3 monitor surround setup

[Allizia]

Anyone know what else I will need to get this to work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf7St4WQclk&feature=fvst

I know I will need a third monitor obviously, just not sure if I will need a 2nd graphics card etc.

Current setup is:

Antec Nine Hundred ATX case w/ top 8" and front and rear 120mm fans
Top mounted USB, firewire, audio and mic outputs
Corsair 850 watt silent power supply w/ single power rail and quad SLI/Xfire support
Intel Core i7 930 quad core CPU OC to 3.8+ GHz
Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit
Scythe 28 db 120mm fluid dynamic bearing fan
ASUS Socket 1366 ATX overclocker's motherboard
Gigabit LAN and 8 USB onboard
High Definition 7.1 audio onboard
6 GB (3 x 2048MB) DDR3 1600 SDRAM (16 GB MAX MEMORY)
128 GB SATA Solid State Drive for OS and games
2 x 1.5 TB SATA-2 hard disk drive for storage (RAID 1 redundant mirror array)
24x Dual Layer DVD/CD recorder (black)
GeForce GTX 480 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM
ASUS 26" flat panel LCD monitors (1920x1200 full widescreen)

[wangerinlee]

How is that game so far?

[Qaedain]

If you get a GeForce GTX 480, yes, you will need a second identical card to run three monitors. That's $920.

If you get a Radeon HD 5970, you can run three monitors and get comparable performance for $679.

(What in the world is an ASUS Socket 1366 "overclocker's" board? LOL.)

[Allizia]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

[Itchybottom]

If you get a GeForce GTX 480, yes, you will need a second identical card to run three monitors. That's $920.

Can usually be had for $399 a card, if you shop around. Microcenter, Fry's, TigerDirect (with Bing+Rebates). I have two of them (not in SLI though, as my monitor on my gaming PC is 1920x1080 120Hz -- just two machines with single GTX480 cards, the other one just folds)


If you get a Radeon HD 5970, you can run three monitors and get comparable performance for $679.

More comparable to GTX460 SLI. GTX285 SLI is just as fast on most engines. To compare GTX480 SLI to 5970, you'd either need to quad-fire (two of them - since they're essentially 5850) or run a 5970, with a 5870 in tri-fire. 5850/5870 are fine cards for certain.

[Qaedain]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

You'll be disappointed to learn that NVIDIA has had more than their fair share of issues as of late. With a new generation of GPUs on the prowl from both vendors, both have spent the last several months tackling one bug after another.

[Allizia]

You'll be disappointed to learn that NVIDIA has had more than their fair share of issues as of late. With a new generation of GPUs on the prowl from both vendors, both have spent the last several months tackling one bug after another.

Never had a single problem in 10+ years of gaming, with the exception of updating my drivers twice (in 10 years, both in 1999/2000 with EQ) I'll be loyal just for the dependability until that changes.

From what I've heard about FFXIV, nvidia cards play great and ATI cards are crapping out bad, to the point of it being unplayable, especially the higher end ones. I've heard ATI doesn't want to release drivers for it since it has the NVidia logo.

Basically, I have a lot of gamer friends, and a lot of them are hardcore ATI fanbois, but every single one of them has had issues or was unable to do/play something due to drivers or the card at least a few times, while that has never happened to me or most of my friends that use Nvidia.

[mgellan]

I use a Matrox TripleHead2Go for three monitors off a single Nvidia 8400 on my Ubuntu LINUX machine, which turns my three 19" widescreen monitors into a single 3840x1024 (3 x 1280 x 1024) monitor. Kinda sucky card but since I only play EQ on it works just fine. Previously I used it on Windows XP and Vista and works fine with them too, with some added functions (in Linux the windows don't snap to the monitor when you want full screen like in Windows for example, it goes across the whole display) There's a function to slide the images around so the monitor bevels blank out the image (like a window frame) rather than the image ending abruptly on one monitor and resuming from the next column on the next screen, which distorts the image. I set the monitors up so the bevels overlap so I lose half the amount of image per bevel, works really nice. The TripleHead2Go Digital Edition was about $275 in Canada. Here's a link:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/

It's nice to have EQ up in the middle, Alla up on one side and P99 forums up on the other :) I tried running EQ in full screen mode which gives great peripheral vision but the slice is too narrow vertically, got really uncomfortable - the card has a mode for 3 x 1680 x 1050 that I haven't tried to get in Linux (probably Windows drivers only) which I guess would be worse but nice for a single screen image. Then again full screen I'd need a 4th monitor for Alla LOL (you can hook a 4th monitor to the second port on your display board) :)

I have a pic of my setup around here somewhere I'll post if I find it.

Regards,
Mg

[Qaedain]

Never had a single problem in 10+ years of gaming, with the exception of updating my drivers twice (in 10 years, both in 1999/2000 with EQ) I'll be loyal just for the dependability until that changes.

From what I've heard about FFXIV, nvidia cards play great and ATI cards are crapping out bad, to the point of it being unplayable, especially the higher end ones. I've heard ATI doesn't want to release drivers for it since it has the NVidia logo.

Basically, I have a lot of gamer friends, and a lot of them are hardcore ATI fanbois, but every single one of them has had issues or was unable to do/play something due to drivers or the card at least a few times, while that has never happened to me or most of my friends that use Nvidia.


Why even solicit opinions when you've already made up your mind based on empirical evidence?

[Allizia]

Why even solicit opinions when you've already made up your mind based on empirical evidence?

Ehh, I just don't have any reason to switch. Appreciate all the information though

[President]

As far as I can remember I always saw more driver issues with Nvidia than I did with ATI. A simple google search brings up quite a few from the past including "30% of windows vista crashed due to nvidia drivers" and "nvidia drivers causing overheating and card failures". Not to say ATI doesn't have their own issues too, but throwing ATI under the bus as the only company to have driver issues with windows is wrong. However, when I fooled around with Ubuntu about 3 1/2 years ago some ATI cards had issues with Linux drivers, where as Nvidia cards, for the most part, did not. I would surely hope by now that it has been fixed, but if you may want to use Linux, that's something to consider.

Anyway, you forgot to include what stickers you put on your computer case. I'm not sure you computer description had enough detail in it to fully help with a video card decision.

[Uaellaen]

or you can use one of these ...

http://www.multi-monitors.com/SUPER_PC_Multi_Monitor_Adapters_USB_VGA_Matrox_Hea d2Go_s/22.htm

[President]

or you can use one of these ...

http://www.multi-monitors.com/SUPER_PC_Multi_Monitor_Adapters_USB_VGA_Matrox_Hea d2Go_s/22.htm

Not for gaming across three screens he cant.

[Allizia]

Anyway, you forgot to include what stickers you put on your computer case. I'm not sure you computer description had enough detail in it to fully help with a video card decision.

26 Nvidia stickers of course! JK, and my Nvidia references are limited to me and other gamers I know in real life so it's not a complete picture by any means, just personal experiences. The computer details were just a copy/paste of the description from the guy that builds my computers, and making sure everything else was good to go.

I'm was kind of worried about 2 cards generated too much heat or ovewhelming the power supply as well, I can swap cards and install ram chips etc, but I don't keep up the current hardware

[Kelven]

I gave ATI another shot when the 4870's came out, and F&*K i hate it. Completely unstable P.O.S. :mad:

Whenever I "upgrade" again I'm going back to Nvidia. ATI = expensive paperweight.

[nicemace]

my 4870x2 dosent have any stability issues, way better than my nvidia cards i have had in the past

runs a bit hot but you can get a fan patch to up the speed then its all good.

[Overcast]

eh, I tried Radeon once and had nonstop driver issues. Cost isn't really an issue

No idea about the board, computer parts always get creative over dramatic descriptions like Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120 heatsink w/ bolt-thru 1366 mounting kit

The newest Catalyst drivers leave a LOT to be desired. They hosed up my daughter's PC bad. I had to hack it all out of the registry and pretty much delete anything and everything to do with the driver to get the 9.2 (I think) driver to install - but it worked perfectly.

It wasn't the card either - since - I've replaced it with a better Radeon and ran into the same issue - and yeah, the PC's been nuked. It might be her chipset - but still..