Software TH2GO now work with FSX!!!

[joseottawa]

I just wanted to share my widescreen settings in FSX with NO Matrox TripleHead2Go at all using SofTH and two video cards in XP. NO SLI mode. I have FSX working in span mode on three monitors with two video cards thanks to SoftTh version v1.09 rc1. With the hat switch I am able to switch to different views and the three monitors work just like one big monitor. My computer has two Nvidia cards: one is a 6200 PCI card and the second a 8500 PCI express card. Both cards have two video outputs: a DVI and a VGA. So I have 4 video ports and using only 3. I got 3 x 19” LCD monitors that I bought used second hand with a max resolution of 1280x1204 each and I was able to get a span of 3840x1024. The panoramic view in Flight Simulator X looks just amazing.
These are the steps I followed to make it work in WinXP:
-For a three monitor setup configure the monitor properties in such way that the central monitor be the primary monitor "Use this device as the primary monitor".
-Make sure that the "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor" be selected for the other two monitors.
-Match the screen resolution to be identical on the three monitors. I use 1280x1024.
-In my setup, Windows detects the PCI card first therefore my monitor #1 is the PCI video card. Monitors 3 and 2 are attached to second card #3 in the DVI and #2 in the analog port.
-Apply the settings.
-Locate the file FSX.cfg in
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\FSX.cfg (replace USERNAME with whatever your XP login is) open FSX.cfg with a txt editor (i used notepad) and under the [Display] section locate the line
WideViewAspect=False
Edit this line to read
WideViewAspect=True
save the file and close it.

-Download the free utility SoftTh version v1.09 rc1" from www.kegetys.net/SoftTH
Unzip the files (there are 3 dlls and a cfg file) and copy them onto the FSX main folder and edit the SoftTH.cfg (I used notepad).

These are my SoftTH.cfg file settings you can copy them to your file (make a backup of yours first):
---------------------------------------------------------
;
; SoftTH 1.09 configuration file
; by Kegetys, http://www.kegetys.net
;

[config]
; deviceIDLeft/right: Direct3D device ID's of left and right monitor, or 'auto' for

automatic
; secondaryWidth/Height: Left&right monitor resolution, or 'auto' to use same as middle

screen resolution
; secondaryRefresh: Refresh rate of left & right monitors, or 'auto' for automatic
; secondaryFormat: Secondary device image format: 'RGB32', 'RGB16', 'RGB16D' or

'RGB32CUDA'.
; uploadMethod: Method used to upload image to secondary card(s): 'blit', 'D3D' or

'D3DCUDA'
; forceAffinity: Set to 1 to force process affinity to all processors/cores.
; borderSize: Size in pixels of frame border between monitors that is discarded
; sideExtraWidth: Width difference between middle and side monitors, or 'auto' to

autodetect from desktop resolution
; noHotkeys: Set to 1 to disable all hotkeys
; noOSD: Set to 1 to disable on-screen display when changing settings
deviceIDLeft=auto
deviceIDright=auto
secondaryWidth=auto
secondaryHeight=auto
secondaryRefresh=auto
secondaryFormat=RGB16D
uploadMethod=blit
forceAffinity=0
borderSize=0
sideExtraWidth=auto
noHotkeys=0
noOSD=0

[Direct3D]
; ** Advanced setting for Direct3D games **
; lensCorrection: Lens correction, set to 1 to enable support. >1 to enable by default
; lensCorrectionEdge: Lens correction edge offset
; hideNondefaultDevices: Hides all but the default adapter from the game
; forceHorizontalFOV: Forces horizontal FOV to be three times as wide
; forceResolutionWidth/Height: Forces device to be created with this resolution
; force16bitDepth: Force game to use 16bit depth buffer, can improve performance and

reduce memory use
; sleepBeforeRead: Time in ms to sleep before reading back buffer data from video card
; useMultihead: Uses multihead features of primary card if available, can increase

performance and reduce memory use
; delayedPresent: When useMultihead enabled, delay primary monitor present to sync with

secondary head
; d3d8dll: Path to D3D8.dll/D3D9.dll to use or auto for automatic (system32 dir)
; altResetBehaviour: Do not reset lost main device after secondary device initialization

(WDDM crash workaround)
lensCorrection=0
lensCorrectionEdge=0
hideNondefaultDevices=1
forceHorizontalFOV=0
forceResolutionWidth=0
forceResolutionHeight=0
force16bitDepth=0
sleepBeforeRead=2
useMultihead=1
delayedPresent=0
autoSquash=0
altResetBehaviour=0
d3d8dll=auto

[hooks]
; Win32 API hooking settings - Used for some extra compatibility and game-specific fixes
; doHooking: Enable/disable hooks in Direct3D, with OpenGL hooks are always enabled
; doScaleMouseCoordinates: Scale mouse coordinates for getCursorPos to fix games which do

not handle negative screen coordinates properly
; doScaleFromLeftScreen: Spread out mouse coordinates from left screen to full width
; doScaleWindowRects: Scale focus window WindowRect
; doScaleClientRects: Scale focus window ClientRect
; mouseXoffset: Number of pixels to offset mouse cursor position in X axis, to fix

misplaced cursor due to negative screen coordinates. auto = use X resolution
doHooking=1
doScaleMouseCoordinates=0
doScaleFromLeftScreen=0
doScaleWindowRects=1
doScaleClientRects=1
mouseXoffset=auto

; Triplehead screenmodes to add to resolutions list (width multiplied by three and border

added)
; width x height x refresh rate in Hz
; 'auto' adds current primary monitor desktop resolution
; Must be last in this file
[modes]
1280x1024x60
auto

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

-Start FSX.
-Center the FSX window in the middle monitor.
-Go to Settings and select the resolution 3840x1024x32 click OK.
-Set Frame rate to unlimted
-Start Flying. FSX may start in windowed mode. Press Alt+Enter to select Full Screen.
-The two monitors on the side will show the SofTH logo in blue and the central monitor a black screen. This is normal while SofTH spans the image accross the 3 monitors. After few seconds you will see the panoramic image accross the the 3 monitors. See my screenshots. If the span image does not look right you may need to swap monitor positions.
If you have questions there is alwasy the SoftTH forum:
http://www.kegetys.net/forum/index.php?board=1.0

Enjoy the view.
Jose

[dylanitaly]

Hi Jose, i'm going to decide between the Matrox triplehead and the software solution you exposed. I would have to buy a PCI card (like your 6200) for my computer to do that but i have a question. How do FSX run on an old card (like PCI ones) ? Do you notice less quality and frame rate on the monitors connected to it? Thanks in advance

Fabrizio

[CrashEd]

Looks really interesting. Would be nice to compare it to TH2Go and see whether the frame rate is better (I imagine it would be as it is using two gfx cards rather than one).

Is 1280x1024 the max resolution it can handle or can it go higher (e.g. 1680x1024).

[joseottawa]

Fabrizio, I haven't used Matrox TripleHead2Go. A friend of mine had one and the performance was great. Better than mine. My solution is just a cheaper solution. I noticed however that FSX sometimes is a little sluggish but in general the panoramic views are excellent. The quality of the picture is really good and also depends on the quality of the monitors. Mine were used monitors second hand. One of the video cards (the PCI) has only 256MB so I cannot expect a great performance. However the other card PCI-ex has 1GB and it runs great. SoftTH is free but the performance is not as good as a good piece of solid hardware like Matrox TripleHead2Go. If I had the money, I will buy Matrox TripleHead2Go. If you are on a low budget like me then go for softTH since it is free. So, it is your choice: Money= great performance. No money =Low performance.

Cheers!
Jose

[joseottawa]

Hi Fritz
It seems that softTH works only with FSX. I tried different settings with FS2004 and I couldn't get it to work so after several attempts I just gave up with FS2004 and softTH. I am using mainly FSX from now on.

Jose

[joseottawa]

Hi CrashEd, my 3 monitors support only 1280x1024 as the max individual res. With softTH I can go to a max res of 3840x1024 using Tom Clancy's HAWX. In FSX I have the option to go to a max of 4864x1024 but the screen looks funny. It depends of the res of your monitors. If you have 3 monitors that support 1680x1024 or 3x 1680x1050 then you max res will be 3x1680= 5040x1024 or 5040x1050.

Cheers!
Jose

[shearder]

Hi all

Ok after a couple of days of battling I finally have this working in a dual monitor setup.

However, though this is one option i still get a game crash when i try and access options - i.e. settings etc

Any ideas?

[HSousa]

Ok after a couple of days of battling I finally have this working in a dual monitor setup.

However, though this is one option i still get a game crash when i try and access options - i.e. settings etc

Can you please state your experience on the dual-setup? I've been totally unable to manage a dual-setup that I can live with not going to the menu, I just wanted you to tell how did you manage to configure it.
Thanks in advance