I have 3 27-inchers and they are a must for racing and flight sims. I just can't play those type of games without triples anymore. It simply allows low FOV still retaining wide peripheral vision. Setup isn't without its flaws, NV surround has bugs and so on, and I've considered changing to a 21:9 g-sync monitor. I'd just wish they could bring 40" g-sync ultrawides to market as 34" or 35" inch is so darn small compared to my triples. VR might be fun, but then on the other hand, I'm not totally convinced about their usability for serious flight simming, where you inevitably have several physical controllers and you need the keyboard. A lot. In normal use, you have allh the equipment all the time on your peripheral vision and use is still easy without much looking at them. If you have VR headset in use, it is pretty much the same as being blindfolded when it comes to using your equipment.
yepp - thats right. In Visual aspects the immersion with VR isn't beatable. But when it comes to the user Interaction it is a bit more complicated. In a perfect VR-Sim you would be able to use every switch with your finger. In DCS for example in the newer cockpits you can use everything with the mouse. For VR that should move to gesture-control. For Race-Sims luckily there isn't so much need for switches and things like that - but for example the Pit-Stop-Control is an aspect that needs some attention. Voice-Recognition could be a solution for that.
Did someone say "voice recognition"? It would be impossibly awesome if S3 added a writeable memory mapped file / shared memory block which contains pit actions and stuff. When you select a pit action in-game the selected action is written to this memory mapped file, but external apps can also write this memory mapped file. The game then carries out whatever pit actions are in the memory mapped file when the player pits. So you can just ask Crew Chief to swap tyres over or whatever, and it'll tell the game to do it
If/when I upgrade it will most likely be to 27", which is actually a downgrade from my current size but the picture quality will be a big upgrade. Right now I use three cheap LCD TV's and I don't think PC's care for TV's much. Plus, even though they're the same size and brand, it appears they're slightly different models as two of them enlarge the picture just a smidgen and end up cutting off a bit of the top/bottom/sides of the picture, so my cockpit and the scenery never line up perfectly across the three screens. It gets a bit annoying and that's one of the main things making me think about upgrading (that, and my current screens have bezels the size of Montana). Seems like 27" is the sweet spot for size vs. price, I've seen some that fit the bill for under $200. To go much bigger the price takes a pretty big jump, but I think 27" will still be big enough to give the extra immersion of big screens.
27" work a treat, 6' of quality immersion, did make sure I got a triple monitor stand that will take up to 40" just as a bit of future proofing as fancy I will have 3 x 40" long before VR hits the mark!!
I run my 27's at a 53 degree angle with the center monitor 610mm from my eyes, it covers my peripheral vision almost completely. If you can't get your monitors that close or you just want more vertical display size then you may want to go bigger. I'm considering going up to 32" screens for more vertical so I can see more of the dash but I'm waiting for the first round of VR headsets before I pull the trigger.
I'm curious if you used the triple screen setup tool in Assetto Corsa, it looks like you did from your video. If that is setup properly the size of the cars/road shouldn't have changed when going from a small screen to a larger one... you should just be able to see more of the dash/door panels then with the smaller screens. That's the whole point of proper triple screen support, everything is scaled so as to represent what you would see in real life on a 1:1 basis if seated in the car at the position you give it in the triple monitor config settings. Man I really want to go to 32" screens. VR needs to hurry up and get here so I can make my mind up. :|
My center screen is about 710mm (28 inches) which is pretty much as close as I can get it (the base of the center tv butts up agains the base of my wheel so it can't come any closer). and I'd say my side screens are about 45-50 degrees. The one issue I'd have with downgrading size to 27" is the vertical size, I find that's almost more important than the horizontal size because it fills up your primary vision more, where the side screens are just peripheral vision. I used to use 23" screens, I'd considered going back to them because they're 1080p/120hz but the vertical size is sooooo small it would be such a downgrade to the immersion and I just can't do it. But I think 27" would still be enough vertical size to keep me happy if the resolution and response rate was better than my current screens. Here you can get a good idea of expansive the screens are.
Your side screens are much more angled then mine. It actually looks closer to my old setup when I was running 23" screens at 60 degrees. Really your center monitor eye distance dictates the angle you want your side screens to be at to get a proper representation. When looking directly at your side screens from your seated position, you want those to be the same distance from your eyes as the center screen. It also helps with color/contrast distortion from the viewing angle. Are those 32" screens? Those foldaway tables you have on the side scare me, but I have kids running around the house so.. One of my concerns in going up to 32" screens is my monitors are resting just above my wheels base so I wouldn't be able to see the dash anyway unless I moved the monitors back further and lower as you have yours setup... but then the wheel base would block the view of the dash anyway. Sigh. First world problems!
The side screens are pretty much the same distance as the center screen, the position of the camera made it look like a bigger angle than it actually is. That was an old video too, I've tinkered a lot since then and I think that was before I knew how to properly setup the monitors in AC. Yes, 32" on foldaway tables. I don't have children's or any small things running around so they're safe. When I originally built my rig I didn't take triple screens into account so I had to come up with something on the fly and the tables have actually worked fairly well. I plan to build a new rig this spring which should have a permanent mounting/positioning solution.
I've moved to an Obutto R3volution cockpit/rig, since I need to use the system as a standard PC as well. Kids still bump into the monitors occasionally unfortunately. 32" would be my limit as the R3volution triple monitor mount doesn't support anything bigger then that. I built an all wood cockpit some years ago out of an old arcade cabinet complete with a swinging door. Had a keyboard drawer under the steering wheel that's not shown in the pic. Drew up the plans/parts in sketchup before starting the build: Unfortunately I never got actual pictures of the completed rig before I had to part with it when we moved. Used old MDF I had lying around so it was pretty cheap. It was fun, but I don't think I'd do it again.
Nice. I'm going to build my new one myself, I enjoy playing with woodworking but don't get to do it very often. I recently got into flight sims (while my wheel is getting repaired at Thrustmaster) so now I need to make it conveniently fit a joystick and throttle control too. My mom has a new house with a good sized garage and a barn, I might start working on it over the winter over there and then do the final assembly at my apartment.
Hmmm, is this correct? Think about it, if my system comprised of say, triple 19 inch monitors, if the size of the roads/ cars were the same size as displayed with my triple 40 inch screen set-up, then would the vehicles not completely cover my view. For instance, when I'm tailgating a car in front, it would be difficult to judge my position on track, because the car ahead would obscure so much of the view ahead. I'm no expert on this topic, for the most part I just mess around until things look right. But you're right, for AC I did use the Triple Monitor app.
It's like your looking out a window of your house. On a bigger screen you'll be able to see more of the window frame and the wall that the window is attached to. On a smaller screen you'll see far less of the wall that surrounds the window. What you see through that window remains the same size regardless. But this is only true with proper triple screen support where you have to input your eye distance to the screen, the width of each screen, and the angle of your side monitors. It's like looking through a straw then switching to a toilet paper roll, everything remains the same size, but you can see more of the world with a toilet paper roll vs. a straw. For games that just let you use a super wide screen resolution like Raceroom, it doesn't work the same. In Raceroom and other games like it if you have a 10' screen then the car's interior will indeed be much larger then it would be in real life, and the opposite is true with a tiny screen.
Trak Racer make a 27" - 42" Triple monitor stand, well made, very heavy duty and grabbed one (new) off ebay for £80, bargain, well worth a look, get the centre monitor rubbing your nose if you like that sort of thing!
It's been a while since I used the triple-screen app, but I seem to recall that one of the settings did bring the scenery closer or further away, which would change the size of objects.
Think mine was the same price but though single I seem to still have the same way of admitting cost as when married! Lot of heavy duty kit for the money!
Yea, that's the eye distance to the monitor. If the eye distance is set properly the size of objects should appear the same size regardless of monitor size (If you have Triple Monitor turned on in options).