Expanding your Flightsim

Part 1: Adding 2 extra monitor's for the Instrument Panel's
Part 2: Editing Panel Bitmaps and Re-placeing gauges
Part 3: Adding an extra view, Networking 2 or more PC's

In these Tutorials we will start with the basic 1 PC, 1 Monitor setup
and add 2 Monitors for the Instument panel and Radiostack.

Remake a Panel to fit on a second screen and move the gauges to fit
back into place.

Then we will add 2 PC's for the Fwd Left and Fwd Right view's
Networking the 3 PC's with a Network Hub and WideView software.

Part 1: Adding 2 extra monitor's for the Instrument Panel's

What do we need:

A Motherboard with 2 free PCI slots.
2 PCI Graphic cards
2 Monitors.

For this Tutorial we will be useing Win98se,.
1 3D Prophet 32mb PCI card and a S3 Virge 4mb PCI graphic card,
Fs2002 Default Cessna 182rg.

With Win98 / Mellenium a lot of old 2,4,8 and higher 32mb PCI cards will work with there last generation drivers.
With Win2000 / XP some older cards won't work because the makers of the cards aren't going to upgrade the drivers, so you will have to stick to the newer 32mb cards. Check before you buy if they will work in XP.

Turn your PC off and turn off the power, undo the side panel ready to place the 1st PCI card in a free slot. Make sure you ground yourself to the PC metal frame or wear a grounding strap to discharge any static electricity before you touch inside your PC.

Insert the PCI card, our 3D Prophet card, makeing sure that it is seated properly.
If you have Motherboard with 5 or 6 PCI slots try and leave the slot under the AGP slot free. This is to keep the AGP card from getting too
hot. If needed later, we will place a small network card in that slot as it will not restrict the airflow from the AGP card's fan.

Connect a monitor to the new card and turn on your PC.
install the drivers and reboot if asked.
When rebooting you should see a splash screen on the second monitor
saying" If you can see this Windows has intialised this monitor" if not then the drivers for the card do not support Dual Desktop.
Ok so now we have another PCI card and monitor connected, but how do we get it to work.
Right mouse click on an empty part of your desktop and choose
Properties from the dropdown menu.
Select the Settings tab and you should now see 2 monitor icons, maybe 3 if your AGP/PCI card has TV out or Twinview.

Click on the greyed out number 3 icon and a little window will open asking you if you want to Enable this monitor, click on yes.(Number 2 is the TV Out on the main AGP card and won't enable when clicked on unless you have it setup in the Twinview Software settings, so don't worry about it)
Tick/Check the box Extend my Windows onto this monitor adjust the Resolution and Color to your likeing.
Important:
The postion of the monitors in the Settings window determines where
your mouse will dissappear off your main desktop onto the secondary screen. If your number 2 icon is on the right of the number1 icon then when you are useing the mouse on the desktop and you move to the right, the mouse will keep going onto the second screen.
To position the second monitor just hold the mouse on the second
icon and drag the screen icon to where your second monitor is placed on your table. In our case we built the 2 new monitors into the table under the main screen, so we move the icon beneath number 1 so we can undock the instrument panel and slide it straight down to the new screen. Click on ok and your new desktop will appear, adjust your screen to suit the resolution you are useing, shutdown the PC and install
the second PCI card putting it beside number 3 so we can stretch the panel across the 2. Keep them level with each other so that the panel will appear level on your 2 screens.

Ok, now we load Fs2002 and choose the default 182 rg Cessna.
In Windows Mode not Fullscreen Mode
Right click on the Instrument Panel and choose Undock this Window
from the menu, click and hold the mouse on the Blue part of the Undocked Window and drag the window down to the bottom left screen, put your mouse on the bottom or top corner until you see the mouse pointer change into a double ended arrow, hold the left button down and drag / Resize the Panel halfway across the 2nd screen until you have it where it looks good. Now do the same with the Radiostack and place it at the end of the panel. Save the Flight as, so that the next time you fly this plane you can load the flight and the panel's will be right where you left them.

Troubleshooting: