Multi Screen Options for Gaming

[Rupe Wilson]

Over the past few months there are a few of us that seem to be fixing up more than one screen to drive GT Legends,
thought it was time to look at what options you have to set this up..

• Nvidia Surround

Steven Walker helped a fellow racer out with a great picture post to get him set up CLICK ME
and we have this as well from Nvidia Gforce

• AMD Eyefinity

We have a few members using this system, Roland Warmenhoven seems to be the king of this with his amazing 6 screen setup Click me for a pic (im sure if you need help Roland can give you info)
AMD Eyefinity site

• SoftTH

Not to familiar with this but it looks like it works good and has many options
SoftTH Site

• Matrox Triplehead

Not to Familiar with this, also known as TripleHead2Go Digital
Matrox Triplehead

 

[Rupe Wilson]

If i have missed any you can add them to the post,
I know @Kjell Eilertsen is looking at the Oculus Rift
It looks impressive but i can see my self using it, but for some it will be just what there looking for

 

[Nox]

I've heard tons of great things about the Matrox triplehead from the flight sim community.

 

[Roland]

Matrox TH has been around for a long time, never used it myself but from what I hear it's great albeit a bit pricey, and AFAIK it's still the only way if you'd want to go beyond 6 monitors.

As for my 6 screen setup, it's been dismantled again already. I found it to be no improvement over the 5x1Portrait layout I used before (pics)
Unfortunately I cannot recommend a 3x2 monitor layout to anyone for racing (or gaming in general)

While my brain will quickly just ignore the vertical bezels in a 5x1P or 3x1Landscape monitor layout when racing, the horizontal bezels between the two rows just stay very visible and always directly in your sight, no matter where you look. I've tried adjusting monitor height and in-game view heights but to no avail.
As to be expected, in shooters like TF, CoD or BF it's even worse, as your crosshair is always right on the bezel. It may work for RPG or RTS games, but I don't play any.

Of course I knew about all this in advance, but didn't expect it to be this bad. At least now I know from first-hand experience. The ultra high resolution really looks stunning, but the horizontal bezel is a real showstopper for me.

EDIT: Of course, as Rupe stated, if anyone has specific questions on this subject just shoot me a PM or post here, if I can I'll surely try and answer them.

 

[Ian Strom]

Roland, get three Dell UltraSharp U3014 and use them in portrait mode side by side!
I look forward to hearing your results.

 

[Roland]

LOL Well, @Ian Strom if you're willing to chip in the missing €3000,- I'd be more than happy to tell you everything you want to know.

But in fact you're on to something here yes. Because very recently I've gotten my hands on three very nice 24" Fujitsu P24W-6-LED monitors with IPS panels.
Currently they are in portrait mode, my desk isn't wide enough for Landscape ATM and I must say the image quality is by far the best I've had so far.
Only thing, I'm not yet ready to break them open to remove the plastic bezels and void my warranty, as I've only had them for a day now.

Will post a pic in the next few days.

 

[Steven Walker]

I recently helped @Allan Ramsbottom with his triple screen setup but he was using the ATI 7790 and it seems that it doesn't like the HDMI port being used as part of the triple screen setup but likes to be connected up in the same ports as the Nvidia GTX660. Here is a link to the thread about connecting the Nvidia up and should help others wanting to connect an ATI card up. (Unless Roland knows different ) http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/triple-screen-help.74073/

 

[Roland]

I have no personal experience with connecting monitors/TVs through HDMI, but in theory it should work fine with Eyefinity. Various manufacturers may put various connectors on their AMD cards, so I'm not sure which other connectors Allan has at his disposal, good to hear it works now anyway

The most important quirk of Eyefinity setups AFAIK is that you have to use the Displayport connector as one of the three. So unless you have a displayport monitor you need to use either an ACTIVE Displayport-to-DVI adapter or a Displayport-to-VGA adapter (any of these will do). I'm not sure if DP-to-HDMI adapters exist. EDIT: I found out that active DP-to-HDMI ones do exist but are rather pricey compared to the other ones /EDIT.

Only exception to this rule is the Sapphire FLEX series of cards, that natively will support 3 DVI monitors without need for adapters.

With DP monitors getting more and more common now this issue may solve itself in the future, until then this Eyefinity FAQ may help..