Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi all and thanks for reading,

I'm so new to all of this and I have a couple of questions...
to make it easy u can answer in the for of 1-yes 2-no etc...

1- when playing surround with three 4:3 screens are there monitors better than others for what ever reason such as minimize the size of the edges as to have a nicer view of the game ?

2- I have a 5 year old dell 2001fp (http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/dell-ultrasharp-2001fp/4505-3174_7-30588561.html ) can that work if i buy 2 more of the same ?

2- should the 4:3 screens be a specific size. In other words are 19" better than 20" or vis versa for what ever reason?

3- can u do triplehead with 3 x 24 " widescreen ?

4- when we see pics of surround games on this forum they are the " copy and paste " of the three screens put together, right ?

5- is there a program that can run those 3 screen on one single large wide screen, for ex. a 37 in monitor like this
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?affid=306&item=3W140T

6- there is a new mod for crysis in the works called BFG ( or something like that ) which is a WWII game. If crysis can be played online with 3 screens, is it safe to presume that so will BFG ?

Thank u very much for taking the time and sry for newb questions. I have done searches but everything is so confusing when u know so little to start with.

Jack

3- can u do triplehead with 3 x 24 " widescreen ?
Yes.

4- when we see pics of surround games on this forum they are the " copy and paste " of the three screens put together, right ?
No, they are automaticly one picture when u take screenshot.

5- is there a program that can run those 3 screen on one single large wide screen, for ex. a 37 in monitor like this
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?affid=306&item=3W140T
I think there is no need for any programs to do that.

1- when playing surround with three 4:3 screens is it important which monitor u get to minimize the size of the edges as to have a nicer view of the game ?

Not really. Obviously smaller bezels are better, but your brain does a nice job of ignoring them. I game on three 21" CRTs with gigantic bezels; there are almost three inches between each screen and I don't have a problem with it. Simply put, the immersion of a wide image that fills your peripheral vision is enough to make the bezels not matter.

2- I have a 5 year old dell 2001fp (http://reviews.cnet.com/lcd-monitors/dell-ultrasharp-2001fp/4505-3174_7-30588561.html ) can that work if i buy 2 more of the same ?

Yes. However, that is a 1600x1200 monitor and the TripleHead2Go can only output a max of 1280x1024 to each screen. Not only does that mean you might get a fuzzt image from pixel interpolation, but the aspect ratios of the monitor and the input res don't match (4:3 vs. 5:4) so there will be a slightly stretched image.

If you use SoftTH you can game at 4800x1200 and use three 1600x1200 monitors at their native resolution.

2- should the 4:3 screens be a specific size. In other words are 19" better than 20" or vis versa for what ever reason?

19" monitors with a native resolution of 1280x1024 are generally the best for use with the TripleHead2Go because you get the highest resolution output while still using monitors at their native resolution.

3- can u do triplehead with 3 x 24 " widescreen ?

Yes. The Digital TripleHead2Go offers a 3840x800 resolution. Note that this uses the proper 16:10 aspect ratio per screen, but is only a resolution of 1280x800 per screen versus the 1920x1200 native to a 24" monitor. There will be a lot of pixel interpolation.

4- when we see pics of surround games on this forum they are the " copy and paste " of the three screens put together, right ?

Nope. They are screenshots taken while games are running in triplehead resolutions.

5- is there a program that can run those 3 screen on one single large wide screen, for ex. a 37 in monitor like this
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?affid=306&item=3W140T

You don't need any program to do that. You can simply add a triplehead resolution as a custom resolution in Windows. For that "monitor" (that's not a monitor, it's a TV) the highest resolution you could use would be 1920x480, since the monitor's native res is 1920x1080. There would be black bars at the bottom and top of your screen. You wouldn't want to do this for any purpose other than testing.

On a real high-resolution large monitor, such as 30" LCDs with a native res of 2560x1600, you could try 2560x640, which is still not very good.

6- there is a new mod for crysis in the works called BFG ( or something like that ) which is a WWII game. If crysis can be played online with 3 screens, is it safe to presume that so will BFG ?

Yes. It is the game engine and its parameters that determine if a good triplehead experience is possible.

Thanks alot guys !

My goal is to be able to play my favorite WWII games ONLINE . I enjoy playing Forgotten Hope 2 which is a mod for Battlefield 2 . But Bf2 does not allow u to play on line in surround (TH2G ), Punkbuster detects it and kicks u from the server. Would there be better chances of it working with SoftTH.

JKeefe wrote -> " If you use SoftTH you can game at 4800x1200 and use three 1600x1200 monitors at their native resolution. "

So i guess that would be the altimate thing . From what I read the only problem is that since I can't use SLI when I have SoftTH running I have to have a strong enough card to give me good FPS. Would a 8800 gtx or a 8800 gtx ultra do the trick ?

IS that the major negative with SoftTH ??

THanks
Jack

3x24" is too big. The New Standard in regards to triplehead imo is 5120x1200.

5120x1200 = 1600x1200 on each side with a 1920x1200 in the middle? That gives you uneven screen heights, doesn't it?

jessyjack10,
No SLI is one of the major drawbacks to SoftTH. However, I run triplehead games with a single 7900GT without problems. You definitely don't need SLI. Another big drawback is that SoftTH requires a lot of tweaking and doesn't perform as well as TripleHead2Go, even if you drive the TripleHead2Go with a single GPU. The overhead of getting part of your image to the second GPU takes its toll.