Triple Heaven!

[DuallyKickass]

Here we go, i did say i was gonna get 3 x 21inch crts

I managed 3 x 21inch sony crt trintron flat screeens!!

[johan851]

Let me be the first to say that I am very impressed. What do you use it all for?

[DuallyKickass]

Widescreen games :)

[johan851]

The Matrox can handle games at resolutions that high? And what games support it?

[neo_18]

Widescreen games :)


LOL... Nice Setup! :D

[kenkun]

Damn, nice setup..... It doesn't seem very pratical, though, but that's just my opinion. Do you really do $1500+ worth of gaming? That seems like a lot to spend, just for games... Anyway it is very nice in any case, I'll give you that. :)

[johan851]

If you have the money, why not? Shoot, I'd do it, just for the "wow" effect. :D

[DuallyKickass]

I'm 16 years old

I got three monitors for £170 GBP and thats about um $280?
Then the gfx was bout £150 GBP and thats about um $250?

So just over $500

Loads of games support it

[a c i d.f l y]

I wanna know how the hell you got all three monitors for $280!

-Frank

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

damn, I wanna know too. I goess it's not good for just games. If you tend to work in alot of windows at once it at least allows you the extra desktop room.

Got a question that I've wondered, actually, 2.
First, does the one graphics card, then, have 3 analog outputs for the 3 moniters? Second, when you're in windows (I'm a windows user), you can basically drag an icon or window from one screen to the other, right? When you maximize a window, does it fill up all 3 screens or just the one it's on?

[kenkun]

I'm 16 years old

I got three monitors for £170 GBP and thats about um $280?
Then the gfx was bout £150 GBP and thats about um $250?

So just over $500

Loads of games support it

Jeez, will if you put it that way, I don't blame you at all for doing what you did. Heck, I think anyone in the right state of mind would have done the same. For $280 huh? Were those monitors used, on clearance, etc? Give us some info here, don't jsut leave us hanging after telling us something like that. :) hehe
Sweet setup though... *drool*

[johan851]

Got a question that I've wondered, actually, 2.
First, does the one graphics card, then, have 3 analog outputs for the 3 moniters? Second, when you're in windows (I'm a windows user), you can basically drag an icon or window from one screen to the other, right? When you maximize a window, does it fill up all 3 screens or just the one it's on?
Don't know about analog vs. DVI. A lot of the Radeon cards come with adapters to convert the DVI output to analog and allow two monitors.

Yeah, you can drag something from screen to screen, but when you maximize it'll only maximize on the monitor it's on.

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

Don't know about analog vs. DVI. A lot of the Radeon cards come with adapters to convert the DVI output to analog and allow two monitors.

Yeah, you can drag something from screen to screen, but when you maximize it'll only maximize on the monitor it's on.
damn, that's awesome, I could have photoshop, FlashMX, and Frontpage at my fingertips all at once.

[HotKoala]

Yeah, you can drag something from screen to screen, but when you maximize it'll only maximize on the monitor it's on.

With Matrox you get to choose. Holding ctrl and maximising gets you full screen over all monitors. Double-click or maximise gets you one monitor.

[daba]

Very nice, my friend has some 3x 18'' KRS CRT monitors, and they are absolutely excellent.

I for one am looking for another 1800FP to start a dual monitor set up with this one. I'm in love with it!

[DuallyKickass]

Hi,

I got the three monitors from an office clearance, the companys that get payed to refurbish offices end up with all the old stuff and then have to 'recycle it' so generaly they sell them. The monitors arent in very good condition, they are very worn and the stands are cracked, apart from that they are great.

The graphics card i use is a matrox parhelia and it has three heads, my desktop resoltion is set at 3840 x 1024 pixels, i can play widescreen games at up to 3072 x 768 pixels, which is great fun on call of duty etc.

As for the maxamizing, i have this window maximized on this screen, winamp floating in screen 2, msn docking to the right hand side of my screen, as HotKoala sais, you hold cntrl and it spans accross all three, which i find pointless, but oh well!

Thanks for the feedback guys.

[PCGUY112887]

99.999% of games will only play on 1 of the monitors, leaving the other 2 at the desktop. There are a few games that support widescreen... and it's a flight sim.

Now I dunno if that matrox card you have is the one made to spread games across the monitors, but even if you spread the games accross woulde't it look horribal? I run dual monitors and coulden't think of gameing across them, it would look like total crap.

Unless, your center monitor looks exactelly like the game on a singal monitor would, and the other 2 are the games peripheral vision :P. Now that would rock, and take time getting used to... talk about those warning about seizure on game boxes :P

BTW you might like this....
http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

[johan851]

Unless, your center monitor looks exactelly like the game on a singal monitor would, and the other 2 are the games peripheral vision :P. Now that would rock, and take time getting used to... talk about those warning about seizure on game boxes :P
Increasing resolutions on a single monitor doesn't stretch the game, does it? It just increases the viewing area. Multiple monitors should just give peripheral view.

[DuallyKickass]

PCGUY, really, you should do some research before you make such points.

I can play more games than flight sim widescreen, i can assure you that.

I currently play:
Call of Duty,
Moto GP 2
Quake 3 Arena
Colin Macrae 4,
Prince of Persia,
Need for speed underground.

Loads more etc, also try looking here: http://www.matrox.com/mga/3d_gaming/surrgame.cfm

As for having stretched screen games, no, they work different in most occasions, some of the time it stretches the game, and you set the FOV height and width different so that characters arent stretched, this means in effect its not stretched, then Matrox Power Desk HSF can fix the strteched hud effect.

Also m8, you cant play one game on one monitor and desktop on the other two, thats ridiculous, youd need to run the game windowed.

Thank you

[JoT]

Also m8, you cant play one game on one monitor and desktop on the other two, thats ridiculous, youd need to run the game windowed.

Thank you

That's incorrect; with a system with non-Matrox cards, that is what happens with games that don't span, and usually causes lots of problems as well.

[PCGUY112887]

How is it ridiculous? That's what I do all the time. You can't move over and control the desktop, but you can see it and say you have MBM running on it, it will update.

[johan851]

Same thing happens for me too. Games run, but the other screen sometimes wigs out a bit depending on the game's resolution. Can cause some problems too...but it still displays the desktop.

[HotKoala]

How is it ridiculous? That's what I do all the time. You can't move over and control the desktop, but you can see it and say you have MBM running on it, it will update.

There are more than one kinds of multimonitor display types. I know they might be transparent to the casual user, but the OS treats it much differently.

For games to span over all monitor, it is ideal to have them display as an entire desktop. As in, Windows actually sees one desktop rather than two or three seperate ones at the same resolution.

This is what the P uses in triple display mode. It's easier to get 3D running one a "stretched" display. If you were to game on a single display game, the other monitors would go blank, as the additional resolution is not there; all three displays act as one. This is why he says the single display game would only be possible in windowed mode.

What you are running is an independant multimonitor solution. You can choose resolution and colour bitrate independant of each monitor. You can only have 3D acceleration on one display. (Usually the one you designate at the primary.) When you start a game, only the primary display switches to the game. The other display stays as normal. This is why you say you do play your game on one and look at the desktop all the time.

Just about everything in Ultramon is built into Matrox's drivers, too.

[DuallyKickass]

Yes, of course its possible to run a desktop on one, from a standard grafx, but the second monitor that aint using 3d hardware aint going to be able to do 3d, it will do windows 2d stuff, and still lag the 3d monitor if you havent got a good card.

=D

[germanjulian]

take a picture of a game running. I wanna see :) or a print screen (lol that would be large).

so how is the graphics performance with that card? sureley rendering on 3 screen has a huge performance hit then rendering on 1. and the maxtor card is not as powerful when it comes to dx8 and dx9 stuff then a 9800 pro etc is it?!!
and how warm does it get in ur room :)3


EDIT: just read a review. WOOOHHH amazing... not that much slower using souround viewing. preety cool shame about only dx8 not dx9... but I suppose a new card would fix that.

cheater!!!! u can see stuff normal people would not see on their screen

[DuallyKickass]

Yep, if you play Call of Duty widescreeen online they call you a cheat lol coz ur feild of view is different.

Unfortunatly my cameras broken, but i did the screenshot thing of a replay on motogp2. great game that is.

http://www.renegaderangers.co.uk/s_upload/files/motogp2.jpg

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

sweet

[Radical]

That's awesome. Someday I'm hoping to get 3x20" LCDs for tri-screen gaming.

[DuallyKickass]

Problem is, the quality aint no radeon 9800 pro or anything, its pretty basic!

[johan851]

Yeah, the Matrox's 3D performance is about equal to that of a midrange card...no pretty high resolutions with AA and AF. :-/

Not that three monitors isn't pretty by any means...

[Cerberus2k7]

That's incorrect; with a system with non-Matrox cards, that is what happens with games that don't span, and usually causes lots of problems as well.

That's actually the biggest problem with ATi cards. Nvidia cards have a much easier time with that kind of thing.

And slick setup ^_^ My friend said that's pretty nice. He's running Quad Samsung LCDs :D

[upstreamcurrent]

He's running Quad Samsung LCDs :D
:drool: :drool: :drool: