This is my current setup. Cheap Ikea chair that cost 50€ and gives me backpain. Very unergonomic desk layout and very annoying to work in and just not very efficient. I decided to not go forward with buying a new apartment and instead decided to focus on actual furniture and such as it dawned me that after buying an apartment I would still not have much in the way of household items that I need, not many hobby items and definitely not much furniture or so. So, having canceled that initial plan I am now left with a budget to spend on actual living conditions within my current apartment. The current conditions are awful and suck. I ordered Obutto R3volution with an extra holder for the second keyboard, the extras for having triple monitors and so. After careful deliberation and research I decided to go with 3x 32" 1000R curved monitors at 144hz. They cost 1000€ less than 240hz monitors and I have no current need for those extra hz. I'm planning to set up the 1000R monitors at roughly 100cm distance from my face and try to get the FOV settings right for games. I went through this tutorial for calculating the stuff. With 32" monitors I will roughly get a 41º angle between each monitor for a total of 123º horizontal FOV and a 23º vertical FOV. I may use my old 24" for the 'heads down' instruments. When the stuff arrives I also plan to build some sort of 'casings' of various surfaces to make it less ugly and less bare bone setup. I'm thinking of framing the screens entirel and creating some sort of console/workspace and also maybe some sort of curtain or so to separate the 'cockpit area' from the 'bedroom area'. For aesthetics and all. Probably using painted plywood or plastic sheets or both for the project. I could heat deform plastics if I need some curved plates to go with the curved monitors and so. All in all I think this should improve my ergonomics a little bit and also serve as a nice Mech Cockpit for the game I'm making. Maybe it'll also boost my own immersion and motivation for the game a little bit, who knows. Certainly not having a wife is beneficial in that I did not need to ask for any kind of permission or consider any other aesthetic than my own. And I did not have to excuse spending some money on it either.
So, I started out by building a 240cm tall separate L shaped wall that separates an office out of the bedroom and creates a shit ton of desk space and to which I've been drilling hooks and screws that allow me to hang stuff like my both headsets, bluetooth headset, etc. to the desk directly where they are easy to grab and put back to. The cables have been attached to the bottom of the desk with staples and zip ties, I also bought some cable socks for where they are appropriate. I will paint the office side desks and wall white, on bedroom side there's a thick white cloth on the wall that nicely changes color with the RGB lights. Office side has now a temporary setup of "just some cheap indirect lighting" that will get upgraded at some point with better coverage and so. The temporary lamps are attached to their own extension box with a single switch for the lights. The electronics and computer are behind a lightning proof shield that has it's own attachment on the wall. The monitor setup is a temporary solution until the Obutto arrives. When the Obutto arrives I will recycle the desk space into shelve space while trying to also retain some work area for any electronics work and such. And the monitors are not appropriately pivoted for that almost seamless 120º field of vision. I made the 'true FOV calculation' that I can later use to config games with.
Now with Obutto all set up, with HOTAS and pedals in place. Will need to clean up the cabling later. Difficult to take pictures as the field of view is 120 degrees. I like it. I also got a huge buyer's remorse when the packages arrived, I felt like I had done something wrong ordering something like this but then it passed. This will likely serve as my workstation and battlestation easily for a couple of decades or so, preventing further back issues etc. with enhanced ergonomy.
Yes, also sawing some of the desk behind to fit the monitors better in the room and all and allow for the remainder of the desk to be used as a worktable. There's also a HOTAS + pedals set there somewhere not visible in the photo and today I added a kinect sensor for using in video meetings etc. And those cables really do need to be managed one of these days lest they'll be the end of me.
Chair definitely makes a big difference... I was using an old school dining room chair for the longest time and it was awful. During COVID I upgraded it to a still very cheap office chair, but lightyears better than what I had previously.
Standing position is superior to any chair that isn't fully optimized for you to spend a lot of time in it. I developed significant back and hip problems with a cheap Ikea office chair. Osteopathy and just solely sticking to standing working position for couple of months fixed my back to better than it was before and also helped develop my posture. Standing doesn't really need getting used to but our bodies never truly get used to sitting down for prolonged periods of time.
Standing position for long periods of time is however also detrimental. We are designed to move, not be motionless. It is also difficult to have proper ergonomic positioning while standing and doing things on a PC. keyboard and mouse height can make a significant difference, as well as positioning. In your case you were starting with trauma and working back to healthy, for someone who is healthy, standing is not a bad option, but alternatively standing and sitting is actually better. With the proper chair.
With the new office in the capital some time of the month I think I'll try to have more standing at that end and at home I will be mostly sitting since it's very difficult to get this entire rig to change altitude and position to allow standing position. It's built around a low chair almost with the seat similarly to a car at very low level and a very ergonomic position. At least in this seated position there is not a huge stress on any particular part of the body as this is quite close to the same ergonomic optimum as fighter cockpit design - or that of some better cars.
