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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 cockpit against the can of Coke in the bottom right of the picture. Incredibly immersive experience! The cockpit 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 cockpit 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.
I had a 120Hz BenQ XL2410T on a monitor swing arm for playing FPS. I then compared playing FPS like BF2:BC on both. While the 120Hz is nice, I found that I just could not beat the immersive and detail benefits of the main 3x 30" setup. I would struggle to see enemies in all the foliage on the "tiny" 24" 1080p BenQ compared to the portrait surround setup. Having 2560 vertical pixels is awesome for detail. Plus the ZR30W's input lag is so small that my game play wasn't hampered. As long as you keep your frames per second so it doesn't drop below 60, the main surround setup works just fine for FPS games.
Anyways, let me know if you have any questions.
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 cockpit against the can of Coke in the bottom right of the picture. Incredibly immersive experience! The cockpit 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 cockpit 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.
I had a 120Hz BenQ XL2410T on a monitor swing arm for playing FPS. I then compared playing FPS like BF2:BC on both. While the 120Hz is nice, I found that I just could not beat the immersive and detail benefits of the main 3x 30" setup. I would struggle to see enemies in all the foliage on the "tiny" 24" 1080p BenQ compared to the portrait surround setup. Having 2560 vertical pixels is awesome for detail. Plus the ZR30W's input lag is so small that my game play wasn't hampered. As long as you keep your frames per second so it doesn't drop below 60, the main surround setup works just fine for FPS games.
Anyways, let me know if you have any questions.
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