dual screen playing in X3?

pilt · Post by **pilt** » Sat, 3. Feb 07, 20:54

A long time ago I found this site,
http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/02/16/ ... page6.html

and it really improved the whole involvement of playing X2 The Threat, I have been trying to get dual screen playing in X3 but to no avail, anyone know if it will work or am I wasting my time...

Carl Sumner · Post by **Carl Sumner** » Sat, 3. Feb 07, 21:04

I don't think X3 has it, but I have not tried it myself.

Post by **CBJ** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 00:51

You can play X³ across two screens using the same technique as worked for X². However, it probably isn't worth it as the display layout cannot be configured in the same way it was in X² so you end up with the crosshair right in the middle where the screens join.

aka1nas · Post by **aka1nas** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 09:39

If you had a workable three screen setup it would probably be nice, though. Unfortunately, neither SLI or Crossfire support multiple displays so there really isn't a usable solution to play X3 on in such a way.

Kindred Spirit · Post by **Kindred Spirit** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 15:12

3 screens can be supported if you use Matrox's Triplehead2Go video splitter. I tricks the GPU into taking you got a massive widescreen display running at say 3840x1024.

It works with SLI and Crossfire.

KS

pilt · Post by **pilt** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 16:43

arg..

thats the problem crosshairs at the side of the two screens...

but hehe did you see the set-up that this guy has for "playing"?

[ external image ]

t'would be nice

Scarecrow · Post by **Scarecrow** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 17:02

....think I would need Dramamine.

LLDB · Post by **LLDB** » Sun, 4. Feb 07, 18:26

Above shot.. Guy is using Nvidia quatro?? something like that. Anyway it's not cheap and it will cover several screens, might be better if ya could find frameless flat screens though, any out there?

Treachery · Post by **Treachery** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 01:24

just built a new machine. have 2 Samsung 226BW 22" widescreens. they have thin borders but not frameless. Usually viewsonics have pretty thin frames, I went with the samsungs cause just they were just beter gaming LCDs, 2ms refresh / response rate. My computer is as follow but it isn't finished yet:

Asus Striker Extreme board.
Intel Core 2 Extreme cpu
8 GB of Corsair Dominator DDR2 PC28888 (1111mhz)
3 Geforce 8800 GTXs 768MB a peice (NEVER ATI)
Thermaltake Case with water cooling on CPU and Graphic cards.
ThermalTake PSU
waiting for my HDDs to come in.

I think the 8800s will support that multi display thing too. when I get i running and put X3 on it I will lwt yall know.

I am still playing X3 on my Athlon X2 desktop, still not a bad machine another one I built.

Asus A8N32 deluxe board
Athlon X2 4800+
4GB corsair ddr2 PC23200 (400mhz)
2 GeForce 7800 GTXs 512mb a peice.

People at work were harassing me for buildin the athlon, but at the time there were no Intel CPU boards with Nforce chipset. Added the water cooling on the intel system cause the 7800GTXs would shut down the system when they got hot. They weren't very good from a cooling standpoint MSI cards BTW, the 7800s. 8800s are Asus.
always buy Asus boards and Nvidia graphics. And always at least go with the Nvidia chipsets. Trust Me. I work for Intel here in Hillsboro, OR and work very closely with Nvidia people on both graphics and chipset concerned integration.

The_Abyss · Post by **The_Abyss** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 02:09

How can you support 3 8800's?

Deleted User · Post by **Deleted User** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 03:29

Treachery wrote:snip
People at work were harassing me for buildin the athlon
snip
I work for Intel here...
snip

paulms1980 · Post by **paulms1980** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 11:44

ive got the stiker extreme and the dominator ram, 2 8800gtx's bfg watercooled
noway can u fit 3 8800gtx's on that board with 8gb dominators
id say its impossible

Fresshness · Post by **Fresshness** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 12:01

CBJ wrote:You can play X³ across two screens using the same technique as worked for X². However, it probably isn't worth it as the display layout cannot be configured in the same way it was in X² so you end up with the crosshair right in the middle where the screens join.

I only know X3 and never played any other X-game. However, it seems more and more the case that X3 = X2 with update graphics, BUT, with a vast number of features removed.

1) unconfigurable gui
2) m1's that cannot dock m6/m7/tl/ts/tp
3) no cockpits
4) much more no doubt.

fiksal · Post by **fiksal** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 18:14

Kindred Spirit wrote:3 screens can be supported if you use Matrox's Triplehead2Go video splitter. I tricks the GPU into taking you got a massive widescreen display running at say 3840x1024.

It works with SLI and Crossfire.

KS

cool, do you have that card?
I remember reading that with that card and 3 monitors, you can also "bend" the display, and turn your side monitors into side views

does anyone know if that works in X3?
I always thought it sounded interesting... plus it'd be insane to try it together with my 3D glasses... somehow I think either software or hardware would choke though

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 19:00

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.

The advantage is that you can use any graphics card you like with it. Disadvantages--well, I think the device is limited in what resolutions it will support on each monitor, and obviously (since Windows doesn't know you have 3 monitors) you might get some weird stuff happening in normal Windows applications.

fiksal · Post by **fiksal** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 19:54

pjknibbs wrote: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 · Post by **DenYaSis** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 20:39

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 · Post by **fiksal** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 21:18

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 · Post by **Treachery** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 21:40

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

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 23:13

fiksal wrote: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.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

dual screen playing in X3?

dual screen playing in X3?