Hello. I am planning to add two touchsreens (probably 15.6" 1080p) to use with Airmanager, alongside my existing three-monitor setup. My main monitor (34" 2k) is the only one that I use for the main sim, the other two (27" 2k) are for LNM and Discord etc. These three occupy all the DP connection on my 3080. There is one remaining HDMI on the 3080, and I have one DP and one HDMI open on the integrated GPU.
So, my question is, what is the preferred method to connect the two new touchscreens? I would like to use a single USB-C to get power, touch and video if possible to minimize wiring, but my understanding is that I will need additional expansion cards of some kind to get the video over USB-C?
My though, therefore, is to use the integrated GPU ports in order to keep some load off the 3080, then USB-C for power and touch. Curious as to how well Windows handles the use of two GPUs in this type of setup.
Final question: I have noticed that if I popout a GTC from a G3000 aircraft, the GTC does not respond when I am in external aircraft view; only in cockpit view does the GTC respond to clicks. Is this normal? Usually the popout is on one of my side monitors.
Thanks
Hi,
This has been discussed before, and I have copied below my reply to a topic called “AirManager using Motherboard graphics port helps FPS? PLUS New PC Build advise” several months sgo:
I run five monitors doing this - three big ones and two little ones. Four of them are connected to an NVidia 3070TI and one of the little ones to the internal Intel graphics. It’s very handy and fast. It’s not exactly automatic with Air Manager though - you have to tell it exactly where you want each panel, but very straightforward.
There is a caveat though. Not all motherboards allow the simultaneous use of both PCI-E and built-in graphics. You will have to experiment with firmware ('BIOS") settings to work out how to do that. About a year ago someone else mentioned that only recent motherboards allows this feature, and it might only fit with UEFI firmware.
My motherboard is a year-old Aorus B60M Pro AX with AMI UEFI firmware 08/31/2021. It had settings which referred to the internal graphics with labels like “auto” which seemed to select only the used or fastest graphics, and “enable” which referred to the internal card in addition - it was not very intuitive.
(There is more info in that topic about the specific BIOS settings.)
If your motherboard does not allow the above, you might be able to fit a cheap secondhand pcie graphic card from eBay, such as the NVIDIA Quadro P600 2GB, which have 4 x mini-DP sockets and fit a PCIe 3.0x16 slot.
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply. My MB is 3 years old, Asus TUF Gaming Z490 with UEFI. I’ll take a look at the settings to see if I can use both GPUs simultaneously.
I use both the DP and HDMI from the onboard CPU graphics but I have. 7800x3D and therefore. It has an separate AMD driver for the onboard side. I had major issues with trying to use an older nvidia a graphics card with a newer nvidia one because they both have to run from a single installed drive. If going that route check the video driver for your newer card will work with whatever older model you chose. Using the Intel igpu and your main card should be fine as both should be of the same era and therefore be compatible with the same driver.
Hi and how is the setup working for you? I have 3 GPUs running 6 screens and here’s the setup: NVidia 4090 running 3 main 4k screens for external view; a second small single fan amd 6500xt GPU in the pcie #2 slot running 2 1080p touch screens for air manager instruments and then an overhead monitor at 1080p for navigraph on the integrated GPU with the ryzen 9 cpu. All 3 are recognized by windows device manager and air manager also allows for putting instruments anywhere as does MSFS pop out panel manager and the in-sim MSFS pop out panels. For the 2nd small GPU though it was trial and error as I had to find a GPU that would be powered and recognized by my motherboard on pcie slot 2 which in my case only runs at x4 speed with the main pcie slot for the 4090 at full x16 speed. Newer GPUs that run at x16 or x8 won’t even be recognized on my mobo in the x4 slot (I bought and retuned several other GPUs) so I had to do a google search for GPUs that only run at x4 speed and AMD made one I could get on Amazon. It works great for 2 1080p touch screens on its 2 ports (one hdmi and the other Dp) and with navigraph having a low load it only runs at like 25% load on that GPU. So I was happy to get 2 GPUs all running. I’ve also used Spacedesk to turn iPads into windows monitors but the lag time was noticeable and larger screen iPads are expensive even used on eBay.
My touchscreens are being delivered today, some other components later in the week, then i’ll get started on setting up. Will report back. I assume Airmanager is the best (if not only) solution for popout instrument control?
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Yes Air Manager is the best way to set them up. There is a license fee for it but it’s well worth it in my view and is widely used in the cockpit building community.
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Yes, definitely get air manager. It’s awesome for immersion.
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Two touchscreens work a treat. My number 1 looks after the TDS GTNxi 750 and 650 and number 2 does Navigraph charts. The touchscreen operation of both is sublime. First one uses three
leads and the second uses just two. These run on a 3080 along with a 27 inch 1440 for the main sim and the remaining 23 inch 1080 screen runs LNM and other sundry stuff from the inbuilt graphics output on the MB.
The old machine that I have still have, does useful work as well with 2 x 1080 monitors running planning, Simbrief or whatever comes to mind, like calendars and reminders to do some work occasionally. All of the larger monitors are mounted on gas arms and the touchscreens direct to the panel and it is really quite good to use.
This is my new setup. 3 32" curved, 2 24" touch and 1 15" touch. 4 are running off my 3070 and 2 off my on-board GPU. Fortunately I have many descendants. All paid for with gift cards. 
What do you use the phone for? Got the galley on speed dial?
My guess would be “to call it in at anytime”
Actually it’s, UHH for UHHH, This is UUHHH Your UHHH Captain Speaking, UUhhhh…
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I only have 5 screens. So I can not watch the cows while flying. It always felt like something was missing. LOL
