Help with nVidia Surround, 3 Projectors, 5 views, an nVidia GTX680 and some crappy frames :(

[DavoPit]

Hello All,

I'm having a rubbish time trying to get a GA trainer performing properly. There is a requirement to divide approximately 225° of curved wall into 5 sectors (separate views) in FSX and it has brought the system to its knees. I have it setup for 2D surround and have done edge blending with Immersive Display Pro. The machine should be sufficient with the following:

1. i5 760 (4 cores, no HT)
2. 8GB DDR3
3. 240GB SSD
4. nVidia GTX680 (4GB)

I need to know how top pull more than 30FPS. I'm currently limited to no more that 9!!! I've applied all the famous tweaks, and even with display settings down to bugger all, the program is groaning. Interestingly, the GPU is only maxing 40% and the CPU sometimes pegs 2 cores, but not always. ANY ASSISTANCE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!


Cheers
Dave

[Kennair]

Hi Dave,

No PC today is going to run 5 undocked views without a very large hit on your frame rates I'm afraid as you are obviously experiencing, and attempting it on an i5 is near impossible. Your only hope would be to use a top of the line i7, overclocked and tweaked in order to give you acceptable performance. Your dream of getting 30+ FPS will remain just that, a dream I'm sorry. Most builders I know even today with FSX 7 years old are only using 3 undocked windows for outside views for this very reason. I assume your using projectors onto that wall? Are they HD or SD at 1280 x 800? I'm using a current generation overclocked i7 with 3 undocked views onto 3 x HD TV's and getting reasonable performance but it still grinds to low teens in high scenery areas.

Hope that helps,

Ken.

[DavoPit]

G'day Ken,

I appreciate your reply and agree with all you say. I'm going to be trying to convince people that 3 undocked views will be sufficient, and that we're going to need a bit more umph under the bonnet. I wonder if I might ask you another question or two?

I'll be running the simulation from another, less powerful PC that will be running all the control surface inputs, WideView server, the instrument panels (matrix dual head), and a situation over view display on a third LCD panel. So far it doesn't seem like this PC has needed much assistance, but is there a hard and fast rule as to how powerful this sort of machine should be?

Also, what is your opinion of WideView, and should there be any lag between these two units while using it?

Thanks again...
Dave

[Kennair]

Dave, I'm not really understanding your full setup given your description. I take it that you are running FSX on your i5 for outside views then another less powerful PC running your panels via Wideview plus an overview. Assuming thats correct, this second PC will also need some grunt as you are effectively running FSX with 2 views, one for the panels on the Matrox and another showing an overview of the plane. The fact that its running control surface inputs won't make any difference but the 2 FSX views will albeit much less so than 3 and particularly 5 views. As to your question on power for this PC, if its running FSX with a single view then something middle of the road should do, particularly if all you are doing is running panel views, however if you intend running an overview on a 3rd monitor then it will tax it, by how much really depends. No hard and fast rules I'm sorry as every system has its own stresses and limits. You just have to run it and wind back settings until its at acceptable limits.

As to Wideview, its a great piece of software and pretty much works out of the box. Install on the FSX machine as the server then onto the second PC as a client and away it goes. There are many functions to adjust if lag is an issue but my experience hasn't needed any changes at all. Having said that, Wideview does state that its main intention is to display multiple outside views over several PC's not as a panel display. I haven't used it to display panels but I'm sure it should work fine. Make sure your network is up to scratch to as this is often the cause of any stuttering or lag rather than Wideview itself.

Good luck,

Ken.

[DavoPit]

Ken,

Thanks again for getting back to me, and so quickly. I've got two machines running the whole setup. Machine 1, running a middle o' the road (actually, quite a bit less) is running an instance of FSX with 2 views (1 instrument panel duplicated, and a forward cockpit view for an instructor/observer), WideView server, and a buttload of input devices controlling all of the surfaces. The machine seems to fare quite well even with better than mid level graphics settings.

Machine 2 is running FSX, Wideview client, and immersive display pro. It's connected to 3 Dell short throw projectors via nvidia gtx680 using 2d surround (well, when I get the bloody surround working it will be). Up to this point, it was running on an ati card and a matrox DTH2Go. I thought the nvidia card would be an enhancement but I seem to have fallen short there.

Beliebe it or not, the system, prior to the video card change out was getting more than 20FPS With the 5 undocked views, but that didn't seem to matter as it was almost unflyable due to pauses and bugginess. The processor was certainly under duress.

Well, I'll get back to it and thank you again for your counsel. If you don't mind, I may bounce a few more questions off you as I progress with this.

Cheers
Daven

[Kennair]

No worries Dave, that's what these forums are all about. Yes frame rates aren't all their is to good performance and as you've found out even though you may be seeing 20FPS other effects such as stuttering come into play when the CPU becomes overloaded. I must agree with the GTX680 experience too. I thought mine would rocket my new system but I have been quite disappointed in its performance and as for nvidia surround, I simply cannot get it to work at all. I've ended up sticking with the Matrox TH2GO. Not sure if its due to the TV monitors I'm using or the card itself, haven't had a chance to test it out on other monitors but sounds like you're experience is similar.

Good luck and feel free to ask more questions. Plenty of other experienced builders here who can also help I'm sure.

Ken.

[DavoPit]

Hey Ken,

Got it going fairly well now. The owner wouldn't accept a 3 panel solution so I'm still on 5+1. I'm using an i7 3770 (Ivy) with 16GB RAM and that nVidia GT680. With all the terrain loaded, and some fairly decent display settings, I'm getting my 30FPS, though it drops as low as 22 when the scenery gets intense. It seems to be running very well, but I'm experiencing a performance hit with WideView. With WideView off its and smooth as cream, but back on, while acceptable, there is a visible jitter. It'll do for now. Thanks again.

Dave

[Kennair]

Wow thats excellent Dave, 5 + 1 views and getting 22 - 30 FPS, you're doing something right that's for sure. I would suggest you try the 5 view approach detailed HERE which might supply another frame or two for you. This removes the need for the extra hidden view that FSX usually requires. As for Wideview causing stutters it sounds like a network issue, if you haven't already I'd try tweaking these parameters in Wideview.

Ken.

[wledzian]

I'm assuming that the client doesn't like the 3-window approach due to the additional perspective distortion you get (geometry matches at the edges, but there's an angular discontinuity). If I'm not mistaken, Immersive display pro has a countermap feature that allows you to add an additional warp correction to fix the image. If this is correct, I can supply you with a distortion map to correct a 3-window 225° view from perspective to spherical projection, eliminating the edge discontinuities.