1x Computer, 2x ATI Cards, and 7x Monitors - "Flight Simulator X has encountered a fatal error"

[Conair]

Hi,

I am having problems setting up our FS simulator and I am hoping this community can offer some expert advice and suggestions.

I want to run our sim on 1x computer with 7x monitors and 2x ATI cards but FSX keeps freezing each time I launch the application - "Flight Simulator X has encountered a fatal error". :(

When I launch FSX in full screen mode the program crashes. But if I launch FSX in undocked view, 5 of the 7 monitors is able to show the program running successfully (i.e. I can move the Free Flight menu screen between the 5 monitors). However, when I move the undocked window into the 6th or 7th monitor the program crashes. :-? It's like the program cannot be displayed on the 6th or 7th monitor but all monitors work fine if I don't have FSX started.

I've confirmed both video cards, monitors, and all adaptors are functioning so I do not think its' a hardware issue? I ran a 3D graphics burn-in test and it completed with no errors. And I am running the the latest drivers for both the video cards. After some research and investigating I believe the problem is to do with the FSX program and possibly with the FSX.cfg file? I tried starting from a brand new FSX.cfg file but no luck. I further tried different cabling and adapters but not success either. Not sure what else I can do to test. Has anyone else came across this problem before running two ATI cards?

My Environment
- Windows 7 (64 Bit) with all the latest updates
- Fight Simulator X
- ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
- ATI Radeon HD 5570 Series
- "Crossfire" is not enabled on the graphics cards.
- 4x HDTV connected via mini-display port adaptors to HDMI cables.
- 3x 19" Acer Monitors connected via 1 display port, HDMI, and DVI cable.

Any feedback or suggestions is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Min

[Conair]

Anyone out there in the sim community have any suggestions? Thanks for your feedback.

[odhank]

Hi, I have the same problem like you. I want to display 8 monitor with 2 AMD Radeon Card in 1 PC. I try this all displays work good, when I drag window mode (from undock view) to another monitor display (different graphic card), FSX got fatal error!! (crashes). But If I drag undock view to another monitor display with in the same graphic card, there is no problem and FSX works good. Have you found the solution now? have any suggestions from anyone about this problem to solve that? Thanks

[jonesthesoftware]

Check Microsoft website as WinXP only supported 6 separate monitors and I haven't seen anything to suggest that Win7 will support more, Maybe possible with other software, but Eyefinity for example also only supports 6 monitors.
Other problem with FSX is that if any undocked window on any monitor overlaps any other undocked window on any other monitor by even 1 pixel it will crash by running extremely slowly so that you cannot even control the mouse properly.
From the main window, undock your chosen window,OH/FMC etc drag your window to a small size, drag to the monitor required then drag corner to the size of that monitor and not 1 pixel more, repeat for other windows. Then save your flight.
Best option is to use Matrox Triplehead2go driving 3 monitors to drive the outside view connected to 1 graphics card output. That's will give 2 monitors less, other option is Wideview running on separate PCover ethernet driving the outside view again using TH2GO
regards
geoff

[odhank]

Check Microsoft website as WinXP only supported 6 separate monitors and I haven't seen anything to suggest that Win7 will support more, Maybe possible with other software, but Eyefinity for example also only supports 6 monitors.
Other problem with FSX is that if any undocked window on any monitor overlaps any other undocked window on any other monitor by even 1 pixel it will crash by running extremely slowly so that you cannot even control the mouse properly.
From the main window, undock your chosen window,OH/FMC etc drag your window to a small size, drag to the monitor required then drag corner to the size of that monitor and not 1 pixel more, repeat for other windows. Then save your flight.
Best option is to use Matrox Triplehead2go driving 3 monitors to drive the outside view connected to 1 graphics card output. That's will give 2 monitors less, other option is Wideview running on separate PCover ethernet driving the outside view again using TH2GO
regards
geoff

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll try your method, I hope it can work successfully. I prefer to use one PC with 6 monitor touchscreen and 2 monitor non-touchscreen. Is that still possible?

[Igolf1]

I have a similar problem. Have been using 5 screens for a long time, connected to a GTX590. One of the DVI is using a TripleHead2Go and the two other for the other two screens (driving 5 screens in total). Worked like a dream until I decided I wanted to replace some of my Saitek panels with two extra screens run by a second GTX8800 card.

When I drag a panel to one (same every time) of the new screens, the FSX get a fatal error and restart. A full screen mode (which I seldom use) create the same crash. Have tried the DLL from Vista but this seems to be another problem, have also tried to run FSX in XP mode but without a result.

Windows works perfect with all screen and FSX is set-up correctly with resolution and no preview of DX10

Any ideas out there ??

[elsewhere]

I'm having the same problem. I decided to make the switch from nVidia to AMD, and got a couple 7970s running six monitors. I didn't have this trouble with the old cards. In my experience over the years, it seems like the more expensive a video card you get, the more trouble you run into.

Anyhow, I've now given up and switched over to Prepar3D, which runs beautifully on multiple monitors.