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[-noun] Web community dedicated to ensuring PC games run properly on your tablet, netbook, personal computer, HDTV and multi-monitor gaming rig.
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PostPosted: 11 Jun 2008, 08:05 
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Joined: 23 Oct 2005, 20:26
Posts: 26
From what I've been reading, most (if not all) multi-monitor, or "surround" displays center around ONE video card and a 2 or 3 way splitter, that converts a single stretched video feed to 2 or 3 monitors.

Consider this. I have a single PC rig with two video cards, driving three monitors. A 30" in the center and two 20" stacked vertically on each side. Something like this:









Are there any games that would support this type of a setup?

My initial thought would be to run in a windowed mode, and simply stretch the image across the three monitors. No luck thus far. Perhaps I need to hack the registry.

Another approach would be for a game to actually have multi-display built it. But I haven't found one that would fit this criteria.

Thanks in advance.[/img]


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PostPosted: 11 Jun 2008, 08:38 
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006, 06:01
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Most if not all 3d games won't support that type of setup. I know that Flight Sim 2004 will with a 3rd party plugin, however.

Check out SoftTH, as I think that would be applicable to what you're describing.


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PostPosted: 11 Jun 2008, 09:44 
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Most if not all 3d games won't support that type of setup. I know that Flight Sim 2004 will with a 3rd party plugin, however.

Check out SoftTH, as I think that would be applicable to what you're describing.


Yep, SoftTH is what you're looking for there. Honestly, if you want to do something like that, get a big beefy card like an 8800GTX, and then buy a cheap nVidia Quadro card to put in the other PCI-Express slot as it's going to just act as a framebuffer anyways. The Quadro's 64 or 128mb of onboard ram will suffice nicely for just that task. (It's the card I'm using, although i'm not doing SoftTH, and still need second side monitor anyways.)

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PostPosted: 11 Jun 2008, 23:11 
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Joined: 06 Apr 2008, 16:13
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Most if not all 3d games won't support that type of setup. I know that Flight Sim 2004 will with a 3rd party plugin, however.

Check out SoftTH, as I think that would be applicable to what you're describing.
I'll third that, providing it works with your game(s) of choice. Otherwise you're out of luck.

Yep, SoftTH is what you're looking for there. Honestly, if you want to do something like that, get a big beefy card like an 8800GTX, and then buy a cheap nVidia Quadro card to put in the other PCI-Express slot as it's going to just act as a framebuffer anyways. The Quadro's 64 or 128mb of onboard ram will suffice nicely for just that task. (It's the card I'm using, although i'm not doing SoftTH, and still need second side monitor anyways.)
I thought the Quadros were more expensive :?: but second the idea of a cheep secondary card. The only caveat is that because SoftTH renders everything on one card you can't expect great frame rates at high resolutions on the "latest greatest" games.

Edit: Nice setup by the way.


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PostPosted: 12 Jun 2008, 07:52 
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Joined: 23 Oct 2005, 20:26
Posts: 26
Thanks for your help guys. I'll give it a try.

If you notice in my profile, I have the 8800 GTX card, overclocked to (practically) max values. That's the card which drives the 30 incher.

The other card, drives the two side monitors.

I still have a third PCIe slot, in which I wanted to add another vid card and 2 more monitors on the side, making it 5.

Having the 3 right now, desktop real estate is aplenty. I love it. 2 more would make it absolutely stellar.

BTW, I have to change my sig. I no longer have Dominator ram, as it kept failing, and I now have a QUAD cpu.

Cheers.


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PostPosted: 12 Jun 2008, 23:35 
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Joined: 09 Sep 2007, 18:11
Posts: 92
dont buy a 8800GTX. soon the 280GTx will be released and it should offer enough performance to play high res and high settings for the future. :shock: only disadvantage, it will be 500$ and it will need a lot of power...


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