Elite and TripleHead2Go Triple Screen Troubles

[Akastaff]

Finally I get to chew on Elite Dangerous after the long wait from the 80's so I downloaded the launcher and sat back for the eye candy to begin but YIKES !!! whats this...now most games I play in 3840 x 1024, this is because I use a Matrox TripleHead2Go to run 3 x 27" AOC screens and normally works great but Elite goes nuts.

If put the game in a windowed mode say 1600x1200 then the game looks OK GFX wise but in the triple screen side of things it goes Waaaaay out of proportion..Menus are to big to display on screen properly with top and bottom missing, txt is massive and the view inside the cockpit looks like my ass is glued to the docking door and I need arms 10ft long to reach the console controls LOL and the ships hull swallows half the viewable screen.

Is there some sort of tweak for 3 screens setup ?

 

[alchemy42]

Probably need a screen shot to judge what you mean by 'Waaaaay out of proportion'.

I run ED on three screens with nVidia surround. Everything looks pretty good. It suffers from the usual warping on the outboard screens common to most widescreen gaming, but menus and everything looks fine.

No special settings, just set the resolution (I run at 5810 x 1080 I think).

 

[Mazhurg]

Finally I get to chew on Elite Dangerous after the long wait from the 80's so I downloaded the launcher and sat back for the eye candy to begin but YIKES !!! whats this...now most games I play in 3840 x 1024, this is because I use a Matrox TripleHead2Go to run 3 x 27" AOC screens and normally works great but Elite goes nuts.

If put the game in a windowed mode say 1600x1200 then the game looks OK GFX wise but in the triple screen side of things it goes Waaaaay out of proportion..Menus are to big to display on screen properly with top and bottom missing, txt is massive and the view inside the cockpit looks like my ass is glued to the docking door and I need arms 10ft long to reach the console controls LOL and the ships hull swallows half the viewable screen.

Is there some sort of tweak for 3 screens setup ?

Not in A1. It''s been fixed since but I am afraid you will have to wait until the Beta proper to enjoy the multiple screen environment.

 

[alchemy42]

Not in A1. It''s been fixed since but I am afraid you will have to wait until the Beta proper to enjoy the multiple screen environment.

I would have thought the SP Beta would be basically Alpha 1 but with a bunch of fixes. So is it really just the old Alpha 1 from December?

 

[Mazhurg]

I would have thought the SP Beta would be basically Alpha 1 but with a bunch of fixes. So is it really just the old Alpha 1 from December?

Yep it is.

 

[cassius]

Theres a similar thread in the private backers forum, where Ben Parry confirms it was an issue that got patched up in later builds of the alpha:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14618

So for the moment we'll have to use just the one screen, and crank it up when the next Beta release comes out

 

[Akastaff]

Must admit am rather disappointed but will live with it..When I saw the Premium Beta become available after being an £85 backer I spent the other £15 in a heart beat, next time I will read the small print as Alpha 1.1 is a bit like being given the left overs at the dinner table...

No other game makes people pay for beta so it is the likes of us "old" elite fans, even got my BBC out other week and still have tape version of Elite that have made this all possible stumping up the cash.. Cant help feeling a little robbed atm and playing in single screen mode is bloody horrible

 

[Akastaff]

And cannot see those threads..get the you don't have permission to access this page message.

 

[Asp Explorer]

In all honesty, you have Alpha 1.1 access, and will get full Beta access when it's ready, I can't see a reason to be disappointed.

Later alpha builds include multiplayer, which does not stretch to Beta testers at the moment, so realistically all FD could do is send out a single-player only build, which 1.1 conveniently is.

We'll all look forward to full Beta launch where you can join in the fun, and then regular Beta's after that. It's going to be great

 

[Akastaff]

I'm happy enough with what I have, lets me fiddle with control systems etc so don't get me wrong on that point...hell waited 30 years can manage another month...

What does bug me is they let us loose on a version that has such a BIG bug...many use multi monitor and fixing that would not have changed any roll out plans but trust me once your used to triple screen, doing anything in single screen mode is painful at best.

 

[Akastaff]

How about controls..use a Saitek ST290 Pro as left handed and cant get any response from it in game or trying to set custom controls ?

 

[Argon]

I'm happy enough with what I have, lets me fiddle with control systems etc so don't get me wrong on that point...hell waited 30 years can manage another month...

What does bug me is they let us loose on a version that has such a BIG bug...many use multi monitor and fixing that would not have changed any roll out plans but trust me once your used to triple screen, doing anything in single screen mode is painful at best.

You cannot really expect it to work perfectly it's alpha.

 

[MrVibrating]

I'm also a little disturbed by this - scaling the FOV and aspect ratio correctly requires just a couple of simple fomulas.

Then the game displays properly on any and all monitor configs.

So it really IS precisely the sort of thing you'd expect to be complete and fully functional right from the get-go.

We should be concerned what sort of fix they've applied to address this: is it a tailored aspect and FoV for triplehead modes - in which case they'll have to keep coming up with similar discrete fixes every time someone runs a monitor config the game hasn't been explicitly coded to deal with; or have they applied general algorithms to ensure all possible display configs scale correctly?

I only play games in double triplehead mode (using two Matrox TH2G's connected to one Nvidia card), at 3840 x 2048. I've been saying for years (before E: D was even announced) that trying to hard-code for all possible screen modes independently is clumsy, unnecessarily complex and bound to fall short in unforeseen circumstances.. all this headache and uncertainty can be eliminated at a stroke by using a couple of clever formulas....

Failing this, FoV and aspect ratios need to be fully configurable across a very broad range to enable players to fix this themselves... What if i configure my two TH2G's in horizontal span - will the game automatically adjust the FoV, and if not, will it allow me to do so manually? Because if the FoV has a hard limit anything short of 360° then that config won't work either..

Obviously, i'm not suggesting anyone would want to play in 7680 x 1024, but simply that if it's physically possible then the game ought to be able to deal with it...

Wish i could afford alpha, i'd be stress-testing all this sort of stuff...