Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi all, I am thinking of going with a curved screen and three projectors to replace my current setup which is 3x42" 1080p screens and a 23" touchscreen for flight simulator controls/gauges etc.

In some ways this is a bit of a leap of faith as I will be going from three good quality crisp 42" screens to a larger picture with less resolution. I am not sure how I will like it but I guess it's the same leap of faith I needed to go from very crisp 24" screens to the larger 42" ones. This in itself is my only worry about the idea. I can see for guys that have replica cockpits and only need the projector for outside views that it would be fine but for some games I cannot export gauges to my touchscreen and need to be able to read them off the large screen.

This is what I am used to using and a lot of the time I would use the touchscreen for gauges, cockpit controls etc.

http://homepage.mac.com/jason.jane/temp/pitpic.jpg

This is a different view when set up for racing.

http://gallery.me.com/jason.jane/100095/pit42/web.jpg?ver=13090463620001

My plan is to make another pit on a raised platform like this but have the curved screen in place, all integrated together. I will make changes so that the touchscreen monitor is on an arm and can swing in and out of place when switching from flying/racing

Building the screen, the diy aspect is not a problem for me but I will need to build it before I get the projectors and there are a few things that I am not sure about when doing the design.

I am thinking about a screen that is about 2200mm diameter (86.6") and around 125 degrees (not the fov, 125 degree arc). Right now I sit ~900-1000mm (3 - 3.3ft) from the screens. I was hoping I could get away with the same distance from the projected screen. This would give me a good fov, certainly filling my vision, not 180 though which is not important to me.

Where I am getting a little confused is how to calculate the overall screen size because of the warping. I know I can start with a screens width but then I have to factor how wide the projection will be to cater for blending. This effects the height of the image but the warping also removes height as well.

So, are there any tips to help figure out the overall aspect ratio of a screen when taking the warping in to account? Within reason I can make the screen larger vertically and then mask it to the correct height.

I do like the lower resolution of the short throw projectors from the POV that I will get better framerates compared to the 3x 1920x1080 I currently have but still there is the worry that things wil seem too low res for me, back to that gotta try it and see..

The only other thing I am not sure about is contrast and black levels. I figure for three projectors, each bright and only projecting a fairly small area I will go with some 0.8 gain material, I have used it on another screen a long time ago and worked well. I am just worried in a dark environment that 3 projectors will wash stuff out.

Anyone have any thoughts/views about night flying/black levels in simulators?

Thanks all!

In many ways, I think your current setup looks to work great. As you point out the crisp LCDs are a lot different than projection. If you're used to large panel LCD, I think you might be bothered by contrast and pixel size on projection.

125 FOV would essentially be a dual-projector setup. That would require AMD Eyefinity because NVIDIA has no dual-display spanning solution after Windows XP went EOL.

The contrast and black levels will be at issue vs the LCD that you're used to. The question is, if you're willing to get past that to enjoy a bezel-less uninterrupted screen view. Contrast and black levels are the prime issue with the projection setup. You're spot on by being mindful of it.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Thanks for the reply. I made a few errors in my initial post, like saying the radius was the diameter! its actually a 86" radius and I would sit at about 3.3 ft and want around 125 deg fov.

Even so your comments are in the right spot. I see now that I can go with two projectors, I was thinking three because my initial fov I wanted was going to be around 170 degrees.

A few things made me change my mind on that one. First was that the extreme fov is probably not useful to me. It is nice with the lcd's but I dont tend to look at the far edges, it's just the immersion. 125 degrees is what seemed to just fill all of my peripheral vision, so the smallest screen I could get away with that would still be immersive.

Also, I depend on trackir for my combat simming so the extra fov is not so useful to me as it would be if I was in a 737 pit.

The trackir has me thinking a little bit though.. I see most are using the dlp projectors as they have the short throw. The last dlp I had was 10/11 years back. It was excellent as dlp's are for not seeing the pixels but the rainbow effect was evident. Being a trackir user I wonder if it would show up this little dlp issue more because of the constant panning? I dont know..

If I was only going for 2 projectors I guess I could look at a couple 1080p lcd's if I can get a throw down to ~7 feet, I could look at rear projection as well.

So much to think about..

Dual 1080p projector would be pretty nice. Add in rear projection and it would be my ideal viewing setup. For now I'm stuck with my 3 GT720 and 3 EX525ST. I pondered doing a crazy 360 degree setup awhile back, but that would make for a completely dysfunctional setup and merely a one time novelty. Lately I've been all about cutting the complexity and cost of my setup when refining it. Originally, triple 5:4 projector was the only logical setup I could envision. My expectations and the reality of what is possible has changed significantly since my first experiments in 2009. I currently think the sweet spot for price/performance/immersion is single AMD Eyefinity card and dual 16:9 or 16:10 projector.

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com