Widescreen Gaming Forum

First of all, I am not sure if this post is in the right section. If it should go to the "Hardware" section, would forum Moderator please move it there?

Basically I am thinking of this setup: Digital TH2G + three 37~40" LCDTVs + 8800GTX to play Flight Sim (eg FS2004/FSX).

3 questions in my mind:-
a) Digital TH2G question: DTH2D's supported resolution is listed by Matrox at 3 x 1280 x 1024. However, given that the typical native resolution of the above LCDTV is 1366 x 768, would DTH2G support 3 x 1366 x 768 ?

Another post in this forum lists Digital TH2D support 3 x 1360 x 768. If this is true, would the difference between 4098 x 768 vs. 4080 x 768 make the above setup non-working?

b) FS software question: Does anyone know if FS2004 or FSX such simulators support this resolution 4098 x 768 (4080 x 768) within the game itself ?

c) Videocard question: Does anyone know if the 8800GTX (driver) support the above resolution?

Any other input related to using three LCDTVs to play flight sim with triple head are also welcome!![/b]

a) 3 x 1366 x 768 or rather, 3 x 1360 x 768 should work, just make sure the TV's you select let you input such a res. some only work at pre-set setting, typically using 1366 x 768. The other difference is even if they support it, if they do not have a 1:1 scaling setting they'll scale 1360x768 to fit 1366x768 which might be noticeable depending on the scaling engine.

b) I don't know about that.

c) shouldn't be a problem, at worse you'll just need to add it using the custom resolutions part of the control panel.

the GTX will do any c*2^x resolutions smaller than 4096x4096 iirc.

the GTX will do any c*2^x resolutions smaller than 4096x4096 iirc.

GTX (any g80) can do any resolutions smaller than 8192X8192, even in DX9. There are some examples in the forum using resolutions above 5000 using dx9 and softth.

Supported Digital TripleHead2Go resolutions (bottom post). 4080x768 is fully supported and that GPU will output it just fine. I don't know the specifics about MSFS, though.

The DTH2GO + 8800GTX is the absolute best hardware available...if it can't do it then it can't be done.

SoftTH will only work if you have two 8800GTX's in your system, and when I was using SoftTH with two 7800GTX's in my system the heat they generated was way over the top, and even if you could fit two 8800GTX's into your system they will produce just as much heat...perhaps more.

Give it a shot...order everything at the same time so you can plug everything in and try the setup out...that way if it doesn't do what you need it to do you can return them for a refund...most places allow up to 15 days for a cash refund, but after that it's exchange only.

Let me focus at my 1st question, namely, the issue of 1366 x 768 (the native resolution of so many LCDTVs) vs 1360 x 768 (a default resolution supported by DTH2G).

I cant think of the logic behind this. Why would Matrox want to support such an uncommon resolution in the 1st place? I dont think there is any monitor or LCDTV that support this odd resolution of 1360 x 768 natively. Since this is basically a widescreen resolution, so one can forget about the CRT camp, making this purely a LCD (TV or monitor) issue.

Anyone has any thought?

1366x768 and 1360x768 are both half-standards.

1366x768 has been used by tv makers to try and fake better resolutions out of 720p sets.

1360x768 was added to pcs for reason I cannot fathom, it's neither a standard aspect ratio like 16:9 or 16:10 nor is it a res. used anywhere else. It maybe was just plain greed to not want tv's and pc's to work well forcing users to get duplicates on both sides, who knows.

The DTH2GO + 8800GTX is the absolute best hardware available...if it can't do it then it can't be done.

Not a 100% accurate statement. SoftTH has options for rotated monitors and unequal screen divisions that do not exist with the TripleHead2Go.

SoftTH will only work if you have two 8800GTX's in your system, and when I was using SoftTH with two 7800GTX's in my system the heat they generated was way over the top, and even if you could fit two 8800GTX's into your system they will produce just as much heat...perhaps more.

For SoftTH you only need a single powerful GPU. The second GPU can be an el-cheapo PCI-E card.