dual screen playing in X3?

[fiksal]

The Triplehead2Go isn't a card, it's an external box that plugs into your graphics card and provides three monitor outputs. So far as Windows or any games are concerned, you're running a monitor which is three times as wide as a normal one--that signal is split into three separate monitor signals by the Triplehead2Go.

oh ok...
I cant seem to find the article I was thinking about.
The set up where you place 3 or more monitors in an angle, and then by installing the special driver you can "turn" the camera on the two side displays...
I thought it was Matrox video card ... hm ...

[DenYaSis]

Matrox had the Parahelia.

It was a video card that had 3 monitor support along with bells and whistles.

The card pretty much tanked, as It couldn't keep up performance wise with current ATI and Nvidia cards, and had issues where games needed to support the 3 monitor thing for it to work properly.

The Triplehead2go, has advantages, however, it some significant shortcomings:

It's analog only. No digital picture. This could cause Image quality loss if your panel is a digital one (and most are)
If you have CRT's the refresh rate is capped at 60Hz. Matrox provided software to raise the refresh rate, but it Won't work with ATI cards in the X1000 series.
Lastly, The box will will split the desktop/game/whatever into 3 parts and send that "part" directly to the corresponding monitor, This means that monitors may not be recieving images at tehir native resolution and will either display black borders or be forced to scale the image (lowering image quality firther). Ie a 3840x1024 desktop will split into 3 1280x1024 pictures to be sent to the panels. Larger displays may not have 1280x1024 as thier native display.

[fiksal]

splitting doesnt sound the same though
since it wont do anything to the camera, as I understood

I think the latest nVidia driver can split like that, onto two screens... (I got 7800GTX card)

[Treachery]

you can put 3 . read your board stats. 3rd one doesn't run at 16x tho

[pjknibbs]

splitting doesnt sound the same though
since it wont do anything to the camera, as I understood

I think the latest nVidia driver can split like that, onto two screens... (I got 7800GTX card)

I don't think ANY piece of hardware can magically perform the three-sided view you're talking about without software support--the game or what-have-you has to be written to provide the capability. Given that, it's just as possible that somebody could write a game that supported this on a TripleHead2Go as they could on a card with three outputs--it just requires you to render a different view on each third of the screen, after all.

Trouble is, a triple-monitor setup is an expensive and bulky proposition and I just don't see most game companies bothering to support it--as with many decisions in the commercial world of gaming, the number of extra copies that would sell purely because the game has this triple-view technology wouldn't come close to covering the development costs.

Matrox *has* to come up with gimmicks like triple outputs because they have nowhere else to go--they lost the lead in 3D cards more than a decade ago (the very first 3D accelerator for a PC was the Matrox Millennium, but they designed it specifically for CAD and other workstation applications, so they didn't give it any texture mapping capability--BIG, big mistake) and have been left behind by their competitors ever since.

[aka1nas]

How can you support 3 8800's?

I guess you could physically fit 3 of them into a Quad-FX platform(You wouldn't be able to do 4 double-slot cards in an ATX form factor). I honestly don't know if Nvidia's drivers will allow 3-way SLI on that platform, or just 2-way or 4-way. My guess would be the latter.

[fiksal]

I don't think ANY piece of hardware can magically perform the three-sided view you're talking about without software support--the game or what-have-you has to be written to provide the capability.

Yeah, that's true. 'Turning camera' was probably done at a software.

I think I found that article that I was thinking of on Matrox's site... the keywords were "surround gaming". Unfortunately that article is gone.
Looks like Matrox replaced that article with their TripleHead2Go.

But I did find the monitors that were used in that article.
linky

Given that, it's just as possible that somebody could write a game that supported this on a TripleHead2Go as they could on a card with three outputs--it just requires you to render a different view on each third of the screen, after all.

Trouble is, a triple-monitor setup is an expensive and bulky proposition and I just don't see most game companies bothering to support it--

Yep. Right now that is about as likely as companies writing games with 3D glasses support.

I think now I might have been mistaken about that article. I could swear there were screenshots of AVP2 and a Formula 1 game, where the view angle was different on the side monitors... but oh well

Matrox *has* to come up with gimmicks like triple outputs because they have nowhere else to go--they lost the lead in 3D cards more than a decade ago

It's not a card for an average gamer, and especially - an average user.

How can you support 3 8800's?

I guess you could physically fit 3 of them into a Quad-FX platform(You wouldn't be able to do 4 double-slot cards in an ATX form factor). I honestly don't know if Nvidia's drivers will allow 3-way SLI on that platform, or just 2-way or 4-way. My guess would be the latter.

drivers? there's only one connector per card (isnt there?), so you cant have 3-way SLI... unless nvidia can do it through the bus on the motherboard...

seems like it's easier to by dual core card

[Deleted User]

I think I'd like one of those triple set-ups!,

But I think it may be unviewable in X3 (& X2)
since there's a bit too much distortion at the sides
on an aspect ratio like that triple screen,
due to the view-transform settings used for rendering.

As a test I took some screen shots of a gate, first looking
directly at it, & then with the gate off to one side, by rotating the ship.


aspect 4:3 single screen (1152 x 864)
[ external image ]

[ external image ]

aspect 8:3 dusl screen (2304 x 864)
[ external image ]

[ external image ]

aspect 11:3 (2176 x 612) : probably close to the triple screen thing
[ external image ]

[ external image ]

The gate in the last image is over 4 times 'stretched',
which is too much I reckon, unless perhaps you had you head
'wrapped' by the three monitors.

I would far prefer to play in dual-screen if only I had two
of those borderless panels & a dual 8900 GPU setup

[fiksal]

great examples!

if only it'd be possible to disable the "fish eye" effect, for such wide aspect ratios

[aka1nas]

How can you support 3 8800's?

I guess you could physically fit 3 of them into a Quad-FX platform(You wouldn't be able to do 4 double-slot cards in an ATX form factor). I honestly don't know if Nvidia's drivers will allow 3-way SLI on that platform, or just 2-way or 4-way. My guess would be the latter.

drivers? there's only one connector per card (isnt there?), so you cant have 3-way SLI... unless nvidia can do it through the bus on the motherboard...

seems like it's easier to by dual core card

8800GTXs have two SLI connectors each to support Quad SLI and/or SLI+Physics in the future. SLI 2.0 is being unveiled in march and is supposed to officially support 4,6, and 8-way SLI .

[Deleted User]

if only it'd be possible to disable the "fish eye" effect, for such wide aspect ratios

That should definately be a suggestion for X4.
The X2 'fish-eye' is the same as X3's iirc,
but also had an over-exaggerated distance-zoom effect as well.
Perhaps ES will allow us to choose from a list of view-styles with X4 eg super-fish-eye to flat.

I wonder what wattage PSU you need for 8 an way SLI rig.

[aka1nas]

Hehe, well they were showing off 2KW PSUs at CES this year. Maybe one or two of those would do it.

[Deleted User]

Good grief .... I should think you'd never need to put the central heating on ever again.

Or pehaps you could fry your bacon on it while playing X4.

[fiksal]

8800GTXs have two SLI connectors each to support Quad SLI and/or SLI+Physics in the future. SLI 2.0 is being unveiled in march and is supposed to officially support 4,6, and 8-way SLI .

While the potential power that they can squeze out of those cards is jawdropping, what games/applications will actually utilize it?
What games benefit with SLI now, over one but more powerful card.

if only it'd be possible to disable the "fish eye" effect, for such wide aspect ratios

That should definately be a suggestion for X4.

yep
I actually like the effect, since I prefer to play with wider angle, but for large wide screens, or multimonitor set up - it should be an option...
Plus I'd be happy if the game would be 3D glasses friendly ... (now not too much)

I wonder what wattage PSU you need for 8 an way SLI rig.

I suppose watercooling would become "a must"

[aka1nas]

You would have to be running one or more pretty high resolution displays to really be able to take advantage of all that horsepower. I'm sure that a pair of 30-inch widescreen displays can still bring 2x8800GTXs to their knees.

[fiksal]

I'm sure that a pair of 30-inch widescreen displays can still bring 2x8800GTXs to their knees.

they'll definetly empty my checking account