3 x 30" Dell Monitors with TH2GO

Purpleraine · Post by **Purpleraine** » 08 Jun 2009, 17:55

Hello,

I been using the search utility a fair bit this afternoon in between breaks at work to find some answers to a few questions that are niggling in the back of my mind before i make some certain purchases.
I am wondering with my current setup which is a AMD Quad 3.0ghz Black edition with 4gb ram and Asus Nvidia 295 1796MB graphic card, can I run 3 x 30" Dell 3007/3008 through TripleHead2GO using the native resolution or would it best to use 3 x Dell 2407/2408?

I have one of each monitor but wondered if TripleHead2GO would work with 3 x 30" better.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 08 Jun 2009, 20:05

TH2G can only support 1680x1050x3, so using triple 1920x1200 or triple 2560x1600 is a bit overkill regardless. :(

Purpleraine · Post by **Purpleraine** » 09 Jun 2009, 09:59

Ahh ok thank you, just I see alot of videos with TH2GO using 24" or larger monitors and they look rather nice, so thought that would be a good option to go for.
Thanks for your input.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 09 Jun 2009, 11:52

If you want large monitors with low native resolutions, then three cheap HDTVs would probably fit the bill. But people running triplehead on 1920x1200 or higher screens will be running at non-native resolutions. :(

I really want Matrox to work out a way of having triple 1920x1200...

Post by **skipclarke** » 09 Jun 2009, 17:00

The TH2Go will stretch the 1680x1050 across each 2560x1600 panel. That would be a stretch of 52.3%. I know that Paddy has the 1680x1050 stretching over 1920x1200 panels (a 14% stretch) and says it looks fine.

It's all a matter of preference.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 09 Jun 2009, 18:34

Yeah. I'd agree with Paddy that it looks OK on games - it's just Windows desktop I can't start at non-native resolutions... :(

T-Storm · Post by **T-Storm** » 13 Jun 2009, 22:22

But can't you get around the scaling in windows and for other text-heavy applications rather easily by using just two 24" screens via the TH2Go and the third 24" connected to the secondary output of your graphics card?

Obviously this wouldn't work for games or higher resolutions than (2+1)*1920*1200, but then again in games the scaling isn't really an issue.

Post by **BHawthorne** » 24 Jun 2009, 03:05

But can't you get around the scaling in windows and for other text-heavy applications rather easily by using just two 24" screens via the TH2Go and the third 24" connected to the secondary output of your graphics card?

Obviously this wouldn't work for games or higher resolutions than (2+1)*1920*1200, but then again in games the scaling isn't really an issue.

The way DirectX and OpenGL work, it can't be done like that. The operating system needs to see the whole area as one virtual display, not multiple displays for 3D fullscreen hardware accelerated gaming to work. There would be no need for any TH2G or DH2G product if it worked across multiple displays natively.

You can do 4 1920x1200 displays in 3D, but it requires 2 DH2G Digital and XP span mode. There is a thread about my experience with this in the surround-screen sub-forums here. Can't do 3 1920x1200 unless you use SoftTH though.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 26 Jun 2009, 00:35

Big waist with the matrox, so many pixels will just be scaled. I think softTH can do it right? but it would take one heck of a computer to push it.

Id try to look for some small bezel hd tv's for sure if you want 30" or larger.

T-Storm · Post by **T-Storm** » 13 Jul 2009, 07:11

[quote]But can't you get around the scaling in windows and for other text-heavy applications rather easily by using just two 24" screens via the TH2Go and the third 24" connected to the secondary output of your graphics card?

Obviously this wouldn't work for games or higher resolutions than (2+1)*1920*1200, but then again in games the scaling isn't really an issue.

The way DirectX and OpenGL work, it can't be done like that. The operating system needs to see the whole area as one virtual display, not multiple displays for 3D fullscreen hardware accelerated gaming to work. There would be no need for any TH2G or DH2G product if it worked across multiple displays natively.

You can do 4 1920x1200 displays in 3D, but it requires 2 DH2G Digital and XP span mode. There is a thread about my experience with this in the surround-screen sub-forums here. Can't do 3 1920x1200 unless you use SoftTH though.

I think there might have been a misunderstanding.

I meant to suggest (and cleverly package this suggestion as a question), that one might be able to switch between 2*1920*1200 (via TH2Go and DVI Port 1 of the graphics card) + 1920*1200 (DVI Port 2 of the graphics card) for windows/work and 3*1680*1050@57hz (or lower) for gaming.

In theory I would think that this should work, by connecting all 3 screens via DVI Ports to the TH2G, and one of the three monitors additionally via either a secondary dvi port on the screen or via dvi->vga or just vga (if the graphics cards offers dvi & vga ports) directly to the graphics card.

If my theory holds ground you would just have to switch around in the Matrox Powerdesk and the input signal on one of the monitors.

So you could use windows on the native resolution of all three screens and games could be upscaled by the screens.

That post certainly exceeded my weekly quota of using the word "screen". ;)

Sir Drip · Post by **Sir Drip** » 17 Jul 2009, 03:20

The DTH2GO will look it's best on 22" displays! It's called Native resolution.

MrCrowley · Post by **MrCrowley** » 17 Jul 2009, 20:02

I have 3x30" and depending on game I use 5040x1050@57 (th2go) or 7680x1600@60 (softth).

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/

If you want large monitors with low native resolutions, then three cheap HDTVs would probably fit the bill. But people running triplehead on 1920x1200 or higher screens will be running at non-native resolutions.

I agree. I mostly need 7680x1600 for Black Shark. With such resolution It allows virtual screens to be readable without additional monitors (supported by BS configurable viewports).

The way DirectX and OpenGL work, it can't be done like that. The operating system needs to see the whole area as one virtual display, not multiple displays for 3D fullscreen hardware accelerated gaming to work. There would be no need for any TH2G or DH2G product if it worked across multiple displays natively.

There is no need for desktop pcs for DH2G. You can easily have two monitors with native support in most games (with span mode). But you have the monitor frames just in front of you, so for me is one big monitor or three monitors. As you say, dht2o is needed for 4mons with span mode (also you could have 2xth2go with span).

I am wondering with my current setup which is a AMD Quad 3.0ghz Black edition with 4gb ram and Asus Nvidia 295 1796MB graphic card

For 3x30" native a 285gtx is better, as It´s the most powerful monogpu card and SoftTh doesn´t support multigpu (sli/cf).

PapaLes · Post by **PapaLes** » 19 Jul 2009, 03:43

I am using 3 INF 28" (27.5) and have no complaints. The native res is 1920x1200 per screen but I haven't seen much to complain about running at 4320x900 for gaming. I am looking forward to the new fix that is due any day now that will hopefully take me to 5040x1050 but it still remains to see if my monitors can do it. These are really cheap monitors and I suppose you get what you pay for but they work for me and that's what counts.

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