Elite Dangerous on IMAX

I promised an after-action report on my trip to an IMAX. Been working on this post since I got back in-between other duties. (The wife's honey-do list)

First, I know a lot of you wanted video for this but in fairness, this was not sanctioned by theater management, we did this well under the radar and my bud could get into trouble for letting me into the theater and fiddling with their gear (he/she likes their job). Also, there are not that many IMAX's so the video could identify the theater (and him/her indirectly) if released publicly. Not to mention, representing a massive screen on a shaky phone cam does not do it justice. Trust me, as I took some 1080 test footage and it was disappointing with underexposed video of only part of the screen plus very broken and overdriven sound.

All right, the experience. We couldn't do anything until the last show of the evening ended and the theater was cleaned. Once the staff cleared out, I got a text and I pulled up to a side door with his/her car. A series of pre-discussed secret knocks and the doors opened. We had to get everything in under a pre-set time or alarms would have gone off. Once done, I left and parked the car.

I had a vision of my friend not letting me back in as he/she set up my PC, but secret knocks at the door and I was back in. Walked up the short hallway, and into the theater. If you've never been in an IMAX let me set the scene. The floor with the seats has a steep angle so everyone has a decent view. We chose Row E seats 13 & 14 as being the "best". Roughly, just more than half way back from the screen.

The time was now early morning so we set to work. From a backpack, I produced a 200' long Ethernet cable, and two USB over Ethernet boxes. That's all we would need to control the game. "Huh, what?" you ask. I thought about this a long time when this opportunity was first mentioned. Here is the setup:

There is no way a video cable can stretch over 100' from booth to seats and still get video at the resolutions we wanted. Nor can you buy USB cables that long for keyboard and joystick. I had 6' vid cables and we set up my gaming PC (specs below) in the projection booth beside the main projectors (Yes, two). The Ethernet cable was run from the booth down to the selected seats. The USB to Ethernet boxes were plugged in at either end. Power for those came from a single extension cord. At the seats, I connected up the joystick and keyboard. I used zip ties and mounted them onto a flat piece of metal with holes drilled into it. Up in the booth, the USB box plugged into the PC. We rigged the video to a pair of 6,500 watt digital projectors (I'm overly simplifying this to save typing and mask the location). Once everything was connected, we fired up the game PC. I saw the BIOS and Windows logo up on the screen and we ran gleefully for the seats. I sat down, slipped the control board across my knee and waited... nothing, black screen.

A half-hour of troubleshooting and we couldn't find the issue. I'd brought a small 12" monitor and connected it to the back of the PC. Windows came up instantly showing a prompt saying the second monitor was unrecognized. Unsurprisingly, IMAX does not have MS drivers built into Windows 7, even though they usually run a Win7 box to control the projectors. I used a mouse and onscreen keyboard and and set 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolution on the default driver. The screen showed my desktop, but a lot wider than usual. I played around with it and finally realized the 16:9 monitor I use and IMAX screen ratios were different. Tried available resolutions and settings until I found one that worked best. Top and bottom of the screen were ever so slightly clipped, but the rest looked WOW. I set the IMAX screen as the primary monitor and there was my desktop home screen a thousand times bigger than I'd ever seen it before. I played a MP3 and we could hear sound. My bud adjusted sound levels, then killed the house lights and we made our way to our seats.

Booted up ED and loaded my saved game. I used my phone as a mobile hotspot. I'm out exploring so we started in free space. Think a starfield looks good on your screen? Let me tell you, IMAX could make a killing renting out their theaters for stuff like this. Mr. Braden, if you ever want an impressive press conference HINT HINT HINT... Pressed 'throttle up' and ladies and gents the Asp never sounded so good. The range of sound I could hear was impressive. I revved it up to 25% and at the base of my spine it felt like I was up against a perfectly tuned and purring V8 as the sub-woofer kicked in. Put it up to 100% and hit boost. Body... Vibrating... Smiles unstoppable. Just flying the Asp in real space was an experience with the sync'd sound and projector. Supercruise had even more to offer, accompanied by our Oooo's and Aaaa's.

After both of us had a go, I took control back and targeted an unexplored system. "4, 3, 2, 1, engage," echoed before the rich tapestry of witch space appeared. I throttle down and emerge near a white sun the size of a frikkin' sun. Hit the ADS and the "Booo-Wahhhhhhhh" made us jump then giggle uncontrollably. Talk about entertaining your inner child. Little sounds you usually don't hear came across so well in the theater. The scanner, the background rumble of the engine, locking a target, passing a star, etc. We explored the system's gas giant, mineral worlds and ice balls, flying so close you could almost touch them. This is the stuff the Voyager probe saw. We tried 3D at one point but couldn't get decent results. The IMAX 3D encoding must be proprietary. The screen looked horrid and made us feel nauseated in short order. We had so little time we didn't want to spend it fault finding. We went back to 2D viewing.

I played around with the debug camera, but my FRAPS produced videos so large it filled up 400GB of free space and maxed the drive in no time. The next system had a massive gas giant with water life. We took turns orbiting that and then exploring more systems for three glorious hours before deciding we had to get out of there. I briefly considered killing my Asp in a sun to go and see an orbital station back in core space, but sanity persevered. Next time...

The teardown took minutes and we packed everything up. My buddy performed a diagnostic to make sure we'd put everything back together and that was an entertaining experience by itself. Went for the car, loaded it up, then we headed out for a monster sized breakfast at a 24/7 diner (My treat). Couldn't sleep for hours after. Best gaming all-nighter of my life.

PC Specs:

- AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core @ 4.0GHz
- ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z 990FX (Republic of Gamers edition)
- 32GB RAM
- AMD Radeon R9 285 x 2 with Crossfire
 
Thanks for sharing, sounds like you had a blast :cool:

And have a +1

If anything it makes me want to sort out my PC sound system which, while good (to my taste) for music and gaming, I'd like something more than the little 2.1 Harmon Kardon/JBL speakers I have.

I promised an after-action report on my trip to an IMAX. Been working on this post since I got back in-between other duties.
 
I once got to play total annihilation on a cinema screen as a kid, good to hear this still happens from time to time it was one of my most memorable experiences! Glad you enjoyed it OP probably won't happen again so don't forget the experience!
 
Great post shadragon :) I would seriously suggest investing in a BK gamer for your home rig, it really does bring the game to life.. You feel every part of the ship and environment, and you don't need to have speakers blasting in the background.

Have tried playing without the BK and it just feels wrong, only way to get a partial feeling back is turn the volume up to 11

http://www.buttkickergear.com/ButtKicker_Gamer2_p/bk-gr.htm
 
Have some Rep. +1

Sounds like a fantastic experience. Looks like I need to befriend my local IMAX projectionist. :)

Hmmm... I wonder what kind of petition/beer/biscuits/PR/etc. would be required in Waterloo?

Just the _thought_ is exciting. Good job and +1 to you (and +50 to he/she who facilitated!)
 
out of stock

In the UK and BK don't seem to ship here, I did try!!



Great post shadragon :) I would seriously suggest investing in a BK gamer for your home rig, it really does bring the game to life.. You feel every part of the ship and environment, and you don't need to have speakers blasting in the background.

Have tried playing without the BK and it just feels wrong, only way to get a partial feeling back is turn the volume up to 11

http://www.buttkickergear.com/ButtKicker_Gamer2_p/bk-gr.htm
 
Rep for this.

Reminds me back when Doom was first out and I had spend an Agonizing day a 9600 USR Courrier HST downloading it long distance from half way across the country. The next weekend we were doing a presentation at the local library on BBS systems, Fidonet in particular. Lets just say the Post Talk Entertainment was me Playing Doom through a Projector on a 10 foot screen in the Library's Auditorium as about 100 people went nuts behind me. Even the Cheap sound system we had access too was enough with that screen. My crappy 486 DX40 was fitfully playing that Amazing game for the crowd and we were all cheering. I even had offers of 5-10 bucks to let others have a go. About the only time in my then young life I was envied.


What I wouldn't give to be in your shoes playing that in IMAX. I think my first part of the setup process would be putting on an adult Diaper ;)
 
Sounds like a great evening, but also find it hard to believe.
I don't know of any digital IMAX theaters that have already made the switch to 4k. Afaik they still use dual 2K Christie projectors with a proprietary video format.
Plus IMAX screen ratio is 1.36:1, I would expect things to look stretched tall, not wide. Nor is ED all that great on digital LCD projectors, since they struggle with deep blacks.
.
But if you got to play with the new IMAX 4K laser projectors, then I'm truly jealous.
And that would put you in the Chinese theatre in LA ;)
 
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