dual screen playing in X3?

[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)
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aspect 8:3 dusl screen (2304 x 864)
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aspect 11:3 (2176 x 612) : probably close to the triple screen thing
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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