Widescreen Gaming Forum

VERY interested, keep us updated!

Wish I had that much room to play... :lol:

Looks awesome. I may have to buy a bigger house just to fit something like this in. :D

Now, THAT's my kind of bezel management. ;)

Have you considered any golf software?

Now, THAT's my kind of bezel management. ;)

Have you considered any golf software?

Na, I need the exercise from real golf, more than I need to simulate it. One would think this would work great with a golf sim too though. The basement room this is in has a low ceiling, so it's not going to handle any golf club swinging. My gaming interests are mostly MMO, strategy and flight/racing sims, although I'm only decent at MMOs. My main goal is to do life size immersive projection on a budget and see if I can pull it off. So far, so good imho.

I didn't make any progress on the room today. Putting up the ceiling the other day really wore me out. I really need to get the side walls up and everything painted so I can put in the circular screen mounts and the projector mounts to finish out the room. I am really itching to get the 180 degree circular screen running. According to shipping information my wall screen arrives today. Hopefully I'll have that screen built in short order, but for now the goal is to finish boxing out the room and painting it. That still leaves me wondering what mateial to velcro up for the circular screen as it's got to be a light material yet have decent screen properties and not cost a mint.

I want to play Eve Online and have it look like the Enterprise-E Stellar Cartography: :shock:

If you do, I think you might have AMD wanting to take pics... 8)

"This is something you can do with EyeFinity!" (obviously it would probably be doable with TH2Go, as well... ;))

If you do, I think you might have AMD wanting to take pics... 8)

"This is something you can do with EyeFinity!" (obviously it would probably be doable with TH2Go, as well... ;))

Considering I'm currently using DH2G Digital and TH2G Digital to prototype out the screen setup waiting on the 6-port EyeFinity card....yes, you're right. :wink:

If they want me to demo the 6-port card in a real world hobby environment they can send one my way with whatever NDA is required and I'd be happy to do a writeup on it and compare it to the TH2G. While it's cool, this is formerly a spider infested unfinished basement. I'm sure they could pull it off in much grander scale with less spiders. My goal is to go 6-port card once it's available. All I'll have to do is drop it into the system and away we go. Also the room was specificly framed out to be a perfect square, so I can come in later and do the back 180 degree screen as budget allows. :D

Currently:
2.39:1 2-projector wall screen DH2G Digital.
180 degree 3-projector circular screen TH2G Digital
Vista 32 Home Premium
Sol7 Home Sim Edition

Future:
2.39:1 2 projector wall screen EyeFinity6.
180/240/300/360 degree 3/4/5/6-projector circular screen EyeFinity6 (as budget allows)
Windows 7 32 Professional
Sol7 Home Sim Edition

*wibble*

...bad night.

I'll be updating this thread a bit today with a backlog of pics and build log update. I've changed the title of the thread to "Gaming Room Circular Projection Build Log" to better describe the current configuration of the build (and lack of the EyeFinity 6-port card at this point). Right now I'm finally about where I planned on being about this time last week. I think there is a saying that goes "the best laid plans..." :lol:

Anyways, pictures to follow later on today. :D

When you're finished, could you make a small youtube video showing how its like from the place you choice to game from? :D

When you're finished, could you make a small youtube video showing how its like from the place you choice to game from? :D

About the best I can do is a webcam. I don't have one of those 720p flash HD camcorders yet. I've been pondering mounting my webcam in that room anyways. I want to get one of those fisheye lens add-ons you can do to mod the webcam so you can see the whole room.

Fisheye Lens for webcam:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lomo-Effect-Jelly-Lens-Fisheye-Wide-Angle-Mobile-Strap_W0QQitemZ250516513222

Webcam would work as well. :) It will never be the same as being in the room trying this out, but with a cam, we might get a better impression of the feeling gaming with this. :D

I've got the walls ceiling and floor painted. I still need to put up the back wall panels and 1 ceiling panel up. The mount for the circular screen is also up but not painted yet. The pic is about 2/3rds of where the circular screen will be mounted. My camera simply won't let me get a full view of the room. I really need to get a camera with a fisheye lens.



Here is a test of HDTV projection last week. This setup is using a firewire cable from the HDTV cable STB to the computer using VLC to play the live m2ts video stream. The pic is a bit old, the walls ceiling and floor aren't painted yet.

You just convinced me to go for a projector for my next HT setup. Thank you.

This is one great project my friend. I'm going to be following this with great interest.

Keep up the great work. :D

I'm still skeptical that there are flight sims out there that can make use of 5 screens worth of FOV without horrible edge distortion, but this is all very cool nonetheless.

You just convinced me to go for a projector for my next HT setup. Thank you.

Just to clarify, that's two projectors shown there. While a single 16:9 projector with an HDMI or DVI port is great for showing HDTV, what is shown there is two 5:4 projectors with edge blending. So, it's a bit beyond the typical projection setup.

Also go into the projector puchase with the bulb cost as a reoccuring consumable in mind. Every 2500-4000 hours you'll need $200 bulb. That should equate out to about once a year.

I also suggest that you give serious thought to short-throw lens on the projector to achive that type of wall height size projection. Look for 0.6:1 short-throw lens. If you don't you'll need about 20 foot lens throw distance to achieve wall height size. Most people can't achieve that throw distance. Short-throw projectors can do it in about 6 foot lens throw instead of 20+ foot.

If you go into the purchase with those 2 things in mind, you should have a great home theater experience.

I'm still skeptical that there are flight sims out there that can make use of 5 screens worth of FOV without horrible edge distortion, but this is all very cool nonetheless.

At the moment I'm just going 3 projector, much like regular triple-head displays. I'm also a bit sceptical about the potential of fisheye distortion on many games. 3 screen should work great for 180 degrees though. If I go over 180, is when I'll encounter those issues. I'll cross that bridge at a later date. For now 180 degrees is plenty. Besides, it's hard to have eyes in the back of my head to use those another 3 screens. :lol:

Probably the most efficient way to go about it is just do an exact hardware duplicate of the current setup and run WidevieW for the back 3 on another machine. As is, the budget is getting a bit unwieldy. Also, WidevieW is hardly a generic game solution, so there is a delima. This setup is definitely not targeted at only MSFS, although it'll be one title I use.

I do also currently own 3 InFocus SP5000s (that I want to sell) I could theoretically use to do the back 3 projectors with, but they hardly match up well with the current 3 Optoma EX525ST I'm using.

Home Depot had the canvas drop cloths in stock for about $20 each. It looks to just be untreated canvas.


I've got one side top stretched and tacked up. I need to stretch and secure the bottom side now to take out the wrinkles. It looks like if I wanted to I could just prime and paint the canvas material. Not sure I want to do that though as this was just temporary material to test things before getting custom cut screen material via ebay.

Very cool. I work in flight simulation and it's always interesting to see the different ways people solve the same solutions.