Triple Monitors and Aces High

[Mister Fork]

Here's what I've learned from my issues about tripple-head monitors.

If your starting out going triple monitor, you need to know a lot of things about using three monitors and gaming.

• Video cards are now available that have tripple monitor support meaning you no longer have to crossfire or SLI connect multiple video cards or go the Matrox route.
• If you go the Matrox route, keep in mind that the power of the Matrox cards is not as powerful as some of the newer triple monitor single cards, or SLI/CROSSFIRE route
• If you're going with a single triple-port card, it must be powerful - meaning not cheap. Why? Instead of driving 3D gaming at 1980x1080 resolution, you're driving 5940x1080 or 3X the graphical resolution.
• If you wish to go multiple video card, even if your motherboard has multiple card support, it may not be SLI/CROSSFIRE compatible. Check to ensure it does.
• If you're goal is SLI - you need two PCI-E ports to run a minimum 8X. Anything less will result in the NVIDIA drivers disabling SLI.
• ATI CROSSFIRE is more common and flexible at dual-card setups and has more motherboard support than SLI.
• Use Toms Hardware website to determine which CROSSFIRE or SLI performance you can get out of your dual-card budget. They have plenty of reviews and opinions on this subject
• Understand that running triple monitor will reduce your framerates - you may have to lower your graphical settings.
• When setting up a CROSSFIRE/SLI for the first time, do a clean driver install option (if available) to reduce issues
• Running two video cards and triple monitors requires more power from the Powersupply. A minimum of 800W is suggested for triple monitor/dual card support.
• You may want to adjust your field of view with three monitors.

[Sabre]

MF: I just recently completed a new gaming system with a single ATI card set up that will run multiple monitors. I'm getting great frame rates in AH at the 5940x1080 resolution (55fps+), but have one issue.  The center monitor displays everything without distortion, but the side monitors (I have them canted inward about 30 degrees) show everything distorted, i.e. stretched horizontally. Any way you know to fix that? I've tried reducing the FOV, but couldn't do so in just one dimension (so vertical FOV was also reduced); plus, it didn't seem to help all that much.  Thanks.

[ebfd11]

Sabre that is one of the drawbacks with triple monitor set ups, I am running triple 24" monitors and have the same thing going too but after awhile you won't even notice it.

One thing the OP didn't mention is when going triple with Nvidea cards, I don't know about ATI cards, when you set them up you can't use 2 VGA ports an a HDMI port as they are different signals. Now you can use DVI and HDMI or all 3 DVI, but I prefer using 2 DVI on my outer 2 and my center one is HDMI.

There are many good sites to learn about triple monitor set ups so do a google search and have fun.

Now I did notice one thing that I might be wrong on but isn't 1920 x 3 = 5760??
So if your monitor is 1920 x 1080 then 5940 is stretching it way too far and is not the native resolution.

Go into your video card control panel and switch your setup to native resolution, and you won't have the stretching you see now. It may stretch a little but not as bad as it is now.

LawnDart

[Sabre]

Thanks, ebfd11. I honestly don't recall the exact resolution; pretty sure it's the native/nominal resolution (copied the 5940 number from MF's post).  It's only mildly distracting, in any event. Love the increase in SA it provides, too. I was just wondering if there was some setting that would correct it.

[ebfd11]

Unfortunately there is no way to change it. But like I said after a while you won't notice it, BTW it is even weirder when you use track ir with 3 monitors.

Lawndart

[Gman]

I'm going through this as well.  I'm happy with the performance I'm getting, I see constant 59/60 fps on my 3 screen Asus 24" LED monitors, but using TrackIR5 with the Track clip as a first timer has really affected my shooting accuracy as well as my situational awareness.  I'm sure I'll get used to it, and it is said by all who use it to be superior to anything else, it just doesn't seem like it to me.

I had a "single card" solution running initially, a 690 GTX, but now have 2 680 GTX 4gb in SLI, so a total of 8 gb memory, which DOES make a difference in 3 screen, it does use the extra memory especially in some of the new games like Far Cry 3 and Skyrim, and even BF3 which is a year old now.  I think the 2 680's are outperforming the 690 I had, but only by a slim margin.

The fact remains that if you try and do 3 screen on the cheap, with SLI/Xfire cards that are cheap, as in 150$ sort of cards, you probably won't be real happy with the results, unless you turn a LOT of the detail levels down in most games.  A really fast single card like a high end 7970, 680, or 690, or better still SLI/Xfire with any of these other than the 690, is the best option if you want full detail and max FPS.  I'm seeing 60fps maxed out nearly all of the time with all the new games, and with a game like Counterstrike GO, I'm seeing 300+ with the vsync off at times, and that's at ultra detail settings.  The new Shogun Total war will really test this setup when you get a lot of troops on a field with a lot of stuff happening at max detail levels, but it's far from "chugging" still.

[Noir]

for those interested here's how it looks on 3 screens...don't mind the bad graphics my PC is crap 

[Skuzzy]

Gman, the total amount of video RAM available to a game in an SLI or Crosssfire configuration is the minimum amount of video RAM on either card.  Two cards with 2GB of RAM means any game only has access to 2GB of RAM.  If one card has 1GB of RAM, then only 1GB of RAM is available to the game.

That is because both cards have to have all the same resources loaded into the respective cards video RAM in order to draw anything.

[Gman]

Skuzzy, so does that mean with my total of 8 gb only 4 are actually available to the game or win7?  I understand your explanation, but why did the creators design it this way?

[Skuzzy]

Efficiency.

Both GPU's have to render the data to a frame buffer on each video card.  However, only one video card actually sends it to the monitor.  So the slave (the video card not connected to the monitor) simply sends its frame buffer to the master card, after is has completed its rendering.  The master card merges all the data into one frame buffer for sending to the monitor.

Each GPU has to have all the same data loaded in order to correctly render any portion of the video frame, thus allowing all the GPU's to work independently of each other until the frame rendering is complete.

[mipoikel]

How about 3 of these Dell U2913WM 2560x1080 monitors? http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=225-4201&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=11&baynote_irrank=0

It has displayport 1.2 in and out, so you can daisy chain them. 

[Skuzzy]

How about 3 of these Dell U2913WM 2560x1080 monitors? http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=225-4201&~ck=baynoteSearch&baynote_bnrank=11&baynote_irrank=0

It has displayport 1.2 in and out, so you can daisy chain them. 

It is about time someone, finally, implemented the daisy chain.

[Gman]

Ok thanks Skuzzy.  So with this in mind, do you think that a powerful single card solution like the eVGA 690 4gb is a better option than what I'm running now, the fastest 680 gtx 4gb in SLI?  I traded the 690 away after being convinced be several people that these 2 cards in SLI would perform better than the 690 by itself, and the 2 cards were about 150$ more together than the 690 was by itself.  I didn't do a whole lot of testing with the 690 prior to changing out to these 2 sli cards, but they SLI setup is a few fps faster in some of the tests I've run it through, but as far as real world performance, I have nothing to gauge either setup accurately. 

[Skuzzy]

I am not the right person to ask.  I believe in the K.I.S.S. principle and would never stick more than one video card into a computer.

[Bizman]

I believe in the K.I.S.S. principle

Awww! I love that principle!

BTW my phone is a Nokia 6310 and my computer runs XP - and I help people with PC's for living.