Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hmm I don't know, they should. Perhaps I will get the chance to test that later today or another member?

I'll try to test it before Monday (when i have to return my friends TH2G)... unless somebody else gets a chance to test before me. I suppose I could still test if afterward just not using 2xTH2G.

whoa sick Oo

well i dont think that you could run any game with a 10.584000pixel screen setup because dx10 is limited to 8.192000pixel, so you will be forced to reduce the resolution of your screens to 1440x900

It was my understanding that 8192x8192 for DX10 was the Texture size limit. Not the surface size limit. Am I wrong about this? (I very well could be)

also since I'm on XP with DX9.0c I would be at the 4096x4096 limit which I'm sure 7680x1024 exceeded (assuming the limits are hard for width x height.)

The above said, who are the DirectX experts on the board?

1) Are 4096x4096 and 8192x8192 texture limits or surface limits?

2) Are they hard boundaries for width x height, or maximum memory taken up? ie:
4096x4096=6861881344
7680x1024= 7864320
5040x2100= 10584000

hence why 7680x1024 can be rendered under DX9?

I'm asking the above questions independent of hardware limits (ie what the DX9/10 APIs allow.)

Can you point me at MSDN documentation for the above? I'd like to understand the real limits.

Also if there's anybody who's very familiar with DX9/10 and/or Windows Device drivers (DDK) ??? I've got some ideas for a shim (like softTH but meant for single cards and/or routing calls to specific cards) I'm not really familiar with the DX APIs, but I'd be willing to learn. In a past life I had done some OpenGL work, but it was in the very early openGL days (back on silicon graphics IRIX systems... so it was like OpenGL 1.1 I think.)

If I'm using the term surface wrong in terms of DirectX please let me know, it's my understanding that a surface is a directX "window" that's rendered into [not a surface of a triangle that you are applying a texture to)

3) Can anybody explain how directX surfaces are created?
3b) can you create surfaces on multiple independent graphics cards? [ie non SLI]

performance wise it might not work well, but one of my ideas is to create a shim that opens multiple directX surfaces on 2 or more graphics cards (or even the same one) but tells the game it's got one surface, then it routes the directX calls to the appropriate card that's actually doing the rendering... there's probably be all sorts of timing and synchronization issues, but it might be possible (if I understood directX better).

Your math looks fine. I'll hasten to point out I'm currently on 48:10 and it fills my vision (horizontally). Further, whilst games are single frustum rendered the barrel distortion makes any wider seem pointless. I'd go for a second row before I started making it wider.

Can you explain the Single Frustum rendering (and barrel distortion) or point to a link? That said, I doubt I'd want to go wider then 3 monitors... when I had six running it was nearly impossible to even look at them all in a meaningful way.

I think a fundamental issue with 2 rows is that it is somewhat akin to having 2 screens side-by-side...the logical centre of your focus becomes a bezel. For a single row of screens the correct height for decent ergonomics is the top bezel at eye-height (according to HP anyway), which means with 2 rows you'll be accepting bad ergonomics either when using both rows or just one row. For something like a 3rd person game if you can't tilt the camera as you describe to centre the character on the bottom-middle screen then the horizontal bezel between the screens could be a real problem. Likewise anything first person, the area of action is the most compromised area in all the screen real-estate. The lack of vertical bezel management would peeve me also.

Agreed, even though I didn't have the monitors stacked when I tested vertical spanning, it was obvious to me that this would be an issue... I have some ideas on this.

One simple idea might be a modified dx9 shim (like softh but with a different use) that allows for vertical bezel management and possibly lying even more about the screen resolution.

Lying about the screen resolution would work by basically telling the game that an even higher resolution was available and then setting a viewport. IE, you might tell the game that 5040x2800 was the screen resolution, but only display 5040x2100 (you choose which 700 pixels to loose)... that would allow you to effectively chuck some stuff you don't want to see (maybe there's too much ground.)

The shim idea needs a little more fleshing out (and either a lot of my time or someone who's more familiar with the DX API and possibly DDK then I am)

Personally for something like LOTRO I'd like to see that characters and have vert+ above that so I could see taller structures (like the mountains/etc)... think about it, when you're fighting a giant you generally have to look up to see him (using the mouse/in game controls)... I think it would be nice to just be able to use my physical eyes instead of my mouse ;)

I guess the conclusion is what you really need is 3x3 screens!! :P

You know somebody will end up trying to do this if we get 2x3 working well... I'm not sure I can come up with an easy way to do this since I dont' have a way to span across multiple video cards as a directX surface.

Can you explain the Single Frustum rendering (and barrel distortion) or point to a link? That said, I doubt I'd want to go wider then 3 monitors... when I had six running it was nearly impossible to even look at them all in a meaningful way.

I shan't attempt to explain because I'm sure words will fail me, but have a look at this. The link is on culling, but the pic at the top gives a notion of what's going on...a frustum is a cone or pyramid cut parallel to the base.

Yeah, 3x3 holds no change in aspect ratio, but then again 3x5:2x4 is only 15:8 which is approximately standard widescreen anyhow. I was kidding somewhat, though the additional pixel density does seem to be what tivotechie is striving for here.

LOL yes and no :) I'm not sure what i'm striving for yet... mostly abusing technology... but yeah, in the end I think I'm looking for pixel density... I want to use all this space during normal desktop operations, so I might as well use it during games too.

[quote]
Can you explain the Single Frustum rendering (and barrel distortion) or point to a link? That said, I doubt I'd want to go wider then 3 monitors... when I had six running it was nearly impossible to even look at them all in a meaningful way.

I shan't attempt to explain because I'm sure words will fail me, but have a look at this. The link is on culling, but the pic at the top gives a notion of what's going on...a frustum is a cone or pyramid cut parallel to the base.

nice link... I get it now. Actually it gives me some more ideas on how a shim might be implemented too without too much of a performance hit, (still a lot to be worked out and could be game rendering path specific, but if we lied about the size of the screen, allowed the game to request renders from the shim, but had the shim recull to the smaller viewport prior to forwarding the final rendering calls the the real driver/dll... shouldn't be too much of a performance hit)

You're a hero if you can manage that, I wouldn't know where to start! :lol:

You're a hero if you can manage that, I wouldn't know where to start! :lol:

lol, i've got some ideas, but i've got a huge learning curve to get through since most of my programming is on the linux side doing kernel type work... but I'm always up for a new challenge.

I notice you have a GTX280... any chance you have benchmark FPS for LOTRO @ 5040x1050? (I can probably then use that to estimate 5040x2100)

I've been toying with a GTX260 or 280, but I'm also trying to figure out how to afford 6 x 22" monitors... and another TH2G... so I want to understand what I'd get over the 8800GT in real world experience.

I'm afraid I don't have LOTRO. If you're going to run such hefty resolutions you'll want lots of video memory (and high speed memory at that) to stop the card choking from lack of internal bandwidth, which makes the GTX280 and 4870X2 logical choices. I'm not too sure on the state of the 4870X2's compatibility with the TH2Go, so that bears checking out. Apparently there're refresh parts coming up from nVidia, though these are rumoured to be a die-shrink or a 280GX2 kind of arrangement...to be honest I've stopped looking as it'll only ultimately make me regret the 280!

I'm afraid I don't have LOTRO. If you're going to run such hefty resolutions you'll want lots of video memory (and high speed memory at that) to stop the card choking from lack of internal bandwidth, which makes the GTX280 and 4870X2 logical choices. I'm not too sure on the state of the 4870X2's compatibility with the TH2Go, so that bears checking out. Apparently there're refresh parts coming up from nVidia, though these are rumoured to be a die-shrink or a 280GX2 kind of arrangement...to be honest I've stopped looking as it'll only ultimately make me regret the 280!

Yeah skip the 4870x2, i got one and the performance is AMAZING but it jut doesnt work with TH2Go :(