Long term project: Projector Gaming

[maniacalpha1-1]

Long term because this could cost anywhere from the price of a projector and screen materials, to several projectors, but right now I want to learn what I can about it.

And in the event this seems like a home theater issue more than video cards and graphics, I'm primarily doing this for PC gaming. That said, I know there are some concerns such as room size(therefore, throw distance) but I can't know what room I will have available by the time I can fund this. Anyway, here's the questions I have:

1. For playing most games, and yes, I'm basing this only on what I saw on YouTube, but it seems like a flat wall projection would be OK. How essential is a curved screen?
2. I've seen some videos of racing games played on both curved screens, and on screens that are sharply angled toward the viewer. For that particular purpose I think the angled is better...and so the questions under this topic are :
a. The videos I've seen of these racing games, they run 3 projectors. Is that absolutely necessary, to have 3 projectors, one on the middle screen and one each on the two angled panes? Or can one projector(or two) project onto the angled screen?
b. How do movies deal with multiple screens? Can a hinged screen be made so that you can flatten it back against the wall?
3. Just in general about resolution, and disregarding the racing game specific case, 1920 X 1080 seems like it would be good enough. Is it not, though, is that why everyone's doing 3? Is two for ?
4. Out of curiosity, can consoles(xbawks, PS3 etc) output to multiple projectors?

I've done a bit of research and seen some of the details, like you need image blending software that's several hundred dollars to blend multiple projection images. Just trying to learn a bit more so I know what I need/can do.

 

[FalseChristian]

I think your idea is a good one. I've not ever thought about projector gaming. I think even the best computer minds on these forums are unfamiliar with it.

Try Wikipedia. I bet you 37 cents that you'll find something about it there.

Happy hunting.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I did find out in chatting on IRC that apparently for the angled 3 section racing sim setup(where the 1/3rd of the screen on the sides is angled in to enhance the impression that the windows/car doors are at your sides I suppose), you apparently need to use one projector per section. Seems like a lot of money to spend on 3 projectors just for racing games if one is good enough for most stuff! Though I suppose 2 might be good in order to bust the 1920X1080 resolution mark. And just for fun,and somewhat relevant, I found a review site that includes 5760 X 1080 on their reviews: http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/312...w-incl-sli-kepler-for-p179-batman-arkham-city

 

[ViRGE]

If you haven't already, check out the Widescreen Gaming Forum. FalseChristian is pretty much correct when he states that we don't do much projector gaming here, so I don't know if we have anyone that can satisfactorily answer your questions.

 

[Grimshad]

I've used a projector for gaming.

1. Flat screen is fine.
2.
a. you can have 1 projector do it all if you set it up right
b. don't know this one
3. you should run it at 1920x1200 for a fuller/better experience
4. yes, but afaik it would just be a cloned output using a splitter. I don't think the game can output different video streams. That just isn't the way the consoles were designed to be made.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

1. For playing most games, and yes, I'm basing this only on what I saw on YouTube, but it seems like a flat wall projection would be OK. How essential is a curved screen?
2. I've seen some videos of racing games played on both curved screens, and on screens that are sharply angled toward the viewer. For that particular purpose I think the angled is better...and so the questions under this topic are :
a. The videos I've seen of these racing games, they run 3 projectors. Is that absolutely necessary, to have 3 projectors, one on the middle screen and one each on the two angled panes? Or can one projector(or two) project onto the angled screen?
b. How do movies deal with multiple screens? Can a hinged screen be made so that you can flatten it back against the wall?
3. Just in general about resolution, and disregarding the racing game specific case, 1920 X 1080 seems like it would be good enough. Is it not, though, is that why everyone's doing 3? Is two for ?
4. Out of curiosity, can consoles(xbawks, PS3 etc) output to multiple projectors?

I've done a bit of research and seen some of the details, like you need image blending software that's several hundred dollars to blend multiple projection images. Just trying to learn a bit more so I know what I need/can do.

What you're aiming for is a very specialist configuration and to do it properly will require a lot of effort, it will also have limited use.

First of all projectors require way more planning/effort/cost to use when compared with monitors or TVs, and having multiple projectors only make these problems harder to manage. You have a lot to consider, things like placement and mounting as well as throw distance to get the size and shape you want. Dealing with noise and heat. Controlling ambient light to maintain good contrast and black levels, this is especially important with 3 projectors kicking out ambient light, you might need to consider a dedicated blackout room for decent picture quality. The cost of replacement lamps for 3 projectors can become very expensive.

Secondly, multi-screen configurations are usually very niche, with something like 3x monitors you end up with an extremely wide and non-standard aspect ratio, content has to designed to work with aspect ratios this wide, fixed aspect ratio media like video simply won't use it. Games often don't support multi-monitor well and you'll need to put in extra effort to get games looking correct. The overall screen resolution will be quite high and demanding on your graphics card, you'll need to maintain a powerful rig to keep games running maxed out.

To answer your questions.

1) Curved screens aren't necessary for large or very wide screens, I use a large 122" screen at only 10 feet viewing distance which makes for a huge screen that fills most of your vision. Curved screens are also very expensive and they tend to work best for a single person right in the middle, everyone outside of the sweet spot will see a distorted image. With a strong curve you might have to consider pre-distorting the image digitally so the final result looks correct.

2a) Ideally you'll need multiple projectors, a single projector won't be the right aspect ratio for a ultra wide display and the image would only need to be pre-distorted to look correct on multiple surfaces.

2b) Movies wouldn't even make use of super wide screens like that, not without chopping off a large amount of the top/bottom of the image. While a slightly wider 2.39:1 movie displayed on 3x 16:9 screens might benefit from some of the additional width, it will only be at the expense of image quality to blow it up larger, since they are stored in 1920x1080 resolution with black bars (essentially 1920x800)

3) More monitors isn't usually about resolution, it's about widening the aspect ratio of the overall screen, generally speaking the bigger the better with resolution it helps keep image quality good as the screen gets larger, but it comes at the cost of rendering speed, you'll quickly run into performance issues with 3x1080p for example, you'll ideally need crossfire or SLI to power that.

4) No, and even if you hacked together support with hardware like Matrox TrippleHead2Go to split the image, you'd still have the same issue as with fixed aspect ratio video, it's simply not going to make use of a screen that wide.

My overall suggestion is pick up a decent 1080p projector, make a very large single screen at least 100". Console games will work natively, as will all modern PC games, it wont require crazy hardware specs to run either. TV and video will fit nicely and make full use of the screen.

I run a 1080p projector at 122" with a viewing distance of only about 9 feet, which makes the screen very large in your vision, it's just perfect because any closer, or larger and you can start to make out individual pixels, so it's right at the limit. IMO it's way better than eyefinity, the overall immersion of a screen that size is better than 3 separate screens with bezels, the projector fills more of your vertical vision as well.

This gives you an idea of 1 screen @ 122", this is Demon's Souls on PS3 which I started the other night, it's from the intro cinematic.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I run a 1080p projector at 122" with a viewing distance of only about 9 feet, which makes the screen very large in your vision, it's just perfect because any closer, or larger and you can start to make out individual pixels, so it's right at the limit. IMO it's way better than eyefinity, the overall immersion of a screen that size is better than 3 separate screens with bezels, the projector fills more of your vertical vision as well.

This gives you an idea of 1 screen @ 122", this is Demon's Souls on PS3 which I started the other night, it's from the intro cinematic.

So you're viewing from 9 feet away? How far back from the wall is your projector?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

So you're viewing from 9 feet away? How far back from the wall is your projector?

It's about 11ft from the wall to lens at the front, but the projector and cables at the rear are at least another foot deep. It's actually not in the same room since my living room is fairly small, I project from the hallway through my door to get the extra 2-3 feet throw distance, that allows me to fill the entire wall.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

It's about 11ft from the wall to lens at the front, but the projector and cables at the rear are at least another foot deep. It's actually not in the same room since my living room is fairly small, I project from the hallway through my door to get the extra 2-3 feet throw distance, that allows me to fill the entire wall.

My room will be 13 feet long so I could technically go that far, but I would have to sit at about 6-7 feet(in the middle in other words, or just on the projector side of the middle). What about the angle of the projection? Would someone sitting in that spot block it?

 

[PrincessFrosty]

The range of screen sizes you can achieve depends on more than just the throw distance (distance from lens to surface). Different projectors have different projection angles and different ranges of optical zoom, so the maximum and minimum size screen you can achieve will differ from one projector to another.

The best idea is to use a projector screen size calculator, there's quite a lot available online, I used this one since it lists my model the Epson EH-TW3200

http://www.projectorpoint.co.uk/projectorscreensizecalculator.htm

Just pick your projector, set the throw distance, with a 13foot room you want to minus about 1 foot for projector depth, so set the throw to about 12 feet, it will tell you the max and min screen size achievable, in my case 4.79ft to 10.28ft.

Obviously if you sit in the beam of the projector you block it, usually the best deal is to project over the head height, such as from a high shelf on a rear wall. If you can't do that and you can only mount low like I have, then you can project from the side and shift the picture over so you're closer to the center of it.

There's 2 methods for doing that, either keystone correction, or lens shift.

1) Keystone correction the idea is you angle the projector at the wall to shift the image about, which creates a trapezoid shaped projection, keystone correction digitally manipulates the image to make it look square, however this suffers some quality loss as I mentioned in my previous posts.

2) Lens shift the projector remains at 90 degrees with the surface but you can shift the picture around the wall, it's done by altering the angle of projection and using a set of lenses to correct the final shape, this is generally a lot better quality.

I use lens shift, it's a fantastic feature for home users who have less options of where to put the projector, and who may want to relocate or reorientate their set up. Generally speaking projectors with only keystone correction are expected to be placed in an environment already suited for projection where they can be mounted directly in line with the projection surface at the right height/angle.

This is what I mean about projectors being more of a hassle than TV/Monitors, generally speaking you need to organise the environment around them, you may find yourself re-arranging your furniture to get the perfect set up. I ended up switching my entire living room around and removing the door, totally worth it though

*edit*

I forgot to mention, sitting at only 6-7 feet from the screen is going to make it appear bigger in your vision and you'll start to make out individual pixels once the screen gets past a certain size.

To work out the apparent screen size in your vision you can use this simple calculator.

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html

Mine turns out to be about 52 degrees (122" @ 9 ft) which is very large, way above the recommended for most standards, but I'm happy with. Swapping my 9ft view distance for your 7ft, you could achieve the same apparent sized screen with only a 95" projection, you may find going above about 100" at such a close viewing distance will start to show individual pixels.

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I like to compare actual purchaseable models to what I see in those calculators and I don't see an Epson TW3200 for sale anywhere in standard channels(Newegg, Amazon, etc). So, I see a Viewsonic Pro8200 1080p at $800 that, according to the calculator, can do a maximum of 7.86 feet screen width(92") at 11 foot throw distance. Now, with a ceiling mount, I could probably do 11' or even 13' back, the only question will be, would sitting at 6-7' away interrupt the projection even with ceiling mount?

Now, a secondary question. My computer desk would essentially be facing the wall to be projected onto, with the chair 6-7' from the projected-to wall. For movies and PC gaming I'd use the ceiling mount. For console gaming, if there's room, I'd want to see if I can put a little couch in front of the desk, and when doing that, move the projector onto the desk. That will of course shrink the image, perhaps a 51" wide projection at 6 foot throw, but then of course I'd be sitting at 4-5 feet away as well. Is that workable? And, when moving the projector like that, how much work is there in getting it just right every time you move it?

Or what about two short throw projectors? Like so, for games: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeMu_OgRViw and switching back to one for movies/consololol.