Hello Fellow Aviators!
TL;DR Do you recommend one big TV\TrackIR setup or 3 straight\curved monitor?
BF\CM are quickly coming and I getting ready to upgrade my 12 year old laptop. I remember when MSFS came out in 2020. I was so hyped but it didn’t run on Windows 7… Anyway I’ve gone bonkers trying to figure out the monitor situation.
I’m torn between getting a beautiful OLED (single monitor setup) for the night time visuals and perfect airport lighting or a 3 monitor setup. From my limited research I am concerned that the IPS/VA LCD type monitors won’t be able to produce very good night shots (especially runway lighting) because of poor local diming on these monitors.The OLED’s burn-in issues don’t phase me as much but I"m not sure how immersive a one monitor setup with TrackIR or OpenTrack will be compared to a 3 monitor setup.
Like many of here I do this stuff in real life (Neo driver F.O) and want to make sure I get the best experience I can. In regards to curved vs straight monitors, I’ve only found one Youtuber who had a 3 curved screen setup. I liked what little I saw but I don’t know if curved screens bring big-time distortions or what. I haven’t seen many people posting curved 3 monitor setups. 1 maybe??
Anyway the last thing that perplexes me is if a one monitor setup using a big tv like an OLED 48" with TrackIR (etc) will be just as good or better than a 3 monitor setup.
I know we all have opinions and I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Oh also, I am not a fan of the 49" widescreens or VR at this time so it’s just "hey do you recommend one big TV\TrackIR setup or 3 straight\curved monitor.
I have a Samsung 55" Q70A class Qled (QN55Q70AAFXZA) and love it. It works well in low light environments and has been reviewed as very good for gaming in the dark (see link).
It also has other excellent features like a 120Hz screen refresh, supports HDR10 along with MSFS, HDMI 2.1, the latest Freesync premium pro standard along with many other gaming features.
One of the things I really like about this TV is the AI upscaling engine is excellent so you can set up MSFS as full screen, render in 1440p, and let the TV upscale to 4k (or, you can choose to use DLSS/FSR2). If you’re looking for the best experience, you’ll also want to consider HDR10 as it looks amazing on my QLED! Also, you don’t have to be concerned about any distortion, alignment issues or additional taxing of your GPU card/loss of fps with multiple monitors to drive.
One thing to note about TrackIR is that there is a limitation on the monitior size and larger monitors/LED TV’s might not work well (see TrackIR web site). For this reason I have gone the route with AITrack/Opentrack which utilizes my web cam and works very well with no hassles (and it’s free).
Also, the nice thing about using an LED TV is that if you want to make a change, it can easily be redeployed somewhere else in the house for use as a regular TV 
Interesting questions you raise.
I use three curved MSI 4K 32" monitors with TrackIR and it’s pretty good, at least with NVidia Surround, which has its own problems like stretched edges. There are a lot of compromises and ifs and buts …
Nothing is static for very long in this sim and I have often wondered what I would do if I started from scratch like you. I’m curious about VR and wonder why you say you won’t consider it, because it looks to me as if it’s the way of the future as far as MS goes.
Anyway, if you really want to use monitors large or numerous, there is one major caveat at present. The multi-monitor system being used by our developers is still at a very early stage of development – it is far from perfect. For one thing, it does not allow multi-views, only multi-screens. For another, you can only set it up to use a fixed eye point - TrackIR simply doesn’t work - you would have to use a big single monitor.
The main benefit of using monitors vs VR (in my opinion) would be that you can build a you-beaut home cockpit. This can be a lot of fun, there is some good gear out there. One big 4K TV plus a good yoke and pedals, switches and knobs, and several good quality small touch screens with one of many screen-casting programs is a very popular way to go. You have probably had a look at the home cockpit forums, there is a wealth of good ideas there and it would be a flexible option because you can keep improving and updating the cockpit, provided other users of your house give you the space .I’ve started with a basic home cockpit and it’s a hobby within a hobby I think.
Good luck in your project, it’s great hobby for millions of us.
Thanks guys for taking the time to respond. Firstly, it’s an interesting concept to run the game at 1440 settings and then have the TV upscale them to 4K I’m assuming those that the graphic quality takes a hit when you do that. However, it still sounds like a interesting idea.
Hey SA. Can I talk you out of a picture or video of your set up please? I would love to be able to build an actual home cockpit but I don’t have the space so I’ll have to contend with either one big monitor TV or three straight/curved 32 inch monitors.
One thing to consider is that Samsung, LG and the other big LED TV manufacturers have been doing AI upscaling for many years and from what I can tell are equal or a little better than AMD/Nvidia’s FSR2/DLSS (without frame injection).
I did a test on my AMD based 5900x with RX 6800 16gig vram based system and found that my Samsung QLED tv’s upscaling was equal to AMD’s FSR2 (quality setting) upscaling. FSR2 did get 10% more fps somehow but visual quality was the same.
I have 3 Dell 32" curved, 2560x1440. Brightness, etc. are adjustable but I’ve never messed with them. This is my setup for the new Multi-monitor use. I tried Nvidia surround once, didn’t like it. I don’t have TrackIr, but I do have the Puck from Grassmonkey. It works great on single monitor setup for scanning sideways, up or down, however, I don’t feel it’s useful in Multi-monitor, because you already have side views. It only increases the view a bit more to the side-rear. It does however aid in looking down in the cabin.
I’ll mention now that I’m not using the Multi-monitor function anymore, reverted back to the 3 monitors side by side and single active screen. I prefer using the Puck for side, up, down views. The other monitors are used to display maps, Pop-out manager, Air Manager and Open Track as needed.
Sorry, I missed this last week. This is a work in progress of course. Home cockpits are like that 
What you can’t see in this one is that I have an “L” shaped desk and return. Originally I had the centre monitor in the angle of the L but it was not a good arrangement for pedals and yoke. They need to be directly under the centre of the middle monitor I think.
THe angle between the monitors is about 23 deg each side. It is a compromise between what looks best and what fits on the desk with all the other stuff.
I’m waiting on delivery of a 15.6" touch screen to replace that little 10" Android tablet. The new one will be used with Air Manager I think, and maybe a knobster or two. I like to have all the main instruments available all the time, like a real pilot would. The three main monitors will be elevated a few cms to make room underneath.
The Saitek switch panels and Logitech yoke, pedals and throttle are good enough, but need a lot of setup and ongoing maintenance with SPAD.neXt and / or MSFS controls options. I use most of the spare switches to give me quick views of instruments, because of the absence in MSFS of multi-views. You can’t have too many switches and knobs if you like flying a variety of aircraft. Popouts are OK on the Android tablet but 10’ is too small, and they need touch support.
Good luck with your own project. This is almost as much fun as the actual flying. There is a lot of good information in the Home Cockpit forums, and you don’t have to build a big, expensive setup. I have been influenced a lot by Crunchmeister and Flying Gunny.
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Guys… I just want to say TY so much for the 3 monitor displays. I’ve been be so gung-ho about a 3 monitor setup but those pictures gave me pause. I noticed the clouds on the 2nd picture don’t look really aligned and the runway from the first pic doesn’t look aligned especially on the left side. The first picture has curved monitors so maybe that’s why it looks odd?
Basically guys I don’t wish to sound insulting. I just want to ask if using these three monitor setups is worth it. It looks odd in the pictures but is it really not noticeable when your actually flying? I’m planning to get Samsung G8’s 32’ 4k cruved montors and try them out. Also planning to get a LG C2 or C1 and see which one I like better lol.
Once again I appreciate all the input. I’m starting to wonder though if a 3 monitor setup is the way to go.
Yes, the lines on my setup were a bit off. I was able to straighten them, just didn’t take a shot. Remember, this multi-screen function is ‘Experimental’. It takes a lot experimenting to get near perfect alignment, but it can be done. Slight misalignment doesn’t take anything from the ‘flying’ experience as far as I’m concerned. It’s a good substitute if you don’t have head-tracking. I’m sure MS/Asobo will be fine-tuning and making it easier to align. Regarding the 3 monitors, I’ve been using 3 for 2 years for the reasons mentioned in my previous post. Highly recommend that usage. By the way, I get no distortion on my curved monitors, can’t speak for others.
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I’ve wondered this myself a few times, but considering that MS have marked it “experimental” I think we just have to be patient. When flying with TrackIR in Surround it is pretty good anway, so I will give them 12 months to fix the side monitor alignment problems before changing to VR.
Same here, on the contrary the natural angle of the curves, where the monitors touch, goes a long way to compensate for any side distortion. Mine have a radius of curvature of 1500 mm though, and my eyepoint is just inside that.
Well I decided to go for the 3 monitor setup. Samsung is currently selling the Neo G8 32” curved for 839.00 with the EPP plan. Anyway I’ll get 3 of those and try out an Intel 13900K with a 4099. I’m hopefully that I should be able to run the three 4k monitors with DLSS 3.0. Can’t wait!!!
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For whatever reason not to waste people’s time but I missed the sales last weekend so I don’t have a computer yet. I just found out about AMD’s X3D cpus coming soon enough so I’m gonna wait. Plus I think I’m leaning towards the LG C2’ now. Not too worried about Burn in.
I’ve been playing on a 48” LG CX for over 2 years. No burn in or image retention.
I’ve been contemplating the 3 monitor setup. I have one of your same monitors. How do you feel about the curved setup using all curved??
Hi, I’m still using the same setup, and am very happy with it.
[3 x curved MSI MAG32CURV and 3 x 15" flat screen below with Air Manager and Popout panel manager instruments. ]
An 8th gen i9, 32GB ram and 3070ti plus two video outputs from the motherboard gives me 28 to 35 fps most of the time at 2K (1440) using DX11 and both LODs set to 100, everything else ultra. I find this quite smooth enough for good flying, but it can get a bit notchy at a busy airport.
My only real criticism is that the NVidia Surround system I use is very maintenance-prone - it needs resetting at the slightest disturbance, such as new video driver or sometimes even a windows udate. Very annoying, but I’ve come to terms with the edge distortion and the improved fps of Surround over the half-baked FS2020 multi-monitor “experimental” setup is very good.
I’ve also stopped using TrackIR, (too jittery) in favour of better yaw, pitch and zoom camera control via an old 3-axis quadrant I had. I can sit in the pilot seat and look everywhere I want, mostly on the centre monitor.
I’m curious how the 3 curved monitors looks like. I went with 3 LG C2 (32”). Works and looks amazing. The only thing I don’t understand is how people run these monitors with a DP. My video card only has 2 HDMI’s so I had to connect the third tv with the cards other DP port. It doesn’t work so well in windows 11 but once I get it going, it looks beautiful in the game!
I run 6 monitors. 4 off my 3070 (3-DP, 1-HDMI) and 2 (HDMI) off my motherboard’s built-in. Check how to activate that in your bios. DP are Dell 32" curved.
