Widescreen Gaming Forum

I sent off an email to Matrox asking them about support for 3x1600x1200 since they updated the firmware for 3x1680x1050.

Below is the email thread which, IMHO, is less than satisfactory.

I've requested my question be elevated to someone who might have a bit more knowledge on this subject:

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From: Technical Support [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 12:27 PM
To: 'Paul '
Subject: RE: Tech Support - United States - Other - Request ID: 15725

Hi Paul,
It’s good to know that there is a software solution for Triple Head. However our TH2Go is a hardware solution for TH. To my knowledge 3x1920*1200 exceed the capability of the most recent graphic card.
We are not sure what SoftTH exactly does. Of course you have your choice to try SoftTH.
Thank you.

Zhen X. Du
Matrox Technical Support Rep.
Tech Support Tel: 514-685-0270
Office Hour: 9h00-17h00 EST
________________________________________
From: Paul
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 7:04 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: RE: Tech Support - United States - Other - Request ID: 15725

Zhen,

I’m a bit confused by your response. Are you saying it is not physically *possible* to do 4800x1200??

If so, how do you explain that this is routinely done running the *free* triplehead software application SoftTH? In fact, MANY SoftTH users run at 1920x1200x3.

Your thoughts?

Paul

From: Technical Support [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2008 12:55 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Tech Support - United States - Other - Request ID: 15725

Hi Paul,
Our GXM products work like a plug and play monitor and its capability heavily depends on the graphic card.
Thanks to some recent models of graphic cards, some triple wide resolutions became available. That is because the graphic cards can do a higher resolution.
However 3x1600x1200 is greater than 3x1608*1050, and so far we don’t know what card can do that. So 3x1600*1200 is not supported.
Thank you.

Regards,
Zhen X. Du
Matrox Technical Support Rep.
Tech Support Tel: 514-685-0270
Office Hour: 9h00-17h00 EST
________________________________________
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:

Message: Hello, I see that you recently updated the firmware to allow 1680x1050x3 for WS triplehead gaming. Many of us use 1600x1200x3 and have been forced to use 1280x1024x3 due to the firmware limitation of the TH2Go. Is there any chance an update will allow for this resolution? Thank you.

_________________
Gigabyte GTX 980 - SLI

i7-4770k @4ghz

16GB Ram

Planar SA2311W 3D Vision monitors (x3)

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate SP1

Obviously this guy's job is to give canned answers. You need to talk to an engineer, or at least someone who can do that for you. Why not send a PM to that Matrox employee that posts here?

I have pointed this thread out to one of my contacts at Matrox. No promises, but this should get it into the right hands.

1680x1050 is less pixels. But honestly I don't see why its not doable.

1680x1050 is less pixels. But honestly I don't see why its not doable.

The CSR that replied needs to learn a bit more about surround screen gaming. The question that needs to be put forth is...3x1600x1200...does that exceed the bandwidth of Dual-Link DVI and the bandwidth within the chip used in the TH2G D? If all is good on both of those issues, it's in Matrox's ballpark to either support it or not.

Then again, I'd love to be able to use 3x1920x1080 or 3x1920x1200. Makes me ponder DisplayPort in future cards and a new Matrox box based on it for 3x1920x1200. With DisplayPort, the port is small enough you could put 3 video outs on the back of the card and just do it all via the video card if designed correctly on a hardware and display driver level.

Anyone have the numbers for max pixel limit on Dual-Link DVI? I'm seeing a bunch of 3840x1200 (9,216,000 pixels) references for dual-link dvi limit on google. That would mean 3x1920x1200 was plausiable at least through the cable. The chip Matrox uses in the TH2G D is a whole other variable though.

3x1680x1050 = 5,292,000 pixels
3x1600x1200 = 5,760,000 pixels

3x1920x1080 = 6,220,800 pixels
3x1920x1200 = 6,912,000 pixels

2x2560x1600 = 8,000,000 pixels
3x2560x1600 = 12,000,000 pixels

_________________
Brad Hawthorne
Product Manager
Nthusim Pty. Ltd. | www.nthusim.com

Maybe 3x1920x1080i would work? since technically interlacing should half the bandwidth per screen or something.

Providing the receiving screen has a proper deinterlacer, it should be almost indistinguishable from 1080p.

Maybe 3x1920x1080i would work? since technically interlacing should half the bandwidth per screen or something.

Providing the receiving screen has a proper deinterlacer, it should be almost indistinguishable from 1080p.

Not exactly. The problem with that is you would be pushing less frames.

For video and TV signal, that's not necessarily a bad thing, as most movies are shot at 24fps anyhow.

The problem is, with interlaced video you get only thirty frames (sixty frames delivered, each one with either odd or even scan lines). This isn't a problem for film, but for video games you would see a much more choppy image.

The other problem with interlaced is I don't think that the graphics card, when outputting a resolution could do interlaced unless it was an HD resolution. Otherwise that would most likely just be 30hz, and then the graphics card would be outputting the same amount of information, just less per second (but nonetheless the same amount per frame).

Sports and stuff get played at 1080i and I'm sure many people can see a problem with it. And those weren't shot in 24fps.

Aren't you mixing up 3:2 pulldown and interlacing? I don't think they're the same thing.

And even if the frames are a bit slow, slow beats nothing no?

Sports and stuff get played at 1080i and I'm sure many people can see a problem with it. And those weren't shot in 24fps.

Aren't you mixing up 3:2 pulldown and interlacing? I don't think they're the same thing.

And even if the frames are a bit slow, slow beats nothing no?

I don't believe I'm mixing them up, because 3:2 pulldown is a conversion for video shot in 24fps to be played on a television in either interlaced or progressive formats. Interlacing is alternating odd and even field in order to display thirty frames per second, with only half of the information being sent and displayed at a given time.

The big difference between interlaced with film and interlaced with games, is that games don't have the motion blur that film does, and so you need a much higher framerate to achieve the same level of smoothness.

And I don't think slow beats nothing for games, I think SofTH would work much better than an external graphics adapter which only works in interlaced (which, again, I'm not sure most consumer grade LCD monitors can support).

The question that needs to be put forth is...3x1600x1200...does that exceed the bandwidth of Dual-Link DVI and the bandwidth within the chip used in the TH2G D? If all is good on both of those issues, it's in Matrox's ballpark to either support it or not.

...

3x1680x1050 = 5,292,000 pixels
3x1600x1200 = 5,760,000 pixels

3x1920x1080 = 6,220,800 pixels
3x1920x1200 = 6,912,000 pixels

2x2560x1600 = 8,000,000 pixels
3x2560x1600 = 12,000,000 pixels

Click here and take a look at the first post by user "Billes" on the page. He states:

The maximum bandwidth of a Dual-link DVI cable is 7.92 Gbit/s

With 48 bits/pixel:

7.92 Gbit / 60 Hz / 48 = 2.75 megapixels.

With 24 bits/pixel:

7.92 Gbit / 60 Hz / 24 = 5.5 megapixels.


This gives us a maximum resolution of 5.5 megapixels to play with when using 24bits/px.

Seeing as:

5040 x 1050 = 5.292 megapixels,

It fits within (although barely) the 5.5 megapixel limit.

When Matrox introduced 5040 x 1050, they actually did so at 57 Hz, using 7.239 Gbit/s of bandwidth.

If you do 5760 x 1200 @ 57 Hz and 24 bits/pixel, you would be using 9.456 Gbit/s, which is way over the bandwidth limit of dual-link DVI. To fit 5760 x 1200 into dual-link DVI, you would need to display the image at a refresh rate of 47 Hz. This is well below the capabilities of most, if not all, LCDs.


BTW, 3840x1200 is definitely not the max dual-link DVI resolution. 3840x1200 @ 60 Hz and 24 bits/pixel uses "only" 6.635 Gbit/s, well below the 7.92 Gbit/s limit. If 3840x1200 were the max dual-link DVI resolution, 5040x1050 would not be possible.