[Solatar]

Me and a friend are debating the idea of building a sort of flight simulator with money we get for Christmas. It'll be for Freespace.

Anyway, the only problem with out little fantasy is how to get the monitor to "wrap around" like the glass in a cockpit. I don't want it to wrap around too much, or it'll distort the HUD. But at the same time I want to make it feel a as much as possible like the inside of the Apollo.

I know this sounds crazy, but most of the other stuff we have planned out. This and the money is the only thing holding us back. If the cockpit costs too much, we may just stick a regular computer monitor in there, but we'd like to have a relatively low cost, but moderately good looking "cockpit".

It also has to be compatible with fs2_open, which means no three monitor setups.

[mikhael]

Without in-engine support, you're going to have to do something that spreads the game across three screens, that's going to mess up your aspect ratio. You can't do what you wantin this manner. Your best bet is to use a bigger screen, like a small LCD projector. if you project onto a curved screen, you might get a bit of what you want. It still won't be 'wrap around', but it'll give you a bit more of the illusion.

[Solatar]

I need to learn to code...so I can get the HUD to be a small part in the middle of a big projection thingy...

Anyway, that sounds like it'd cost a lot.  Right now we're just looking at getting a big monitor, maybe 21" and using that.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]LCD Projectors do cost a lot, yes. If you're lucky you might get one for just under £1000 (~$1500), which I think is probably out of your (or anyone who isn't a company, really) budget...[/color]

[mikhael]

You can get a decent projector for around $850 US.

[Flaser]

....or you could go for buying old used monitors - they aren't that expensive....though you mentioned FS_Open compability - well maybe you could just ask for the implemetation of multi-monitor support.

[Odyssey]

Originally posted by mikhael
You can get a decent projector for around $850 US.[/B]

[color=cc9900]Really? I haven't looked at prices within the last half-year or so. Still kinda expensive though.[/color]

[Solatar]

$850 is waay too much for just one section.

I think we'll just have a laid back seat sorta thingy, then cut out places where I can put my current computer in it, and take it out at leisure. Add a light-up keyboard because it looks cool, a cool joystick setup, and we're looking at a $139 woofer to stick under the seat. (we WERE gonna get the 2000 watt woofer, but it was almost $500)

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Get the speaker cones individually, then just fit them in a wooden frame and make sure you learn the wire schematics for range splitters etc. - it's cheaper ^_^[/color]