Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hadn't used/known about ultramon before. I'll give it a spin and let you know.

Edward:
I don't think I would like such an setup - I would have to turn my head too much :(

Tucson:
Thanks - looking forward to read about your findings.

You would have to turn it less than with your proposed setup.

I had a talk with Dell - I couldn't be told exactly when the new 3008WFP would be launched, but he said in approx 3 months.

I'll go ahead with a compromise consisting of 3 widescreen monitors, and maybe buy the 30" at a later date.

1024 vertical resolution is too low - will I be able to run native resolution with the TH2G, on 1200 res monitors, that supports 1:1 remapping?

- 2 gfx boards running in SLI.
- SLI output used with TH2G
- remaining 3 outputs for each monitor

This would work but it would require reboots to switch between the two modes of operation. Last I heard SLI drivers required a reboot when multimonitor was switched on, but it could be switched off without a reboot (or vice versa). It's true that you can't use SLI with multiple monitors.

- 2 gfx boards without SLI
- 1 output for TH2G while the rest for the individual monitors.

This is the simplest way to manage the situation. Take your primary card and run it's primary output to your triplehead unit. The secondary output on the primary card runs to a side monitor, and an output on the secondary GPU runs to the other side monitor. Presuming the secondary GPU is only used for 2D rendering, it can be low-end hardware.

It's possible to run 1600x1200 to a single monitor through the TripleHead2Go, so this method requires only three GPU outputs, not four. This works on the desktop, at least; there have been some problems getting games to recognize 1600x1200.

- more than 2 gfx board if I want to run with SLI?

Since I have no direct experience with SLI I have no idea if this is possible or not, but I'm guessing additional GPUs wouldn't gain you anything because you'd probably still have to reboot.



Note that all of the above solutions require dual-input monitors for the side screens. You are best off using monitors with dual DVI inputs, but these are limited. If you have dual-DVI monitors, you'll want the Digital TripleHead2Go. If not, you'll want the analogue, but then you have many fewer available resolutions and you lose the bezel management feature.


Two more thoughts:
1. If you are really set on a 30" in the middle and a 20" on the sides, you have to use SoftTH (are you thinking about rotating those 20" monitors?). Your best triplehead experience (meaning simplest and highest-performing) will come from a TripleHead2Go and 3 5:4 monitors of equal dimensions.

2. A 30" monitor has a native res of 2560x1600, not 1600x1200. I don't know if you can push that res through a TripleHead2Go onto a single screen. I think the three triplehead outputs are only single-link DVI...

JKeefe has some good points, particularly with the TH2G being able to use a single 16x12 display.

Concerning SLI, it's certainly possible to implement without rebooting, For instance, I am using a motherboard with 3xPCIe slots. You'd simply use 2 slots for your SLI pair, and the third for your native display outputs.

r4ptor, I finally got a chance to test the solution I proposed, in this case on the analog TH2G. I did need ultramon to do it. Using it, I have 2 shorcuts on my desktop: "Surround Analog" and "Surround Digital". Clicking on one disables the signal feed from the the input set on the other, all with one click. It works fantastically.

I'll be using this for the slight flicker I get while running on the TH2G. What I really dig about this is that I can now completely disable my power hungry GPU when not in use (using 2 passive gpus in my other slots).

I did want to point out that a triplehead 16x12 is 4/1 aspect ratio versus 3.75/1 of triplehead 12x10. I am curious to see how well the 20" monitors cope with this. Much better than triplehead widescreens no doubt.

I have to say at this point I'm a really big advocate of this proposal. I still need to see it in person, but this would probably how I'd go if I were purchasing again.

EDIT: I'm sure it's fine, but I was disapointed when I found out the the digital TH2G used part of an analog signal for it's duallink-DVI input (required for 30" LCDs). There probably isn't too much of a signal loss, but it's still a weak link.

I was disapointed when I found out the the digital TH2G used part of an analog signal for it's duallink-DVI input (required for 30" LCDs).

What do you mean by this? The input to the Digital TripleHead2Go is either dual-link DVI or VGA, but VGA is not required.

One of the links is analog. You can't output past 2400x600 without using it as part of the dual link.

Help?

Eh? My understanding is that the connection is dual-link DVI-I - analogue and digital in the same connector. AFAIK you can't have a dual-link connection where one link is digital and the other is analogue...

no. Dual-Link DVI is Digital only iirc, but it is possible to transmit analogue signals via a Dual DVI-I cable.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/DVI_Connector_Types.svg
source: wikipedia.org