TH2G-DE: 1600x1200 + 1920x1200 (3520x1200) possible?

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 10 Sep 2007, 02:08

Hey -
I've got two Samsung 204Bs (1600x1200) - sides - and a Dell 2407WFP (1920x1200) - middle.

To cut a long story short I've found that my new Blitz Formula drops my main PCIE (8800GTS) to 8x mode from 16x when a 2nd GPU is in the PCIE#2 slot.

My only triple head gaming need at the time being is Live for Speed. Otherwise I use the three screens for "windows productivity". Whilst I had Live for Speed working fine in SoftTH, the switch to 8X causes severe stuttering in my other games e.g. STALKER.

Unless Asus will provide me with a BIOS update to disable this feature which is only intended for Crossfire users but for some reason kicks in even in non-SLI configs (much contrary to what I'd expect; i.e. unless SLI/XFire, run at 16x/4x), I'm scratching my head for solutions. I don't really want to return the motherboard.

After I sold my TH2G Analogue edition (on getting DVI LCDs), I am thus thinking that to get back to three screens, I'll just have to fork out for the new digital one.

If the DE allows me to use 1600x1200 + 1920x1200 in dual mode from my Asus 8800GTS-320 DVI#1, then that would do it. I'd just get used to having to drop resolution from native, run the widescreen mode so that the main would look right and put up with the wrong aspect ratio on the sides. I'd use the third screen's analogue input so that I could otherwise use it in 1600x1200 from DVI#2.

Alternatively I could foresee using SoftTH to run the three screens using a combination of Dual Mode on DVI#1 and the third screen on DVI#2. SoftTH wouldn't have to push stuff across the PCI bus.

Obviously it seems like unless I get some sort of response from Asus this most likely means forking out even more money on top of an already expensive enough system upgrade...

Your comments / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Some links:
3Dmark scores, more hardware info

Post by **Paddy the Wak** » 10 Sep 2007, 09:01

TH2G-DE: 1600x1200 + 1920x1200 (3520x1200) possible?

No.
For all the available resolutions look here ... http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2go/digital/home.php

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 10 Sep 2007, 09:10

Ok, thanks, no more $$$ from me -> Matrox then. Glad they listened so much to their customers' demands... :P

I'll wait for the X38 (with Dual PCIE16Xs) and get one of those, postpone the HTPC project a bit and put my Blitz into that.

Bit of shame putting such a nice mobo into that but.. at least that nice soundcard will get some good use.

starfighter · Post by **starfighter** » 11 Sep 2007, 23:26

I'll wait for the X38 (with Dual PCIE16Xs) and get one of those, postpone the HTPC project a bit and put my Blitz into that.

And what are you exspecting from the x38 chipset?
It can hardly help you with your problem.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 12 Sep 2007, 00:11

And what are you exspecting from the x38 chipset?
It can hardly help you with your problem.

Dual 16x PCI lanes. It seems to be pretty fair to assume the 16 to 8x drop is what's causing my stuttering; Asus confirmed for me it's with _any_ 2nd PCIE card, not just a Crosslink one.

I could get another P35 and rely on 16x + 4x, however for SoftTH applications I'm thinking the dual 16x speed probably won't hurt.

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 12 Sep 2007, 00:33

That I know of all motherboards with dual 16x physical but 8x when both are in use do so regardless of crossfire/sli, they just don't have the 32 lanes needed to feed em both simultaneously. You can run 1x16 or 2x8. They're 16x physically for 1 card uses.

By the way, can someone point me towards a good howto for softth? I had given up trying to get it to work, I mostly get garbled or black screens.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 12 Sep 2007, 00:38

Those other motherboards don't feature PCI Express 2.0... :) Edit: Whilst that link just mentions that PCIE2.0 is there, from what I can gather the bus bandwidth is effectively doubled and dual x16 lanes is supported.

This article on P35 highlights the constraints and states that "the upcoming X38 is due to have the upgrade to PCI-Express 2.0 which has dual x16 lanes that should excel CrossFire performance and bring it up to the same standard as all of Nvidiaâ€™s high end chipsets since nForce4 SLI x16." /edit.

I followed the readme and SoftTH just worked for me in LFS. Had to fiddle with the monitor identifiers a bit, that was it.

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 12 Sep 2007, 01:46

I guess softth just doesn't like my monitors, so far the only game to start sort of right with it is NWN2 and then the mouse is stuck in the middle screen.
The rest either give me all black screen, all garbled screens or middle regular aspect with sides showing the softth logo.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 12 Sep 2007, 02:02

You using Vista? I had an experience similar to what you described in Vista, after fiddling with the monitor identifiers however I got it running - so experiment with those first?

I found that SoftTH worked tonnes better for me in XP; then again that's before I applied a bunch of special patches to Vista.

Also try for something simple resolution wise like 1280x1024x3 and then go from there.

I won't try SoftTH again until next month when I get my new mobo. It makes me miss my old TH2GO setup... was much easier with those CRTs. :)

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 12 Sep 2007, 02:23

No, this is plain XP sp2, and I did try 1280x1024x3 same for 1024x768x3 and even 640x480x3, res doesn't seem to matter.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 29 Nov 2007, 06:14

For what it's worth I'm now on the X38 (Maximus) on a 2.4ghz Quad clocked to 3.8ghz, using the 8800GTS 320mb plus 7300GTSilent.

Performance in Live for Speed is simply awesome.

Having set the side screens to 1280x1024 (1:1 res not needed) and the middle one to 1920x1200, I'm getting up to 100fps whilst racing; maybe dipping to 60fps when lots of cars are on screen e.g. race start.

The X38 features dual 16X PCIE bus so is probably optimal for SoftTH.

starfighter · Post by **starfighter** » 01 Dec 2007, 13:13

For what it's worth I'm now on the X38 (Maximus) on a 2.4ghz Quad clocked to 3.8ghz, using the 8800GTS 320mb plus 7300GTSilent.

Performance in Live for Speed is simply awesome.

Having set the side screens to 1280x1024 (1:1 res not needed) and the middle one to 1920x1200, I'm getting up to 100fps whilst racing; maybe dipping to 60fps when lots of cars are on screen e.g. race start.

The X38 features dual 16X PCIE bus so is probably optimal for SoftTH.

did you make benchmarks between 2x8 and 2 x16 lanes ?

Tucson · Post by **Tucson** » 03 Dec 2007, 04:26

Funkdancer, a PCIe x16 pathway supports 4GBps. Even your proposed setup using your monitors native resolution comes to 1.3GBps, if rendered at 70fps.

It's not your PCIe bandwidth that's holding you back. I don't have much experience with SoftTH so that's all the advice I can offer unfortunately.

slideways666 · Post by **slideways666** » 03 Dec 2007, 10:40

Also take a pic of your setup.. id like to see how it looks with diff resolution.. Does everything match up still or are things skewed..

I have been wondering if i had a 1900x1200@ native resolution and a 1280x1024 @ native-- would the lines match up in a racing sim? I run Rfactor and i know my question here is lame but i have just been wondering this for a while.. My logic tells me -0- no the lines wont match up cause stuff will be smaller on the 1900... but part of me thinks it will line up cause the game will compensate and keep everything lined up- hell i don't know .. lol

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 03 Dec 2007, 10:51

did you make benchmarks between 2x8 and 2 x16 lanes ?

No I did not do benchmarks. The reason why is that it was moot; the Blitz Formula dropping to 8 lanes had severe impact on other games like STALKER i.e. sound stuttering and frame rate issues. Once I took the 7300 out I had great frame rates.

To make my post clear, this is without using SoftTH, just trying to play it normally on 1 screen - there mere presence of a 2nd card switched the mobo to 8x even though I wasn't using crossfire. I write this up as wildly misleading marketing from Asus. I was only expecting it to drop if it detected two identical ATI cards. :x

For LFS, the experience was a bit flakey. Stuttering, not smooth - sides flashing black from time to times.

Once on the X38 on the same Q6600 CPU speed of 3ghz things were much improved - felt just perfect. Of course later clocking the CPU from 3 to 3.8ghz made things even better so now I'm a very happy camper.

It's not your PCIe bandwidth that's holding you back. I don't have much experience with SoftTH so that's all the advice I can offer unfortunately.

Tucson - I'm not sure why you perceive that I have a problem with the current setup i.e. being held back. :) My 2407wfp hc in the middle only does 60hz anyway.

EDIT: I have a feeling you didn't read my latest post before posting here? :lol: As you can see I solved it with the Maximus and PCIE2.0

Also the amount of info the game must render is excessively larger ... standard 24" is 2.3mp, add another 2.6mp for the 2 sides at 1280x1024 and the overhead of doing the splitting to the monitors in software - not having to be held down by a 4x or 8x PCI transfer speed on top of all this but rather do it at 16x is sure to help. :wink:

I'm just posting this as a service to anyone else wanting to build a setup based on SoftTh. I'm only interested in LFS at the moment so my experience is directly based on that. Clear recommendation is to get the X38 over the P35 chipset.

Kegety's programming is very impressive. If you're reading this, thanks for putting your brain to such good use! :) :)

Thanks,
Funky
ps. performance in Vista was abysmal compared to WinXP. Also, if anyone wondered, the Blitz went into my new HD HTPC so I was able to make use of it. It was a bit overkill for the purpose but better off doing that than selling it.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 03 Dec 2007, 10:57

Also take a pic of your setup.. id like to see how it looks with diff resolution.. Does everything match up still or are things skewed..

I'll do an in game one a bit later, i.e. this weekend.

It's not perfect but it doesn't have to be. The main thing with the side screens is to provide "environmental wrapping" i.e. peripheral vision. It really adds a whole new dimension to the racing.

That's also why there's no point to run them at 1600x1200, I wouldn't see the difference anyway.

Please note that I consider the TrackIR to be the perfect piece to round off this setup, it complements the 3 view perfectly as it also becomes easier to use with less effort / movement required. (On a single 4:3 screen there's a whole lot more work involved in making the TrackIR feel natural).

Tucson · Post by **Tucson** » 04 Dec 2007, 00:41

funkdancer, i read your posts. I'm just telling you that bandwidth is not your problem. Whatever fixed it wasn't the extra PCIe lanes.

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 04 Dec 2007, 00:56

So are you saying that SoftTH performance is completely unaffected by getting a 16x multi rather than a 8x on both cards? That sounds a bit odd to me.

Tucson · Post by **Tucson** » 04 Dec 2007, 05:51

Well in theory anyway. You can test it yourself by taping off half the pins on the card (start from the back).

Funkdancer · Post by **Funkdancer** » 04 Dec 2007, 06:20

:lol:

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