I think you are still missing something, use3renders=1 is not a 3x90deg. view forward, it is three seperate views entirely, 90deg to each other, if you want one large widescreen forward view then don't use use3renders=1, just set the resolution in conf.ini as you would for a single widescreen monitor and increase the width to fit the monitors.

Urufu,
Grifter's last concern piques my interest, too. namely, what happens with TH2Go when you try to change the FOV? The possibilities I can think of...

1) Nothing happens.

2) Each view remains pointed in the same *relative* direction, i.e., 90 degrees apart, while each view's FOV changes. Naturally, this would result in increasingly larger gaps between views as FOV decreases.

3) Each view direction changes with respect to each other as FOV varies so that there are no gaps between adjacent views. In such case, the full width of the 3-display view would vary from 270 degrees down to 90 degrees. This is the situation Grifter hopes for.

quote:

Originally posted by Lurch1962:
3) Each view direction changes with respect to each other as FOV varies so that there are no gaps between adjacent views. In such case, the full width of the 3-display view would vary from 270 degrees down to 90 degrees. This is the situation Grifter hopes for.

That is exactly what happens.

striker-85,

i played around with various il2 ini settings on the WE, and got it working with the advice you gave.

it at least shows me the principle in action on 2 monitors, so i get an idea what it would look like on a more powerfull pc with 3 monitors. some things i noticed:

- the flashing black box is visible on the left corner of the left monitor, it is an annoying bug and is fairly distracting (the size is about 3 x 3 inches)

- to cover the 27' + 19' monitor area i was experimenting with, i set the ini to the equivalent of 3 x 20' monitors (4800 x 1200), and that worked, the video filled the screens (to get rid of a slight border on the 19' i ended up using 5136 x 1284 to be exact)

- the seamless video across both screens seemed to be centered "off center". for some reason the il2 view jumped with its center view to the 19' set to the right of the main monitor, rather then being centered on the right half of the 27' which was the real center of my virtual desktop space. i suspect that is something quirky due to the fact that i am only using 2 hardware monitors to spread my 3 virtual views on.

- there was no gaps between the 3 virtual 4 x 3 monitors i had spread across my desktop, but there did seem to be a "line break" when i panned the view with certain FoV settings, being most obvious on the wide FoV's. it looked like a slight angular break in what should have been a straight continues line of the flat horizon, and it was exactly at the point where one of the virtual 4 x 3 monitor views was meeting on my virtual desktop of the 27' display. this could well be a bug that stays when i use my intended 27' + 2 x 19' monitors. i suspect this could be solved by using 3 x equally sized widescreen monitors (each of them being set to a virtual 4 x 3 size, and wasting heaps of gfx card grunt to push the residual "off screen" invisible pixels). the "line break" was upwards in direction, so having a 3:4 monitor at that exact spot set at an angle towards you would make it invisible, and might well be a deliberate "feature" to make the view more correct when you turn the 2 outside monitors inwards at a 30 or 40 degree angle.

striker-85, did you ever notice a similar issue with your CRT setup ? if on your 3 monitor setup you have them set in a line side by side, it would then look as if the 2 outside monitors show an angled line of the horizon (angled slightly upwards, at about 15 or 20 degrees i estimate). and do you have any idea what this "angle" is exactly ? setting our monitors at that angle would be the logical answer.

- the much wider view with multiple monitors is mouth watering, this no doubt is the way forward to increase immersion. to me it looks better and more immersive than simply using one very big flat monitor in front of you (like a big HDTV screen). having the 3 monitors position in a inverted V shape really increases your illusion of having true peripheral vision in the game.

- looks like using 3 monitors will need 3 high end gfx cards, using 2 might not cut it for using 4800 x 1200 resolution with a 27' and two 19' lcd's.

i really hope oleg will improve this multi monitor feature for BoB, right now the 4 x 3 monitor hardware issue is a major drain on resources for modern pc's that try and use widescreens.

i'll try and tinker a bit more with this, but it is making me hesitate to already take the expensive plunge on changing my mb and add 3 expensive gfx cards, particularly since there is still uncertainty about what exactly will be required for BoB.

i experimented a bit more with the view settings to see what this "angled break in the horizon line" was doing.

it is indeed exactly at the point where my virtual 4:3 monitor surface area's meet on my 16:9 monitor, and the angle of the line break is 15 degrees to be exact (used a thinge-me-jig to measure it exactly). with the view centered on the virtual centre monitor, both virtual monitors have that 15 degree line break deflecting upwards. the default view at startup of il2 is 70 FoV, and changing it to 90 or 50 does not change the angle of that deflection.


striker-85, one odd observation about this is that if the pilot looks upwards (with the same FoV setting as the default), then the angle of this line-break increases, and if the virtual pilot looks downwards it flattens out. panning to the left reduces that angle by the time you have rotated your viewpoint to about the 10 or 2 o'clock view the horizon line is perfectly flat, and if you then pan further to the 7 or 5 o'clcok views the break in the line has started to reverse and is now angled downwards at about 15 or 20 degrees. this seems a bit odd if that is the way it also behaves with 3 monitors connected, and would be disorienting to fly with. do you experience anything similar with your 3 monitors ? also when i use the snap views on/off when i pan the monitors sometimes seem to behave independently, which is a bit odd. this might well be a major issue if we use 3 monitors without a 3H2go in il2, and could be a show stopper.

maybe lurch can clarify if it would be as simple as therefore setting the 2 lateral monitors at a 15 degree offset angle from the center monitor to compensate for this. but i doubt this would solve the observed angle changes when you pan left or right to the 5 or 7 o'clock views.

Grifter,
This line beak you're seeing is perfectly normal. It's the result of the gnomonic projection, which forces ALL straight lines, no matter where in the view, to be drawn straight.

The only way to see a completely correct and distortionless view is to do this...

Set up the 3 screens so that they are mutually perpendicular, i.e., they form 3 sides of a square box. Place your head so that your eyes are exactly in the center of this box, so that you're looking directly and squarely at each screen. I know with certainty that this is correct when each FOV is set to 90 degrees, but would have to cogitate on it some more to determine if it would be equally valid for smaller FOVs. At any rate, for the latter case it would still be superior to the typical viewing set-up where all monitors are in the forward position and angled outward with respect to each other.

Obviously, this 3-sided box approach would be practical with screens *at least* 2 feet wide apiece; the bigger the better.

Any other viewing configuration will result in discontinuities, as you've discovered.

I am trying to get this "use3renders" view to work.
I have 3 24" widescreen LCD's.

This is how i set it up (the Use3Renders=1) keeps getting changed back to 0 and I get the view in the center screen (Cockpit) but nothing on the other two screens.


[window]
width=3840
height=960
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=0
ChangeScreenRes=0
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=0
SaveAspect=1
Use3Renders=0



Please let me know what I am doing wrong.

Thank you,

Zino

Try setting saveAspect=0 and Use3Renders=1.

quote:

Originally posted by zino596:
I am trying to get this "use3renders" view to work.
I have 3 24" widescreen LCD's.

This is how i set it up (the Use3Renders=1) keeps getting changed back to 0 and I get the view in the center screen (Cockpit) but nothing on the other two screens.


[window]
width=3840
height=960
ColourBits=32
DepthBits=24
StencilBits=0
ChangeScreenRes=0
FullScreen=1
DrawIfNotFocused=0
EnableResize=0
EnableClose=0
SaveAspect=1
Use3Renders=0



Please let me know what I am doing wrong.

Thank you,

Zino

The config above looks OK. How are your monitors connected? Are you using a TripleHead2Go or some software like UltraMon?

The monitors must appear as 1 single monitor in order for Use3Renders to use them. If you just have three seperate monitors connected to a PC and they are not setup as a single large desktop then IL-2 will only use one of them and because the 3840x960 is too large for a single monitor then IL-2 is automatically reseting Use3Renders to 0.

quote:

Originally posted by Urufu_Shinjiro:
Try setting saveAspect=0 and Use3Renders=1.

SaveAspect has to be set to 1 (SaveAspect=1) for Use3Renders to work. Setting SaveAspect to 0 will disable Use3Renders.

how does IRTracker work with the 3 views?

quote:

Originally posted by Ritter_Cuda:
how does IRTracker work with the 3 views?

TIR works fine, it pans all 3 views just like it does on a single view.