (Shrink them a bit and save as jpg or something obviously). Hope you figure out how to get it working for you!

It sounds like you want to use three viewports and angle the side viewports a lot. Use a wide FOV, then zoom in each view a bit, should give something close to what you want.

Quote from blackbird04217 :

Spreading the front view wider (tripling the FOV) is the advantage to three screens. I'm not sure how your view is messed up, or what your trying to achieve; I know I use cockpit view with 3 screens, and it feels pretty natural. Based on the math in rendering a 3D scene to 2D monitors, the side monitors will be slightly stretched, but I haven't found that terribly distracting.

Try taking a screen shot of your cockpit view, and your custom camera that is closest to what you want. (Shrink them a bit and save as jpg or something obviously). Hope you figure out how to get it working for you!

Im trying to get a more inside the car feel. I want to turn my head to see out the side windows like in a real car.
Id like to have the secondary screens on a 90deg angle, but the game doesnt go that high

How it does look:


How it should look: (Note photoshopped to 3 screenies)


What i want to achieve:

Quote :

It sounds like you want to use three viewports and angle the side viewports a lot. Use a wide FOV, then zoom in each view a bit, should give something close to what you want.

Seems to me that i can only adjust them all at once, how do i do each individual screen?

I also use 3 monitors, and the warping is anoying to some degree.
the warping is correct though, Go sit in a real car and look around

The "how it does look" looks far more natural to me. What you are trying to achieve (seems to me) looks like it would be three separate cameras at different angles to look 'OUT' the side window. Unless your side-monitors are at an extreme angle, I'd stick with the way it is. I do notice the stretching in the top picture, actually a little more stretching than I get here.

Thanks for uploading, as I understand what you want. A good hint for you, (assuming you don't already use/own) would be TrackIR, then you turn your head slightly to see out the window like you want.

Do you use SoftTH or have a hardware solution for the triple? I believe SoftTH (which I use at this time) has some correction stuff that helps a bit with the stretching, that said, I still get the stretching - and you always will unless there are multiple rendering points. High FOV values will start to break down the rendering math as I was saying earlier.

The annoying thing is, i have achieved the effect i want before.
I decided to see just how poor hardware i could get away with running 3 screens. I have plenty of old hardware to play with so i built a crappy system and away i went.

AMD Athlon 1.4, GeForce 4 440 x8 AGP, Riva TNT2 M64. 512mb Ram running XP.
Using SoftTH i managed to get the 3 screens running at 3072x768 pulling an average of 12 - 18 FPS or 35 - 40 FPS on a single screen at 1400x900.
Camera was almost exactly how i want it and i cant get it on a much better setup

From that image, it seems you need to play with the bezel widths/offsets in the SoftTH config file. But if you are getting less than 30fps, I wouldn't go into an actual race. Even 30fps can be on the edge of playable (and that depends how consistent it actually remains).

But to me, in that latest image it doesn't look anything like what you described you wanted above. It looks more like the stretched image of the screenshot you took - which is how _I_ would expect / desire - as that gives you the best feeling of being in the car.

I get over 200 fps generally so no worries there. Pumps about 60 fps with 3 screens.
The photo is exactly as I'd like it, and it's nothing like the screen shot, look closely.
I can see out BOTH side windows perfect and the dash is straight.
In the SS, the dash is warped and u can only see the mirror on 1 side. The windscreen also spreads across 2 screens instead of 1.

Help someone? Anyone?

Quote from fnixws :

.
Id like to have the secondary screens on a 90deg angle, but the game doesnt go that high
Of course it does.
.
.

How it should look: (Note photoshopped to 3 screenies)

I've easily made that configuration with 90 degrees between the screens to btw. If you can't make the Screen Angle higher, make the Main Screen FOV higher first. I can't understand what the problem is?

Use custom view and set to Centre View with the button on the right. Here's the rest of the settings.



Note View Offset=0.0 and X offset=0.000m
Tweak the Y & Z offsets (fore/aft & up/down) of the seat to get it exactly how you want it.

I'd suggest:
- re-arranging your physical monitors at 90 degrees as well.
- set up the wheel on the side of the main monitor, unless you have a mclaren F1.

Quote from JasonJ :

I've easily made that configuration with 90 degrees between the screens to btw. If you can't make the Screen Angle higher, make the Main Screen FOV higher first. I can't understand what the problem is?

Use custom view and set to Centre View with the button on the right. Here's the rest of the settings.



Note View Offset=0.0 and X offset=0.000m
Tweak the Y & Z offsets (fore/aft & up/down) of the seat to get it exactly how you want it.

I'd suggest:
- re-arranging your physical monitors at 90 degrees as well.
- set up the wheel on the side of the main monitor, unless you have a mclaren F1.

Good man

Yer it was simple as that thanks mate. Basically i couldn't set the side bezel to 90 because i had the FOV too close to the dash.

So much for people saying its not possible and the posted SS was "normal".

Very happy thanks

Quote from fnixws :

So much for people saying its not possible and the posted SS was "normal".

Not saying this is directed at me, but I didn't say it wasn't possible - I didn't know how to do it though.

I did mention the first posted screen shot was normal - but that's based on personal opinions, and is how I feel more natural with the view. To each their own, glad you were able to get what you wanted.

Nah more at the dude who said:
"Short answer: You can't achieve what you want."

and the multiple people in game who told me the view i was trying to get wasnt possible.

Thanks for the help fellas, working well.

Seem to have screwed up some settings somewhere tho. Even in single screen mode im struggeling to get 80+FPS and everything looks a bit rough. Trees flicker even when your sitting still with the engine off they have a shimmer effect to them.
I was looking better and running better before i messed with too many settings

EDIT: Fixed, it appears SoftTH screws up the graphics a bit. If i wanna play single screen mode i have to swich to the Non soft TH card and back to 200 FPS.
Sadly im stuck at 30 - 45 FPS in tripple screen mode with shimmering trees

Shimmering Trees:
Perhaps you changed you MIP Bias settings by mistake. Firstly make sure in your Windows graphics card control panel the you're using application controlled for AF and AA. Then in LFS, put up the Mip bias settings to max. I've found the one that makes the outlines of the trees 'shimmer' is the Mip bias (x.x) objects / walls: setting. The lower it is, the more they shimmer.

Also the AA settings, if set too low can cause the edges of the trees to 'shimmer'


The higher you go with theses settings the more load your system has to deal with.


FPS:
Not ever used softTH myself I don't know how optimal it is for FPS. Looking at your previous 3-screen image shot (warped image) it's only at 39 FPS and the single screen shot (photoshopped pic) is barely 55 FPS. Unless you turn down your graphics settings, smoke,skids off/sky off/ low level of details etc, I don't think you can expect much more than 40 FPS with tripple screen at 90 degrees angle on the screens. You might get more FPS if you don't reder three screens separately (zero degrees screen angle).
Basically turn off all high graphics levels and slowly turn things on until you learn which things have the worse effect on your FPS.

Edit: re-reading your post, it must be the softTH stuff messing up the FPS. Re-install it from scratch maybe? and redo the config files for softTH. Anyways maybe the stuff about the trees helped you a bit.

Yer, it seems a little strange actually, a have a few installations happening and depending what i do in 1 installation it seems to effect the other?
Seems ok for me at the moment with the 3 screens running. Its pulling 45fps minimum (full grid start line) and averaging 60+.

Ive read a few threads about the graphics settings in the cards control panel, in game ect and they all seem to recomend opposite things.
For example one guy has the best results with everything set to Max Quality, another guy had the same card and got better results from max performence. Seems to be a matter of playing with settings to get the best result.

I have everything set to full in game, all looking good at the moment and running smooth as butter