Racing Simulation - Advice For Best projector

[NitrousOxide]

Hello everyone,

If this post were placed in the wrong section, kindly do accept my apologies.

I'm building a professional racing simulator at home and I don't know which projector is best for my application (180-200 deg cylindrical projection screen using 3 projectors).

The closest context to mine is done through a simulation company called Cruden, and they use Barco projectors (F70-4K6, phosphor laser @ 5000 lumens). My conundrum is that I do not know which system provides the lowest input lag.

I contacted Barco in order to enlighten my regarding their product's latencies, and here's their reply:

"Thanks to advanced Barco Pulse electronics platform, which these models are based on, their introduced latency is the lowest on the market. Exact values are dependent on several factors - frame rate, resolution, complexity of applied geometry correction, synchronization settings, etc. For WQXGA(2560x1600)@120Hz operation mode you may expect transportation delay of about 1.0-1.5 frames (9-13 ms).".

I'm not sure if this 'Barco Pulse electronics platform' is the real deal or just a fancy term for a generic technology. I barely know how to understand which projector is better. Also, in my research, I read that a 3-chip projection mechanism is better that 1, which makes the Barco at a disadvantage - as expensive as it is.

My requirements are as follows:
Lowest possible input lag @ 2560x1600 (most important requirement)
Minimum frequency of 120hz @ 2560x1600 or lower resolution (if it can support 4k@120hz = even better)
Minimum brightness of 3000 lumens
HDR Support (preferably)
Laser phosphor
Warp and blend technology
room dimension: 7x6 meters

To give you a perspective on what I'm trying to build, its something like this:

dailysportscar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Base-Performance-01-730x487.jpg

Thank you for your help in advance!

[donaldk]

When Barco introduced the first projector of this series the F90, its largest unit in the new range of simulation projectors I was also quoted figures in this range. They told me that was about one frame faster than the largest competitor Panasonic (the first to do pixel-shifting on a commercially available DLP projector). The low delay is why they selected the larger 0.95" DMD compared to the 0.66" DMD Ti specifically designed for the pixel shifting application. Barco no longer specifies the size of the DMD used in the F70, but from memory it is the 0.95". Of course without pixel shifting it should be faster than with it enabled. The Smaller projectors like the F80 use smaller DMDs: Technology  0.67" DMDTM x1 Resolution 2,716 x 1,600 (WQXGA+ native) / 3,840 x 2,400 (4K UHD), or even smaller the FL40 HLD rod and LED solid state light sourced simulation projector and its widescreen Residential brother that is to become available later this month even use the 0.47" DMD is memory serves me right.

I should have a picture of the two FL-40 90-120? degree racing simulator demo. I thought it was not bright enough the specified 3000 lumens is not for any color accuracy. The FL 40 was to do 2000 lumens max. for sRGB colorspace. The residential version can drop below 1500, depending on the choice of theater or mediaroom version.

Unfortunately at anything above the DMDs native resolution any of these Barco's can do is 60 frmes per seconds, 120 FPS is reserved to the native resolution. So you basic requirement can be met, but not the bonus one. At only 3K lumens you could go for the solid state option, using a pair of FL-40s though a single F70 would probably be less expensive.



Uhm that one is so much bigger than the Barco demo, I am sure you would need more than 3K lumens total, more like 3K lumens each.

Actually a single is sharper due to lacking convergence issues as there are no multible images to converge,just the one. Barco will happilly supply you 4K 3DMD projectors both ones using pixel shifting as well as ones that don't, using 4K DMDs, the native 4K ones will 4K at 120FPS, BTW. Yes Barco is very much a premium brand.

[NitrousOxide]

Thank you very much for your reply! I appreciate the thoroughly written explanation.

The problem is not with the technology - the problem is in me haha. I know nothing about projectors and that's why I had make a post here to get expert opinions such as yours. I didn't know you can make an ultra wide projection using only one projector.

For the sake of the argument: if money were no object, what would be the best projector to use in this case scenario? minimum input lag, max fps and whatever brightness you think is perfect.


Again, thank you.

[donaldk]

One might look into the real simulation projectors, companies like Boeing use in their (flight) simulators. Not very bright, but designed for the job. JVC VS series, when talking the e-shift, pixel shifting projectors, there doesn't seem to be much difference with the RS/HT series, but JVC has native 8K projectors. I can't find info at JVC, so it might still be exclusive to Boeing. And anything at Boeing is $$$$$$$$$. Though Native 8K (at what FPS?) would be the ultimate. Of course you don't need IR guided nightvision goggles.

So you might also look at the more palatable JVC N5 or N7 4K lamp based projectors, these are also sold as the professional series DLA-RS1000/2000. The 4K with pixel-shift to '8K' spatial resolution RS3000/NX9, jumps from the €5K/7K level to €15K. Given the 3K lumens target, I would suggest a two projector blend in this case. LASER-Phosphor does have the advantage of long stable tracking/same aging a plus when blending multiple projectors.

Yes one can get ultrawide image from a single projector, you just lose a lot of the light, either overshooting the screen, or better electronically/optically blocking the imaging chip(s) or/and the lens in the projector.

[NitrousOxide]

Thank you very much for your help. I genuinely appreciate it.

And my apologies for the late reply