Widescreen Gaming Forum

@cbair3 - Chuck - I have done exactly what you had in mind. It seems great minds think alike :D

I have (3) Dell 2007FP monitors and (2) 7950GX2 video cards. I have them set at 1600x1200 DVI (non-SLi) for Windows normally. When I plan to game I use Quad SLi through the Matrox TripleHead2Go with VGA.

The hardest part I found was trying to do this switch. I would have to reboot once just to change the SLi part.. and re-arranging the monitors was a royal pain.. but do-able. I put up with this for quite some time until I had more time to play with it.

The "Trick" is to setup multiple hardware profiles. I don't know why I didn't think of this before. I simply named one: "4800x1200 Windows" and the other "3840x1024 Games". So now when I boot - Windows will prompt for which hardware profile to use before the bootup/logon screen. I works really nice. So when I see that screen - I just hit the input on the 3 monitors and select what I plan to do.

Old thread alert... :D

Thing is, since I'm still waiting to get my setup, this question is still bothering me.

Do I go for 3 x 1600x1200 (20" displays) and get the better dpi or stick with native 19" screens.

Which looks better? With the lower dpi of a 19", are individual pixels more noticeable? Would things look smoother scaled to a 1600x1200?

@ Magic Man - If you plan to run (3) 20" screens using 3840x1024 in windows, I would seriously look at (1) 20" screen in windows at 1280x1024 in a store or a friends house. I personally don't care for it. It's just not quite as crisp.

So because I wanted 20" screens and I really enjoy 1600x1200 resolution, I had to get (2) video cards with (2) outputs each. So I purchased (2) 7950GX2 cards and a Matrox VGA TripleHead2Go (not digital). Being that each monitor had (1) DVI and (1) VGA it works perfect. I just reboot my system, select which hardware profile I want, and hit the button on the monitors for which input. Here is a link to explain more:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=91268&highlight=#91268

This to me is the best of both worlds and much easier than re-configuring SLi, and monitors each time I wanted to play a game.

(You could go with a Matrox Digital TripleHead2Go if your LCDs had dual DVI inputs. Too bad my Dell 2007FP model doesn't)

Thanks for that, much appreciated. Think I'll probably stick with the 3 x 19" then.

Actually, I've also got a 2407 (intend to use it on the second output for panels etc. on flight sim when I eventually get my new rig and TH2Go). I set the desktop res' to 1280x1024 and with the panel maintaining the correct aspect then it's effectively displaying the resolution over 1600x1200 pixels I guess since it's natively 1920x1200.

Can see what you mean. In game the scaling works well, almost gives free anti-alaising (although it seems to be slightly darker). Desktop is not too bad but you certainly notice the difference when you jump back to native resolution... :)

Yep, I'll go with 19" panels I think...

I am *FINALLY* about to build my new rig, and will be getting a DTH2Go. I'm looking at 3x4:3. The 16:10 resolutions are just too small, and I have the 30" beast anyway.

But, I do wonder how 3x1280x800 would look stretched over 3x1440x900. The Dell monitors are pretty cheap - link.

I won't be using the rig for "regular" computing, as I use the Mac Pro on the 30" for normal duties. I'm considering 3x20" panels, but I'm concerned about stretching the 5:4 images over the 4:3 pixel ratios. And, I'm betting that the native res image over DVI would be sharper than the stretching over the 20's.

So, my question is, does anyone have any specific recommendations for a good 19" panel, with small bezels and DVI input?

I just bought 3x Benq Fp93G for 179€ each with DVi and vga output and they have the smallest bezzel on the market.

just for info 6ms 700:1 and 1280x1024

The HP is quoted at 12.5mm as opposed to the 13mm of the Benq :D
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06a/20491-156249-156249-156249-172197-12908872.html

Looks like a very good panel too given the viewing angles, MVA perhaps.

Although, the Benq FP93GS looks to be a better panel than the standard FP93G model given the stated increase in viewing angles and increase from 6-bit to 8-bit.

http://benq.co.uk/products/LCD/?product=763&page=features

I'm curious(and probably clueless :oops: ) but,
With the release of the DTH2GO wouldnt people want to take advantage of the (proper?) widescreen capability and use 3x widescreen lcd's instead?
The DTH2GO can do a resolution of 3x 1360~768(4080x768?) if I'm not mistaken.
Wouldn't that be enough to warrant a preference of widescreen over 4:3 monitors?

Like I said,I'm not too savvy on surround gaming and just am very interested
in why this "seems" to be the case.

768 is too small a vertical resolution for me...

I didn't think TH2G supported widescreen very well? :?

The analog could do 1280x768. The digital can do 1280x800, which would scale properly on a 16:10 monitor. I had considered doing this on 3 20" widescreens, and then having WS and component input and such. But, like was stated earlier, 800 is just so small. Maybe with DX10 we can get to 3x1440x900 or better, 3x1680x1050.

the digital th2g does do 1360x768( I have seen it in CoH,WOW and HL2)
granted that's a 16:9 aspect ,what exactly would happen to that res on 3 16:10 monitors?

I'm wondering if the vertical pixel sacrifice in this case is worth the horizontal
gain :?:

One of the reasons I'm inquiring is because I currently have 2 24" dell monitors(one 2405 and a brand new 2407-hc) and am trying to decide on whether to return the new 2407-hc and buy 3 19" 4:3 monitors or to buy another 24"

I'm antsy about losing all that horizontal viewing space and I'm unable to fully test 3 24"'s(only tried dualhead mode so far)

I appreciate any insight to help me decide =)

The digital TripleHead2Go does in fact do 1280x800, so there's finally support for true 16:10 widescreen triplehead. Support for 1280x720 and 1280x768 is retained.

While this fixes the problem of aspect ratio mismatch, it does nothing for the problem if resolution scaling. Unless you have LCDs with a native res of 1280x800 (which are almost always found only as laptop screens), you still face a potentially blurry image.

Yep and even though they better support widescreen displays, you are still not gaining anything more on the horizontal since it's still 3 x 1280 pixels - you're just losing vertical.

3 x 1280 x 1024 is still the best output available however you choose to display it.