Multiple screens functionality

If the FPS hit is down to the popped-out windows being rendered by the same GPU as the main window and hence blocking the GPU thread, that’s a possible fix; but you could presumably get the same benefit from having a 2nd GPU in your machine and moving the screens you pop out panels onto to that GPU, and get the benefit of faster performance overall - integrated graphics is not known for being particularly speedy, not least because it shares main RAM which is nowhere near as fast as VRAM, and there’s nothing special about an iGPU in terms of DirectX.

Yes it has been confirmed by others that a second GPU will also work … Since we had a onboard in this Sim rig with the 9700K cpu having onboard and the 390Prime has the HDMI and Display port outputs I chose to use them to test it… and it worked…

In previous sims like P3D when you would pop out gauges and place them on a second GPU or an internal GPU you would have the issue of flickering … So for many of us we always kept from placing anything on the NON main GPU…

Second… well with this CPU and MoBo combo (like many similar in the 4-12 series of i7) you only have so many PCIe lanes… and if you populate another one of the slots you go to x8 lanes instead of x16… so I did not want to risk lowering my main GPU…

Either way you look at it… The issue is still that the MSFS engine will cut the FPS in half basically the moment you run another Window on the Same GPU… as per the video you see that we regained all of our lost FPS… Since the POP out is an instrument panel it’s not really need ing to do much with that internal GPU… When I look at upgrading the Sim I will definitely consider a threadripper like I have in my desktop system so that I can have all the PCIe lanes and can throw in maybe 2x 3090s…

I thought I would pass on how I use my 3 monitors. I do this because it helps me avoid the worst of the distortion and if you have TrackIR you might find it useful. It is a bit “Micky Mouse” and maybe someone else has found an easier way of doing the same thing but this is my way. I am just trying to be helpful and I know it doesn’t solve the problem but I thought it just might help someone else. So please don’t “shoot me down”.
Basically I use TrackIR to reduce the FOV of the 3 monitors in a similar way to using the mouse wheel but with the advantage that the reduced FOV becomes the cockpit “standard” view so you don’t have to keep using the mouse wheel to restore you to the reduced FOV.
I set up as the 3 monitors as one normal “stretched” window (I don’t use nVidia surround as it has given me too many problems in the past).
I set up a TrackIR Profile that gives me 180 degree sweep of view in the cockpit (i.e. I can look left or right and see backwards). The profile also allows a lot of upwards and downwards vision.
I start the flight and get the plane flying level and straight. I then remove the TrackIR TrackClip from my head and put it behind my head as far as I can (my seat limits this) and holding it level and straight I press F12 (centre TrackIR). I then return the TrackClip to it’s normal position on my head and with luck I have a much reduced FOV and the distortion on the 2 side screens is not as distracting. I can look left or right and get about 90 degrees each way and I can look down and see the instruments.
I only fly low and slow and I find this helps a lot when I want to use 3 monitors in cockpit view.

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Thanks for the tip! Gonna try this :slight_smile:

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Actually I find that once you have the FOV reduced(repositioned) you can then play with the TrackIR profile until you get something that personally suits you and the planes you fly. I searched for other ways of reducing the FOV and setting it as your default FOV but couldn’t find any so that’s why I came up with putting the trackclip behind my head and resetting TrackIR with the F12.

I wrote about this a month or so ago. Basically, if you find the current state of DX12 satisfactory for your needs (some folks do, some do not) - just switch to DX12 mode and then pop out as many gauges and stuff as you like… Without the need for any type of secondary GPU/iGPU…without any FPS loss.

The primary cause of the FPS drop is that under DX11 we are limited by a single rendering thread being dedicated to its active rendered frustum.
Long story short - the moment we put even the smallest part of the sim on another display, it will automatically half the framerate.

There are ways to mitigate this under DX11 - such as the use of additional GPU’s like the integrated GPU as you write about here, or the additional system through the extension cards and various sorts of interconnect popular within the flightsim design and manufacture industry - yet as you can see it is all rather complicated.

DirectX 12 solves that in an elegant way, also being one of the first steps towards the integration of true multiple display support.

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Wow. A year and a half of this being one of the most requested features and… nothing.
Well, guess we have to keep on waiting!
GG

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Pathetic that they still haven’t fixed this, sick of nvidia surround garbage

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Wow! Tried this and it works! I have now popped out both PFD and MFD on two other monitors and the framerate is still high! Thanks for the tip! :grinning:

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For me DirectX 12 is no option because of a severe drop of FPS.
I don’t now why some people has this and others not?
Is this because of CPU or GPU configuration?

I must admit I do get FPS-drops now and then, but the convenience of popping out the PFD and MFD to my second and third monitor without cutting my FPS in half outweighs the cons. Of course I’m still hoping that Asobo can make this all work by this year.

I would be happy if we could get an implementation of Simultaneous Multi-projection (SMP). This feature can also be activated in the racing simulation iRacing, but (unfortunately) only works with NVIDIA graphics cards. Activating SMP not only removes the distortion effect, but also improves performance. I have about 20 FPS more in iRacing.
By the way, VR users also benefit from this feature.

But whatever the solution will look like in MSFS, I hope we don’t have to wait that long. :wink:

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I am running DirectX 12 - " then pop out as many gauges"

How do you do that? I couldn’t move any. I am running three monitors

Yes that is The Question :slightly_smiling_face:. Lots of variables, lots of testing, that will do it.

For popping out gages for the gentleman who asked:

  • just hold down the LEFT ALT key on your keyboard and hover above the gauge (for example G1000 MFD) and left click - cursor should transform into a circle with a plus sign that shall indicate the “popoutable” gauge
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Ditto. Instant 15 fps drop across the board for me with DX12 and stutters more than Ozzy Osbourne on downers. Pop out a window, and my frame rate plummets into the teens. DX12 doesn’t prevent any frame rate drop or me when popping out a window. It makes it unusable.

It seems this isn’t a solution for everyone atm. Perhaps once they get DX12 working more universally this may be the solution. But for now, it seems only a few people benefit from it. The general concensus so far on DX12 is that for quite a lot of folks, it results in lower performance and more stuttering.

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:rofl: :joy: :rofl:

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Ok, I just updated to the latest nVidia driver. I was using a slightly older version (497.29) prior. It would seem that on the latest driver, I’m not getting the frame drop I was with the older when using DX12. And frame rate stays pretty much the same when popping out windows too. This is indeed good news!

The down side, however, is that the stuttering is just as bad with the new driver as it was with the old one, with or without popouts. It makes flying like that very unpleasant when I know I can get a smooth frame rate using DX11. With DX11, I’m steadily GPU limited. With DX12, I get constant CPU spikes and it goes from GPU to Main Thread limited with stupid high frame latencies.

This is definitely a step in the right direction though. If they can smooth out that DX12 performance, this is going to be a game changer for many folks.

The DX12 implementation right now is experimental and basically you’re beta testing it for Asobo if you use it… it’s clearly not optimised. Most people seem to have lower FPS using it. But P3D moved to DX12 and performance increased significantly and continues to increase as they improve it… OTOH, the first couple of releases were plagued with crashes due to DX12 too. It’s a much less ‘managed’ API and it’s easy to shoot yourself in the foot with it.

Therefore i leave it where it is, in the beta state.
DX11 is it for now. After the next update i will try it again.

Wow… It’s been a long while since my last message on this missing feature and I see it’s still missing! Well, for me, I moved on to the Quest 2 VR and the immersion and 3D is so good that I will not go back.

I also swapped my 3 monitors for a Samsung 49" Ultra Wide 1440p monitor (basically 2 16:9 monitors side by side) and whenever I use it in MSFS, I can still see the bad side distortion and I wish Asobo would fix that.

Anyway, loads of bugs involving this sim yet, I still keep coming back to it.