Celestia on big screen - Beware big picts inside /!\

Boux · Post #1by **Boux** » 25.08.2007, 18:28

Hi all,
I just made some upgrade to my config in my quest for the best possible display setup, both in Linux and XP.
I added a 37" full HD display connected through an 1080p hdmi connection.
Now, my setup is three-head instead of four, with the two 19" secondary screens on the left and right sides of the big screen.
Oh boy, this thing is huge and Celestia immersion is incredible

Two shots to give an idea - in Windows as I have still to figure out the Xorg.conf X server config for Linux which is insisting booting the first 19" screen as primary.

I you have got an hdtv, do yourself a favor and hook it up to your pc and run Celestia.

Post #2by **ElChristou** » 25.08.2007, 19:24

What next? 3x37"?

What is the resolution of the 37?

Johaen · Post #3by **Johaen** » 25.08.2007, 19:37

ElChristou wrote:What is the resolution of the 37?

1080p = 1920?—1080

Some day I'll have something like that.

Post #4by **dirkpitt** » 25.08.2007, 19:40

I followed Boux's suggestion and indeed hooked up my tv.. but with
two displays spanned to get one big display:

The tv is 1280x720p, and my laptop is 1280x854.
Effective resolution adds up to a very wide 2560x720.
The Celestia window is stretched across both screens. (possible on OS X,
not sure if it'd work on Linux)

Johaen · Post #5by **Johaen** » 25.08.2007, 19:43

I've actually ran Celestia on my SDTV (which is always hooked up to and activated on my computer), but somehow 640x480 is much less impressive. lol

Post #6by **ElChristou** » 25.08.2007, 20:10

Johaen wrote:
ElChristou wrote:What is the resolution of the 37?

1080p = 1920?—1080...

Ah ok Tx.

Well... ...I was expecting better

It's a bit better than a classic 19" widescreen but on 37"!! ...so at this distance (on a desk) I'm wondering if the dot is small enough for a neat image...

I think I'll wait some 4000p!

Fightspit · Post #7by **Fightspit** » 25.08.2007, 20:52

There are already some higher resolutions than 1080p and some very big monitors can handle them.

An exemple of DELL with his very known 30" Widescreen (2560x1600):
http://www.dell.com/content/products/pr ... l=en&s=dhs

As you can see, there are a lot of standard resolutions (320x200 to 2560x2048

).

Post #8by **dirkpitt** » 26.08.2007, 03:54

The highest resolution reached so far in a tiled display is this:
http://cg.calit2.uci.edu/mediawiki/index.php/Research_Projects:_HIPerWall (25,600 x 8,000) Uses Macs too!

If you prefer a single, high res autostereoscopic (3D) display, then this is it:
A Large Scale Interactive Holographic Display
("50M" resolution, but requires 16 PC's :wink:

)

bh · Post #9by bh » 26.08.2007, 10:00

Nice guitars Boux!

Boux · Post #10by **Boux** » 26.08.2007, 19:11

OK, back to Linux.
I have sorted out the right X server config.
Now, I am able to run Celestia through the 3 heads, which gives a resolution of 4480x1080 pixels (virtual viewport 4480x1024).
The picture shows 3 simultaneous, real time points of view of the Saturnian system - Titan on the left, Enceladus on the right - (sorry for the crappy shot, I am a noob regarding photography).

This is running with 8x full-screen anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering.

To ElChristou:
Well, 4480x1080 should be ok, right?
I would advise you to have some thorough read through the forums at widescreengaming and avsforums to understand what it is about.
There is really good read there, with return on experience from guys who run the latest stuff.
The screen is some 1.20 metre away and it is run with the highest settings regarding FSAA and AF. Picture's smooth as a baby's bottom, really.

To Fightspit:
And what about the horsepower to feed such high resolution with very high levels of FSAA and AF? Quad 8800 GTX SLI? How do you feed this 30" Dell display at decent framerates?

To bh:
I have a small collection of guitars (a dozen) and I like to have them hanging around

Post #11by **t00fri** » 26.08.2007, 19:39

Boux wrote:To bh:
I have a small collection of guitars (a dozen) and I like to have them hanging around

Boux,

how about playing them occasionally? :roll:

Bye Fridger

bh · Post #12by bh » 27.08.2007, 00:14

Here we go... I've a small collection also... mostly fender basses... Just bought a new Precision... I'll post some piccys soon.

At the mo I have a 61 Jazz which has undergone some treatment.. fretless with John East active... a '77 Stingray... '81 Aria SB1000 fretless... '90 squire PBass.. given to my son... And a 2004 PB bought off ebay which happens to be my fave at the mo'.

Cripes! I used to play jazz!

http://www.myspace.com/scriptmusic

The collective age of the rythm section is over 100 years!

New band... old people... hehe.

Cham · Post #13by **Cham** » 27.08.2007, 00:51

A long time ago, I had a small collection of Gibson SG's. I only kept one, as a souvenir of my good'old teen days ! ;-)

I don't play the guitar anymore since a long time, now. I used to play Jimi Hendrix, blues and other stuff.

bh · Post #14by bh » 27.08.2007, 00:55

Aww Cham... that's super!... Try and keep it matey! I was playing a SG bass for a while... EBO I think... it was awful!

Post #15by **dirkpitt** » 27.08.2007, 05:19

Boux, is your X server doing all the work of displaying 3 different views of 1 instance of Celestia
or are you running 3 different copies of Celestia?
Is it possible to tile all 3 monitors into 1 big desktop?

Boux · Post #16by **Boux** » 27.08.2007, 18:26

dirkpitt wrote:Boux, is your X server doing all the work of displaying 3 different views of 1 instance of Celestia
or are you running 3 different copies of Celestia?
Is it possible to tile all 3 monitors into 1 big desktop?

Yep, dirkpitt, it is one single instance of Celestia rendered on to 3 heads.
For the sake of demonstration, the pict shows one Celestia with 3 horizontal "splits" - great functionality of Celestia btw.
I use Xinerama to have the X server rendering a big desktop across three heads.
If you are interested in the details, I will put the corresponding Xorg.conf config file here.

Boux · Post #17by **Boux** » 27.08.2007, 18:32

t00fri wrote:
Boux wrote:To bh:
I have a small collection of guitars (a dozen) and I like to have them hanging around

Boux,

how about playing them occasionally?

Bye Fridger

Hi, t00fri!
Yes, I do play these ladies more than occasionally.
Heavy metal power riffs or neo-classic arabesques depending on my humor.
I keep them in good shape. As you know, music instruments need to be played to get better over time.

Boux · Post #18by **Boux** » 27.08.2007, 18:39

Cham wrote:A long time ago, I had a small collection of Gibson SG's. I only kept one, as a souvenir of my good'old teen days !

I don't play the guitar anymore since a long time, now. I used to play Jimi Hendrix, blues and other stuff.

The SG is a damn good guitar with its own spirit.
Do yourself a favor and keep it and take care of it.
AC/DC devastation

... and keep your "good'old teen days" alive in your mind, just as I am trying to do. Hehe, old brain, young mind.

Post #19by **dirkpitt** » 28.08.2007, 00:58

Boux wrote:Yep, dirkpitt, it is one single instance of Celestia rendered on to 3 heads.
For the sake of demonstration, the pict shows one Celestia with 3 horizontal "splits" - great functionality of Celestia btw.
I use Xinerama to have the X server rendering a big desktop across three heads.
If you are interested in the details, I will put the corresponding Xorg.conf config file here.

That's ok, I don't run X11 (or whatever they call it these days).
But it's cool to know that it works. :wink:

I also found out today that true desktop spanning also works in Windows XP,
using the nView desktop manager (included with nvidia drivers). This way the Celestia window
can be stretched across two or more screens. Unfortunately in my case spanning forces
my monitor (which is 1280x1024) to a lower res to match my TV (1280x720).

This is a bummer, but I suppose this can't be helped...

Boux · Post #20by **Boux** » 29.08.2007, 18:34

dirkpitt wrote:
Boux wrote:Yep, dirkpitt, it is one single instance of Celestia rendered on to 3 heads.
For the sake of demonstration, the pict shows one Celestia with 3 horizontal "splits" - great functionality of Celestia btw.
I use Xinerama to have the X server rendering a big desktop across three heads.
If you are interested in the details, I will put the corresponding Xorg.conf config file here.

That's ok, I don't run X11 (or whatever they call it these days).
But it's cool to know that it works.

I also found out today that true desktop spanning also works in Windows XP,
using the nView desktop manager (included with nvidia drivers). This way the Celestia window
can be stretched across two or more screens. Unfortunately in my case spanning forces
my monitor (which is 1280x1024) to a lower res to match my TV (1280x720).
This is a bummer, but I suppose this can't be helped...

That's really weird.
I just discovered that this setup (nView) will run Celestia across 3 screens in XP without a glitch

It used to crash following any attempt at doing this.
Spanning does not change the resolution.
It's even smoother and faster (higher fps and better"snappyness" ) than in Linux.
Perhaps it works now because I am assigning Celestia to one particular CPU.
Will look into this.

EDIT
Haha, found the trick!
When Celestia runs in multi-cpu mode, Celestia rendering is completely corrupted - triangle setup and texturing all messed up - and it eventually will crash after a while.
When Celestia is assigned to one CPU, it runs smoothly without any corruption.
I use this nifty utility Start Affinity which allows selecting any CPU for a given application.
Would be nice to have other users with multi-cpu and multi-head set-ups to experiment and report.