Widescreen Gaming Forum

I want to say I love the work you guys do for multi-monitor gaming.

I went nVsurround the moment they released the drivers capeable of doing it. I have 2 BFG GTX 285 OCX powering 3 dell E2009W monitors. I have an i7 920 OC to 3.4Ghz in an Asus p6t6 WS Revolution MB.

The upgrade bug has hit me after seeing the release of the 680 GPUs.

I am content to wait and see what other flavors of the card are made by vendors (more ram, oc versions)

Which go me looking at my monitors. The E2009W is a TN panel, works well enough. BUT the computer I used before I built my multi-monitor rig was a Dell 9300 laptop with the upgraded UltraSharp 17inch display (1920x1200). Outstanding colors that the E2009W has never pulled off.

I love triplescreen playing, and when i get a game that supports it i love it. But with all the focus on consoles i have been finding that trip-wide support is getting spotty at best.

I tried running surround on portrait mode, but the viewing angle of the E2009W sucks, and my right side monitor looked washed out when set up.

Enter me looking at upgrading to a 27 inch monitor at the 1440 resolution, breaking the bank (and my back due to sleeping on the couch) and buying a 30 inch display, or going for 3 smaller cheaper IPS panels.

On the 27 inch side i thought about going in on some cheap Korean one, but decided that saving 200 bucks over the ZR2740w that has better support was ill advised :glasses:

There is the 30 inch dell that i would love, but at 1.2K + i have a hard time justifying that.

And there is buying 3 cheaper monitors, the AOC I2353PH looks to be a great price, but I use the Ergotron LX mount now for 3 monitors, so no VESA mount is a big issue for me.

The above is more or less me brain dumping, and advice on monitors would be great, I so want to keep my cost under 600 bucks.....


But the above got me thinking, in an unrelated project I used a LCD controller board to use a laptop monitor for a MAME box. The DELL laptop I mentioned above died, but the monitor is still good, more so I found a place (reports to anyway) that sells them for $65. Now I have a project idea for a low bezel (need to measure - but ~ 1/4 inch), high resolution, 3 monitor solution that may come in under a budget.

2 panels @ 65 is 130 (already have one). 3 LCD controller boards @ 40 bucks each is another 120.
Say I spend another 60 bucks on materials fabrication on mounting the 3 displays that is $310 not bad for 3x1920x1200. I would mount them in p-mode for 3600x1920.

I know those are just 17 inch, but the reason i went with 3 20" before is space, i cannot fit 3 larger monitors.

Thanks for letting me vent and bounce ideas off of you guys....

If you are not happy with your monitors, it is entirely up to you what you do. You could do far worse than get a 27" monitor if you think it isn't working out with 3 screens. You seem to have good ideas, I will not sway you one way or another, but I will say that at the end of the day, if you are not happy with what you have now, best find something to make you happy :)

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Thanks. I love playing on 3 screens. It is me more or less lamenting that Game companies are giving us needless console ports these days.....

My thoughts above were jumbled together without much structure, I was thinking a 27 inch in lieu of 3 screens, or creating custom a 3screen p-mode device out of 3 laptop monitors. If my math is correct that will be 30.6 inches @3600x1920 vs the 27in @2560x1440.

I have decided to "try" converting the one laptop monitor that I have to a PC monitor. I have contacted the LCD Controller company with the specific panel I have so they can make sure I get all the cabling I need, from that i will work on what it would take to fabricate the frame and mount 3 of them.

I have also set aside some cash to get one of the new nVidia cards, i am waiting to see the vendor specific mods before I pop on one ;-)

My over all goal is to get as good a looking display I can for as much under 600 bucks as I can....