I have already considered the possibility of a 5x1 setup but rejected the idea due to:
- difficulty to mount (and fine tune) 5 projector in this position.
- difficulty to find a suitable location, the usually limited (if any) horizontal lens shift means that they have to be at almost head level impossible in front of the user... not really better behind...
- they would also "fill" the back of the room which is the door side. Add to this the 4 of the full height speakers of a 7.1 surround sound setup in the vicinity... well not sure it still possible to reach the seat.
- portrait mode is yet an other thing that Gfx card seems to not handle so well when it comes to surround vision.
- there might be some moving parts not designed to have their axis in this position (I wonder if the DLP moving "mirrors" are concerned).
- Heat is an concern too and LED may help but 1: LED costs a lot it looks like you pay upfront for 10 years of the bulb replacement. 2: can't find any "good" led below the 3K$ segment. By good I means fast (input lag, blur) good image, good black, and very good shadow details (I have full control over the light in the room so I can help the black level and so I value more the shadow details over the black level). As I would need 5 to 6 of them even 2K$ is just too much. Anyway I don't want to sacrifice the image quality for a few bulb replacement...
I have a side question about the projectors. It seems that everybody want short throw pj but is there any other reason than the placement issue?
For me long throw means at least less focus issue, less lost pixel in the warping process and better light uniformity.
FYI My current (nothing definitive) short list of projector is:
Sony VPL-HW55ES in a 3 pj setup at most (those are not cheap... so 3 is a max)
Benq 1080ST in a 6 setup (placement forbids 1070 non ST here).
Here are the important questions that would help me sort the first step in the options:
- on a 1080p (dlp) projector seen at 6 feet are pixels and screen door effect clearly visible, barely visible, not at all visible... ?
- on a 1080p (dlp) projector seen at 6 feet and after some warp are the small texts like those in Rift chat box easily readable, barely readable, not readable...?
everything depends on the fact that 1080p is good enough and does not require to double the vertical resolution...
options for single row:
- 2x1: easy, least gfx power hungry and allow a good physical V Fov but 127° of rendered H Fov is just not enough to wrap on a 143-180° screen unless most games allows a custom FoV. Upgrade path: 2x UHD or 4K projector but in 3-4 years at least due gfx power required and pj price and availability.
- 3x1: easy, reasonable gfx power needed, a good rendered 143° but seems impossible to achieve a physical V FoV of anything near 58°, Upgrade path: same as 2x but even more power and cost...
options for two row:
-3x2: complex, high gfx power required (this is one and an half UHD. something like 2x Radeon R9 295x2 is mandatory), easy 58° V Fov, but even worse than 2x1 as far aspect ratio is concerned tuning the game FoV is mandatory. Upgrade: no need the image should be top quality (Pixel size vs view distance)... just upgrade the gfx card for better performance...
Just got an idea (ok probably it is not new but at least it is interesting for my issues) for a trick on a 2x1 setup: plug a third screen (any monitor with same resolution as the two projectors) add it to the 2x1 setup making it a 3x1 setup but wrap the rendered image on the two projectors only (leaving the monitor empty). This way we should be able to force the game to render a 3x1 view (so 143° FoV) and wrap this to a 2x1 setup which can easily match the 143° I think (the increased horizontal resolution may even improve the warp quality).
This trick doesn't rely on tricky features like gfx card scaling so that should be easy and reliable unless there are some limitations I'm not aware of.
You may even give it a try on your 2x1 setup (provided the setup is still in use and provided the trick has not already been tried
)
nb: Same would work on 3x2 but 6 additional fake monitor would be required and the amount of gfx power would be... well just insane.
nb: if the monitor has multiple input it can even be used to display something else by cabling it on two different port on both the monitor and the computer and use the second port to display for example a secondary screen as we don't need to actually display the first that only contains the non warped part.
nb: bonus benefit, being physically a 3x1 setup NVIDIA can be used.
What do you think about that trick ? if it works it means the 2x1 setup is the most interesting with both good rendered and physical FoV and also good price, upgradability and required gfx power.
It just need to be good enough to my taste. So please can you confirm the feasibility, can we trick NTHUSIM PLUS in to believing there is a third projector and can we warp the image on 2/3 of the believed total physical screen ?
I should mention I'm not in a hurry... full room preparation even if already started will require a few month before I buy projector/screen/wrapper my target is around the end of the year.
I'm curious about what's your current generic gaming setup (I say generic because it looks like you have more than one, some being very sim oriented).
And what's the setup you like the most (ideal ?) to play FPS, RPG, MMO, Racing...