Well the family is away so I thought I'd steal some of their monitors (and graphics cards) and try Soft tripple head today. Needless to say I was skeptical to start with, not sure how well it would work.

However I am amazed at how well it works. A real thank you should go to kegetys

The spec I used is as follows:

1x 8800GTS 320MB
1x 7300LE
1x Acer AL2051W 20" lcd
1x Acer AL1714 17" lcd
1x God only knows what 17" lcd
and the rest of the specs are in my sig.

Running at 3840x1024 I get 80fps on my own, yet to try it with a full grid.

Now all I need is 3 20" lcds and I'll be laughing

So if you can grab a few monitors and a cheap 2nd graphics card it's well worth a try

Couple of (crude) pictures.

ah balls, i've got a dual monitor setup (22" WS and a 17") and i've had a 17" TFT "kicking around" my room for ages, but no spare graphics card to use it with.

Anyone know if i could use an ATi Card (x1300...?) and an nVidia (7950GT) at the same time? i doubt it, but t'would be worth a try.

Hmm yer, not sure really. Luckily the new forceware drivers cover both the 8 series and all other Nvidias so I was lucky there, not sure what would happen with Ati and Nvidia drivers.

Always good to have stuff kicking about, I've only got this till they get back on Saturday though

Hmmm, I have a decent 17 CRT and VERY old 17 and 15 inch CRTs. Problem is, I can't even connect up 2 displays to my gfx without LFS dropping down to single digit FPS. Then again, I was trying to set it all up for FS9 so I could fly on one and surf on the other. I probably didn't have it all configured correctly. But when I changed back, it took me all day to do because I ended up having to scrub the drivers and reinstall, which then couldn't get the control panel to reinstall, thus no more AA/AF.

Mike - don't you have a x1950 Pro? that should NEVER give you single digit fps...

Yer should be more than fine with the 1950. Sourcing another pci-e card can be a bit of a pain... I had to grab mine from the family Dell. You can pick up low-end cards for maybe £10 or so on ebay though so it's not too expensive.

I'm considering getting a couple of matched cheap LCDs myself and setting it up permanently. Just been playing Oblivion and its so engrossing being able to see so much

I find even with the default 75 deg FOV, Oblivion looks really warped on the side screens, more-so than LFS at 100 degrees. Not sure why, perhaps it's related to distance of objects? Certainly fun though, although annoying at the, erm, thing tab brings up is stuck on the left-most display. Have to crook my neck all the time.

Yer I agree with that. I want to get it going with CS:S but have had no luck yet

lol pb32000, those curtains are soooo cool

Lol cheers.

Shot in the dark here, anybody got this working with Counterstrike Source? Tried it in dx9 mode and it crashes at the menu, and in dx8 mode all I got on the screen was what seemed to be the remains of what was left in either video or system ram, very messy

Quote from Jakg :

Mike - don't you have a x1950 Pro? that should NEVER give you single digit fps...

You think I have an x1950, I thought I bought an x1950, but in reality, it is an x1650. My mistake when I bought it and posted back when I did. I really did think it was an x1950. Oh well, it was still dirt cheap and still FAR BETTER than the ole onboard chip....

But I did drop to single digit frames in both FS9 and LFS when I tried to connect 2 CRTs (one via adapter to the what-ever-it's-called for LCD display plug). I didn't try too hard. I really only wanted to fly FS9 on one and either have FSNavigator running on the other or a web browser while I fly. Neither would run well, but like I said, I only tried once to configure.

hardcore LFS racer tis ok i suppose to have that kind of setup if you have money to burn or in most peoples cases on lfs are 16 or under and nag your parents till they give in. myself im happy with my SINGLE 17" and my cheap wheel from pc world

I have a little question ( I don't feel like opening a new thread).

Does anyone have any idea which graphic card is enough to play LFS with Triple Head To Go?
That is with full grid and not so bad FPS on the start

Thank you in advance

Random question (yes I know this is a Bump)...

I assume the 20" runs at 1680*1050, and the 17"s run at 1280*1024 - if the area rendered is a rectangle, what happened to the extra 26 pixels of height on the middle screen?

I am looking into Triple Monitors (again), but it seems that the pixels on my 22" are "bigger" than the pixels on the 17" second monitor so object wouldn't scale well - do you think i'd notice?

IIRC the image on each screen was rendered at it's native res, so it was, as you say, 1680x1050 + 1280x1024 either side.

The pixel pitch of the different monitors is slightly different yer, but I really didn't notice it too much, I think the gap between the monitors means you notice it less, I imagine if there were no gap it wouldn't look quite right.

I reckon Jack if you went for that 24" in your other post (you know my view on cheap panels :P Although might be semi-legit if it's not a TN) and then had even 2 17s either side it would be quite good. 19s would be preferable I guess. Either way SoftTH can render each screen at a different resolution, so they'll all be at native resolutions.

24" + 17" + Extra GFX Card = £250 ish

17" + Extra GFX Card = £50.

Quote from Jakg :

Random question (yes I know this is a Bump)...

I assume the 20" runs at 1680*1050, and the 17"s run at 1280*1024 - if the area rendered is a rectangle, what happened to the extra 26 pixels of height on the middle screen?

I am looking into Triple Monitors (again), but it seems that the pixels on my 22" are "bigger" than the pixels on the 17" second monitor so object wouldn't scale well - do you think i'd notice?

I'd be careful about running in different resolutions, it might have just been a one-off for me but I ran a 19" 1280x1024 alongside a 17" widescreen 1280x800 and after about a day my graphics drivers failed and I needed to reinstall my drivers, it then did it again after about another day, since I took out the widescreen its been fine again.

If your going for triple monitors, I suggest getting all the same sized monitors, although people have ran widescreen's with square monitor's before.

Quote from mcintyrej :

I'd be careful about running in different resolutions, it might have just been a one-off for me but I ran a 19" 1280x1024 alongside a 17" widescreen 1280x800 and after about a day my graphics drivers failed and I needed to reinstall my drivers, it then did it again after about another day, since I took out the widescreen its been fine again.

If your going for triple monitors, I suggest getting all the same sized monitors, although people have ran widescreen's with square monitor's before.

Bit late for that now, i've just bought a passive 6600GT for £13 delivered off eBay (BARGAIN!) and now i just need to find a monitor identical to my 17" Iiyama E431S - Mismatches annoy me.

I'm using SoftTh with a 8800GTX + 7100GS.
24" Dell @ 1920x1200 center and 19" LG @ 1280x1024 on the sides. Works great, the game renders as if the vertical res is 1200 for all monitors, but the parts that the side monitors can't show are black in screenshots. I adjust the height on the 24" so it lines up nicely with the others.
I've also configured an offset to account for the monitor frames, that's why the image doesn't fit properly.

rFactor screenies sorry!


Things are rendered like this:




but actually looks a bit like this:

Quote from jfgcatalan :

I'm using SoftTh with a 8800GTX + 7100GS.
24" Dell @ 1920x1200 center and 19" LG @ 1280x1024 on the sides. Works great, the game renders as if the vertical res is 1200 for all monitors, but the parts that the side monitors can't show are black in screenshots. I adjust the height on the 24" so it lines up nicely with the others.
I've also configured an offset to account for the monitor frames, that's why the image doesn't fit properly.

rFactor screenies sorry!


Things are rendered like this:




but actually looks a bit like this:

Ok, now I need to get a third monitor and consider a 24-incher