3 monitors (surround gaming) or one big monitor?

[mechanic]

I'm going to get some of those one day, Vulcan. 

[33Vortex]

Having played flight sims online for over 10 years, I've played on most resolutions from 1024x768 and up. The most bang for the buck you can get with a 1920x1200 screen imo typically on a 24" widescreen (16:10) LED. It's a nice resolution which will give you a little more than a larger +30" TV screen which is typically 1920x1080 (HD).

Currently I'm using a 30" LED on a resolution of 2560x1600 and I gotta tell you, nothing beat that for clarity. It is still a fairly big screen comparable to a 30" TV, but with considerably higher resolution than the HD standard of 1920x1080. The level of detail is simply stunning, and you will be able to read the movement of objects (typically aircraft in a flight sim) instantly.

A good 30" 2560x1600 display will cost you a little more than a 3-screen setup including a matrox triplehead2go, but is worth it if you ask me. Whether you prefer 3 x 1680x1050 screens or a single 2560x1600 monitor is totally up to you. I've not tested the triple screen setup so can't honestly say I know the difference, but can imagine the level of immersion from the much wider perspective must be quite something. You will get a impression of speed, especially at low level, that is impossible without the side panels. I opted for maximum detail and image quality, something I do not regret but I don't think you'll regret either option whichever you choose.

Keep in mind though, a big screen does not mean better image quality.

Here is a example of what 2560x1600 looks like. At 59-60 fps it doesn't get any better than this.

download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?k2mdmjyttgv



Image:

[eagl]

Does the graphics card have to work 3 times harder to fill the pixels in the three monitors (i.e. 5040x1050)?  Would that have an adverse impact on frame rate?

Yes it has to work harder, but the reviews I've read have indicated that at even 3x the resolution of a decent 24" widescreen monitor, framerates are very playable with ansio filtering and anti-aliasing turned on.

[Vulcan]

Here is a example of what 2560x1600 looks like. At 59-60 fps it doesn't get any better than this.

Yeah it does actually... Stereo 3D.

[33Vortex]

Yeah it does actually... Stereo 3D.

And what resolution is availabe in the Stereo 3D devices? 800x600? That's just... 

[Vulcan]

And what resolution is availabe in the Stereo 3D devices? 800x600? That's just... 

Ahh actually whatever the monitors go too. (feel silly now? you should )

However if you're talking VR my headset goes to 800x600 (per panel so in 3d it's effectively 1600x600) yup, but that's more than enough given that it's tied to head tracking, it's far more immersive than any bank of monitors would be.

[33Vortex]

Ok I misinterpreted as VR, 1600 is decent but the 600 vertical line kinda screw it. I bet it's immersive but my main concern is image quality, primarily resolution. Doesn't stereo 3D require panels capable of 100 Hz or something? If so that rules out about 99% of the flatpanels on the market.

[boomerlu]

Don't have much experience with big displays and high resolutions or the Tripl-Head.

But from a theoretical perspective, I'd have to say it depends on what you want. Going off of what Turner mentioned about high res - the resolution will give you much better detail. This would probably help greatly in dogfighting (judging the opponent's attitude - speed and direction etc) something which I find quite lacking with my 1280x1024 display and crappy integrated graphics card. I frequently have to zoom in to see that kind of detail. I imagine that would much less necessary with a big high res display.

Tripl-head looks like it's better for SA and immersion. Seems like you'll be able to use your natural peripheral vision to detect threats. Tripl-head would probably be incredible with TrackIR as well.

Note you might be able to use the 3 monitors to compensate for the lower res disadvantage when judging an opponent's attitude by simply zooming in. Might be a good workaround that gives the best of both worlds.

[RipChord929]

With 47inch 1080res, 1024 textures, no zoom is needed, because everything is extremely close to lifesize... You just position the monitor at the correct spot where the windshield frame would be in the real plane... Everything is 1 to 1 visual scale, (or extremely close to reality)... With TIR5, its wow status, like looking out of a real cockpit...
(Actually, measurement wise, 52inch would make the canopy frame/gunsight size about perfect)

With 120hz, there is NO ghosting... 120hz is the standard these days, 240hz is the new thing... So the price of 120s is coming down quickly.. 60hz is yesterday stuff, but they work too, if you get one with good response times.. Be careful what you buy in 60hz, because the manufacturers fudge the numbers on response times... And the bigger the screen, the slower they are... 6ms or less works great, from my own testing before I bought this one...   

Bigger monitor is definately cool, combined with the stick mounted between the knees, pedals, and a side throttle, the game will absolutely suck you IN!  Can't wait to try it with the new WWI planes...

RC

[33Vortex]

Well, big screens are very immersive but what I'm trying to convey is the importance of resolution. Since the human eye is capable of seeing at vastly greater resolution than any human-made computer graphics monitor is capable of, the brain is always lacking visual information compared to what would be available if it was a real situation. So to compensate for that we have the tags, to make it easier to identify planes at range (as well as judge the distance) because it's simply not possible through the computer interface to see what irl would have been identified as friend/foe. Resolution is the #1 factor when it comes to shooting accuracy. Immersion is a completly different aspect and has little to do with resolution, but immersion can be good for SA and it raises the fun factor for sure. This is where the big screens come into play, to get the immersion level and fun factor up.

If the triplehead supported 3 screens at 2560x1600 resolution, I'd be all over it. It will probably be a few years before we see that capacity though.

[Conan]

If the triplehead supported 3 screens at 2560x1600 resolution, I'd be all over it. It will probably be a few years before we see that capacity though.

The SofTH "triplehead" software form Kegetys.net doesn't have the resolution restrictions of the Matrox setup.

I'm using the SoftTH "triplehead" v1.09 rc1 software to quite happily run three Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP Monitors.

Each monitor at 1600x2560 (portrait mount) + 100 pixel overlap, means I run AH in a resolution of 5000x2560 and the three monitors give me a viewable area of about 56" corner to corner.

There's some pictures in this post.

[Spite]

If the triplehead supported 3 screens at 2560x1600 resolution, I'd be all over it. It will probably be a few years before we see that capacity though.

Eyefinity on the newest Radeon 5800 series cards also support that resolution and they test it out on 3 x 30in monitors.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793&type=expert&pid=1

That resolution will quite likely require 2 cards in Crossfire (not currently supported, but coming soon) or the as yet unreleased 5870x2 dual GPU card when running any kind of demanding game.

Nice setup Conan.   

[33Vortex]

The SofTH "triplehead" software form Kegetys.net doesn't have the resolution restrictions of the Matrox setup.

I'm using the SoftTH "triplehead" v1.09 rc1 software to quite happily run three Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP Monitors.

Each monitor at 1600x2560 (portrait mount) + 100 pixel overlap, means I run AH in a resolution of 5000x2560 and the three monitors give me a viewable area of about 56" corner to corner.

There's some pictures in this post.

That's a fantastic setup, and you even rotated the screens vertically. Did you try out a "normal" mount setup ie 7680x1600 resolution? That's probably the setup I'd choose, do you know how it compares to the 5000x2560 res you use?

Also, very nice work on the cockpit. I'll be looking into buying another 2 30" panels now... and the triplehead gear, didn't know that was possible. 

 

[Conan]

Did you try out a "normal" mount setup i.e. 7680x1600 resolution?

Yep tried that first, the three monitors side by side (landscape) take up about 85 inch of desk space i.e. most of the room.

I found this just emphasizes the felling of looking through a post box (albeit a very large one) and made me feel sick.  Portrait mounting helps keep the aspect ratio similar to one large screen but with a slightly larger field of view. (AH Auto Set Field Of View comes up with 111).

Be warned though you'll need some serious computing power to run this sort of a setup.

[33Vortex]

Be warned though you'll need some serious computing power to run this sort of a setup.

Yeah... will need to build a whole new system around that setup. It will probably have to wait until I do my next complete system upgrade so probably best to chill for now and do some research before running to the store lol. The system I'm on now is about 15 months old and I put 2 x GTX280 cards in it to not have any issues with max detail on a 2560x1600 res. Obviously 3 screens demand more computing power than 1 heh.

Thanks for all the info, this is awesome did not even know it was possible.