Update of setup with flight controls:

I wouldn't call it a "cockpit", but the results turned out pretty good for a HOTAS mounting. I decided a center mounting of the Warthog Hotas would be too much of a pain as I like to move my chair around and get up frequently.

I side mounted the stick, which makes for easy ingress/egress of the chair. The arm support also help for those long flights and my arm weighs down the arm rest, not the stick. Less downward pressure on the stick works out quite well in addition to the Molykote EM-30L lithium soap grease I put in the stick.

Even though the real aircraft I fly is center stick, going to a side stick really isn't as strange as one would think. It works out quite natural, and you don't have to worry about "twisting" the angle of the stick as you would a center mount. I am contemplating adding touch screens to either side of the chair for Helios integration. Also, one center mounted touch screen under the main view screens. That would be a total of six screens, but the question of Helios being able to work somehow with the main display being a nVidia SLI Surround setup is still in the air.






















And a few images for those that like other types of games too:

BF2:BC Vietnam




So easy to snipe!




What? WoW?




Three different EvE clients up and running. Top one is main character, bottom left and right are alt characters. Center bottom is web browser to view while playing all three clients.



I have included some photos of my 3x ZR30W Surround setup. I have removed the bezels on the monitors.







Some photos of the back with the bezels/cases removed. I've used the original stands. To get the monitors in portrait all you do is rotate the Vesa 100mm plate 90 degrees.








Various flight simulator shot's. In the DCS: Blackshark screenshot, you can see the size of the :banana::banana::banana::banana:pit against the can of Coke in the bottom right of the picture. Incredibly immersive experience! The cockpitpit screen in the center bottom I think is displayed larger here than in the real aircraft.




Age of Conan, everything is so large and detailed. Definitely makes you feel like your in the world.

So why did I go portrait over landscape you might ask? I first tried landscape, but the width was just too ridiculous. (That's what she said). It was nice having a large horizontal view of the game worlds, but turning your head constantly stinks. After about half the way going outwards on the side screens, it turned into a waste. That's about 4 mega-pixels I didn't even use.

A ton of games also have fish-eye problems going that wide, even with their field of view settings turned up to max. Portrait gives an awesome nearly 2:1 aspect ratio with bezel correction. This is a great field of view as virtually your entire vision area is filled, and filled with pixels you can actually see with very little head movement.

In my flight sim's the cockpits are so large and detailed it's almost like full size. I can spot enemy aircraft etc at much great distances with such high detail.

There are some issues running 3x 30" though, and some in portrait mode in particular. They obviously use a lot of power. Total is 450~500 watts. The heat output is not insignificant! Good in the winter, bad in the summer. Since these monitors, and virtually every monitor built today, has vertical pixels, cleartype text doesn't work properly in portrait mode.

The bezels are surprisingly easy to remove (if you know how). I used black-electrical tape on the edges to cover up the grey aluminum borders. I am definitely pleased on how it turned out. I've always hated bezels between screens but I think I got it down to a manageable level in which it doesn't drive me crazy.

System: Everything over clocked of course, i7 920 D0 @ 4.55Ghz, 6GB DDR3, Intel SSD, 3x HP ZR30W 30" displays + 1x BenQ XL2410T 120Hz 24", 2x GTX 580 SLI.

That is my dream setup!

Awesome! my dream setup too!

What is yr viewing distance, and at that distance does the left and right screens cover yr peripheral vision completely?

I sit about 30 inches from the screens. While my peripheral vision isn't completely filled, I find it is a much more immersive experience versus 3x 30" in landscape. Having an image displayed way way off to the side to use the limit of your peripheral vision range is a waste imo. Everything is so blurry that far out, not to mention just to gain that blurry peripheral image you sacrifice a lot of vertical viewing area.

I find with the portrait setup my visual area is much more consumed versus landscape. I also don't have to turn my head nearly as much. The super detail that you get in portrait completely outweighs any benefit of super wide peripheral viewing.

That is an impressive display set-up! Its an enormous amount of LCD real-estate! Thanks for posting the pics and the descriptions.
Regards,
Derek

Great creation , a real FOV !...Regards Call.

Awesome setup there! Can you expound more on how you attached the HOTAS to the chair? As much as I'd love to have the same monitor setup, I can't afford that yet; the HOTAS setup I may be able to achieve Thanks and happy holidays!

No kit for this stuff! I had to create the mounting solution from scratch. The way you mount your Hotas is very dependant on the chair you are going to mount it to. Luckily, the Embody chair that I have made it fairly straight forward. If you are looking for a really comfortable chair to mount your Hotas, the Embody has a ton of neat features and can be found here: http://store.hermanmiller.com/store/servlet/dynamicKit__10151_-1_10051_1445

The chair has a nice wide "lip" under the forward adjustable thigh support. I used U-clamps like these to secure a 24" wide piece of 1-1/4" OD steel water pipe to the chair frame with threaded ends on either side.




Then I used some 90 degree threaded elbows to raise the platform:

[img]http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS9Y_JtX5v-WmHnboaWl6wsbiWK40Z3ZoFsEMI8sVt4UU8ZSSuNZw[/img]


The platform base is 1" thick oak (hardwood for stability) cut to the exact dimensions of the throttle and stick spaced exactly where I needed them for ergonomic placement. The oak "platform" is supported off of the pipe system by a floor flange as seen in the bottom of this picture:




In order for the whole setup to be stable and not "rotate" under the bottom because its a round pipe, between the U-clamps and the pipe I used heavy thick rubber isolation mounts. When you tighten down the bolts it clamps super tight. The rubber mounts also give just a very small amount of vibration absorption and help with some of the larger vibrations coming from the Buttkicker gamer mounted under the seat.

The whole mounting system then got sanded and painted flat black. Since all of the components are heavy duty steel (besides the oak platforms), everything is weighty and stable for a nice solid feel. There is no "flex" in the system.

All in all, the cost was about $40 total and all parts bought from Lowe's hardware store. I've gotten creative many times in the plumbing section!

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Saw this over on the DCS forums and re-posting my question:
I think I understand how the setup is built and how it attaches to the Warthog but how do you clamp it on your chair?

Like I said, it's very chair dependent. On the Embody chair, under the front thigh support area, there is a crossbeam perpendicular to your legs. The U-clamps bolt the main pipe onto that.

Vega, you have inspired me sir! I really like the idea of eyefinity in portrait mode but I wanted to be able to rotate the monitors for using when making CAD drawings for my CNC table, and I did not like the metal edges showing (although I like your electrical tape idea). So I made this out of cherry lumber, a couple of full extention drawer slides and some scrap 3/4" plywood.

Three 22" Acer monitors in 3150x1680 configuration.


The end monitors rotate:


The frames are Cherry and they will remain but the mechinism for the rotation arms are prototypes and I will make them prettier someday (the eternal someday).



I need to pick up some nice antique brass latches to keep the frames tight together when in portrait mode but for now it works perfectly.

Thanks again for the ideas.

David


Edit: I am also using four cheap 4" lazy susan bearings from the hardware store.

Unfortunately as you have found, rotating three monitors from portrait to landscape and back can be a real pita! Neat mechanism you built there for rotation. Now you just need to paint it flat black.

Interesting...this is the first time I see a TripleHead or Eyefinity Setup which actually makes sense to me. I too am not much interested in the endless wide view, but this is really good, especially the large vert area.

How much are you able to "blend out" the bezels while actually playing?

This may be a good choice in the future with three 27" 16:9 screens (I hate 16:9 being too narrow, but this setup obviously solves it).

Is Eyefinity hard to configure for portrait use?

Sacrilege!!! Painting cherry wood....murderer!

RSColonel: The drivers are pretty easy to work with, configuring for portrait mode only takes a couple of steps. I set up several hot keys so I can switch between portrait eyefinity, portrait extended desktop and the three combinations with my monitors rotated.

How much for the chair?

Love the wood trim around the monitors!

I did some calculations and realized that this setup in portrait mode is equivalent to a single 52 inch widescreen tv. The obvious difference is, lower resolution (1900x1080).
But I think the seamless bezel-free view more than makes up for the lower resolution.
Also, u do not need SLI/Crossfire/Eyefinity when running a single display. Theoretically u can achieve higher fps even with a single lower end gfx card.

Most importantly: In DCS A10, it appears that the FOV is the same; more pixels do not equate to higher FOV.

So my question is: What other benefits to running this setup compared to a single 52 inch display?

lol @ 52" 1080p display. That is 1/6th the resolution of a 3x 30" Eyefinity setup and looks like absolute crap compared.

I honestly do not beleive that is correct but I am willing to check it out for you. I have not loaded DCS-A10 since Beta 2 but I will download the latest (Beta 4) and compare the FOV on my setup (3150x1680) to that of the monitor in my simpit (1920x1080) and see how it looks. There are several threads about the real difference (as opposed to the percieved difference) between using a giant screen TV and super high resolution monitors (with or without Eyefinity/Surround/TH2GO, etc) that empirically refute your claim but what the heck, I like to play with my monitors. We will see what happens.

Upgraded the system to Quad-SLI 3GB GTX 580s. You can view an DCS:A-10C video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrF960wFaw4

I cannot wait to try out IL-2 Cliffs of Dover!

Nice...very very nice.

When Can I move in? LOL

I wish we were neighbors though I would love your help setting that up at my house.