SoftTH - Triplehead in software, no TH2G req'd!

DarKcyde · Post by **DarKcyde** » 23 Jan 2007, 06:32

I just discovered this in my travels:

http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

Its basically a hacked direct3d.dll that lets you do triple head without the dedicated matrox hardware. There's some performance penalty of course, due to the need to copy two framebuffers across to system memory. However, this would let anyone w/ multiple monitors to try out the TH2G effect.

Discuss. 8)

JohnnyWakko · Post by **JohnnyWakko** » 23 Jan 2007, 07:09

Very interesting. He should of used some decent LCD monitors to make the PICs though, those three CRT's look "shizenhouzen!"

So you still need two PCIe cards though. Hmmmm. Althought, you could get a cheap-arsh one to pull the 3 monitors, as all the work is on the single one. Could be good for some lower RES games. This could be a great alternative. Althought, I think TH2G would be just as an effective solution seeings that I believe you only need one card for that from memory.

I hear Gabbo wants to do a review of this. :nudgenudge Good on you Gabbo! Hope you got 3 monitors mate.

Evil Incarnate · Post by **Evil Incarnate** » 23 Jan 2007, 08:01

Does it need to physical graphics cards, are would one graphics card with dual output do the trick? Still, that could be rather useful, as SLI systems are quite common anymore.

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 23 Jan 2007, 09:18

Interesting ...
I wonder if this would be a way to get ... higher resolutions than the TH2G can do ...
Also higher widescreen resolutions than the TH2G can do ... for 3 widescreen monitors or even a ... 4:3 monitor ... Widescreen ... 4:3 monitor ... configuration.

Maybe not ... with the frame buffer limitations ... all the same I must give it a go when I get some time.

BradCube · Post by **BradCube** » 23 Jan 2007, 10:26

Well after a few weeks of reading these forums, this post has finally made me take the plunge and register. Hooray :)

This discovery has intrigued me greatly for exactly the reasons that Paddy The Wak mentioned above - a "4:3/16:10/4:3" configuration.

What's more, it got me thinking further, if it is possible to utilize 3 screens in this fashion with some sort of dual card config, why hasn't NVIDIA thought of it already? Would it be possible to suggest or forward such an idea to NVIDIA through this website? I can imagine there would be a huge interest in being able to run games in a "surround" fashion by adding a second card and applying a driver update. I for one would shell out for a second card as well as two 4:3's in order to experience this. An NVIDIA solution would ensure that the SLI config was making effective use of both cards too :)

Any thoughts? How many others would be interested in using SLI to create a "surround" gaming experience instead of extra hardware?

DarKcyde · Post by **DarKcyde** » 23 Jan 2007, 14:39

Hehe, i knew this post was gonna be interesting, welcome Brad :)

I'm not sure this will work in SLI mode like the TH2G will, because SLI mode disables the secondary monitors. As you said, its likely that nvidia could easily integrate this into their drivers, and probably make SLI work, but I doubt it works now.

Ideal config for this would be a strong primary card (8800 GTX) and a cheapo secondary card thats just there to feed the screen output. You could get an old PCIe card used from another gamer, or just buy the cheapest PCIe card you can find in the stores. Spend the extra money on nice monitors.

I noticed another way cool feature in the readme:

You can use the borderSize cfg setting to add a "dead
zone" between the monitors where the monitor bezel is.
While SoftTH attempts to make the game not render to the
dead zone area, it still increases the used render
target resolution. Many cards have a limit of max 4096x4096
textures, so maximum border size in, for example 3840x1024
triplehead resolution is 128 pixels (3840 + 2*128 = 4096)

Currently softTH doesn't support mismatching monitor resolutions, but it doesnt seem like a very far-fetched thing to request. Obviously the author has matching CRTs, so that feature was never important to him. However, you do have the ability to specify whatever resolution you want, so widescreen users should be able to get their native resolution, no matter what it is.

Jarrott · Post by **Jarrott** » 23 Jan 2007, 17:58

Interesting ...
I wonder if this would be a way to get ... higher resolutions than the TH2G can do ...
Also higher widescreen resolutions than the TH2G can do ... for 3 widescreen monitors or even a ... 4:3 monitor ... Widescreen ... 4:3 monitor ... configuration.

Maybe not ... with the frame buffer limitations ... all the same I must give it a go when I get some time.

Yes Paddy do test this out! I'll be ready to start buying my monitors by the middle of Feb. and if this is the better way to go I'll get a Widescreen for the center and 2 4:3's for the sides....That would be perfecto!

Ice[DDZ] · Post by **Ice[DDZ]** » 23 Jan 2007, 19:03

Very exciting news... I would actual consider doing this if I could get higher resolutions! Paddy, I hope you can get this working on your three 2405's! That'd be simply amazing to see ;)

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 23 Jan 2007, 19:27

As mentioned in the quote in the post by DarKcyde above ...

cards have a limit of max 4096x4096

So thinking again ... we are not going to get any higher triple widescreen resolutions ... :(

1440x900 x 3 = 4320x900

but we might get ...

1280X800 x 3 which is at least 3 x 16:10 unlike ... 1280x720 x 3 and 1280x768 x 3 ... that are currently available with the TH2G.

MatroxRulez · Post by **MatroxRulez** » 23 Jan 2007, 22:42

So thinking again ... we are not going to get any higher triple widescreen resolutions ... :(

1440x900 x 3 = 4320x900

but we might get ...

1280X800 x 3 which is at least 3 x 16:10 unlike ... 1280x720 x 3 and 1280x768 x 3 ... that are currently available with the TH2G.

Maybe Matrox would release the necessary tools for creating custom resolutions, if someone would tell them about this alternative option. They don't want to lose their markets, that's for sure...

BradCube · Post by **BradCube** » 24 Jan 2007, 03:42

As mentioned in the quote in the post by DarKcyde above ...
cards have a limit of max 4096x4096

So thinking again ... we are not going to get any higher triple widescreen resolutions ... :(

1440x900 x 3 = 4320x900

but we might get ...

1280X800 x 3 which is at least 3 x 16:10 unlike ... 1280x720 x 3 and 1280x768 x 3 ... that are currently available with the TH2G.

Paddy, is that limit only imposed on one card? If NVIDIA was able to split the load between two cards in SLI, could the second card increase the total supported resolution? For example, if we had a 4:3(1600x1200)/16:10(1920x1200)/4:3(1600x1200) setup could we spilt 5120x1200 load over two cards so each one processes a 2560x1200 load?

Post by **BHawthorne** » 24 Jan 2007, 05:57

So thinking again ... we are not going to get any higher triple widescreen resolutions ... :(

1440x900 x 3 = 4320x900

Since this is a hack I wouldn't discount the idea of oddball resolutions like 4096x900 working. Probably not gonna get wider than 4096 though.

JKeefe · Post by **JKeefe** » 24 Jan 2007, 15:57

It seems that the list of triplehead "issues" caused by ths solution is a lot longer than you get with the TripleHead2Go. Still, it's definitely an option to save money.

I look forward to the experimentation by the WSGF members. I have a PCI-E 6200LE I will sell for cheap if anyone's interested.

Magic Man · Post by **Magic Man** » 27 Jan 2007, 13:50

I still don't see why nVidia hasn't picked up on this and do their own supported solution.

Dual link DVI outputs on cards are capable of supporting two separate displays as they are - Dell use them for dual outputs via a splitter cable.

I.e. Two dual link DVI outputs could, in theory, support four monitors from one card.

nVidia should develop their drivers with this in mind to allow splitting a single resolution across the multiple outputs - they could then allow additional options to take care of the bezels (i.e. offsets for each vertical split) etc.

They support 3d in their drivers, would be great if they better supported spanning across multiple outputs - the important bit is to keep this away from the OS, i.e. so that, as far as the OS (and game) is concerned, it's still one output.

Ricou · Post by **Ricou** » 11 Feb 2007, 20:20

Hello guys ! I just registered when I saw this post.

I've got some 'news' from the Live For Speed forums (http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?p=334212#post334212).

Some guy has discovered that a Nvidia 8800 isn't limited at 4096x4096 but at 8192x8192 texture res. This means that you can use 3 monitors @ 1920x1200 = 5760x1200...

JKeefe · Post by **JKeefe** » 12 Feb 2007, 17:24

The 8800 might not have the limit, but DirectX still does, no? Maybe not in DX10...

Reading that thread makes me glad I have a TripleHead2Go. That is some nightmarish tweaking going on.

Ricou · Post by **Ricou** » 12 Feb 2007, 20:16

There's no limit, according to what the guys says. He seems to get higher res than 3840x1024 to work on his rig....

I'm thinking about buying a TH2G. But if the software triplehead can achieve the same results (or even better with a 8800) than a 300$ box, I should try it at first...

By the way, if someone could compare the performance of TripleHead2Go and software Triplehead, it would be nice. I'm really curious about the performance differences between the 2.

splunk4u · Post by **splunk4u** » 24 Feb 2007, 02:48

Yup, I would be "that guy on the LFS forums" :)

I posted a few pictures in the LFS forum. I'm still trying to push the limits and get SLI working in combination with SoftTH on my 680i chipset motherboard. See this post for more details: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9172

Post by **wazoo** » 21 Apr 2007, 18:45

Interesting update to version 1.05 - Now it seems you can have different monitor resolutions; i.e. a WS monitor in the middle and two 4:3 on either side.

I wonder how this solution would work with the GFX muscle power of an 8800 GTX.... :)

geraintl · Post by **geraintl** » 02 May 2007, 23:37

is this going to only work for Nvidia cards as i have 2 pci-e cards but 1 is an ATI radeon x1800

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