Since I built the simulator (nearly five years ago) I’ve used a 100-inch projection screen and an ultra-short-throw 1080p LCD projector for the front display. I went with the beamer because at the time LCD / LED flat panel TVs large enough to provide a full field of view for both the left and right seats were many thousands of dollars. While the ultra-short-throw projector wasn’t inexpensive, it did the job and fit in the space in which the simulator sits.
A lot has changed in the past four years , though, including the quality of X-Plane (and now FS 2020) images and the price of flat panel displays. I have increasingly been less than pleased with the “screen-door” effect of the projector (being able to easily see individual pixels) and was longing for an image as crisp as those on the side window displays. Last week I finally saw a 75-inch flat panel TV at a price point I was willing to accept. It arrived two days ago
, and yesterday I was able to mount it on the wall of the simulator room. I’m happy to say it works great, and my 1080ti GPU has enough headroom that I’m able to run the front display in 4K with no significant performance impact compared to before (the side TVs are 1080p). It’s like a brand new simulator, and I could not be happier.For those interested in the technical details, I picked a 75-inch display because I want to be able to see only the sim image and not the borders of the TV from both the left and right seats. The screen sits about six inches from the front of the cabin, and tilts slightly forward. It works, but a 70-inch display would be too small for my setup. For my cabin 75 inches is the smallest I’d go.