Current Status of Multi-Monitor

Discussion Hub General Discussion
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What is the current status of multi-monitor use in MSFS ?
I tried it 6 months ago and found it to be rather cumbersome with 2 monitors.
Too difficult to set up a 2 monitor display that connected well. The “Other Sim” gave much better alignment control. I finally gave up and thought I would wait until future updates made the process easier. Is Multi-Monitor support improving ?

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I don’t believe it’s working for a 2 monitor set-up.
Wish it was.

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Thanks for your reply.
I really do not need 3 monitors on my Sim Desktop. I am not building a cockpit. If I wanted more than 2 it would probably be 4, not 3. This mess must really be annoying the hard core cockpit builders. The “Other Sim” had a much better method of aligning 2 or more monitors.

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They added it in the developer options in the SU11 I believe. You can setup multiple independent view ports.

edit:
It was SU10 - (50) Multi-Monitor Set Up Guide | Microsoft Flight Simulator | New SU 10 Feature - YouTube, so maybe it’s the same you’re referring to.

It is a bit clumsy, like the whole UI that has to work both on PC and XBox.

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Thanks, I’ll have to check that out. I don’t even have room on my desk for 3 monitors. lol

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FYI, there’s nothing in the Code of Conduct that prevents you from writing “X-Plane” or “P3D” on these forums. There’s no need to self-censor yourself by writing “the Other Sim”. Everyone knows what you’re talking about anyway.

Thanks,
MSFS Team

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Thanks for your reply and the link…
I’ll check that out and see how it works for me.
I definitely want to set this up for 2 monitors again and see how it looks.

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It seems like the feature was added with nothing but the “multi-monitor” request, and not by actually reading the details of what was actually being asked for. I’m not sure if it was just not actually correctly defining the requirement in house, or perhaps a language barrier where Asobo didn’t really have a clear understanding of what was requested. But whatever the cause, the current solution is not what was asked for, and doesn’t really work for most folks that need this feature.

The current multi-monitor features works for a very specific situation only - if you have a centre monitor with a 1 or 2 surround screens on either side where it extends the image of the main screen onto those extended screens. Basically, it’s nVidia Surround with a extra options.

  • It’s useless for folks with dual screens who just want a wider view.

  • It’s useless for folks with cockpit setups where the projected view isn’t contiguous (like 1 main screen for front, 2 smaller monitors on the side to act as the door windows in the plane.

  • useless for folks using different size monitors

  • Useless for helicopter cockpit builders who may want to have screens BELOW the main screens to see under them like they would in a real chopper.

What was REALLY being asked for was independent multi-camera view. Like every other PC flight and driving simulator out there. You can create independent cameras that can be placed in any orientation and then assigned to a monitor of any size. They aren’t just extensions of the front main view, but independent views.

Hopefully at some point they can fix this, but it would essentially require them scrapping the current system completely and starting from scratch. After the time and resources they’ve already invested into this, I can’t see that happening at all.

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That’s what I want to use it for, is to just extend my view on 2 monitors.

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But why exactly? You can move and scale/rotate/pan the other view however you want to.

Some time ago I tested it for fun on my main 42’’ 4k screen and a vertical 2k 32’’ standing next to it and was able to set it up so that the distortion was minimal. Didn’t like the frames (FPS) so never used it, but the option was there.

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You can pan and tilt and rotate the extra views. You can’t scale them. And they can’t be “detached” from the main front view. It always extends the view you see on the main screen.

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You are wrong, they are independent views - nothing like the Nvidia Surround with its distortion.

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I said nVidia Surround with extra options. One of those extras is the lack of lens distortion.

Now, you can adjust the pan, tilt and rotation. But you can’t separate a camera away from the main display. If you add a screen to the left of your main screen as an example, you can make all kinds of adjustments to it (except scaling), but you can’t separate it from the front view. It will always be an extension of the main view. You wouldn’t be able to make it a view of 45º over your shoulder if that’s what you wanted to do.

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For me, using three identical monitors to widen the view, it actually works pretty good. I’m satisfied, but can see that for the hardcore cockpit builders it’s maybe not there yet. What I don’t like however is the performance hit. It’s really bad: The frames come down from 50 for single monitor to maybe barely 30 for me. It seems like the CPU gets the stress whereas my graphics card is not really working harder. Although I expected the opposite.

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IIRC all monitors are forced to render from the same camera position, but may be rotated fully in any direction in pitch and yaw axes – and there’s no support for a monitor that isn’t facing directly at your eye position.

This fits some very specific 3-monitor layouts exactly, but nothing else. :smiley:

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Exactly this. In fairness to Asobo, it actually works really well when used this way. They did a great job. The only gripe some have is the inability to adjust scaling on a per screen basis.

For other applications though, the current multi-monitor setup doesn’t work at all.

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QUESTION: In a 3 each display, 4K setup, will the 2 side displays have to be at a specific level angle (45, 75, 90 etc.) to work well with the center display or can they be set to any angle up to 90 degrees ? Assume the side displays will be on level plane ( same flat desktop ) with the front display and all 3 connected DP to HDMI. I am giving up on a 2 display setup.

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Yeah, unfortunately, that’s the reality of it. And its unfortunate, because dual screens is the most common layout people have on their home computers. Outside of coders, graphics / photo editors, professional applications, and hardcore simmers, you don’t tyically see people with more than 2 monitors. And they’ve excluded the majority of people with more than 1 monitor with this implementation.

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Agree. I have had 2 screens for years. Upgrading hardware every few years and would prefer 2 screens on my desktop because of the desktop size. Moving to a 3 screen setup will involve a lot of thinking, new hardware, new work area and adjustment. Pity the 2 monitor setup is the absolute pits !

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I just imagine what we’d have if they would actually engage with people asking for a new feature and see what the actual requirements of the end users are vs assuming they know what’s needed and coding it in complete isolation…

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