#3122205 - 10/23/10 06:36 PM
DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
l88bastard
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I have tried just about every multi monitor / multi screen configuration to get my gaming fix and I have looked everywhere to research my need for immersion. Originally, I was using a 30" 2560x1600 with two 20" 1600x1200 monitors in a SoftTH PLP setup, then I was using three 20" 1600x1200 monitors in an eyefinity setup, and eventually I settled on a triple dell U2410 setup...but now I have taken it to a completely different level! I am now using two 1080p projectors @3860x1080 resolution with edge blending software on a 4'x12' curved Herculean Screen! The result is stunning, it creates a life size representation of everything and the curved screen wraps around your peripherial vision for complete immersion. My gaming room is now dangerous as it is very easy to loose a few hours in it now. Here are some videos in action, MAKE SURE YOU SET IT TO 1080p! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWm9PtzWvko (NEW COCKPIT VIDEO) By popular demand here is a view from the cockpit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-LNm60np9UA10c-Warthog on a 4'x12' Herculean Screen with two 1080p projectors @ 3860x1080 resolution. The trackIR device is set to the center of the screen and this video showcases the near perfect edgeblending of the two projectors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApfvK9f9eMIRise of Flight on a Herculean Screen next to three Dell U2410 monitors. It is important to note (1 )The FOV is distorted in this video as the video was originally made in a wider resolution (2) the curve of the video screen is not perfectly aligned with the physical screens curve as this was one of my early attempts with setting up the projector blending software & (3) you can see slight color grading/slice in the lower center right as this was also one of my earlier attempts learning how to perfect the projector blending. (you can view this same exact video on my three Del U2410s to get an idea of the difference between monitors and seamless projectors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdPVIAiRSGo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul8f9zOF8XQI start this video with the camera placed about 7' away from the screen to try and give you a pilots perspective and then eventually I move it back to show the whole screen. The colors are not as sharp in this video as I set the time of day to dawn and dawn lighting does not film as well the clear afternoon sim lighting in the first video. The edge blending and screen video screen alignment with the projector screen is much better in this video than the first video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-LNm60np9UA10c-Warthog on a 4'x12' Herculean Screen with two 1080p projectors @ 3860x1080 resolution. The trackIR device is set to the center of the screen and this video showcases the near perfect edgeblending of the two projectors. Here is an overhead diagram of the screen and curve: If you have any questions please PM me or contact me at HerculeanScreens@gmail.com
Last edited by l88bastard; 10/26/10 07:15 PM.
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#3122301 - 10/23/10 08:45 PM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: l88bastard]
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Joined: May 2008
Posts: 343
Longbow fanatic
Member
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Member
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 343
Santa Fe, NM USA
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WOW very nice! I can't imagine the system you have to pump out 2 projectors at those resolutions!! SHow us more of your setup please! And what brand projectors are you using? Thanks!!
Why do people think flight sims are nerdy???
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#3122438 - 10/24/10 12:30 AM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: Freycinet]
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
l88bastard
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Nov 2009
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Hey,
Seems like a fantastic setup. I miss a movie where somebody else enters the room where you're playing and goes up to the setup, so we can see the whole thing. As it is, it is a bit difficult to understand. Preferably make the movie with some light in the room. I will add more videos when I get a chance, its hard to show the scale of a 12 foot 32:9 curved screen and multiple projectors with a simple 1080p 16:9 camera but I will do my best, thanks for the feedback!
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#3122440 - 10/24/10 12:34 AM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: Longbow fanatic]
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
l88bastard
Junior Member
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Joined: Nov 2009
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WOW very nice! I can't imagine the system you have to pump out 2 projectors at those resolutions!! SHow us more of your setup please! And what brand projectors are you using? Thanks!! I am running a 980x processor, with 12 gigs of dominator ram, Windows 7 64 bit and a single ATI ASUS 5870 eyefinity Six card. My screens are three Dell U2410s @ 6048x1200 resolution and two Mitsubishi HC3800 Projectors @3860x1080 and they are all run by the eyefinity six card! The great thing is you do not need a computer as bestly as mine to push two 1080p projectors and I get much better frame rates with the dual projector setup than I do with the triple dell setup as I am pusing 1/3 less total pixels with it.
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#3122455 - 10/24/10 01:12 AM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: Callsign_Vega]
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
l88bastard
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
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Cool, nice setup. I was also thinking about going front projector(s) with a curved screen and edge blending software. I ran into a few problems though when I was designing my setup.
Affordable projectors are only limited to small 1080p resolution. They also can't be put into portrait mode, so 3x 1080p would be very vertically challenged and super wide. Eyefinity/nVidia SLI doesn't work properly with two monitors only, you need 3 to get high frame rates out of the high end cards SLI/crossfire.
Of course you need a large dark room. Then you have the sound of the projectors fans right behind your head. Curved screens aren't cheap. Projectors are only set up to have a flat focus area so on curved screens they get a tad blurry as the image gets curved. Then having such a large screen just forces you to sit back further as you can't sit too close with a screen door effect on the smaller resolution.
Really the only benefit I could come up with is multiple projectors is that it would be bezel'less. Granted, that is a huge boon but you make tons of sacrifices elsewhere.
I am glad to see such a nice setup though. I personally went with 3x 30" LCD in nVidia Surround for super high 12.3 mega-pixel resolution. I just wish I could get rid of the bezels! Hi Vega, I have followed your systems & builds for a while and your triple 30" setup is very, very nice. Trust me, I too am a HUGE fan of the 30" 2560x1600 monitors, unfortunately the current graphics cards lack the power to properly push that many pixels and I ended up selling both of my 30" monitors to go triple dell 24's and now dual projectors. Currently the affordable projectors are limited to 1080p, but in the next year or two we will begin to see affordable projectors with higher resolutions and affordable 1080p LED projectors that we can combine to make large super resolution displays. A high end 2560x1600 projector (F35) has recently hit the market for commercial uses but it is only a matter of time before the prices of those become more attainable. With the current technology the sweetspot for multi projectos is either two 1080p projectors or three 4:3 projectors. With a detailed adjustment I have practically made my two 1080p projectos into a perfect seemless display and you can see the best example of that with the A10 video. With a 12' screen in front of me the room is not dark and the curved screen prevents most light spill and pollution that a flat screen gives off. As far as noise goes, I have two Mitsubishi HC3800 projectors and they are not half as noisy as my ASUS 5870 @50% fan speed. Screen door is not a factor for me either as I am using two 1080screens combined so they do not need to be zoomed and expanded as you would with only one projector. When I play my flight sims I sit 7' to 8' back and when I play casual games I sit 10'-12' back and have no screen door issues at all. I don't have the blurry issue either, my projector blending software allows me to calibrate them almost perfectly! As far as benefits go, I have my games at life size, planes, cars, people are all nearly to scale, so there is no squinting or constant zooming in. I am able to play, fly and drive at almost life scale which really sucks you in with the immersion. The benifit of a curved screen over a flat screen is hard to describe without actually having you sit down and experience it yourself. Yes, curved screens are very expensive and when I was looking around for one I was being quoted prices of $3,000 to $20,000! Dissatisfied with what was out there, I put my engineering hat on and established a company that can build a curved screen identical to mine for less than one 30" monitor and we can curve the screen to the customers exact specification. I am not looking to turn this thread into a big advertisement as I do not want to upset SimHQ and will advertise with them the proper way, but I wanted to get this out there and show everyone what is now possible with current tech!
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#3122554 - 10/24/10 05:33 AM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: l88bastard]
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 49
Callsign_Vega
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 49
Washington D.C.
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Cool, nice setup. I was also thinking about going front projector(s) with a curved screen and edge blending software. I ran into a few problems though when I was designing my setup.
Affordable projectors are only limited to small 1080p resolution. They also can't be put into portrait mode, so 3x 1080p would be very vertically challenged and super wide. Eyefinity/nVidia SLI doesn't work properly with two monitors only, you need 3 to get high frame rates out of the high end cards SLI/crossfire.
Of course you need a large dark room. Then you have the sound of the projectors fans right behind your head. Curved screens aren't cheap. Projectors are only set up to have a flat focus area so on curved screens they get a tad blurry as the image gets curved. Then having such a large screen just forces you to sit back further as you can't sit too close with a screen door effect on the smaller resolution.
Really the only benefit I could come up with is multiple projectors is that it would be bezel'less. Granted, that is a huge boon but you make tons of sacrifices elsewhere.
I am glad to see such a nice setup though. I personally went with 3x 30" LCD in nVidia Surround for super high 12.3 mega-pixel resolution. I just wish I could get rid of the bezels! Hi Vega, I have followed your systems & builds for a while and your triple 30" setup is very, very nice. Trust me, I too am a HUGE fan of the 30" 2560x1600 monitors, unfortunately the current graphics cards lack the power to properly push that many pixels and I ended up selling both of my 30" monitors to go triple dell 24's and now dual projectors. Currently the affordable projectors are limited to 1080p, but in the next year or two we will begin to see affordable projectors with higher resolutions and affordable 1080p LED projectors that we can combine to make large super resolution displays. A high end 2560x1600 projector (F35) has recently hit the market for commercial uses but it is only a matter of time before the prices of those become more attainable. With the current technology the sweetspot for multi projectos is either two 1080p projectors or three 4:3 projectors. With a detailed adjustment I have practically made my two 1080p projectos into a perfect seemless display and you can see the best example of that with the A10 video. With a 12' screen in front of me the room is not dark and the curved screen prevents most light spill and pollution that a flat screen gives off. As far as noise goes, I have two Mitsubishi HC3800 projectors and they are not half as noisy as my ASUS 5870 @50% fan speed. Screen door is not a factor for me either as I am using two 1080screens combined so they do not need to be zoomed and expanded as you would with only one projector. When I play my flight sims I sit 7' to 8' back and when I play casual games I sit 10'-12' back and have no screen door issues at all. I don't have the blurry issue either, my projector blending software allows me to calibrate them almost perfectly! As far as benefits go, I have my games at life size, planes, cars, people are all nearly to scale, so there is no squinting or constant zooming in. I am able to play, fly and drive at almost life scale which really sucks you in with the immersion. The benifit of a curved screen over a flat screen is hard to describe without actually having you sit down and experience it yourself. Yes, curved screens are very expensive and when I was looking around for one I was being quoted prices of $3,000 to $20,000! Dissatisfied with what was out there, I put my engineering hat on and established a company that can build a curved screen identical to mine for less than one 30" monitor and we can curve the screen to the customers exact specification. I am not looking to turn this thread into a big advertisement as I do not want to upset SIMHQ and will advertise with them the proper way, but I wanted to get this out there and show everyone what is now possible with current tech! You would be surprised, I actually get fairly good frame-rates at 12.3 mega-pixels in flight simulators using GTX480's in SLI. Although, in other games like graphic intensive first person shooters, the 480's can't keep up. Usually flight simulators are CPU limited and A-10C, Rise of Flight and FS-X work great at 3x 30". Thanks for the info about the F35. A 2560x1600 projector would be incredible. Have you heard anything on the pricing of the F35? I couldn't find anything, not even hints on the price. I am sure it is deep, deep into the five digit price range. The thing that turns me off the most about going front projection is the limited 1080p vertical resolution. That to me is just very narrow. How is the clarity on your setup while looking at something very detailed like all of the displays and switches in the A-10C cockpit? Even on a 1080p regular size LCD everything is too small to see clearly unless you zoom way in. Just not enough resolution. I notice you mention 4:3 projectors, which seems to make a lot of sense since you can get 1200 vertical out of those. How are your frame rates with 2x 1080p projectors? As I understand you cannot go SLI or Crossfire surround/eyefinity mode with just two displays. Do you us Nthusim for the screen curve/blending? I noticed that you say you sit 8-12 feet back. Could you guesstimate how much of the vertical and horizontal view from your eyes is viewing the image? It goes back to the whole how close do you sit to a display and what resolution is the display at conundrum. IE: if you found a pair of glasses that had 2x 1080p images in them they could fill your entire viewable area only being 1 inch from your face. Screen size of course only being one factor of being "immersed". Would you by chance have any video of your setup looking around the A-10C cockpit? I'd be interested to see the HUD/switches/displays etc to see how those turn out. Once again, sweet setup!
Last edited by Callsign_Vega; 10/24/10 05:34 AM.
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#3122828 - 10/24/10 06:54 PM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: l88bastard]
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 49
Callsign_Vega
Junior Member
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Washington D.C.
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Thanks for the video. Have you shown any fatigue with this new setup? I noticed your eye level was down by the bottom edge of the screen and you are looking up most of the time. I've read looking up is much more stressful on the eyes and they say the top of the image of whatever you are viewing should be eye level or lower. Just curious though as if I ever do go to a projector setup I'd like to have all the kinks worked out. Also, do you use the setup for just flight simulators? Just curious to know how it works in other games. What about Windows and fonts etc? Can you browse web sites without eye strain?
Last edited by Callsign_Vega; 10/24/10 06:56 PM.
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#3122846 - 10/24/10 07:23 PM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: Callsign_Vega]
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
l88bastard
Junior Member
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Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 35
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Thanks for the video. Have you shown any fatigue with this new setup? I noticed your eye level was down by the bottom edge of the screen and you are looking up most of the time. I've read looking up is much more stressful on the eyes and they say the top of the image of whatever you are viewing should be eye level or lower. Just curious though as if I ever do go to a projector setup I'd like to have all the kinks worked out. Also, do you use the setup for just flight simulators? Just curious to know how it works in other games. What about Windows and fonts etc? Can you browse web sites without eye strain? Currently I am playing Rise of Flight, A10c-Warthog and Test Drive Unlimited and have barely had any time for anything else. Here is a video of Test Drive Unlimited in action @ 1080p http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CavGKK4VhkI am making a custom cockpit to go with the screen which will be higher than the chair that I am sitting in that video. In the cockpit video I am sitting 3-4 feet away from the screen and I usually sit about 8-10 feet back & raise my chair, I just filmed it that way so you could see me versus the size of the picture and screen. Ahh there are kinks with any computer setup for sure, but when you work them out the payoff is soo sweet! I feel like a sugar bear with a gluttony of honey when I am playin on the thing!
Last edited by l88bastard; 10/26/10 10:04 PM.
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#3125002 - 10/27/10 06:36 PM
Re: DCS: A-10C Warthog on a 4'x12' Curved Herculean Screen with 2 projectors!
[Re: l88bastard]
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Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 3,462
AggressorBLUE
Check out my
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Check out my
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Jerz
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How does this set up do with movies? I could see justifying both the cost and space consumption of something like this if it could play the dual Gaming/Movie room role.
My Rig:i5-3570k @ 4.2 GHZ W/ Corsair Hydro H110 Cooler / Asus Sabertooth Z77 Mobo / GTX 1070/ 16 Gigs DDR3 RAM / A Few SSDs, and a Bunch of HDDs / All held together by: Corsair C70 Case Other Assets Deployed: HOTAS: Thrustmaster Warthog SN#22621/CH Throttle Quad/MFG Crosswind Pedals SN#0004 TrackIR TIR 5 w/ TrackClip Pro Simpit: Obutto R3VOLUTION
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Exodus
by RedOneAlpha. 04/18/24 05:46 PM
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