Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Kazaa on April 13, 2010, 11:43:22 AM
-
So I've got some poker winnings burning a hole in my pocket and I was thinking about buying myself 3 24" displays and second ATI5850 to run in eyefinity.
Is this a little over the top or should I go for it? If you one of the few people who have 3 displays then your opinions would be very helpful in me making a decision.
Kaz.
-
It is a very good idea, or another good idea is to give it to a third world charity where it will be spent on improving poor people's lives :old:
-
Go for it!
-
(http://www.pogbird.com/X45/3mons2.jpg)
(http://www.pogbird.com/X45/3mons1.jpg)
using SoftTH with 3 24" (2 widescreen - one not) - heard you need a fancy displayport monitor or $100 active adapter if you want to use eyefinity ( also thought you a only needed one card for 3 monitors with that)
gl
-
You only need one card to run eyefinity but I wouldn't mind the extra juice two cards in crossfire would give.
It all depends on the performace hit that the extra resolution has.
-
So I've got some poker winnings burning a hole in my pocket and I was thinking about buying myself 3 24" displays and second ATI5850 to run in eyefinity.
Is this a little over the top or should I go for it? If you one of the few people who have 3 displays then your opinions would be very helpful in me making a decision.
Kaz.
Can you buy me the Corsair 800D? :)
-
I'd wait a few months until ATI gets all the kinks worked out Eyefinity. It works on paper better than it does in the real world. Good news though is that ATI keeps improving the Eyefinity support with each driver revision.
ack-ack
-
Get it. I have 3 22" monitors using TH2G. Not only is it downright amazing for games but the abundance of desktop real estate for general computer use is terrific. Just don't try to show it off to the ladies though, that doesn't work.
...heard you need a fancy displayport monitor or $100 active adapter if you want to use eyefinity ( also thought you a only needed one card for 3 monitors with that)
Yeah you'll want to make sure you get monitors with displayport if you're going with Eyefinity.
You've probably found this site already, but here it is if you haven't.
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/ (http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/)
One downside though, you have to make your own desktops. :)
(http://i547.photobucket.com/albums/hh473/cactuskooler/109vs38-1.jpg)
-
give your money to charity! :old:
-
give your money to charity! :old:
I give away enough as it is Zack.
-
Kazaa-
Couple of things to look out for here... I made the transition a few weeks back after much deliberation and research, trying to figure out the best way to go. As with everything else in life, there's always trade-offs.
I was running on a single 24" Sun monitor @ extremely high res which was perfectly fine, but the lure of the triple monitor panoramic view kept niggling at me, so I finally went for it.
Some things to consider:
probably most important, widescreen monitors side by side, especially three 24s are going to squash your view disproportionately like you are looking through a huge slot, like out of a bunker. Some people have no problem with this, others will be very unhappy with the resultant unnatural F.O.V. . I knew immediatly I would hate that kind of result, so I only considered monitors that could rotate to portrait view. This little tidbit of info saved me from making a very expensive mistake.
I tried it in landscape and portrait mode and IMO for a flying sim, having the "normal" field of view using portrait mode makes a big difference - for racing sims, maybe landscape mode would be better, I only use it for AH but at least there is the option to switch to landscape-widescreen if you want.
From all my research, spending all that money for the Matrox hardware is just dumb. The Eyefinity solution appears to be the latest and greatest, but as some have said still relatively new and possibly buggy. I settled for SoftTH (Triple Head to go) for free and although a little hinky to set up at first, (you gotta do the research an read up on the forums) it has been working perfectly once I figured out how to set the resolutions and game settings.
The last general point I will make was probably the hardest to accept. Your frame rate will take a huge hit. Its really very simple and obvious ( although its something I neglected to consider) whatever your FR was with a single monitor, divide it by three and that what you will end up with. I was enjoying 180 - 200 + frame rates before and now it hovers around 60, dropping to 50's in furballs. not terrible, but a significant concession nonetheless.
Is it worth it??
yes - its very cool
yes - having those side screens does make a huge difference in immersion and visualization
yes - your wife/GF will think you're an idiot
yes - it does improve your SA, but not your ACM
negatives:
Those screen bezels - initially they bugged the watermelon outta me, but they eventually are less and less noticable.
3 screens take up a lot of desk space, you're gonna need more room!
you gotta do the research and your homework and will probably need to upgrade something along the way.
Im sure there are many other points I forgot to mention, but those are the ones I thought might help you along. G'luck and btw, no I don't think I could go back to a single monitor. :aok
p.s. there are triple monitor setups available without the bezels, but they are crazy-expensive. you can check them out online, multimonitor.com or something ...very cool but way overprced.
TC
-
This is the way I would go.http://nthusim.com/ (http://nthusim.com/) Its new out but one curved full screen.
-
charity begins at home :old:
-
I think zack1234 has it right. Give that cash to the RamPytho needs a new computer charity. :angel:
-
So Kazaa, how about that 800D? :)
-
Last time I checked you could have crossfire or Eyefinity but not both. They may have fixed that with the last driver release. The last driver allowed bezel correction and I was more focused on that part. If you want the option to run in portrait mode get IPS LCD panels since you'll need the wider viewing angles. Dell has IPS displayport monitors. If you set your field of view to 140 in AH the horizontal middle third of your current monitor is what you see with 3 monitors in landscape mode, assuming the same aspect ratio monitors as your current monitor. In portrait mode it will be what you have now, but in both cases it will be much bigger and higher resolution. Bigger is better. I have gotten used to the reduced vertical view angle in landscape mode. I would hate to go back to one monitor. If Crossfire supports Eyefinity go for it. If not there is always the 5970.
-
JUST DO IT while you can!
I love mine (I only have 3- 19" but would love to go bigger :rock)
(http://i691.photobucket.com/albums/vv272/hotwire_2009/DSC_6269.jpg)
(http://i691.photobucket.com/albums/vv272/hotwire_2009/DSC_6272-1.jpg)