Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hi people...

I have just got 2 20" widescreens and I have tested out some games using Dual Display..It's kinda fun.But its not much of an experience since when you play FPS games you are ofcause centered in the middle and its very difficult to aim/hit something..And it's almost like you see double in a way..I have also tested out some racing games..that is a little more fun..but ofcause I am still centered in the middle...And by the way..when cranking up the resolution to 3360*1050 really ofcause drops your framerate so low it's almost not fun to play..Its not all the games I have tested has not been effected by this...so much

Well anyway...When you guys who are using TripleHead2Go cranks up the resolution don't you experience major framerate drops too??

Or is the way that TripleHead2Go is build not to do that? or what..
I have no clues what so ever about TripleHead2Go so please teach me..

I read somewhere...think it was here that matrox is working on making TripleHead2Go work with widescreen monitors...

Because the resolution goes quite high, you do indeed take a large performance hit.

I'm sure the users on this forum that use TH2G have quite fast PCs :P.

I have no experience (dual CRT user atm, but looking into a triple LCD setup with new system soon).

Anyway, this was also (still) a concern of me, the fact triple monitor is extremly nice and give you a complete new game experience.
I 'think' it works all pretty much ok, IF you indeed have a SLI setup to feed the big resolution. It is a known fact that SLI only really gives it potentional when on nigh resolutions.

The good thing about the Matrox box is imho the fact it only requires 1 display input (SLI enabled source). The fact the box only allows max. 3840x1024 might be limited (1280x1024 per screen) but on the other hand i think this is good enough (per screen) and this shouldn't be to heavy for the GPU.

But again, no experience with this, but i'm also pretty interested in the 'real' difference as this will 'make-or-break' my surround gaming purchase.

Your resolution of 3360x1050 produces 3.53M pixels. The highest TH2Go resolution is 3840x1024 and it produces 3.8493 pixels. You can lower the resolution to 3072x768 which produces 2.36M pixels.

There are also a couple of "Wide TH2Go" resolutions that produce smaller pixel counts as well. They are 3840x768 (2.95M pixels) and 3840x720 (2.76M pixels).

The performance hit you take when running a game in triplehead can vary quite a bit. If you are already CPU-limited, then nothing much will happen. If the game you are playing is already GPU-limited, then tripling the pixel count can cause some serious framerate drops.


Not everyone that uses triplehead uses SLI. I am one that does triplehead on a "budget" (in quotes because it still costs significant money). I use a single 7900GT and 3 21" CRT monitors that I got used. All of this totals much less than $1000 instead of the $1500+ you would spend with SLI and LCD monitors. In almost all cases my framerates are fine in triplehead, and I can reduce settings acceptably when they are not.

Yeah its a huge upfront cost, but the LCDs should be go for at least 3-4 years when supierior tech will make you want to upgrade anyway. But once the screens and TH2G are done then you still have to face even more stringent GPU requirements for new games since they are developed for performing at 1/3 the resolution often times.

But its worth it, for ofice apps and games, IMO.

I wasn't even concerned with it's cost, it is about streamlining the usage. Comparing DVI to analog, the converters int he LCD's themselves it is said that you wouldn't notice except in benchmarking. for 3D you cant go over 4096 pixels anyway, so I went wih inexpensive analog LCD's without frills (the DVI ones have USB ports replicators and speakers, which I don't need) and the analog TT2G.

Setup is nice and easy.

If I upgrade my system, I'll plug it into a DVI with a converter pkug and continue, NBG...

the system is key, you don't take alarge hit on performance, your card and system has to handle it to begin with, somewhere on the forum was a comparison (or on matrox's site) between what your card does to generate the hi res pic on one screen and what it pumps out for the 3 screen resolution, but that output goes to the matrox and it splits it to the 3 lcd's.