Gaming Room Circular Projection Build Log

JKeefe · Post by **JKeefe** » 21 Oct 2009, 16:32

I bought those exact branded drop cloths at Home Depot last month to paint my house. They are in fact untreated canvas.

I certainly didn't paint them intentionally like you may be planning, but from the paint I have gotten on them I can tell you the texture of the canvas still shows through a great deal.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 21 Oct 2009, 18:37

It's up and running with the TH2G setup. The screens are pretty wrinkly but they work for getting everything alligned and set up. I'll try and post some pics in a bit, but I'm a bit....destracted at the moment playing some games. :lol:

All I can say is it's like having an IMAX theater in my basement now. I can confirm that Eve Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Zoom Player (VMR9 Renderless mode) and VLC (OpenGL mode) all work great with Sol7. So far only World of Warcraft is giving me issues. I think some anti-cheat component in WoW is kicking Sol7 out of working. I'll have to ask ImmersaView a bit about work-arounds on that. :wink:

Edit: Also just finished trying Rise of Flight. It is also working with Sol7. The mouse panning of the view could make a person motion sick if you didn't watch out in this game lol.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 21 Oct 2009, 21:18

Here is the Sol7 configuration window test pattern. For the most part it's corrected but there are some wrinkles in the canvas that make some areas a bit wobbly.

Here I am in Eve Online with it working.

I plan on better dialing in the height of the projection once they're ceiling mounted. So the screen above aren't really representative of the full height of the final projection setup. I'll gain about another foot of projection on the top and bottom.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 21 Oct 2009, 21:19

Ha, nice stuff man. I am sure you have more than one envious person around here.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 21 Oct 2009, 21:23

Ha, nice stuff man. I am sure you have more than one envious person around here.

I'm happy to share my experience with everyone on the build so they don't make any costly mistakes. I really want to see others be able to do this stuff too. Anything they can learn from my build I hope makes life easier for everyone else attempting this type of thing.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 21 Oct 2009, 23:11

I wanted to go straight from my 37" monitor to 3x HD projectors and a TH2Go from the start.

But eyefinity made me leap earlier than I expected and I dont have the space for the projectors so ended up with 24" monitors (and even that takes a LOT of space) but your setup goes way past just a 3x setup. That SOL stuff had me worried about compatibility.

It only works for games that support it doesnt it? or does it work at the OS level so that all applications and games work.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 21 Oct 2009, 23:31

It only works for games that support it doesnt it? or does it work at the OS level so that all applications and games work.

It sits at an OS level but only for 3D full screen apps. The desktop looks a little crazy when out of full screen mode. It injects itself into most DirectX and OpenGL apps. Only game I've ran into an inssue with so far is WoW. Everything else has worked. I think it might have to do with anti-cheat mechanism within the game checking to see if anything is injected in via 3rd party apps. Makes me wonder if some PunkBuster type games might have issues too. I'm having a decent success rate on games so far though.

If AMD would put something like Sol7 into Catalyst drivers a key suggestion would be tryng to get it to work outside of 3D mode on the desktop. That would be a huge feat and would make the circular screen experience a lot more functional. The reason why I say the uncorrected desktop looks a little crazy is that the circular screen introduces a "hump" in the center of every projector view. There us an upward bow in the center of every projection. This is 100% corrected via Sol7 though when in 3d mode. No idea how AMD could do this on a driver level outside of 3d mode, but if they could make the experience standard throughout it would be great.

If AMD's goal is to make the non-sci-fi equivalant of the "holodeck", projector edge blending and pre-warping built into the Catalyst driver would be a must.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 21 Oct 2009, 23:52

Gotta get some mechwarrior going :D

And racing games would be a blast too.

I highly recommend Burnout Paradise its like less than $20 and really fun.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 00:13

I have a saitek stick and throttle and some thrustmaster rudder peddals, so I might try out all the flight sim demos I can. I want to get a decent steering wheel and peddals set for racing.

Post by **suiken_2mieu** » 22 Oct 2009, 02:08

BHawthorne I marvel what you have done already, once you get 360 down, it's gonna be the sweetest thing ever. Seriously.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 11:58

Anyone have some good sim game demo suggestions? I know HAWX would probably be a good one to show, how about some other flight and driver sim demos?

Magic Man · Post by **Magic Man** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:06

That looks great! What you need now is a pit setup around you with stick, throttle and pedals and a screen for instruments.

I haven't got room for a projector setup (or would want the replacement bulbs issue to be at the back of my mind - shame they are still so expensive) so I'm converting my small attic into a themed 'pit instead.

Got a 3 x 19" & 1 x 24" TH2Go setup at the moment but am planning to move this to a 3 x 24" (U2410) & 1 x 24" & 2 x 19" Eyefinity 6 powered setup in the near future. Got three 10" screens as well that I'd like to use if I can, with a second card, possible make use of the TH2Go box as well.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:10

That looks great! What you need now is a pit setup around you with stick, throttle and pedals and a screen for instruments.

Oh, I've got that covered too. This screen setup is just the prototype for the screen system for the thing below, which gets it's own garage/workshop/building. :wink:

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:29

That is insane. In a good way. Amazing.

I'm stunned. That's awesome.

Magic Man · Post by **Magic Man** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:35

Very nice indeed...! F86?

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:36

That is insane. In a good way. Amazing.

I'm stunned. That's awesome.

When I do hobbies, I tend to nerd out on them a bit... :lol:

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:40

Very nice indeed...! F86?

A Republic F-84F-10-GK to be exact. :wink:

The instrument panel looks like my avatar. The F-84F was a pretty big workhorse in the 50-60's but is under appreciated compared to the F-86 of the same era. The F-86 was the fighter, while the F-84 was the fighter-bomber of that era.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:45

When I do hobbies, I tend to nerd out on them a bit... :lol:

That's not a bad thing. ;) If I had that much room, I'd probably do the same. :oops:

Do some sort of big write up, see if you can get a magazine interested?

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 13:48

[quote]When I do hobbies, I tend to nerd out on them a bit... :lol:

That's not a bad thing. ;) If I had that much room, I'd probably do the same. :oops:

Do some sort of big write up, see if you can get a magazine interested?

It'll probably be about 5 years before I can do that in a presentable way. The simpit itself is a long term project that is going to eat a significant amount of time to achieve. Just think of how the tech will be then? Interesting to think about what'll possably be in the future. It's going to be fun to evolve the setup over time to that point.

My dream would be for projectors to finally be converted over to the 25,000 hour LED based bulbs and be affordable 1080p. That way the bulbs would be simply out of the cost equation. Bulb prices are what is killing projector adoption rates. 1080p LED bulb 0.6:1 short-throw projector (with DisplayPort on board) would be a dream come true for simpit builders. No such thing atm, as the tech just isn't combined in that form yet at any price.

Maybe by then "4k HD" projection might edge into the upper mainstream marketplace along with a version of DisplayPort capable of "4k HD" bandwidth connections. Combine that with 5-year matured EyeFinity and we're talking some seriously cool configurations. (Note to the AMD/ATI guys...the next OS after Win 7 could target a maximum of double the 8192x8192 current spec to allow a triple-head "4k HD" LCD display or projection capability if you're forward thinking). Forget going to an IMAX theater, because you'd have one at home. :)

Post by **BHawthorne** » 22 Oct 2009, 21:04

To show the importance of Sol7 in the whole setup, here is a picture example of uncorrected projection (and what your 2D desktop will always look like) vs. Sol7 pre-warped projection. Without pre-warp capability circular projection is ugly. :wink:

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