Widescreen Gaming Forum

I notice a lot of times when people are having issues, it ends up being - for instance - GPU's with not enough VRam.

This time last year, I myself knew nothing about multi-monitor set-ups. I stumbled upon a link to the Matrox TripleHead2Go, which eventually lead me to this site. After looking through WSGF, I had decided that my next computer build would be a triple monitor set-up.

Since I knew nothing about how to go about it, I started researching. I think I spent up to 2hrs a night, sometimes longer, 3-4 nights a week, looking up benchmarks, reviews, comparisons and anything else I could find. I weighed what I read on one site with info from many others.

When I felt I knew what I was going to need, I started piecing components together with "Wish Lists", and started checking up on those combinations and on what new components were due to be released.

With that said, I was thinking it would be helpful to have a sticky (if there isn't one that I missed) of an outline of a typical (wrong word?) multi-monitor setup. I know the combinations of components would be too large to get into (not to mention getting into a "this-brand" over "that-brand" war), but I'm thinking something a little simpler - a starting point. Maybe something like a Recommended Minimum specs type of thing.

Uldred

I've thought about doing a buyer's guide for a while, but I'm so swamped with stuff at the moment. I agree, it's a great idea.

Instead of having one person do all the work this is probably something that we can manage to do as a collaborative effort.

Have a thread where people can list current deals on parts that work well for eyefinity and have somebody take care of the master post to sort of organize it into the optimal current system.

Probably broken down into 3 sections.

"Budget Rig"
"Mainstream"
"Extreme Gamer"

I can do a little write up for the type of things to look for and maybe write the guidelines for the price range. Also get us started with the first system builds.

From there try to have the community maintain it.

I'll need help for outside the US probably since I am not too familiar with places to purchase.

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For buying in the Netherlands I can help. My rig is also almost complete so happy to trow in my experiences. :)

I realise this is something that we could do with more coverage and help with.
So I sat down and had a think..

As I was discussing on IRC, about potentially building a eyefinity config/setup tool, ie select the number of monitors and resolution you wish to drive, and what signals, ie dvi/vga/hdmi, then try match a gfx card to it.

Or select a gfx card and show what connectors are required for x number of displays.

Does anyone think its worth having a gpu list ?
Like we have with monitors and games ?

I'm thinking if we had a gpu list, with brand, model, edition, shader cores, clock speeds, chipset, pci-e speeds, power draw etc...
then I could potentially make a gpu page like a game DR... where it details all the info, but recommends cards to sli or cfx with.

Maybe a "Do you want to run in eyefinity/surround" box detailing what addtioal parts you would require to run eyefinity etc,
like SLI for nvidia, and list some compatible cards to SLI with or eyefinity and list some compatible DP>DVI.

Maybe could potentially tie it in with the monitor list, so you can select your monitor from a drop down list (or create a new) which already details how many dvi/vga/hdmi/dp ports a monitor has etc

just floating the idea out there.

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I would think trying to list all of the gpu's and everything would make for a very large, and intimidating "outline".

I guess I was thinking as simple as:

CPU - Any
Motherboard supporting the CPU you're going with, and can handle two GPUs, preferably 2@ x16, or (worse case?) 1 @ x16, 1@ x8.
Ram - Subject to other choices
GPUs with at least 1.5gb-2gb VRam each, and they have to be identical VRam amounts.
PSU - Subject to everything being installed.
SSD/HDD - Personal preference / Budget limit
Monitors - Personal pref./budget, aim for IPS types. (specify connections based upon GPU choice, if applicable)
Other components...

During my research, I read some form of this a million times - "With AMD, you just need 1 card to run 3 (or more) monitors, and with NVidia, you have to have two cards" and I would hope any outline would avoid saying it like that's an overwhelming advantage for AMD. My take on that was: I want the power of two cards to drive three monitors, regardless of which manufacturer I chose. Once I saw the GTX 580's with 3gb, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
I've been working on a heavily modded Oblivion, and in initial "tests" with 3x1 Landscape, I was pushing 1.8g of VRam usage. And I'm still adding more texture mods. What little I did in Skyrim, I was pushing 1.6gbs of VRam usage, with default Ultra settings, no mods yet. Knowing that, I doubt I would even think of using 1.5gb VRam cards, but that's me.

Uldred

Hi, everyone, new guy here.

I think that it would be helpful to just start very simply. The iterations of gpu, monitor(s), etc would probably be a mammoth undertaking, so why not start with a simple "How to get started" list? I'm the opposite of Uldred101 (to my detriment) in that I grabbed a monitor for cheap, then bough two more just like it only to discover that for eyefinity I needed display port. I also bought a passive adapter because I didn't know the difference, and it wasn't until my new monitors arrived that I discovered it.

Pretty boneheaded I know, but something very basic that compares and contrasts all the options, and the very minimum you need to get started, in very generic language would be helpful for many, I think.

FNH