[Hardware] Things *not* to do on the day before pay day...

While reading about multi-screen gaming in sims like iRacing I realised I
only had to tweak my Nvidia settings to get dual screen gaming on my
games box. Ok, we're talking about a setup where you're looking straight
at the bezels, but it requires no extra hardware or messing about, just
two monitors connected to the dual outputs.

And, er... wow!

No, I mean WOW!

The piddly little extra bit of FOV you get on a normal widescreen monitor
has never done anything for me... you pay over the odds for that extra
bit of monitor (or lose vertical resolution). That's why I've stayed with
4:3 monitors so far.

But I can honestly say that when I saw LFS, then iRacing running in 8:3
'wide-o-vision' (2560x1024) for the first time it was one of those rare
moments when the PC world shifts beneath your feet. As I always suspected,
it makes a *huge* difference to the driving experience and immersion, and
a bit of quick experimentation with Crysis & HL2 proved the same there...
though to a lesser degree (for me anyway).

I think I now have to take a three screen setup very seriously, because a
single gaming screen now looks so constricted... and that's only after
half an hour of playing around!

SoftTH would probably be the best answer for me, but I only have one
PCI-E slot, and a vanilla PCI 'slave' card won't cut the mustard... even
if I had one. A new motherboard would be a pain to sort out.

Mmm... this could get very messy and rather expensive. The Matrox
solution is complicated by the fact in the short term I'd want to use a
combination of mix & match analogue (non-DVI) monitors, which would rule
out the superior digital triplehead solution.

I think I need to sit back and contemplate this for a while. Or maybe
apply my iRacing technique... ignore it for a while in the hope the urge
will go away. :-)

Andrew McP

Andrew MacPherson wrote:
> While reading about multi-screen gaming in sims like iRacing I realised I
> only had to tweak my Nvidia settings to get dual screen gaming on my
> games box. Ok, we're talking about a setup where you're looking straight
> at the bezels, but it requires no extra hardware or messing about, just
> two monitors connected to the dual outputs.
>
> And, er... wow!
>
> No, I mean WOW!
>
> The piddly little extra bit of FOV you get on a normal widescreen monitor
> has never done anything for me... you pay over the odds for that extra
> bit of monitor (or lose vertical resolution). That's why I've stayed with
> 4:3 monitors so far.

I thought about Matrox, too, while I used a 22" LG Monitor for my racing
cockpit. But a couple of months ago I realized how dirt cheap LCD TVs are
now, so I picked a 32" Samsung LCD TV. At 1366x768 it's looking great and
"size matters". You almost get the impression you're sitting in that cockpit.

I'm not sure if Matrox & Co let you easily (and for all games)
put different views on the left and right monitor, or is it just the
regular front view distributed over the three monitors???

If it's the latter, I could not accept looking at the two bezels but rather
have one big screen. Meanwhile I'm once a week looking at prices for 40" LCD
TVs (Full HD) but currently way too high to be used only for a racing cockpit...

l8er
ronny

(Ronald Stoehr) wrote:

> a couple of months ago I realized how dirt cheap LCD TVs are

I agree it's a tempting idea. A large LCD TV would indeed fill my field
of view nicely. Plus no messing about with leads, dongles, software, and
the assorted ongoing physical and technical quirks associated with
multiple monitors.

However your 1366x768 has an aspect ratio of about 1.8, whereas the 2
screen (both 1280x1024) resolution I was playing with today gave me 2.5,
with more clarity (especially) in vertical resolution. That's an extra
40% or so peripheral vision & track width which a magnified screen can't
match... and that's before you add another screen to bring the aspect
ratio up to an amazing 3.75. That's over twice the field of view you have
on your screen.

> I'm not sure if Matrox & Co let you easily (and for all games)
> put different views on the left and right monitor, or is it just the
> regular front view distributed over the three monitors???

The game/sim 'sees' the new resolution (in Matrox's case usually
(3x1280)x1024) and renders enough to fill it. So there's no stretching or
magnifying going on (at native resolutions anyway). You're just getting a
much wider window into the gaming world. And our vision responds very
well to that, which is why cinema screens are shaped the way they are.

> If it's the latter, I could not accept looking at the two bezels
> but rather have one big screen.

Bezels are always going to be a problem, but Matrox seem to have
minimised the disruption. I also have to say that if I can manage several
laps of racing (with a big grin on my face!) on a 2 screen setup where
I'm staring straight at the bezels, I *know* they won't be a problem with
a 3 screen setup where the side screens are supplying immersion and
peripheral vision rather than something to focus on all the time.

Anyway, I can see this is going to give me the same kind of headache
iRacing has. I want the benefits, but there are downsides as well. In my
non-gaming life I am increasingly concerned about peak energy, and I
think energy prices are going to have to rise dramatically to beat down
global demand. So a three screen setup, plus a new vid card to push that
resolution fast enough is going to be a power-hungry beast perched on my
desk at a time when that makes less sense.

As ever, these decisions are never easy. The heart leads the way, but the
head has to do the maths! I suppose another solution might be to buy the
highest resolution single widescreen I can afford and run it at an
in-game resolution which maximises the available screen width (ie with
black bars at the top and bottom of the screen). There may be
complications with that though... the monitor automatically stretching
the image to fill the screen, or the sim/game not offering the right
options.

I can see I need to do a lot more research before I decide what to do.
The only annoying complication is that one of the hardware suppliers I've
used in the past has sent me a 10% discount code to be used by the end of
August. I must resist the urge to use that... 10% off something I regret
later won't be a bargain! :-)

Andrew McP

PS Way OT, but this guy has an incredibly well presented, and
thought-provoking lecture on peak energy (and lots of other things
relevant to the times we live in).
http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak_oil

(Andrew MacPherson) wrote:

> I must resist the urge to use that... 10% off something I regret
> later won't be a bargain! :-)

However at the moment I'm very tempted by a 28" Hanns-G 1920x1600 for
about 240ukp. Good real estate bang for buck, average monitor, but for
gaming only it'd probably be fine. I could try running a simple, no
complications, two screen setup with that, and the centre point would be
on one side of the 28".

Mind you, while my 17" LCD sits happily beside the 19", it'd look a bit
small next to the 28".

Mmm... the temptations of a cheap solution rather than the *right*
solution!

Andrew McP

"Andrew MacPherson" > wrote in message
ddress_disguised...
> (Andrew MacPherson) wrote:
>
>> I must resist the urge to use that... 10% off something I regret
>> later won't be a bargain! :-)
>
> However at the moment I'm very tempted by a 28" Hanns-G 1920x1600 for
> about 240ukp. Good real estate bang for buck, average monitor, but for
> gaming only it'd probably be fine. I could try running a simple, no
> complications, two screen setup with that, and the centre point would be
> on one side of the 28".
>
> Mind you, while my 17" LCD sits happily beside the 19", it'd look a bit
> small next to the 28".
>
> Mmm... the temptations of a cheap solution rather than the *right*
> solution!
>
> Andrew McP

Matrox recently updated their Triplehead2Go Digital to support widescreen
resolutions. It can now run 3 1680x1050 screens. I'll have to upgrade to be
able to run at this resolution.

Andrew, I'd really like to try this... Do you have a link to a guide
how to setup a 2nd monitor?

Thanks.

(Tim Wheatley) wrote:

> Andrew, I'd really like to try this... Do you have a link to a guide
> how to setup a 2nd monitor?

Can;t speak for ATI, but on Nvidia cards you delve into the Nvidia
control panel and on one of the multiscreen 'pages' there's a list of
several options. The bottom one is dual screen, which I normally use, but
two or two places up there a spanning option which is almost the same,
but different. Your monitors then show up in desktop/right
click/properties/etc as one big widescreen instead of two side by side...
that's how you can tell it's working.

Then DX can see your 'new' monitor setup and will offer the correct
resolution in all games.

Andrew McP

Actually I've just realised that idea won't work. I think both monitors
have to be set to the same resolution for the spanning to work properly,
which is a bit of a bugger.

There goes another cheapskate solution to the multi-screen problem! I am
*totally* converted to the idea now though. I was just running 2 screens
again and despite the middle bezel mess I was still about to lap in
iRacing at normal speeds.

Mind you, normal for me's not much of a challenge.

Andrew McP

On Aug 30, 3:30*am, (Andrew
MacPherson) wrote:
> Actually I've just realised that idea won't work. I think both monitors
> have to be set to the same resolution for the spanning to work properly,
> which is a bit of a bugger.
>
> There goes another cheapskate solution to the multi-screen problem! I am
> *totally* converted to the idea now though. I was just running 2 screens
> again and despite the middle bezel mess I was still about to lap in
> iRacing at normal speeds.
>
> Mind you, normal for me's not much of a challenge.
>
> Andrew McP

That's cool... I just had to buy myself a new monitor and really I'd
love to get another when I have the $$. I'll try the scan thing...
But if I understand right, the middle of the car is the frame of the
monitors? Eeek!

(Tim Wheatley) wrote:

> But if I understand right, the middle of the car is the frame of the
> monitors? Eeek!

It's not ideal, admittedly. :-) But as a quick demonstration of what
*real* widescreen (rather than the piffly few extra pixels of normal
widescreen monitors) has to offer, it's absolutely stunning.

Yesterday I loaded up Crysis again to do a bit of testing while trying to
work out what vid card (and perhaps a new PSU to power it reliably!) I
might need. Once I discovered I could knock back the details and still
have it looking good on a 2560x1024 display driven by a relatively lowly
(now!) 8800GTS, I ended up playing for far longer than intended. The
experience is simply amazing in everything; though for me the effect in
racing games/sims is far more impressive.

It really has been a week that's changed my view on multi-screen gaming
completely.

Andrew McP... who, in about 1989, sneered at a mate who spent an arm and
a leg on a 17" monitor. Why would anyone need so much screen space?