Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Balsy on August 10, 2008, 08:30:41 AM
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I got all excited about the triple head to go... and went to their site... Turns out it wont support 1920x1200 across 3 screens, only 3x1680x1050 as of August 5th.. .is this just a programming issue or do you think its hardware restricted?
I have 24 inch dell at 1920 x1200... and I'd like to keep that stretched across 3 if I can..but maybe its more of a horsepower issue than anything.. What kind of PC would you need to drive 3x1920x1200 with decent fps?
Balsy
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The maximum resolution is limited by windows so you're fresh out of luck with high res screens. Triplehead requires lower res displays, irritating as it is.
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It would be great if the triple head to go would allow mixing of different size monitors (or at least, different resolutions), but I doubt we'll be so fortunate. Yeah, not being able to have three 24" screens kinda sucks, and it would be nice to have a 24" in the middle and maybe a pair of 20" flanking it. If the size/resolution ratio could match closely enough, it wouldn't look wierd.
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Does this mean I could set overall resolution to the weakest of the three monitors (CRT or LCD)? If that's true, then I could use a 22" LCD as primary (middle) with two 17" CRTs on either side with the resolution set to 1024X768 (the best resolution with 70HZ refresh of the weakest CRT)? The only way I could afford this is to use two old CRT's in concert with my new LCD.
Is anybody else in the same boat?
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Yes it should be possible although I've seen tests where they had trouble getting a 30" Dell to work with smaller screens. Matrox claims the new firmware updates fixed those problems though.
Another problem seems to be that only nvidia 280 supports 3x1680x1050 at the moment, ATI is stuck at 1440x900 which kinda sucks. I have 2 screens with 1680x1050 ready but the 280 is ridiculously high (and there are reports of nvidia chips having a fatal flaw that is killing them in loads at the moment).
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What kind of PC would you need to drive 3x1920x1200 with decent fps?
Balsy
You'd need some serious hardware. When I was at the EAA, CH Products had a demo booth setup where you could fly FSX or IL2 1946 on 3 displayers. I have no idea what resolution they were running or hardware, but they were custom machines that were watercooled. FSX was sub 30 FPS for sure and IL2 was fairly okay but did have some FPS drops from what I could tell.
You'll probably need an E8400 or E8500 and probably top of the line video card, if not an SLI setup (but would you need the Matrox then?). 3gb of ram and a raptor would help a bit.
If you can't upgrade your current PC to any of this, then from scratch I see it costing about:
$230 processor
$500 video card
$150 Raptor
$80 Ram
$150 Motherboard
$370 24" Dell LCD x 2
$300 Matrox Triplehead
__________________
$2150
+Possible New PSU?
-Stick with standard HD?
-Stick with current RAM
You could break this down to individual products as this is just an estimate.
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You'd need some serious hardware. When I was at the EAA, CH Products had a demo booth setup where you could fly FSX or IL2 1946 on 3 displayers. I have no idea what resolution they were running or hardware, but they were custom machines that were watercooled. FSX was sub 30 FPS for sure and IL2 was fairly okay but did have some FPS drops from what I could tell.
You'll probably need an E8400 or E8500 and probably top of the line video card, if not an SLI setup (but would you need the Matrox then?). 3gb of ram and a raptor would help a bit.
If you can't upgrade your current PC to any of this, then from scratch I see it costing about:
$230 processor
$500 video card
$150 Raptor
$80 Ram
$150 Motherboard
$370 24" Dell LCD x 2
$300 Matrox Triplehead
__________________
$2150
+Possible New PSU?
-Stick with standard HD?
-Stick with current RAM
You could break this down to individual products as this is just an estimate.
Right... I have found out a few things since this post. Namely you will never get to 3x1900x1200 with the matrox product because it is (apparently) hardware limited by the bandwidth of a single DVI cable! So I think the only option is dual vid cards (1+2 cables) to get to 3x19x12, versus the tripleh2go but you would then lose the bezel management of the matrox hardware.
So the choice seems to be (2 new 24inch dells included in both) either paying for a second vid card or paying for the matrox external box. I believe the matrox box provides you with 2 benefits...1. being you dont have to add hardware, and the bezel management...the downside is your resolution limited...
Time to upgrade the PC anyhow :)
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$300 seems steep for the Matrox IMO. I'd rather spend money on another video card for SLI or another VC + SLI Motherboard even if it was more than $300. Granted I'd probably have to stick in a bigger PSU.
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Waste of time and dollars..Look at the perspective of the images all wrong...Lame
:rofl :rofl What is that the leaning tower of Water? :rofl :rofl
Kam
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Waste of time and dollars..Look at the perspective of the images all wrong...Lame
:rofl :rofl What is that the leaning tower of Water? :rofl :rofl
Kam
I believe the AH photos on those 3 screens were photoshopped, not actually gameplay screenshots. Thus the perspective is off.
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in reference to the DUAL vid cards..........
Right... I have found out a few things since this post. Namely you will never get to 3x1900x1200 with the matrox product because it is (apparently) hardware limited by the bandwidth of a single DVI cable! So I think the only option is dual vid cards (1+2 cables) to get to 3x19x12, versus the tripleh2go but you would then lose the bezel management of the matrox hardware.
So the choice seems to be (2 new 24inch dells included in both) either paying for a second vid card or paying for the matrox external box. I believe the matrox box provides you with 2 benefits...1. being you dont have to add hardware, and the bezel management...the downside is your resolution limited...
Time to upgrade the PC anyhow :)
just out of curiosity
The following ATI branded cards have either 4 or 3 DVI connections on the back:
ASUS Radeon EAH3870X2/G/3DHTI/1GB GDDR3 Video Card has (4) DVI connections http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121247
POWERCOLOR AX3870X21GBD4PH Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB 512-bit (256-bit x 2) GDDR4 Video Card has (3) DVI connections http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131100
would this not make it possible to support 3 or 4 monitors using the same resolution and keep the same max allowable refresh rate that DVI cables support? without going through the process of using the triple head to go hardware? and also allow you to specify the desired screen resolution one would like to use?
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No, the triplehead splits one large virtual screen into several monitors i.e. the computer sees one monitor which in reality is several monitors. Several heads on a displaycard enable you to get multiple desktops but only MS flight simulator and a couple other games have support for separate screens rendering multiple displays totally useless for gaming.
IIRC the maximum available resolution is limited not only by DVI specs but DirectX which sets a maximum resolution for 3D.
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No, the triplehead splits one large virtual screen into several monitors i.e. the computer sees one monitor which in reality is several monitors. Several heads on a displaycard enable you to get multiple desktops but only MS flight simulator and a couple other games have support for separate screens rendering multiple displays totally useless for gaming.
IIRC the maximum available resolution is limited not only by DVI specs but DirectX which sets a maximum resolution for 3D.
So your saying its not possible to use multiple cards with multiple cables for gaming...only for windows essentially?
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I think the new multi monitor support in AH is only if you use the Matrox triple head thingy and split the res of one monitor into three
Did you ever get your dell to spin into portrait mode in AH Balsy?
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Did you ever get your dell to spin into portrait mode in AH Balsy?
I'm not Balsy, but I did rotate my Dell 24" lcd into portrait mode to try Aces High in, after reading that some others did that. I couldn't stand it. I saw pretty much the same stuff side to side as I did before, but my monitor is just under 13" side to side, while it's almost 21" wide, and I couldn't stand having the same stuff I see in landscape mode side to side being squished down into 13". Yeah, i saw plenty more at the top and bottom of the screen, which would be cool, but I couldn't deal with how narrow the view was, so I changed it back.
Heck yeah on the upcoming change to a true widescreen mode! Wish the matrox hardware could support 3x1920x1200 but oh well. It would totally rock.
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So your saying its not possible to use multiple cards with multiple cables for gaming...only for windows essentially?
Yes most graphics cards support dual displays nowadays and by adding another card you can have 4 desktops. But as I said game support for multiple monitors is missing and will most likely never be there because of rarity of multiple desktops hence market opportunity for Matrox.
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Yes most graphics cards support dual displays nowadays and by adding another card you can have 4 desktops. But as I said game support for multiple monitors is missing and will most likely never be there because of rarity of multiple desktops hence market opportunity for Matrox.
I would think there would be a software solution that could do what the Matrox does (but with multiple GPU's).
Edit: Apparently this is more completlicated than it sounds.
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I think the new multi monitor support in AH is only if you use the Matrox triple head thingy and split the res of one monitor into three
Did you ever get your dell to spin into portrait mode in AH Balsy?
Yes.. eagler I tried it and didn't fly so well. BTW I just ordered 2 more Dell 24inchers and a the matrox triplehead to go thingy :).
Its of course for work purposes only (cough cough) :aok Lots of spreadsheets and such...
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How are you going to use it if the matrox hardware won't allow you to triple up three monitors at 1920x1200? Are you going to down-res the monitors to 1680x1050? You realize they'll look like crap that way right? In that case you'd be better off if you had three 22" widescreens (which have 1680x1050 native).
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Well.. I already have 1 24 inch monitor...I realize I have to down-res... I would prefer 3x19x12,and will be able to support 19x12 when the tecnological/hardware hurdle is crossed. If I buy 3 22 inch monitors it would cost the same, give me the same resolution Im going to get on the 24inch monitors, and not give me an "upgrade" path when they figure it out.
ergo... 2 24inch dells on the way.
In the meantime, with that much display area, I can always sit back another foot and I doubt it will look "like crap".
Balsy
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If the image quality suffered, the 3 LCD's more than make up for it.
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If the image quality suffered, the 3 LCD's more than make up for it.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/matrox-triplehead-2-go-digital-edition-dvi-review/2 (http://www.guru3d.com/article/matrox-triplehead-2-go-digital-edition-dvi-review/2)
Sounds like it may be possible in the future so Im in a good upgrade path.
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Hey guys, It seems that many of you are getting discuraged about the addition of widescreen support because of the limitations of the Matrox hardware. I currently use AH with three monitors using a software program that tricks the computer into thinking it has one extremely wide monitor instead of three seperate displays. You can download the software here= http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/ (http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/)
The System I use has a Q9450 CPU, EVGA 780i MOtherboard, EVGA 9800GX2 card (I run all three displays off of this one card [two DVI and 1 HDMI), two 20 inch monitors running 1600x1200 and one 26.6 monitor running 1920x1200.
The setup is not ideal for flight simes because the monitors are not all the same size. When I play AH it is at a resolution of 5120x1200. With the current system the view is soo cropped that by the 4x3 limitation that the only way to use it is with Track IR, but once they provide for widescreen support. This will work perfectly!
If you have any questions, you can e-mail me at texas_rockdog@hotmail.com and I'll do what I can to help you out. If this works the way I expect it too, I'm going to buy three 480P projectors and finally finish my cockpit!!!!
I have both scrren shots taken through AH and video of the setup working if you are interested in seeing them let me know and I can e-mail them.
The bottom line, for those that can afford three monitors (Who can't find three 20" monitors?") AH is about to become a whole new game!
Rockdog
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Hey guys, It seems that many of you are getting discuraged about the addition of widescreen support because of the limitations of the Matrox hardware. I currently use AH with three monitors using a software program that tricks the computer into thinking it has one extremely wide monitor instead of three seperate displays. You can download the software here= http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/ (http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/)
The System I use has a Q9450 CPU, EVGA 780i MOtherboard, EVGA 9800GX2 card (I run all three displays off of this one card [two DVI and 1 HDMI), two 20 inch monitors running 1600x1200 and one 26.6 monitor running 1920x1200.
The setup is not ideal for flight simes because the monitors are not all the same size. When I play AH it is at a resolution of 5120x1200. With the current system the view is soo cropped that by the 4x3 limitation that the only way to use it is with Track IR, but once they provide for widescreen support. This will work perfectly!
If you have any questions, you can e-mail me at texas_rockdog@hotmail.com and I'll do what I can to help you out. If this works the way I expect it too, I'm going to buy three 480P projectors and finally finish my cockpit!!!!
I have both scrren shots taken through AH and video of the setup working if you are interested in seeing them let me know and I can e-mail them.
The bottom line, for those that can afford three monitors (Who can't find three 20" monitors?") AH is about to become a whole new game!
Rockdog
Wow.. thank..what kind of fps do you get in AH?
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I keep Vsync on so I only get 60fps. If I turn it off I get 100-120fps at that resolution, but I get horizontal tearing when panning left and right using Track IR. On a single monitor running 1920x1200 in SLI I get 250-400fps. (All visual setting at max.)