Hi, from a real Novice....

I have been using flight sims on my PC since FS2002, now I am due to retire in 2010 I plan on building a SimPit to keep myself occupied, I plan on building a 737 type sim, but here comes the rub... I know very little about the general workings of a PC, I plan to have at least 2 monitors for the guages with a projector for the outside view. sounds easy so far, except I have seen images of a build where one of the monitors on the MIP is rotated 90%,to make it taller. I sent an email to a great help called Jytte Christrup, he said that with a Dualhead2Go I could do this, saying that I could undock the guages from the screen and reposition them, is it really that simple?
Help like this is invaluable to people like me and the Sim Community seems very friendly.

My main aim is use GoFlight panels on the sim, Is all this as simple as it sounds..... or is there a hidden catch the retailers aren't telling me

Warm regards Spoceto1003

Just a basic explanation,

ROTATING SCREENS:

We need to be able to establish a few things, first we need to know what the graphics card is, is your graphics card a built-in graphics card which is soldered/connected to the motherboard (the big circuit board in the pc that houses all the components), or is the graphics card a slot-in type where you find a free slot on the motherboard and slot the card in, the best way to find out and see it for your self is to open the pc case and have a look where the card is, if you see no graphics card slot in 1 of the slots on the motherboard but you do see a vga monitor port on the motherboard.....well you have your answer.

If your using an 'onboard' (built in graphics card) then to rotate your screen in Windows XP, press: ALT + CTRL + (ARROW KEY, UP, DOWN, LEFT , OR RIGHT) and you will see your screen rotate hopefully!

If your using a Graphics card that slots into the motherboard such as an ATI graphics card, then there may be an icon in your quicktray (lower right corner, with the clock) that has display settings, or an icon displaying ATI, double click on the icon and you will get a menu come up, scroll through the monitor options until you see screen rotation and you should be able to rotate your screen that way, so you can have your widescreen monitor rotated long ways instead of normal possition so that you can create the lcd panel of your choice.

SETUP:

To create an MIP that houses 2 x 19" monitors + 15" monitor for engine dials etc and a projector you will need:

1 x Graphics card with 2 monitor outputs (2 screens on 1 card).
1 x Graphics card single output (or double output, it doesnt matter)

The Co-pilot side of the MIP will display exactly the same as what the captain's side displays (such as attitude,heading,level,gps etc), so to do this, get your 2 screens (left and right) and attatch to a 'Y-Adapter', plug in the 2 screens to the y adapter and plug the y adapter into graphics input 1 on your card, so you are now running 2 screen on 1 input, the whole idea of the 'y adapter' is that you can plug 2 monitors into 1 input and both monitors will display the same stuff, so now you have your captain and co-pilot displays set-up.

For the screen that displays the engines/fuel etc that is in the middle of the MIP, you get your monitor and plug it into input 2 of grapics card 1, if you feel you want that screen possitioned longways, then pysically rotate the screen and then rotate the screen on the graphics card control panel as described above.

So now we have CAPTAIN / CO PILOT CONTROLS AND ENGINE/FUEL CONTROL SCREENS sorted out now.

If your using multiple monitors then you can can 'right click flight sim elements in FS and undock them to move them across the 2 monitors.

For the main screen (the visual) you plug your projector into Graphics card 2 input 1, make sure this graphics card is the best as it will be your main visual, the better the graphics card, the better the experience and realism.

You will need to arange the screen orientation on your monitors control panel.

For graphics cards go for NVIDIA or ATI type graphics card to start off (you can upgrade later), for the NVIDIA make sure its no less then a 8600GT AND for ATI go for a 3600 minimum, both will cost around £40-50 each but will feature 2 outputs on each card enabling you to plug 2 screen into each card.

Make sure you know what type of 'slot' that your motherboard has free to insert a graphics card, older pc's will use AGP type cards, newer PC's will accept PCI-E (PCI EXPRESS) or PCI, the type of slot matters the most as it will need to be the correct slot to accomodate the graphics card you choose!

Google: PCI / PCI-E / AGP to get an idea of what each slot looks like on the motherboard (sorry i dont have any pics to show you).

-------------------

On the DUAL HEAD TO GO / TRIPPLE HEAD TO GO you can in general do all of this, but its the expensive way to do it! And yes it is that easy!

-------------------

Anyway, all this info is from the top of my head, there may be room for correction but this is the general basics of it could be setup and how some people set it up, some people use multiple computers to setup displays and visuals and 'network' them together using Peter Dowsons WideView, theres a whole bunch of stuff on the web and especially on this site!

-------------------

Well as knowone has posted a reply yet i hope this gives you some indication or direction atleast!


Alex