Lens effect problem with triple monitors

[WithSilentWings 10]

Hi!

I'm using 3 displays to play ArmA2 and it seems that when it is set to the proper resolution and aspect is set to triple head, everything appearing near the outer boundaries of the left and right monitor seems to be VERY stretched. Is there any way to stop the image from stretching as it moves closer to these edges? Having the triple monitors does increase the viewable area, but I'd be able to see twice as much if it didn't stretch the picture like that.

Thanks for any input! :)

[bushlurker 45]

Thats a limitation of the fact that the game engine uses a single "eye" to observe the gameworld - when you increase the Field Of View too wide you get a "fisheye" effect...

If you're using Kegetys' SoftTH you can play with the "Lens Correction" parameters in your config file to compensate a little (works OK, at the cost of a FPS or 2...

No idea about Matrox Triplehead stuff tho... sorry...

B

[WithSilentWings 10]

Thats a limitation of the fact that the game engine uses a single "eye" to observe the gameworld - when you increase the Field Of View too wide you get a "fisheye" effect...

If you're using Kegetys' SoftTH you can play with the "Lens Correction" parameters in your config file to compensate a little (works OK, at the cost of a FPS or 2...

No idea about Matrox Triplehead stuff tho... sorry...

B

I'm using an HD5870 with "Eyefinity."

Any other ideas? Other games don't seem to present the same problem, and it makes ArmA2 incredibly ugly. Makes it seem like a waste.

[bushlurker 45]

Hi again...

Hmm... Sorry... I'm kinda stuck with the new "Eyefinity" thing - don't know much about it other than it seemed incredibly promising!

(on a quick side note - I'm sure a lot of people would be very interested to hear a little more about it... ease of setup, configurability, your experiences so far, etc - maybe a photo or two - if you'd care to do a post sometime and share your thoughts!)

I'm afraid I can't be of much practical help though...

What monitor setup are you using??

Arma/arma2's triplehead setup is essentially a 12:3 Aspect Ratio... thats ideally suited for 3 x 4:3 monitors side by side... When you set the 12:3 aspect ratio in the Video Options you can check the "circle-within-a-square" to make sure the circle is round and the square is square...

If you're using 3 x Widescreen (16:9 ) monitors then you're demanding that the 12:3 aspect ratio be displayed on a 48:9 (or roughly 16:3) display - that's gonna have to be stretched to fill that width of screen... The game will display correct proportions in a 12:3 view which will then be "pulled laterally" to fill a 16:3 display.

Since it makes sense too have a widescreen central screen I personally use a 16:10 central display and 4:3 side monitors turned portrait orientation...

This gives a 3:4 - 16:10 - 3:4 arrangement... not quite perfect but SoftTH doesnt care about the mismatched monitor sizes or the display orientation... Does Eyefinity??

It's all down to maintaining the aspect ratio despite the increased field of view... The "square and circle" is your only guide...

You say other games work ok?

B

Edited October 11, 2009 by Bushlurker

[WithSilentWings 10]

Other games do not stretch the image as ArmA 2 appears to. I tried OF: Dragon Rising last night and it was perfectly fine, no stretching... It's a shame it seems to be a terrible game.

Now I understand what you're telling me... The in-game triple-head settings would only display properly on 3x 4x3 displays. This most definitely (as you assumed) is the problem. I am using a Dell 1920x1080 23" for my central monitor, and two ASUS 1920x1080 22" for the satellites.

To give you a brief explanation of "Eyefinity":

The 5870 and 5850 both have (essentially) three separate display adapters. One is with a DisplayPort interface, the others are either DVI or HDMI (same signal either way). You NEED to have a monitor that supports DisplayPort and you can not just use an adapter to adapt it to another monitor. I chose to pick up a Dell for this use.

You can simply set up triple monitors, and it will work as if you had two separate display cards running the three monitors, but this means you still require something like SOFTTH to properly run games with such a setup.

Eyefinity allows you to group the displays and "trick" the software into seeing one single large display. Unfortunately, with the proper settings, ArmA 2 still will not start properly, and you need to use the "read only" trick with the cfg file to lock it at something like 1920x1080, and change it every time you open the game to 5760x1080. As for performance, thus far it is completely playable with everything VERY HIGH except for post processing and AA, both of which I keep off.

I wonder what performance difference I will see if we can find a way to make it properly display the aspect ratio....

Once it is up and running properly, I have no problem taking the time to take some nice big screenshots so long as someone can host them :)

[thales100 10]

Other games do not stretch the image as ArmA 2 appears to.

Here it looks great, make sure your .Arma2PROFILE at C:\Users\Home\Documents\ArmA 2 Other Profiles\... has these setting for a triple widescreen setup (you may edit these values):

fovTop=0.833333333;

fovLeft=4;

and also :

tripleHead=1;

http://www.mediafire.com/?mziyhvwnwij

http://www.mediafire.com/?imjo2yuoihf

;)

Edited October 12, 2009 by thales100

[SidVicious 10]

Try rotating your monitors so they are in portrait mode instead of landscape, should make for a viewport much closer to 16:10 where the fisheye effect won't be as noticeable.

[WithSilentWings 10]

Try rotating your monitors so they are in portrait mode instead of landscape, should make for a viewport much closer to 16:10 where the fisheye effect won't be as noticeable.

The whole point is to have an extra-wide FOV... I'd have just bought a 40" TV if I wanted something like this :p

thales100, thank you very much for the assistance. I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know the results :)

[thales100 10]

thales100, thank you very much for the assistance. I'll give it a go tomorrow and let you know the results :)

K, im sure itll be fine :)

[WithSilentWings 10]

K, im sure itll be fine :)

thales100, I have tried the settings you gave to me, but I am still experiencing the same stretching. It did give me a wider FOV (which really isn't necessary at this point) but it didn't seem to do anything about fixing the aspect ratio. I'm going to try fiddling with some settings and see where it gets me.

I messed with the settings a little bit and it appears to me that this is a problem with the game's design, or some setting we're not paying attention to. To give you an exaple, this is the effect the horizontal FOV has on the image:

Far Left Center Far Right

Stock (12x3 triplehead): <-----> <-> <----->

Increased Horizontal FOV: <---> <> <--->

Decreased Horizontal FOV: <--------> <---> <-------->

So increasing the FOV from stock reduces the positive stretching at the outer boundaries, but it also negatively stretches near the center of the image.

Decreasing the FOV increases the positive stretching at the outer boundaries but also positively stretches the center of the image.

I don't see why there is this sort of fish-eye lens effect applied... Like I said, all other games appear to deal with the extra screen space properly and don't increasingly stretch the image as it moves away from the center.

Edited October 12, 2009 by WithSilentWings

[thales100 10]

thales100, I have tried the settings you gave to me, but I am still experiencing the same stretching.

Mmm thats weird, im running a matrox triplehead2go adapter, not eyefinity, but check these screenshots, click to enlarge 5040x1050 ( 3 x 22"), does your game look like these ?

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8849/arma22009070122475256.jpg

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2382/arma22009070313362394.jpg

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/657/arma22009071422304020.jpg

If not, can you post some screenshots ?

Edited October 12, 2009 by thales100

[WithSilentWings 10]

It looks exactly like your screenshots. Notice how even in your screenshots the image is stretched near the edges? It's easiest to tell on the first one. That is exactly how mine looks and it drives me crazy. I tried with other games, and they all look fine, no stretching.

[thales100 10]

It looks exactly like your screenshots.

Mmm, thats the way its supposed to look, there is nothing wrong with your settings, it has a small stretch wich is normal on super wide resolutions, btw imho it looks great on triplehead, and its also great to play with trackIR.

[WithSilentWings 10]

Mmm, thats the way its supposed to look, there is nothing wrong with your settings, it has a small stretch wich is normal on super wide resolutions, btw imho it looks great on triplehead, and its also great to play with trackIR.

I wouldn't call it small... Objects to the far left and right take up more than 2x the space they do in the center... Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get used to it.

Thanks for the help :)

[thales100 10]

Thanks for the help :)

Sure, anything else let me know. :o

[randir14 10]

I think the latest beta patch was supposed to fix this, try using it.

[atledreier 10]

Geometrically, that is correct if you have your monitors in a straight line.

If you angle your side monitors toward you, the only thing you can do to make it geometrically correct (and get rid of the stretch) is to petition BIS to incorporate triple viewports like many racing games do these days. That WILl hit your framerate pretty hard, though, as the engine need to render the scene three times. Looks awesome, though.