Hello. Just bought a new computer and nned help PLEASE TO KEEP PLAY FS9

[ritchbou]

HI ! My name is Richard. I am flying FS9 since 2004 always on a week computer. Now I did offer myself a BIGGER one now but just cant experience it at the maximum because need help. My question now : - First my computer got 2graphic card ASUS EAH4870 ( 1G)-mother board ASUS P6T-DELUXE - Hard disk SATA2 640.0- power supply 850W.
NOW I run FS9 windows XP of course, got 2 screen ( so I would like to have front view and left side view on the second screen ) . DO I NEED TO CONNECT MY VIDEO CARD CROSS FIRE ?? to experience the full power of this installation ?????
Why if I do connect my second screen on the other video card its black ( i did try to set display and have two screen but the image was my computer desk and nothing else ??? ).
I will stop here for now because I have other question but I will wait for help. I know I seem not to bright but everyone have to start one day THANK YOU very much guys. Richard

[Shawn]

If you bought your computer from a retailer and didn't have it custom built I would guess that your graphics cards are already setup in crossfire configuration. From what I've read both Crossfire and SLI (Nvidia version of Crossfire) don't offer much in the way of a performance increase in FS9 or FSX and in this configuration the outputs on the second card can't be used. I have two graphics cards in my computer but opted to not install the SLI bridge across the cards which allows me to use all 4 outputs.

[Rodney]

Richard,
I don't think you can get the front view and the front left view using both vodeo cards. I may be wrong. There is a software program that will allow you to display any outside view you want called WideView. Catch is it needs to run on anther computer with another instance of FS9 that is sync'd to the main FD9 computer. Michael Carter is right now working with a WideView setup and posting his progress. Take a look at those threads. As I understand SLI & Crossfire the idea was to have the power of 2 video cards running on one monitor. While the SLI/Crossfire is not directly supported in FS9, there have been many threads on other sites about the results. Other options for using 2 or 3 monitors come in the form of a hardware and software platform called TH2Go (triple head to go) and they do make a dual head product also. But this again is using one video card. But it may also work in a SLI/Crossfire configuration with a Y cable (video out X2 to one connection for the monitor). There are countless threads here and all over the web with users trials and sucessful implentations in outside visuals. Almost too much information for me at times. But I am gratefull because the folks that have worked on this area will save me much time and money when I get there.

[Shawn]

There is no issue with getting two outside views to display on two monitors and one computer. Currently I am displaying the forward view on 3 monitors with a Matrox Triplehead2Go and a 90 degree left view on a 4th monitor. The other two outputs on the second card are used to display two seperate gauge panels. This is all done from a single computer with two graphics cards but like I mentioned before the GPU's are running independant from each other.

[Rodney]

There is no issue with getting two outside views to display on two monitors and one computer. Currently I am displaying the forward view on 3 monitors with a Matrox Triplehead2Go and a 90 degree left view on a 4th monitor. The other two outputs on the second card are used to display two seperate gauge panels. This is all done from a single computer with two graphics cards but like I mentioned before the GPU's are running independant from each other.

How did you get the 4th monitor on the 90 degree left view? By adding something in a cfg file? I had a TH2Go before and never tried any other monitors so I'm curious.

[Shawn]

I'm using FSX but the procedure is similar in FS9. Start a flight in FSX, enter windows mode using Alt/Enter (you can't move windows without being in windows mode) Open a new cockpit view and right click on the window, you will be presented with two options, chose "undock window" You can then drag the new undocked window to the monitor of your choice. You then go back into full screen mode using Alt/Enter again. I get the 90 degree left view by clicking on the screen (so the computer knows which window your adjusting) and then hitting the Shift + left arrow button. Occasionally this will change my forward view to 90 degrees left? when that happens left click on your forward view and hit Shift + up arrow key. Very occasionally the left window view won't stick when I hit Shift + left arrow key, if that happens hold the Shift + left arrow key down and then left click on the forward view??? I don't know why this works sometimes and not others but if there's one thing I've learned in the past few years it's that "computers are stupid"

Edit: I've been saying it's a left hand view but it's actually a right hand view we have, I guess it's not only computers that are stupid...