BenQ W-1080ST Projectors,curved screen configuration issues.

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Postby Guest » Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:13 pm

Hi folks,

I have been following the forum with interest for some time now and have been gradually building up my set-up. Firstly let me apologise for the length of this post in advance.

Over the past couple of years I have been building a Simpit. I have built myself a Block 52 F-16 cockpit and have been running a Epson TW1000 projector (1080p) and 100” flat screen. After reading the forum and doing a bit of research I have become inspired to increase the immersive experience of my cockpit.

From the discussions and recommendations from this and the WSGF forums I purchased 2 x BenQ W-1080ST short throw projectors and built myself a curved screen from PVC and MDF. (1.35m radius). I also purchased a Zotac Display Port to Dual HDMI splitter to connect to the display port on my ASUS Nvidia GTX 680. I am running Windows 7 64bit. As a trial I downloaded Immersive Display Pro and NTHUSIM Plus 10 minute trial to get set-up.

As is the norm with changing any new hardware or software, it takes a while to sort out the bugs and to get up and running again. I have had three weeks at it now and don’t seem to be any closer to sorting it out than where I was at the start.

Here is my progress so far:

My system recognises the Zotac adapter as Dual HDMI outputs to the 2 x W-1080ST projectors. Plugged into my GTX 680 display port this configuration loses sync every 5 seconds, searches, finds the projectors on HDMI 1 (on both projectors) and re-synchronises. It then does the same thing every 5 seconds. The screen is effectively blank for 5 seconds out of every 10. I have a Corsair HX-850 power supply and the 2 x 6pin power cables attached so I don’t think it is a power issue. If I connect straight to the display port on the motherboard (ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3) (Intel® HD Graphics 3000) it works just fine with now dropouts at all. I have also tried a number of different HMDI cables of differing lengths with no change. I am currently going through the HD3000 chip set so there is nothing connected to the GTX 680 although I have tried connecting to the 2 x DVI ports and a 3rd connection to a Samsung monitor in order to enable Nvidia 2D surround. In this configuration it includes the 2 x W1080ST’s as well as the monitor and attempts to combine all three displays at the lower 1280 x 1024 resolution but still won’t calibrate.

Running off the motherboard display port, Windows recognises this configuration as a spanned display. In Immersive Display PRO I am able to change the screen alignment, save it, but when I ESC back to my desktop nothing changes at all. (It is still the unwarped windows with the overlap of the two projectors) On the reset of the computer it is still the same and it refers to the .DAT file I have saved for the configuration. I have also tried the auto calibration under the Align TAB and Automap but it still doesn’t change my desktop appearance. I have followed the instructions in the user guide to the letter but I must be doing something fundamentally wrong or it is a hardware issue. I have also looked at the videos on YouTube, but the couple I have seen are from a different version of Immersive Display PRO.

I have also loaded the NTHUSIM Plus trial version and gone through the same configuration process including edge blending with the same result. A non-warped screen with overlapping displays. Because of the same result with NTHUSIM I am beginning to think this is a hardware issue.

My trail for Immersive Display Pro has now expired so I have come to the crossroads of what to do. I have not had a good run configuring either software package and cannot seem to calibrate the desktop warping let alone try it in DSC World or Falcon BMS.

Do I bite the bullet and purchase Immersive Display PRO and because of my calibration issues also purchase Immersive Calibration PRO. From the demos on YouTube it seems to take some of the frustration out of the calibration process or do I purchase some other software?

Any advice or comments appreciated. I have also posted this over at WSGF Forum.

Thanks…Wayne
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Postby The_Nephilim » Wed Aug 27, 2014 12:48 pm

So your problem is on the Desktop not warping?? I am unsure if immersaview has desktop warping, but does the game warp??

nthusim has desktop warping but is currently only for testing.. Maybe Brad can come along and help out..
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Postby BHawthorne » Wed Aug 27, 2014 3:30 pm

A bit of a head's up but Immersive Display Pro and Nthusim will conflict if installed at the same time. Make sure you try them at separate install times to isolate them interfering with each other. Nthusim Plus 3.5 has desktop pre-warping added for WIndows 7. Just enable DWM in the Tools menu. Windows 8.1 is doing a few things differently with the desktop pipeline, so we're still working through that for Nthusim 4.0 release.

It's odd that the Zotac adapter is dropping out like that. I own three of that adapter and don't have issues. I've only used it with 1280x800 projectors though. I do have a few 1920x1080 LCDs I could test my adapter on those to see if I can reproduce the issue on my end. In my Nvidia test rig is a GTX770, so it should behave almost identical to the GTX680. Might try experimenting with the vertical sync settings in the Nvidia control panel. Maybe the adaptive vertical sync is confusing the adapter transcoder chip.

Let me know if you want the development 3.5 build. It should work ok with Windows 7. It's not totally functional in Windows 8.1 though.
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Postby Guest » Thu Aug 28, 2014 12:50 am

Thanks The_Neph and Brad.

Tonight I tried ditching the Zotac adapter and running direct off the Nvidia GTX 680 from the 2 x DVI ports to the projectors and a 3rd connection from the HDMI to a Samsung monitor in order to enable Nvidia 2D surround. As my Immersive Display Pro has expired I tried NTHUSIM Plus trial again and tried to configure all three displays at the lower 1280 x 1024 resolution of the monitor but it still won’t the warped desktop.

I didn't realise the two products clashed but I have uninstalled Immersive Display Pro. I enabled DWM as well and it still didn't change the desktop when I escaped back to the desktop.

I must admit I have been trying to get both products to work in Desktop pre-warping and have not yet tried it in DCS World or Falcon BMS yet. I suppose I thought if the desktop pre-warp didn't work then the simulations wouldn't work.

Is possible to include only the two projectors in the configuration for 2D surround or do you have to have 3 display attached for it to work? It seems if I disconnect the monitor afterwards it still thinks it is connected and it won't allow me to change the Surround configuration. I definitely think it is some kind of hardware issue. Maybe I save my pennies for a Matrox Dual Head 2 Go.

I have attached the logs from the log files from tonight's attempts and although the NTHUSIM Log-27Aug2014 file is not very clear it does show a number of driver errors although they don't mean to much to me. Brad, would it be possible to have a look at them and maybe point me in the right direction.

I would definitely be interested in the 3.5 Dev build while I try to get this damned thing up and running.

Thanks for the help...Wayne
Attachments
NthusimStdx64 log.jpg
NthusimStdx64 log
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NthAlignx64 log.jpg
NthAlignx64 log
NthAlignx64 log.jpg (207.94 KiB) Viewed 27265 times
NTHUSIM Log 27Aug2014.JPG
NTHUSIM Log-27Aug2014
NTHUSIM Log 27Aug2014.JPG (74.51 KiB) Viewed 27265 times
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Postby BHawthorne » Thu Aug 28, 2014 5:51 pm

Below is a link to the new Nthusim 3.5 build that adds Aero desktop functionality. To enable desktop pre-warping mode enter the Tools menu and enable the DWM checkbox. Desktop mode currently only works with Windows 7 in this development build. We are currently working on adding desktop mode to Windows 8.1.

http://www.nthusim.com/sites/default/fi ... -setup.exe

Known issues with development build 3.5:
- Web browsers will often crash to desktop if launched with DWM pre-warp enabled in Nthusim 3.5. The way to fix this is to go into the browser advanced preference settings and turn off hardware acceleration.
- Overlays conflict with Nthusim because they use similar injection methods. Steam in-game chat needs to be turned off in Steam preferences. Origin chat is also the same. Turn it off in Origin's preferences. Just be mindful that if a utility is using an overlay it might conflict with Nthusim.
- If using Prepar3d 2.3, you need to make sure Nthusim has DWM mode enabled. This will fix an issue with the Prepar3d menu system. If you need to change option settings in P3D make sure to do so while Nthusim is not running. Lockheed Martin has done something non-standard in the way they re-initialize graphics after changing settings that will cause P3D to crash to desktop if running Nthusim.

If you have any questions let me know and I'll do my best to help out.

-Brad
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Postby Guest » Fri Aug 29, 2014 1:07 am

Thanks for that Brad.

I have had to work back tonight so won't get a chance tonight but I will get into it tomorrow night. I will also give the vertical sync setting a go again with my Zotac.

With the GTX 680 can you span only 2 display's ie. the 2 x W-1080ST's without having the 3rd display ie. the Samsung monitor connected? Last night it was spanning all three at the lower monitor resolution. I tried to remove the monitor but then it would not let me reconfigure anything in surround.

I will let you know how I go tomorrow night.

Thanks again...Wayne
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Postby BHawthorne » Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:40 am

The problem with Nvidia is they only span three via the Nvidia driver's Surround setting. It's why Nvidia needs the Zotac adapter. It's not an issue on AMD because they can span 2-6 displays. There are differences in how Nvidia and AMD implemented things, so they have a bit of different capability and feature set. In many ways I prefr AMD on spanning options, but prefer Nvidia on overall performance.
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Postby Guest » Mon Sep 01, 2014 12:41 am

Hi Brad.

Gave the Zotac another go. I had some ASUS overclocking software automatically running at startup which I have now disabled. I am not sure whether that was the culprit but the adapter now seems to be working OK. Weird. I checked the card settings and they are all standard.

Got Nthusim up and running and it works OK on the desktop although the edge blending still has a bit of ghosting in the centre. It's not quite right. However when I load up the simulation software it only displays from one projector. It does the same in DCS World and in Falcon BMS where the image is only displayed from the right hand projector. I displays the whole image but condense it to the one projector. I have altered the desktop size in the monitorsetup,lua file in the config folder. In game it says 3840 x 1080 but it is still only showing on the one projector.

A couple of times today centre 3rd of the screen went black and everywhere I moved the mouse it started to black out the image like you were painting over the screen. Not sure what happened. I had to reset the computer and eventually it came good. One other occasion the main display went black and a double screen appeared on the Samsung 3rd monitor. I presume these are glitches with the Nvidia card or the Nvidia software or even possibly DWM. Is the Matrox dual head 2 go or an AMD card a better way to go and possibly less hassle to set up. This Nvidia stuff is starting to be a pain in the butt!

I also cannot load the windows screen resolution page. I right hand click on screen resolution and it appears on the taskbar but I cannot get it up on the screen??? Although I have them turned off at the moment while I am trying to get this sorted but I also have 2 x 800 x 600 MFD's attached to the DVI and HDMI ports on my motherboard (HD3000). It there I can see the screen is displayed as a small icon but won't restore at all.

Don't know if you have had any of these issues before but any pointers would be most appreciated.

Thanks...Wayne
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Postby BHawthorne » Mon Sep 01, 2014 3:36 pm

It's very odd that it's only showing on one of the projectors but not the second. Matrox DH2G is an option, but an expensive one. The Matrox box is about 1/2 the cost of a good enthusiast level AMD card. I still use Matrox DH2G and TH2G boxes on a few builds, but only because the customer already had the boxes. Nvidia is pretty frustrating when it comes to a dual-head spanned setup. The only real answers are DH2G or Zotac DP to Dual-HDMI adapter.

I was pondering if the issue was a problem with the Zotac adapter and port bandwidth limitations, but this article confirms that it can do 3840x1080 span using two 1920x1080 displays. http://www.techpowerup.com/149981/zotac ... ptors.html

This is something I can test though as I have three of the Zotac adapters sitting around in my misc cable box. Give me a couple of days and I'll try to give you something more definitive after I do a bit of experimenting and troubleshooting with my GTX770 and a Zotac adapter.
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