I tried 3x1280x1024 now and I still got ~60fps when alone on the track and 45-60fps when racing with a full AI grid. This is with my unoverclocked 7900GT, so it still would be quite playable.
One thing that also would be possible is rendering only one side monitor at a time, ie. render only a 2x1280x1024 frame, cycling between left and right views on each frame (center view on every frame). Though it would cut the FPS on the side monitors in half compared to the middle one, which might look a bit odd.
A little update for those interested, most things are working quite well now and I added Direct3D 9 support too. At least the following games more or less work:
- LFS
- Operation Flashpoint
- LOMAC
- Richard Burns Rally (GUI is stretched over all 3 monitors, and needs FOV forcing which causes some occasional artifacts on the screen edges)
- Oblivion (My video card can't quite keep up though, ~17-25fps outdoors :P)
- rFactor
- X3 Reunion
- GTR 2 (Runs but mouse only works on middle screen, plus gui is stretched on all three so you cant start the race :P)
I also added a "border" feature that renders the frame even wider, and leaves out an adjustable amount of pixels from between the monitors. This makes the transition from one monitor to another look better as there is a bit of invisible zone where the monitor bezels are. LFS doesn't like it though as it no longer detects it as a triplehead screenmode and renders the GUI wrong...
Here is a fraps recorded video of RBR using it. It feels like I'm really going fast now
Jesus christ. That RBR footage was absolutely great. I didn't plan to make such an expense (2 monitors + mainboard + GFX card) but you're obviously forcing me.
A beta version is now available here in case anyone has the hardware to try it. I haven't tried it with anything else than my own system so it might or might not work for you.
Kegetys.I could not race without my momo leds and pitspotter.
Thanks you are very clever and kind to give us these applications. Now three screens awsome.
My question is. Can the side monitors display left and right veiws in lfs. I already have a big widescreen lcd so side monitors would be used as side windows.
Hope this makes sense
Shame i cant use the onboard graphics for a third monitor or can i?
As i only have one pci express socket at moment
thx again
DEFFX
lol 1 post in three years
If this is not possible then i expect you and scawen to sort it im relying on you
Be great to look left and right and see whos next to you.
I will probably post again around 2009 at this rate
Thanks again DEFFX
Maximum FOV you can get in LFS is 120 degrees, and, being a "flat" projection it is not really possible to get proper side views without big distortions.
A man of your talents and scawens i doubt if some sort of lock left/right veiws is difficult.Get together and stir up Bill.The future is online gaming for sure. Probably get yous on the payroll $$$Gates$$. I'm sure a lot of hard core racers\simers would go three screen and see whos left\right. it would defiantly make the experience real. Why is vr so far away? Cheers just rambling DEFFX Post 3 :-) gettin the hang of this not racin lately
What really buggs me about this TripleHead2Go is the refresh rate.
When you have a fast CPU and Grafik Card you want to play at high resolutions such as 1600 x something or at least with 1280 x something.
With the triplehead2 go 1600 x something is not possible at all, and 1280 x something only has a monitor refreshrate of 60 hz. Very uncomfortable, and impossible to use for more than several minutes for most people including me. 75 hz is a minimum for comfortable viewing experience.
With the Triplehead2go you have to stay on a 1024 x something resolution forever. Thats a big thumbs down on what could have been a very nice addition to Gaming.
"TripleHead2Go does is add support for three displays to your existing card. Once everything’s hooked up to your PC, TripleHead2Go looks like one really big 3840x1024 monitor to your PC, no custom graphics driver is needed to get it to work. Matrox uses the EDID standard to report the resolution to Windows (both Windows XP and Windows 2000 are supported), from there the TripleHead2Go module outputs the data from the GPU to the displays. Up to four resolutions are supported: 3840x1024@60Hz (giving you three 1280x1024 displays), 3072x768@75Hz (three 1024x768 displays), 2400x600@60Hz (three 800x600 displays), and finally, 1920x480@ 60Hz (three 640x480 displays)."
its 1280*1024 @ 60hz which is the standard resolution and refresh rate for tft monitors ... and being tfts they dont flicker at all no matter how low you set the refresh rate
and iirc matrox recently added support for triple 1280*960 @ 75 for crts
Ok, I've been trying unsuccessfully to get this to work properly.
I'm using 3 monitors on 2 7800GTs. I can run windowed mode and stretch the screen out and actually have the game playing on all 3 monitors but if i try to stretch it to cover all of the monitors it crashes.
I can get full center monitor and a little half over each other monitor before it will crash. I don't understand why it is crashing when i stretch it further if it will already display and play on 3 monitors.
I know it will not play in fullscreen mode unless windows sees one monitor and I am not trying fullscreen mode just windowd mode.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
That does not work like you probably think. Windows only supports hardware rendering on one adapter so if you stretch the window to all 3 monitors your framerate will drop to zero. Don't know why it crashes though, it "worked" last time I tried it with my GF6600GT and Ati Rage
You should probably give the Kegetys' hack a try it should make it work for you in full screen. http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/
im relying on you