DCS multiscreen setup tutorial

[wiggles5289]

Fun fact for those who have GPUs with a DisplayPort(well, at least V1.2): You can have up to 4 HDMI displays come from a single DP plug because of Multi Stream Transport(MST). This is a standard that was implemented in GTX 6XX and newer from Nvidia and pretty much any AMD GPU that still runs today and has a Display Port.

To make it work all you typically need is an adapter that costs about $60 USD for 2 HDMI outputs and about $170 for a quad HDMI output. Sounds expensive but graphics cards are expensive right now and trying to have multiple in a PC and gaming with multi monitors is a pain in the butt.

[Red Dog]

Back on this tutorial series with some more tips

Unlike BMS, the natively extracted displays are very dark and barely usable because not bright enough.
DCS users have been complaining for ages about this and ED can't do anything about it it seems.
Problem is when you invest in very expensive cockpits with multi-screens and you realize at the end of the line that your display extraction is not giving satisfactory results.
That's frustrating to say the least.

I used the pit a long time with that shortcoming but one day I decided to fix this issue using RESHADE:


Reshade is advertized as making DCS better looking at no FPS cost. Well I think DCS is already quite good looking and all the pictures I have seen that "enhance" DCS visuals are not better than stock DCS to me.
But Reshade allows you to fix that multi monitor extraction too dark issue which is exactly what I was after.

Install is not complicated and setting up isn't either. But reshade is a bit weird in the way that it has no launcher and the UI is embedded in the game it "enhance"
So after a while you forget about it and you can't remember how to set it up, change options etc.
Hence why I write this tutorial - I already forgot once

. First download reshade from https://reshade.me/
. then locate where you have it downloaded, and click the exe.
. First thing the installer asks you is to locate the game you want to reshade: it usually doesn't find DCS so you have to browse and locate your DCS.exe in the bin folder.
Both exe are now MT so it doesn't matter if you select the multithreaded or the regular exe.
. Then you will be prompted to select DX, OpenGL, Vulkan or Open XR rendering APis. Select DirectX 10/11/12
. The next step will let you chose to install, update or desinstall Reshade (useful to remember if you want to desinstall it at a later date)


. Once installed and before you set it up, you need to create a mask graphic image in two colours: black and white.
White for the DCS part of your screen setup, Black for your extracted displays part of your screen setup.
Reshade will leave the white part of the mask untouched and will apply the set effects only and the black part of the mask.
So if we take my screen setup as an example, the mask will be quite simple to create: screen 1 will be white, all the rest will be black


To make your own mask, start by taking a picture of your full desktop while in DCS:


Open that image in the editing software of your choice, colour precisely the DCS area in white and the area for extracted displays in black: you will end with something like this:

Leave it at the same resolution, save it as UIMask.png (case sensitive) and place it in the DCS reshade folder located: DCSWorld_OpenBeta\bin\reshade-shaders\Textures
Don't use the saved game location, use the core location of DCS.


Now that your mask is created and placed in the right folder, fire up DCS as usual. You don't need to lauch Reshade (you can't anyway) beforehand
. Once in the UI, hit HOME key that will open the reshade tab. (reserve HOME key for reshade in DCS controls)
. As we are talking keystroke, I found one key needs to be declared in Reshade to toggle effect on and off. pick a keystroke that is not used in your DCS controls and reserve it.
. Set this key for toggle Reshade effects in the setting tab, general section:


. Now let's set the effect. Go Home (main) menu all the way to the left :Reshade effects
. There is a list of preset effects you can activate. We only wants 4 of them, but in a specific order. You might have to drag them in that order and thick the box to activate them
- UIMask_Top
- Tonemap
- Levels
- UIMask_Bottom


. Below there's a box where you set each options for the effect. You might need to play around with these to get your optimal settings.
. Mines are shown in the picture above
. Get in the pit, toggle effects ON and OFF as you are playing with the settings until you are happy with the results


Here's the result in my pit:

Before reshade effects:

Notice how the MFDs are dark and the EHSi is barely visible

Reshade effects activated:

The EHSi is still a bit dark, but I can't overdo the effect because of the Helios images.

Luckily there's a way to brighten the EHSI using the push option of the encoder and rotating it  -  as the real display:


Problem solved.

After a while you forget about Reshade.
That is ... until you try VR More on that later

[Sandman]

Great tutorial- FINALLY a way to brighten those dim displays in DCS!

[Red Dog]

Yeah, and the good news is that the above setting to solve the extracted displays  brightness - unlike the Reshade effects applied to the DCS screen - are still working in VR

So this remains perfectly valid for fixing that issue in a VR cockpit

[Red Dog]

How to enable extracted Displays in VR ?

Well since the resolution once switching to VR becomes irrelevant, many setups lose their extracted displays in VR
Not really an issue many would say since once you have the VR ehadset on your eyes you can't see your pit anymore

Well yes indeed, unless you use passthrough

There are a few added lines to be added to the multi monitor LUA files to ensure that the displays are extracted when using VR:

In short:

1. you need to add a viewport in your lua file:

VR_MIRROR = {
 x = 0,
 y = 0,
 width = 1920,
 height = 1080,
 }

2. and you also need to add this line in the same file at the end:

VR_allow_MFD_out_of_HMD = true

So my file to extract both MFDs, RWR and EHSI in VR became:

Code: [Select]

_  = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('F-16_VR');
Description = 'Five monitor configuration'
Viewports =
{
     Center =
     {
          x = 0;
          y = 0;
          width = 3440;
          height = 1440;
          viewDx = 0;
          viewDy = 0;
          aspect = 2.388889;
     }
}

LEFT_MFCD =
{
     x = 3515;
     y = 0;
     width = 500;
     height = 500;
}

RIGHT_MFCD =
{
     x = 4140;
     y = 0;
     width = 500;
     height = 500;
}


EHSI =
{
     x = 3674;
     y = 1225;
     width = 270;
     height = 270;
}

F_16C_RWR =
{
     x = 4210;
     y = 500;
     width = 768;
     height = 768;
}

VR_MIRROR = {
 x = 0,
 y = 0,
 width = 1920,
 height = 1080,
 }


UIMainView = Viewports.Center
GU_MAIN_VIEWPORT = Viewports.Center

VR_allow_MFD_out_of_HMD = true