Hi,
Im thinking of getting a triple head go unit and a couple of new monitors to run on my system, but before i go and make the purchase i would like to know if my current system would cope running 3 monitors,

AMD 4000+ 64 single core
1GB of pc 3200 ram
Gainward 7800GS 512mb golden sample AGP

I dont suppose u need more info than that, currently i get 95+ fps on low load down to 40fps at the back of the grid aa and af set to the highest settings in CP,

What sort of FPS loss should i expect? id like to keep my aa and af at full as it looks sooo sublime,

Not sure exactly, but I would of thought there will be a big loss in FPS. Thats why I'm waiting till after I upgrade to get just a second monitor.

Your game has to draw up more objects, trees, cars, skins, skies etc so it will definatly affect it, how much...I dont know for sure.

yeah its the triple head or the PC upgrade, but i really really really want 3 monitors

Quote from FOGlegsy :

I dont suppose u need more info than that, currently i get 95+ fps on low load down to 40fps at the back of the grid aa and af set to the highest settings in CP

...?! cries

I have a 3700 (running at 3 GHz *evil eyes*) a Gainward 7950GT and 1 GB DDR400 RAM and i go under 25 fps with 8xAA at the back of a full grid, and so i have to use 4x

Either way, Triplehead will eat your PC, expect to be using 2xAA or less, although i really don't know what i'm talking about

EDIT - Niall, i'd just like to point out that unless you plan on using one monitor as a "main" one infront of you and another one to the left or right, it will look naff with two screens.

Thats what I plan on doing, the big grey line down the middle is painful. I might even try butchering the 2 monitors to try and reduce the great line.

Firstly - i think the way you want to do it needs a version of SoftTH2Go (with the 3rd monitor disabled), secondly, do NOT try butchering it - the plastic is NOT what takes up the space, it's the silicony-bits. The only way to try to reduce it is to place one slightly behind the other

When i first got my TH2G, the following were my system specs;

AMD64 3200+ Stock (2ghz i believe)
512mb pc3500 ddr
ATI 9800xt 256mb
TH2G @ 2400x600

With that system i got;
Single Player, single car - ~90-100fps with no AF/AA
Single Player, ~10-12 AI - ~40-50fps with no AF/AA
Multiplayer, ~10-20 Cars - ~70-80fps with no AF/AA

Really, there was hardly any difference with this system changing from 1600x1200 with a little AA to the TH2G.



So, to my present system;

C2D 6400 Stock (2.13ghz i think)
2gb Crucial Anniversary ddr2
Nvidia 7600gt 256mb
TH2G @ 3840x1024

With this system i get;
Single Player, single car - ~100-110fps with AF x4/AA x4
Single Player, ~10-12 AI - ~50-60fps with AF x4/AA x4
Multiplayer, ~10-20 Cars - ~70-100fps with AF x4/AA x4


Hope this helps, you'll never look back once you change to 3 monitors

Thx for that jakg, 2 aa and af i could probrably just cope with, anything less would just be criminal!

I guess ill just have to suck it and see, if the fps is way to bad ill just have to upgrade me PC aswell, (tho my missus would not be best pleased, nor my bank manager)
I just hope i dont get it and it kills my PC, as the upgrade in hardware will have to wait 4 months at least,

Upgrade first...I would

Well, I am

Quote from GFresh :

When i first got my TH2G, the following were my system specs;

AMD64 3200+ Stock (2ghz i believe)
512mb pc3500 ddr
ATI 9800xt 256mb
TH2G @ 2400x600

With that system i got;
Single Player, single car - ~90-100fps with no AF/AA
Single Player, ~10-12 AI - ~40-50fps with no AF/AA
Multiplayer, ~10-20 Cars - ~70-80fps with no AF/AA

Really, there was hardly any difference with this system changing from 1600x1200 with a little AA to the TH2G.



So, to my present system;

C2D 6400 Stock
2gb Crucial Anniversary ddr2
Nvidia 7600gt 256mb
TH2G @ 3840x1024

With this system i get;
Single Player, single car - ~100-110fps with AF x4/AA x4
Single Player, ~10-12 AI - ~50-60fps with AF x4/AA x4
Multiplayer, ~10-20 Cars - ~70-100fps with AF x4/AA x4


Hope this helps, you'll never look back once you change to 3 monitors

WOW thx for the info, things are looking up! it looks like the triple head will be my next purchase

Quote from FOGlegsy :

Thx for that jakg, 2 aa and af i could probrably just cope with, anything less would just be criminal!

I guess ill just have to suck it and see, if the fps is way to bad ill just have to upgrade me PC aswell, (tho my missus would not be best pleased, nor my bank manager)
I just hope i dont get it and it kills my PC, as the upgrade in hardware will have to wait 4 months at least,

if you do upgrade you WILL need a new mobo, although you might get a fair bit on eBay for that Gainward

It really is a shame that Gainward is AGP, i reckon that would have been ok to use at least for a while if you upgrade.

Quote from FOGlegsy :

Hi,
Im thinking of getting a triple head go unit and a couple of new monitors to run on my system, but before i go and make the purchase i would like to know if my current system would cope running 3 monitors,

AMD 4000+ 64 single core
1GB of pc 3200 ram
Gainward 7800GS 512mb golden sample AGP

I dont suppose u need more info than that, currently i get 95+ fps on low load down to 40fps at the back of the grid aa and af set to the highest settings in CP,

What sort of FPS loss should i expect? id like to keep my aa and af at full as it looks sooo sublime,

I use TH2GO with

AMD 4000+ 64 single core
2 GB
GeForce 7600 GS

In LFS: 3840 x 1024 no AA no AF

In NR2003: 3840 x 1024, 2 AA, 2 AF

Excelent it seems my system may cope OK for a while, and yes its a dam shame my gainward is an AGP varient as its a pretty good card, thats why if i need to upgrade my PC its really a total overhaul, mobo,GFX and possibly ram,So i get an uptodate PCI system,

It looks like the system will wait and the monitors come first as they will be cheaper than building a new system ( hopefully a C2D and a pretty high spec DX10 card, The bonus is longer i wait for the system the better stuff i can get for lots cheaper than what the bits cost now,

Thanks for all the advice guys,

If you want to upgrade over a little period of time, may i suggest the Asrock 4CoreDual motherboard. It's a very stable board but is useless for overclocking. But you can pick up a new one for <£40 and it has the advantage of being able to use an AGP OR PCI-E card, and it can use DDR AND DDR2 ram so it's great for migrating if you dont want to splash out for a full system right away.
I did it this way and in fact still use the Asrock board as it's so stable, i will be upgrading it to a better board though soon, but this is only because of it's very lmited overclocking abilities.
So basically, you can use your existing RAM and GPU and just upgrade to a C2D for now, adding a new GPU & RAM as and when you want/need to.



Also, refering to the picture above, don't angle in the screens at the side like that as the image is not rendered in this way, it is rendered flat and wouldn't look correct. This is at least true for LFS, but i'm not 100% about other games.

Thanks i will look into this board, it seems the perfect way to start the ball rolling by just getting the chip n mobo at first.

Yeah, it's a great board, basically gets you a C2D system for <£150, or if you went for the C2D E2160 it would be <£100 and guys are getting 3ghz+ on air with them

not on that mobo they dont though

No, as i said in a previous post. But as it would be a temporary migration board, he would be getting a better one at a later date. He wont get that out of it with that board like you say, but i was letting him know the CPU had the potential.


EDIT: I did get 2.8ghz from my e6400 with that board, but it was with some insanely slack memory timings which rendered the overclock nothing more than a number

A friend of mine has just built a C2D system and it does clock very well on his asus board.

P5K by any chance? they are quite cheap and a very good board, there's better around but for the price the P5K series is very good.

Im not sure but he did have problems setting up Raid on his raptor drives, seems if he paid a little extra he could of ran raid with the drives in the case, as it is now they HAVE to be ran externally, £10 more and it could of all been done internally with the deluxe version, now he has to use these L shaped sata leads and run the power wires outside his case.. strange i must say.

the P5K Deluxe is £145, the P5K is £100, so i don't think it was that.

It's also the board on top of my "wish list" :P

Quote from George Kuyumji :

I use TH2GO with

AMD 4000+ 64 single core
2 GB
GeForce 7600 GS

In LFS: 3840 x 1024 no AA no AF

In NR2003: 3840 x 1024, 2 AA, 2 AF

Wow thats amazing! I have the same videocard and I was wondering if it had enough "juice" to feed up three monitors. You answered my question

So this rig is exclusively to play with it? Do you have more pictures of your setup?

Not quite directly comparable, as I'd imagine SoftTH comes with some speed penalty, but with an Athlon 64 3200 and a ATI X1800XT (primary) I can run LFS at 3840x960 with 0xFSAA and 16xAF with very acceptable frame-rates.